Mastercard and Visa Gift Cards in WDW

[lisagirl88]

My boys both received MC and Visa Gift Cards for their birthdays and I am wondering if you can use these type of cards in WDW? They got so many gift cards that I thought we could save some money and use these as their spending money in the parks.
Thanks!

 

[DisneyLoverUSA]

Do you normally make them use their own birthday and Christmas money to buy their own stuff at Disney?

 

[Disneyland_emily]

You can easily use them with one catch (which is the same no matter where you spend them) The registers think they are credit cards and will decline if a purchase is greater than the value of the card. All you need to do is tell the cashier there X dollars on that card and they can tell the register to only take X from the card and they should work great. If you plan to use them for smaller purchases make sure to keep track of exactly how much is left

-em

 

[hollieplus2]

Do you normally make them use their own birthday and Christmas money to buy their own stuff at Disney?

I do!!!!! Does that make me horrible???

If we are going to WDW close to his birthday or Christmas I tell him to save his cards until after the trip. I give him a set amount of spending money and when its gone its gone. He can buy whatever he wants but there's always that 1 thing that's expensive....that you know they won't play with when they get home I tell DS that he can use his money if he runs out. If he chooses not to use it he takes it home and spends it on something else. When it's their money they tend to spend less on the frivolous stuff and only the real wants.

 

[stitchlovestink]

You can easily use them with one catch (which is the same no matter where you spend them) The registers think they are credit cards and will decline if a purchase is greater than the value of the card. All you need to do is tell the cashier there X dollars on that card and they can tell the register to only take X from the card and they should work great. If you plan to use them for smaller purchases make sure to keep track of exactly how much is left

-em

That kept happening to us with DD's $25 GC when she tried to use it at WDW. We found out with her particular GC she needed to pay the difference first and then use the $25 GC last. We ended up not using it in Disney because every time we tried it was declined and it was just terribly frustrating for her (and me). I ended paying for her item and then just used it here at home after finding out what the issue was. I would probably call the #'s on the back of the cards and verify how to use them ahead of time because there does seem to be some discrepancies in how to redeem them, but that's just my .02. I think it would make it easier so you know before you go!

 

[lisagirl88]

Thanks for all of the positive responses that actually answered my question!!! I think I may just cash them in at the bank beforehand and take the cash so we don't have any problems with them.

 

[momto2inKC]

I used some American Express gift cards with no issues. They ran my 2 gift cards through, then I paid the balance left in cash. Easy peasy!!

 

[AmandaNied]

I usually cash out the visa or amex card into a gift card for the store It avoids that "Just put 10.00 on this one, 5.96 on this one" thing. For example, I was going to use one to go grocery shopping. It was a $100.00 card, so I went to customer service first, bought a $100.00 gift card to the store, and then went shopping. When I was over the $100.00, it simply told me I had $5.99 due, rather than declining the transaction or trying to juggle multiple cards.

 

[Starshine]

We usually just stop at guest services on our way into a park and use the visa or mc gift cards to buy Disney gift cards instead. Then you don't have to worry about keeping track of how much is left on them, and you can combine two of the visa or mc ones into a Disney card.

 

[prncess674]

Thanks for all of the positive responses that actually answered my question!!! I think I may just cash them in at the bank beforehand and take the cash so we don't have any problems with them.

You won't be able to cash them in at the bank. The only way to use them at the bank is to get a cash advance on the card, which carries heavy fees. The easiest thing to do is for you to use them on something and just give the kids the cash. I used a few Visa GCs at the grocery since I knew I wouldn't need to return any of the items. Don't use the GCs for anything that you may want to return (clothing, etc) since they will want to put the return back on the original card.