Is The Disney Visa Card Worth It?

[TiggerPiglet]

Being a DC member I've really enjoyed their discounts, but unfortunately that will be coming to an end
I'm just curious if the Visa card is worth getting. Can you get discounts as good as DC? Do you even get discounts with the Visa card or is it just redeeming points, which you'll need a million of them to get something worthwhile?
Thanks

 

[smileybrat]

I was wondering the same thing. Thanks for starting the thread.

 

[nativetxn]

I have one of these cards but I never use it. I'm embarrassed to confess that I don't know if there are any perks or not.

 

[dizneegirl]

No discounts on a regular basis, but they do have special offers now and again.

You get 1% of your purchases back in rewards dollars ($1 for each $100 you spend). Those reward dollars can be transferred to a rewards card that you can use at WDW, Disneyland, and at the Disney Store. (The rewards dollars are worth a dollar...)

I don't charge a lot, but used my debit card for EVERYTHING. I decided to use the Disney Visa instead of the debit card, but deduct it out of the checkbook as if it came straight out of the checking account... at the end of the month, I pay the Disney Visa bill (in full) with the "hidden" money in the checking account. No balance, and I build up those rewards fairly rapidly. There's a max of 750 rewards dollars you can earn in a year.

If you're not going to use it, probably not worth it. If you can do something like we do, you can get a lot out of it.

 

[Kimberle]

Right now, the discounts are terrible.

I got one cause I wanted the "member since day 1". Have only used it a couple of times. My Northwest FF card is much better. I'm getting tons of miles.

 

[TiggerPiglet]

Oh, well. It sounds like the Visa card is not as good as the DC card. I can't believe they have a limit on the amount of Disney Dollars you can earn.
Thanks everyone for your responses

 

[DebbieB]

I would get it just to have in case of special deals. I got 6th row seats to the Lion King in Pittsburgh in January due to a special presale for Disney Visa Cardholders. I cashed in $50 worth of rewards last month, paid for most of our MNSSHP tickets.

 

[TiggerPiglet]

Originally posted by DebbieB
I would get it just to have in case of special deals. I got 6th row seats to the Lion King in Pittsburgh in January due to a special presale for Disney Visa Cardholders. I cashed in $50 worth of rewards last month, paid for most of our MNSSHP tickets.

That sounds good, but since they offer "rewards", does the card have a yearly membership? If so, I doubt I'll get it since I use my AMEX which can get me park hopper passes or free hotel stays (off site of course )

 

[Magix]

No annual fee.

750 reward dollars a year means spending $75,000 a year. I don't think that's an unreasonable cap - I hope I won't spend that much on one card in a year!

 

[NancyIL]

Originally posted by TiggerPiglet
Oh, well. It sounds like the Visa card is not as good as the DC card. I can't believe they have a limit on the amount of Disney Dollars you can earn.
Thanks everyone for your responses

You'd have to charge $75,000 per year in order to earn the maximum amount of rewards dollars. That's charging $6250 per month!

 

[ead79]

For me personally, I have definitely found the Disney Visa to be well worth it. I often have to charge pretty large amounts for my work (they reimburse me), so I have earned lots of rewards dollars. I think I have earned over 200 points/rewards dollars this year. That's definitely helping with the Disney World budget.

 

[LuvTigger]

I guess it depends on what you consider being "worth it," but I figure I'm not really losing anything since there's no annual fee and I pay it off every month. Also, I have friends who booked a Disneyland vacation using it and they got $50 (I'm not sure if it's per person or all together), plus they get some kind of gift or credit or something like that!

I do still need to research it a bit and figure out if the reward dollars translate into actual dollars.

 

[hercamore]

Hi,

Lots of good info on the Budget Board about the Disney Visa.

I have about $50 so far built up on my acct and I play to use that money to buy food at the park on our next trip. Hopefully, by the time we go, I'll have more $44 as we used this Visa to pay our dd's rent.

Disney just came out with the rewards card to put your $$ on and it is rechargable like a gift card so it's easy to carry around in your wallet

herc.

 

[disneychrista]

I used my Disney Visa for everything and pay off the balance each month. So I am earning reward dollars on everyday things. I have not found any of the discounts or bonuses usefull but there have been discounts on lodging double points if you spend over $XX at the disney store (I rarely ever spend more then $25 at a time and that is only when I pre-order a dvd).

You will not "lose" anything by applying for the card.

 

[RNMOM]

There are a lot of cards that reward 1 point for each dollar spent so why would I charge on my Disney card for only 1 point for each $100? All those extra points on my other card buy me airfares and clothes, shoes and lots of other things I need for my Disney vacation. The Disney card seems like a big rip off to me.

I have one but continue to use my Chase Visa. I also have a new A Ex that gives cash back and may switch to that soon.

I use only one card at a time and pay it off each month. We also charge everything and I subtract it from my checking account to pay off.

 

[my3kids]

Seems like the Disney Visa had an unfavorable to the consumer way of calculating interest as well, if you are not paying off the card each month. I think they calculate interest on a two cycle system so even if the card is paid in full, you could still have an interest charge the following month if it had not also been paid in full in the month previous to the most recent payoff. I think they average the balance of the two previous months to figure what you owe in interest charges. That seems odd to me for a consumer to get a bill for interest only charges if the bill had been paid off and there had been no additional transactions.

If it had a consistant identifiable consumer benefit, like a discount on all park's tickets, or free shipping from the Disney Store, or a special pricing tier for resors, then it probably would be worth having, but since they don't provide anything consistantly in the way of discounts, it didn't sound worth it. Even with me paying in full every month, there are other cards that would earn rewards more quickly. I skipped this one.

 

[disneychrista]

Originally posted by RNMOM
There are a lot of cards that reward 1 point for each dollar spent

It is a basic 1% back, where you get $1 for every $100. So while some cards may give 1 point for every dollar, you have to look at what each point is worth (it may only be 1 penny) to do an actual comparasion.

 

[TiggerPiglet]

I totally misunderstood the $750 maximum that you can earn. I was thinking it was a $1 for every dollar you spend, not 1% of every dollar you spend. There's no way I would spend $75,000 in a year. At least I hope not
Anyway, I think for now I probably won't get it until I see that they offer consistent discounts to WDW. I know it doesn't cost anything, but I feel between my AMEX and Marriot Visa, I tend to benefit a lot from using those cards. In fact, I think I mentioned before, you can turn in your points from either of those cards and get park hopper passes and I've used my Marriott points countless times to stay in their hotels for free.
So, thank you everyone for your responses, I appreciate it

 

[wld]

Got great Lion King tickets for Detroit. Otherwise I'll use my Starwood American Express.

 

[Padre Disney]

If you pay your balance off each month then yes it is a good card.
BUT
We got our card when they first came out in March and took it on our cruise three weeks later. While on the cruise we made reservation for a March 2004 cruise and paid the deposit for 8 people in three different rooms. We will not be allowed to get the $50 stateroom credit per room for using the card because we will be using the $200 credit offered by DCL. Can't combine credits. We already knew we had 6 months 0% intro rate on all purchases. WELL we came home and made more purchses at the same time sending in payments figuring we had 6 months 0%. The 0% time ended and all was well. We decided at the last minute to book a short three day cruise for our anniversary. Used the card for the deposit on the three day and paid the remaining balance and thought we would have 6 months at 0% for charging the deposit and the balance to our card. During this time we sent in large payments to pay down the account and the deposit that we had made for the March cruise , but not the newest cruise charge (cause we had 6 months 0%). We get a statement and notice that we are getting charged interest on our latest trip. WHAT? Turns out that they apply all payments to 0% balances first. We assumed that they would apply payments like most other companys do that offer 0% terms on purchases. SOOO if you do not pay your account in full each month and if you use your card for ANY other purchases dont count on getting 0% apr on ANY disney trip.
NOTE: During the application process Bank one does not tell you that this is how it works. AFter you get the card they still don't tell you how they apply payments. You need to call and have them explain it. So unless you pay on full each month SKIP this card.
We will be paying this card off ASAP and close it down.

We have a Best buy card and they keep track of each purchase so you get the special APR but yet can make more purchases.

Lesson learned