Gift cards to Pay Off entire Trip??

[WDisneyWLove]

I'm sure it's been asked a thousand times before but before I buy $5500 in gift cards......can I pay off my entire trip with gift cards? I'm a little scared to do and then be stuck with all these Disney gift cards. Thanks!

 

[jen7233]

I'm sure you can! I used our gift cards just about everywhere at Disney on the trip, except for the hotel room itself. I paid that off with our credit card before we left to get points and just have it be done with. I didn't want 50 other transactions to look through and wonder about if they were accurate with our credit card statement and trying to keep watching it online, so I used the Disney gift card for all the vendors, restaurants, etc. It was nice! It certainly makes the end of the trip feel better.

 

[Dis703]

Outside of airfare, yes, you can use them to pay for just about everything else. We've been doing it for several years now. Tickets, hotel, dining, memory maker, souvenirs, etc. There are a handful of cash only souvenir carts in the parks and a few things like penny presses that only take cash, but most everything can be paid for with gift cards.

 

[coneeny4]

I just did this. I purchased Disney gift cards at BJ's, the manager let me buy 38 cards for the online price of 94.99 for 100.00 card. I called Disney and paid for my whole August trip.
Here is the thread on the Budget Board that talks about it.
https://www.disboards.com/threads/disney-gift-card-deals.2941964/page-1309#post-57560972

 

[WDisneyWLove]

I just did this. I purchased Disney gift cards at BJ's, the manager let me buy 38 cards for the online price of 94.99 for 100.00 card. I called Disney and paid for my whole August trip.
Here is the thread on the Budget Board that talks about it.
https://www.disboards.com/threads/disney-gift-card-deals.2941964/page-1309#post-57560972

Yes this is exactly what I wanted to do! Buy 55 on line! Perfect! Thank you all so much!!

 

[GreatLakes]

Just make sure to keep all of the gift cards. Unless they have recently changed the policy all refunds are put back on the same gift card that was used for payment. If you pay for the trip, throw out the gift cards, and then need a refund for any reason (either for the whole trip or in part because a better deal came out) you will lose the refund as it is now back on the card(s) you threw away.

 

[brooke789]

We've been buying g $500 gift cards at a time and applying them to our reservation.

ETA: once the trip is paid off well estimate our dining and other incidentals and buy that much more in GC to pay the rest.

 

[570traveler]

We are doing the same thing. I budget so much each week to buy the cards. I've opened a Disney vacation account (first year I've tried this) and have been putting them in there. Once I get my $4200 I need to pay it off, I'll transfer them over to Disney (and get $80 gift card from the dva to use at the parks). I know people say well what if you cancel, you'll be stuck with all those cards. IF we would need to cancel, I'd definitely plan another trip anyway so it's not a big deal to us.

 

[Dis703]

Just make sure to keep all of the gift cards. Unless they have recently changed the policy all refunds are put back on the same gift card that was used for payment. If you pay for the trip, throw out the gift cards, and then need a refund for any reason (either for the whole trip or in part because a better deal came out) you will lose the refund as it is now back on the card(s) you threw away.

They can refund it to a new card or cards if you no longer have them. It may take longer to receive your refund this way though.

 

[mmfox316]

If you feel bad about giving the person all the low value cards to type in you can combine them up to become $1000 cards using Disney's gift card management site. You just transfer a $100 card to another $100 to make a $200 card and then keep going. You can only do this up to $1000. You don't have to do this. They will take all of them individually.

https://www.disneygiftcard.com/Manage/Transfer

I have paid for an entire cruise this way.

 

[CrazyHare]

I've read that if you call with lots of small cards, they will instruct you to combine them into larger cards.

 

[FSU Girl]

there is a website where you can combine all the cards. I forget the total amount per card it might be $1,000 but its good for cutting down the number of cards. I did this for my last trip

 

[thaggie1]

You can only have a maximum of 5 gift cards on the Disney site. So you need to add them transfer the balances and then delete them.

 

[jaminmd]

You can only have a maximum of 5 gift cards on the Disney site. So you need to add them transfer the balances and then delete them.

Just to clarify, do you mean you can only use a total of 5 gift cards to apply to online payments?

I was planning on using this method today off my upcoming trip but now I'm confused.

 

[Sharka8]

Just to clarify, do you mean you can only use a total of 5 gift cards to apply to online payments?

I was planning on using this method today off my upcoming trip but now I'm confused.

You can only use so many cards on one transaction but can do as many transactions as needed. (So you can pay $500 with 5 $100 gift cards one day and the next use 5 more $100 gift cards.) I am using only gift cards since I'm using my Target debit card to get the 5% off. When I made my initial reservation I called because I had 7 cards to use. The CM took them with no issue. She just said to keep the cards in case we have to cancel. She also said I could combine cards if I wanted to online but did not have to.

 

[jaminmd]

You can only use so many cards on one transaction but can do as many transactions as needed. (So you can pay $500 with 5 $100 gift cards one day and the next use 5 more $100 gift cards.) I am using only gift cards since I'm using my Target debit card to get the 5% off. When I made my initial reservation I called because I had 7 cards to use. The CM took them with no issue. She just said to keep the cards in case we have to cancel. She also said I could combine cards if I wanted to online but did not have to.

Thanks for clarifying that for me

 

[thaggie1]

No, what I meant is that www.disneygiftcard.com will only hold 5 gift cards on your account. So if you have more than that you have the ability through that website to condense them down by adding up to 5 and transferring the balances to a single card (I think the limit is $1,000). The delete the 4 empty gift cards and add 4 more and condense them down to one and so on.

 

[thaggie1]

BTW, last week at my SAMS club I was able to buy $500 GC for $474.99

 

[buzznina]

If you are not traveling for at least 4 months (you need to have an account active for 120 days before withdrawing from it) then I would do the Disney vacation account, this way you get an additional $20 GC per $1000 spent. Else; I would use the Disney Gift Card website to combine your cards into $1000 GC so it is easier to use to payoff the resort package. We also use them during our trip to keep paying off the room charges during the trip. You just need to pick one GC to put on your account and then start transferring the other GCs to it until you get up to $1000, then you would can attach another GC to your account and do the same thing. Like a PP noted, you can only have 5 cards ($5000 Max) on your account. So if you needed more, you would just make a payment and empty a GC, remove it from your account (if you wanted to save it) and then add another to create another $1000 GC, and so on.

 

[nickid22]

You can only use so many cards on one transaction but can do as many transactions as needed. (So you can pay $500 with 5 $100 gift cards one day and the next use 5 more $100 gift cards.) I am using only gift cards since I'm using my Target debit card to get the 5% off. When I made my initial reservation I called because I had 7 cards to use. The CM took them with no issue. She just said to keep the cards in case we have to cancel. She also said I could combine cards if I wanted to online but did not have to.

Are you able to do multiple transactions when just purchasing tix? I bought 4 tix online for my family yesterday for MVMCP, but I was only able to use 2 forms of payment. I was able to enter in 1 gift card, then my only options were to use CC or rewards acct for the remainder.