Is the Disney Visa worth it?

[jse107]

We only have one credit card, which we use to pay for everything. We never carry a balance.

We currently have Bank of America with World Points, but I am wondering if it's worth it to get the Disney Visa in the hopes of using it to book free dining in the future...

What do you think?

 

[ppan77]

Havent used free dining yet (dates dont match for now) but I think its great to be able to use 0% for your resort stay and if your good at paying on time you can pay your bills online with your card and you can gain disney rewards to use on your trips. Plus you get 0% for a year!

 

[Candice30]

it depends on your family. i use mine to rack up points on everything from gas to light bulbs. disney visa often run promotions where you can rack up 5 times what you actually spend in points and these promotions allow me to have rewards to use while on my trip. i have several bills automatically going on that card every month to get points for that. i have yet to use it for special deals like free dining. the dates usually don't work for the way i travel but it is nice to have money saved already to apply to the trip.

 

[JanineandMike]

we applied for the visa right before they offered the FD and now we are saving $700 on our 12/08 trip to AKL. the dates worked out for us, so for that alone i think it is worth it. also, they are frequently giving visa cardholders first crack at discounts, so you get a few days head start on the public. on top of that you get the rewards points on all purchases, which can then save you more on trips.

 

[rt2dz]

We have two cards. Well, three if you count DH business card, but we never see bills for that; it goes straight to his company. We have a dividend card which we use for everything, and pay the bill off every month. It makes us money. Then we have the Disney Visa.

The Dividend card is really a much better rewards card in all honesty. We use the Disney Visa only for Disney vacations. We take the points for things purchased on/for our vacation and reinvest it into our vacation. We don't usually do packages--as our eating style doesn't make the dining plan a financially smart move and we have APs since we go every year. However, the package discount we got this year beat the AP discount so now we have tickets to upgrade for a future trip and can, if we like, take 6 months to pay the trip off making our money work for us. I do like the idea of upping my odds at possible discounts; there are no fees to have the Disney Visa.

 

[hopelea]

I think it depends on how often you plan on going to Disney. We seem to be going every 12 - 18 months so the rewards really add up for us. When we go we will have around $300 reward dollars to spend. That will be all the spending money we need since we already have the dinning plan. So, for our family, it is really worth it. Still hoping free dining has dates that we can use in the future!!!

 

[bookwormde]

There a certainly cards which have higher benefits and lower interest rates, but if you are a Disney enthusiast the Chase Disney card is a good value if you pay your balance off every month.

bookwormde

 

[Golf4food]

We have one but our Citi rewards card gives us better rewards (Disney Visa is generally on 1% but we get 2% on many things with Citi so it is twice as good - we pay that one off every month). We use the DV for carrying a balance right now due to the 0% for 12 months, but will pay that off well before the 12 months is up and after that might not use it much since we have seasonal passes and therefore wouldn't get the 6 months 0% package discount.

 

[su_A_ve]

A couple of pluses on the Disney Visa rewards:

* It's one of the few Visa cards that are fee free
* It's has access to Visa Warranty Manager - this is not only a free one year warranty extension on most purchases, but allows you to purchase extended warranties for many items. And it's much cheaper than the big box electronics stores.

For example, a $2000 TV would have a 5 year warranty of about $700 at a big box store, whereas thru Visa is only $190.

 

[4luv2cdisney]

A couple of pluses on the Disney Visa rewards:

* It's one of the few Visa cards that are fee free
* It's has access to Visa Warranty Manager - this is not only a free one year warranty extension on most purchases, but allows you to purchase extended warranties for many items. And it's much cheaper than the big box electronics stores.

For example, a $2000 TV would have a 5 year warranty of about $700 at a big box store, whereas thru Visa is only $190.

Wow! I never heard about the Visa Warranty Manager before! I'll have to remember that one.

I think there are probably better reward cards out there. But, we use it as our primary card anyway, so we have an excuse to keep going back! We charge EVERYTHING WE CAN and pay the balance in full each month. We have $500 in reward $ for this trip and used the FD Visa code (saved around $850 off rack rate I think). I didn't ask about the 0% on Disney pkgs. I forgot about that too! But, I'm using the reward $ toward my $800 trip balance, so I don't really need 6 mo. to pay $300!

 

[dreamin_disney]

for me it was. It saved me 430 on free dining code. I also like that i have $60 rewards(i just signed up in April oe May) and that i have 6 months to pay off my trip and 0% finance.

One important tip , you must be disiplined and pay off your balance. If it stuff you have to buy anyways and have the cash, just charge it and right away pay it off.

If we have a great trip I might want to go back in a few years . Until then i will rach up those rewards-lol!

 

[DjdBrit]

I had been wondering about this myself for about a year. Since there is no fee I have just recently gone for it and gotten the Disney Visa. We are not sure on what about Vacations plans will be every t=year but right now our kids are young. I am hping to use my rewards to pay for tips etc while we are away.

 

[jse107]

Well, I'm still torn. I guess there would be no harm in applying, even if it's just to book the trip. Who knows if they'll offer free dining again in a year, but I suppose it's worth a shot!

 

[bunnysmum]

Just be careful. I missed a payment over the summer due to a fluke, not b/c I couldn't make the payment, and they immediately increased my APR to 25.99% for my entire balance. I don't typically pay off the balance each month, but I always pay significantly more than the minimum payment due, and I don't carry a huge balance.

I called them to see if there was anything that could be done about the finance charge since it was only due to having missed one payment. They asked me if I had seen a copy of my credit report lately and hinted that there might be other problems in my credit history. As it happened, I had, in fact just checked, and my credit rating is excellent.

I also reminded them that I had just made a very large payment to my account, bringing the balance way down, and they said yes, they saw that.

I was told there was nothing they could do right now, but that I could call and ask again in six months.

I just let them know that I was not willing to carry a balance with that kind of an APR! Then I promptly transferred what balance there was remaining. I will hang on to the card FOR NOW b/c we have a trip upcoming and I don't want to miss out on any potential discounts, but I will only be using the Disney Visa card for gas and paying off the balance every month without FAIL! After our trip, the card may well meet with an untimely and tragic scissors incident.....just sayin'.

 

[skier_pete]

Ummmm, the card is free. Assuming you qualify, you just use the card the book your trip earlier than the public. It also gets you 10 % off at World of Disney at DTD, discounts on Walt Disney World tours that are pretty good (better than the AP discount) and a free photo at Epcot. We saved about $30 with the Visa card on our last trip...in fact anything we saw in the parks we liked that wasn't park specific, we went and bought at WOD to get the 10% off.

So, are those things worth the cost of zero dollars? Yes.

SkierPete

 

[G-Duck]

I agree the card is worth it. I saved money on my trip, 6 months interest free, plus all the other perks listed above. Just like any other card, you have to have discipline.

 

[jse107]

Well, I went ahead and applied (and was approved). I figure it can't hurt--especially if there are more discounts offered for next year!

 

[disneybridetobe]

I was wondering if it was worth it to get the card, pay the deposit on a trip, pay it off, and just carry a very low balance to get the benefits of the card?

We don't use credit cards, but I wouldn't mind doing it if we get Disney benefits

 

[disneyfan55]

it depends on your family. i use mine to rack up points on everything from gas to light bulbs. disney visa often run promotions where you can rack up 5 times what you actually spend in points and these promotions allow me to have rewards to use while on my trip. i have several bills automatically going on that card every month to get points for that. i have yet to use it for special deals like free dining. the dates usually don't work for the way i travel but it is nice to have money saved already to apply to the trip.

Yes, these are great benefits and I have used them as well. The zero % plus free dining couldn't be beat!! We had the 5times offer all year and earned some bonus dollars. We also took advantage of the free dining offer last week. It was even actually better than the AP discount of 54/night for ASMU. We ended up paying 82/night and got our food for free!! (an extra 253 for 3 of us!!) Plus 2 of us still have the unused one day passes for the future. It cost hardly anything to be there last week when you consider that we were in WDW with food for 3 of us for 850!!

 

[Bete]

First, you can get a deal applying for the Disney Visa. The deals I've seen recently are $40 in rewards if you are accepted. That's an immediate benefit. I was floored when Disney Visa offered the FD in new time frames. When it included Christmas week I was amazed. What was really neat is that it was a private offer for cardholders only. I booked an immediate trip for 10 days in November with FD. That's been my best payoff. Not having an annual fee helps, too. When using your Disney Visa to pay for your Disney trip you usually get 0% for 6 months, too

There are times special promotions give you a chance to earn more rewards; although, the most recent one was kind of a jip and hard to qualify for the extra reward points. You needed to spend over $750 in a certain category like gas in a month to earn 5X for your points for everything above $750 spent in that category. We use a card for gas that earns us 5X all the time with no minimums and it's a cash rebate. We like that card a lot.

We have these two cards and my hubby uses the gas card for everything and I use the Disney card for everything I do in spending. I like this set-up; because, it shows each of us what we are individually spending. We both still have each other's cards for an emergency.

It may sound silly, but I like having the card; because, it's another way to display I like Disney. I have checks that are Disney oriented, too.


Even if there aren't FD offers, there are other good vacation packages that you can get with your Disney Visa, too.

You can always wait for a vacation offer that comes along that you can use and then get the card. You're in a little rush then, but if you don't want another card that's what I would do.