Help me understand why the Disney Visa is a good thing...

[LSUmom4kids]

I just applied for the Disney Visa card and was approved! I'd like to use it for the 6-month interest free WDW vacation package. I will be purchasing my airfare separately, as the WDW site has late PM arrival times and they generally cost more money. (Plus someone said the 6-mo. interest free promotion for WDW vacation package can't include airfare.)

I don't really understand how the rewards work...

Since I don't have the physical card yet, I was told I must purchase my hotel, ticket & dining package on WDW's website (not from the Dreams Unlimited travel agency) - as Disney's website knows that I've been approved for the Disney Visa. So by doing this, only the $200 deposit will go on the card at this time, right?

Then when my Visa card comes in the mail, I can use it to buy my Southwest airfare - around $250.

Then when the first month's statement comes, it will show $450. What will I earn in Disney rewards? Will it separate the charges that are interest free from the charges that have interest? My plan is at the end of December to pay everythng in full - or at least all of the charges that are accruing interest. I would get until March 1st to pay off the vacation balance, right?

Then in September, I'd like to use my Disney Visa to purchase my KTTK tour ticket (20% off, right) and my MVMCP ticket (just getting the advance puchase price). That will be about $114.

Then 45-days from my trip (or Oct. 13), my balance on the WDW vacation package will be due, so I'll be able to use my Visa card for that - $454.

About how many rewards am I looking at just for charging these items? Not to mention while I'm on vacation, I may use the Disney Vise for incidentals...

OR are they going to charge the entire vacation to my VISA all at once? I'm a little confused....

Can someone please explain how this vacation trip will actually earn some reward $$? Thanks!

 

[It'sWDW4me]

I just applied for the Disney Visa card and was approved! I'd like to use it for the 6-month interest free WDW vacation package. I will be purchasing my airfare separately, as the WDW site has late PM arrival times and they generally cost more money. (Plus someone said the 6-mo. interest free promotion for WDW vacation package can't include airfare.)

I don't really understand how the rewards work...

Since I don't have the physical card yet, I was told I must purchase my hotel, ticket & dining package on WDW's website (not from the Dreams Unlimited travel agency) - as Disney's website knows that I've been approved for the Disney Visa. So by doing this, only the $200 deposit will go on the card at this time, right?

You get 6 months interest free only if you use your Disney visa card. Since you don't have the actual card yet, did they give you a code or the account number to use?

Then when my Visa card comes in the mail, I can use it to buy my Southwest airfare - around $250.

Then when the first month's statement comes, it will show $450. What will I earn in Disney rewards? $5 - the rewards are 1% of your monthly purchases. When you hit the $50 (i.e. $150; $250; $450, etc) in total monthly purchases mark, the rewards amount is rounded up. $450 in charges = $4.50 rewards rounded up to $5. $449 in total monthly charges would, likewise, be rounded down to $4 rewards.

Will it separate the charges that are interest free from the charges that have interest? Yes - there is a listing towards the end of your statement showing the balance(s) of your interest free charges and the date that the interest free period expires

My plan is at the end of December to pay everythng in full - or at least all of the charges that are accruing interest. You will still need to make monthly payments. I usually pay off the purchases that would accrue interest every month and leave the interest-deferred balances untouched

I would get until March 1st to pay off the vacation balance, right? You will have until the end of the statement period that is 6 months after your promo purchase. For instance, I made the deposit on our room on Feb. 16th. My statement closes on the 24th. So, that $200 deposit was interest free until 8/24 - a little longer than 6 months. I then charged the balance of our room to my card on June 30th. That balance is interest free until January 24th - almost 7 months! Use your cycle closing date to your advantage.

Then in September, I'd like to use my Disney Visa to purchase my KTTK tour ticket (20% off, right) and my MVMCP ticket (just getting the advance puchase price). That will be about $114.

Then 45-days from my trip (or Oct. 13), my balance on the WDW vacation package will be due, so I'll be able to use my Visa card for that - $454.

About how many rewards am I looking at just for charging these items? About $11 if you only charge your trip Not to mention while I'm on vacation, I may use the Disney Vise for incidentals...

OR are they going to charge the entire vacation to my VISA all at once? Nope. You can pay as little or as much as you want to, whenever you want to, until the balance is due in full (45 days before your check-in) I'm a little confused....

Can someone please explain how this vacation trip will actually earn some reward $$? Thanks!

I have my own game with my Disney Visa in order to rack up the rewards. This year, I had $114 in rewards to spend on something that I wouldn't normally get for myself if I had to pay for it.

I started by having my cell phone and cable bills automatically charged to my CC every month and I promptly paid it off every month. Just doing that earns me $2 in rewards each month plus now I only pay one bill (visa) instead of 2 (Verizon & RCN). Then I found out that my semi-annual car insurance bill can be paid via credit card - $4 every six months in rewards. Homeowner's insurance - same thing - $5 this year. Then I started with filling my gas tank; groceries; whatever I needed to buy that I would have normally paid cash for anyway, I put on the card and then paid it off immediately so that I didn't get caught in the interest charge trap. I now even see how close I can get with that $50 purchase/rewards rounding thing. If my statement is going to close in the next few days and I've already charged $236, I'll put $14 or $15 in my tank just to bump the rewards up to the next dollar figure. I only bother if I'm close though. Like I said, it's a game with me now.

Now the rewards are tallied and are available to you when the statement cycle closes. Once you've hit $20 in available rewards, you will need to transfer them from your visa card onto a rewards card (think debit card/prepaid card) and that's what you use to buy things.

I hope this helped but feel free to ask away!

 

[kdault]

Nice information, recently approved for the card when they offered $200 in rewards for using it. Wondered how they showed the interest free purchase with other purchases? Will be making final vacation pmt in couple of days. Charge groceries, gas and misc. always pay off so no interest

 

[LSUmom4kids]

I bought my airfare with the Disney Visa (of course it went up $60 before I could buy it with my card!) and my travel agent charged the $200 deposit for my Disney Vacation Package to the card. I also signed up online with Chase so I could see my account.

It says the first payment will be due on 10/12/10.

If my balance is approx. $450, how many dream rewards will I earn and when will I be able to see them on my account? Right now it says I have "0" dream rewards.

Will I have to wait until my official statement is cut? On the website, it says you earn them as soon as purchases are made....

I'm confused...

 

[Green Tea]

If my balance is approx. $450, how many dream rewards will I earn and when will I be able to see them on my account? Right now it says I have "0" dream rewards.

Will I have to wait until my official statement is cut? On the website, it says you earn them as soon as purchases are made....

I'm confused...

Your statement will show 5 dream reward dollars for the month.

 

[bettymae1121]

For any kind of rewards card (be it Disney, airline miles, cash back, hotel points, etc.) you usually have to use that card A LOT in order to get rewards that are worth the trouble (and the annual fee!).

In order to get the most out of my rewards credit card, in my case a United Airlines credit card where I earn frequent flyer miles, I use it for every single purchase I make. Gas, groceries, home improvement, clothes, gifts, eating out, household items, any monthly bill that doesn't charge a fee for using a CC for payment, you name it we charge it! It's all money we'd spend anyway, so it doesn't cost us anything to us it vs. paying cash or using a debit card. On average DH and I put $2500 of purchases a month on our card, meaning we earn about 2500 miles a month, or about 30,000 miles a year, enough for 1 free domestic coach ticket a year. Of course we also don't carry a balance on this card, we pay it off every month since if you pay interest, it wipes out any rewards you get. If we had a Disney Visa instead, we'd earn about $300 a year on it. Nothing to sneeze at, but it would take us about 4 years to earn a very basic free Disney trip that way. For my DH and I, for how we travel, the miles make more sense for us.

 

[reagan75]

You get 6 months interest free only if you use your Disney visa card. Since you don't have the actual card yet, did they give you a code or the account number to use?



I have my own game with my Disney Visa in order to rack up the rewards. This year, I had $114 in rewards to spend on something that I wouldn't normally get for myself if I had to pay for it.

I started by having my cell phone and cable bills automatically charged to my CC every month and I promptly paid it off every month. Just doing that earns me $2 in rewards each month plus now I only pay one bill (visa) instead of 2 (Verizon & RCN). Then I found out that my semi-annual car insurance bill can be paid via credit card - $4 every six months in rewards. Homeowner's insurance - same thing - $5 this year. Then I started with filling my gas tank; groceries; whatever I needed to buy that I would have normally paid cash for anyway, I put on the card and then paid it off immediately so that I didn't get caught in the interest charge trap. I now even see how close I can get with that $50 purchase/rewards rounding thing. If my statement is going to close in the next few days and I've already charged $236, I'll put $14 or $15 in my tank just to bump the rewards up to the next dollar figure. I only bother if I'm close though. Like I said, it's a game with me now.

Now the rewards are tallied and are available to you when the statement cycle closes. Once you've hit $20 in available rewards, you will need to transfer them from your visa card onto a rewards card (think debit card/prepaid card) and that's what you use to buy things.

I hope this helped but feel free to ask away!

Why do you want to transfer at the $20 rewards mark?

 

[It'sWDW4me]

I bought my airfare with the Disney Visa (of course it went up $60 before I could buy it with my card!) and my travel agent charged the $200 deposit for my Disney Vacation Package to the card. I also signed up online with Chase so I could see my account.

It says the first payment will be due on 10/12/10.

If my balance is approx. $450, how many dream rewards will I earn and when will I be able to see them on my account? Right now it says I have "0" dream rewards.

Will I have to wait until my official statement is cut? On the website, it says you earn them as soon as purchases are made....

I'm confused...

Your balance is "approx. $450" - is it more than or less than $450? If your balance at the cycle close is less than $450 (even if it's $449.99), you will get 4 disney dollars credited to your account. If your balance at the cycle close is more than $450 and less than $549.99, you'll get 5 disney dollars. Disney dollars are credited to your account (available to you to see and/or use) when your statement cycle closes.

Since your payment is due on 10/12, I assume your statement closes around the 15th of the month. If your balance is close to $450, I'd charge something this weekend to bump the balance over the $450 mark. I've been known to charge even a few bucks (ie $5 in gas or $12 for dinner at a fast-food joint or $11 at the grocery store) in order to get my balance JUST over the $50 hump.

Disney dollars accrue. If you get $4 this month, $3 next month, $5 the next month (etc), after those 3 months, you would have a total of $12 disney dollars. You will need to accrue at least $20 DD before you can have them transferred onto a rewards card. After your initial $20 DD transfer, the minimum will be $10 dd per transfer.

 

[Purseval]

Nice information, recently approved for the card when they offered $200 in rewards for using it.

In order to earn an equivalent amount of rewards on your own you'll have to buy $20,000 worth of stuff. They have ways to earn extra reward dollars but most require you to spend so many dollars before you get the extra rewards it isn't really worth it. We charge everything we can to the card and it does add up but slowly.

 

[It'sWDW4me]

Why do you want to transfer at the $20 rewards mark?

You don't have to transfer immediately as soon as you get to the $20 mark. OP made it sound like she wouldn't get too far over the $20 DD mark, though. $20 is the minimum for the initial transfer to a rewards card (after that, the minimum transfer is $10 DD).

Personally, I let them accrue. Before this past trip, I ordered a new rewards card (old one expired) and transferred $10 just to get the card ordered. Right before we left, I transferred the balance of my DD onto the rewards card.

 

[Marionnette]

Be careful with that six months zero percent interest thing. Its not really six months. Around four months into it (45 days before the zero percent expires) chase will start applying any payments you make to the no interest balance instead of the higher interest charges. Thanks to the new federal governments credit card laws. If you arent aware of this cute little loophole you will end up getting dinged for interest on the monthly purchases that you make in order to boost your point level. One way to avoid this is to use the card only for your vacation. Or you can get another card and use it for the points while using the first card for only the vacation at zero percent interest.

 

[SnDMommy]

For any kind of rewards card (be it Disney, airline miles, cash back, hotel points, etc.) you usually have to use that card A LOT in order to get rewards that are worth the trouble (and the annual fee!).

If I'm not mistaken, there is no annual fee with the Disney Visa card

 

[wmharley]

You get 6 months interest free only if you use your Disney visa card. Since you don't have the actual card yet, did they give you a code or the account number to use?



I have my own game with my Disney Visa in order to rack up the rewards. This year, I had $114 in rewards to spend on something that I wouldn't normally get for myself if I had to pay for it.

I started by having my cell phone and cable bills automatically charged to my CC every month and I promptly paid it off every month. Just doing that earns me $2 in rewards each month plus now I only pay one bill (visa) instead of 2 (Verizon & RCN). Then I found out that my semi-annual car insurance bill can be paid via credit card - $4 every six months in rewards. Homeowner's insurance - same thing - $5 this year. Then I started with filling my gas tank; groceries; whatever I needed to buy that I would have normally paid cash for anyway, I put on the card and then paid it off immediately so that I didn't get caught in the interest charge trap. I now even see how close I can get with that $50 purchase/rewards rounding thing. If my statement is going to close in the next few days and I've already charged $236, I'll put $14 or $15 in my tank just to bump the rewards up to the next dollar figure. I only bother if I'm close though. Like I said, it's a game with me now.

Now the rewards are tallied and are available to you when the statement cycle closes. Once you've hit $20 in available rewards, you will need to transfer them from your visa card onto a rewards card (think debit card/prepaid card) and that's what you use to buy things.

I hope this helped but feel free to ask away!

I've wanted to do this with other CCs. We really have only an AMEX and a Chase that is basically inactive.

My wife is scared to try it, but we've known folks who have done this and used the rewards to go to weeklong vacations in hawaii and cruises. The only thing they don't charge is the mortgage.

 

[chabs]

Your balance is "approx. $450" - is it more than or less than $450? If your balance at the cycle close is less than $450 (even if it's $449.99), you will get 4 disney dollars credited to your account. If your balance at the cycle close is more than $450 and less than $549.99, you'll get 5 disney dollars. Disney dollars are credited to your account (available to you to see and/or use) when your statement cycle closes.

I never knew this. Is this posted on the Disney website somewhere? I'll have to start keeping track of my charges.

 

[It'sWDW4me]

Your balance is "approx. $450" - is it more than or less than $450? If your balance at the cycle close is less than $450 (even if it's $449.99), you will get 4 disney dollars credited to your account. If your balance at the cycle close is more than $450 and less than $549.99, you'll get 5 disney dollars. Disney dollars are credited to your account (available to you to see and/or use) when your statement cycle closes.

I never knew this. Is this posted on the Disney website somewhere? I'll have to start keeping track of my charges.

I learned this the "hard" way - I had a statement close in which my month's purchases totaled, for instance, $248.75 and I only got the 2 rewards dollars while another month closed at $253 and I got 3 rewards dollars. Now I make it my mission to get that extra dollar when I'm that close!

 

[chabs]

I learned this the "hard" way - I had a statement close in which my month's purchases totaled, for instance, $248.75 and I only got the 2 rewards dollars while another month closed at $253 and I got 3 rewards dollars. Now I make it my mission to get that extra dollar when I'm that close!

Good to know! I guess you learn something new every day on the DIS!

 

[bigmama67]

From what I can tell, there IS an annual fee...it's one of the reasons I decided against applying for the moment.

 

[Marionnette]

From what I can tell, there IS an annual fee...it's one of the reasons I decided against applying for the moment.

Ive been a member since day one. Ive never paid an annual fee for the disney visa credit card. Maybe there is one for the debit card?

 

[It'sWDW4me]

From what I can tell, there IS an annual fee...it's one of the reasons I decided against applying for the moment.

I have two (down from three) Disney visa cards from Chase. No annual fee on either one. It wouldn't be worth my keeping and using them if they started to charge me an AF - I'd be closing them post haste if they did.

 

[DisneyAndRedSox]

From what I can tell, there IS an annual fee...it's one of the reasons I decided against applying for the moment.

I have the CC and no fee, but I am pretty sure the Chase Disney Rewards Debit Card has a fee.