OK, where can you use gift cards to pay for park tickets?

[LadyBeBop]

This is an offshoot from the Target gift card thread. Someone mentioned that you could only use two forms of payments to buy park tickets. Someone else stated you could use gift cards entirely at the Disney Store.

Our vacation isn't until late 2013; however I'm hoping to buy enough gift cards to pay for our tickets by Christmas 2012. I'm taking advantage of Krogers 4X fuel points right now, and hoping there will be another one before the holidays. However, it will be all for naught if I can't use them to buy park tickets. (We're staying offsite, so no package).

So, I hope I'm correct. I cannot go through the website and buy tickets exclusively with gift cards, nor can I purchase over the telephone. I can buy them through the Disney store. What about at the parks? Or at offsite resorts that sell Disney tickets? Or at the Florida Welcome Center?

Don't want to buy $1,500 worth of gift cards, and only be able to use several hundred dollars of them,and have to pay for tickets OOP. As always, many thanks.

 

[*Flower*]

Let me tell you about the issue that we ran into when we bought our passes a couple of years ago. We bought ours at Downtown Disney.

Only three cards can be processed PER PASS transaction. I had more gift cards to use, but couldn't use them because we'd maxed out the number of cards used per transaction. We'd made the mistake of bundling our passes into one sale.

Last year we were smarter. We did each pass as a separate transaction and were able to use three gift cards for each. That worked out much better!

The moral of the story is: buy large denomination gift cards, because if you end up with a lot of $25 or $50 ones, and you do one transaction for all of your passes, you won't be able to use all of your gift cards.

HTH!!

 

[a1tinkfans]

Let me tell you about the issue that we ran into when we bought our passes a couple of years ago. We bought ours at Downtown Disney.

Only three cards can be processed PER PASS transaction. I had more gift cards to use, but couldn't use them because we'd maxed out the number of cards used per transaction. We'd made the mistake of bundling our passes into one sale.

Last year we were smarter. We did each pass as a separate transaction and were able to use three gift cards for each. That worked out much better!

The moral of the story is: buy large denomination gift cards, because if you end up with a lot of $25 or $50 ones, and you do one transaction for all of your passes, you won't be able to use all of your gift cards.

HTH!!

thanks for sharing your tip!

 

[alyssa810]

We had also heard about the issues with being able to use multiple gift cards, and they let us take our smaller denomination gift cards and combine them into a bigger gift card. I KNOW they don't let you do that at the Disney Store because I've asked before...you would think that a Disney gift card would count as a single "type" to pay, especially since it's easy for them to check the balances at a register...
We bought out APs at Guest Services at DTD (and don't get me started about the PITA is was to get our DVC discount....)

 

[starry_solo]

Wow, at DL, we used our $25/$50 gift cards to buy 2 premier passports (good at WDW and DLR). Plus our Disney Rewards card (that had $400+ on it) - which had to be used as the last form of payment.

 

[PatMcDuck]

The multiple gift cards per order limit has changed at TDS, I think. There used to be an issue, but I think they changed the software.

I will ask, I am a TDS CM.

I have been told the limit might be 20 GC at TDS. Per transaction.

 

[ah1126]

We went in March, and paid for our tickets with gift cards. We bought them when we checked in. We did stay on property.

Our tickets were about $300, and we used all $50 gift cards. We had no problems at all!

Good luck to you!

 

[starry_solo]

We went in March, and paid for our tickets with gift cards. We bought them when we checked in. We did stay on property.

Our tickets were about $300, and we used all $50 gift cards. We had no problems at all!

Good luck to you!

If you're on property, can you charge the tickets to your KTTW card? And then go to your hotel to pay them off with the gift card? Hmmm....

 

[bigmochick]

We had also heard about the issues with being able to use multiple gift cards, and they let us take our smaller denomination gift cards and combine them into a bigger gift card. I KNOW they don't let you do that at the Disney Store because I've asked before...you would think that a Disney gift card would count as a single "type" to pay, especially since it's easy for them to check the balances at a register...
We bought out APs at Guest Services at DTD (and don't get me started about the PITA is was to get our DVC discount....)

who is "they"??

 

[Cheshire Figment]

At the WDW ticket windows and Guest Relations windows we can accept an unlimited number of Disney Gift Cards for one ticket purchase transaction, no matter how many tickets are purchased.

If you try to do it by phone you are limited to either two or three forms of payment, and there each DGC is a separate form of payment.

 

[keywestbride]

Is the phone/internet limit of 2 or 3 gift cards only if you're buying your tickets separately, or does this apply to packages as well?

I'm crossing my fingers for free dining in late fall, and would like to pay with a combo of my Disney Visa rewards and Disney GCs bought at Target.

 

[Bound and Rebound]

We did the same thing as OP about 6 weeks ago. The reloadable gift cards at Kroger had been "recalled", so I had to go with about 50 $25 and $50 gc to have enough for 2 adult APs and 1 child 7 day hopper. I bought them out at 2 Krogers and took them across town to the disney store.

The CM was great and patiently took all my gift cards for payment. She did them in 3 transactions though, so incase something went wrong it would be easier to have smaller amount of cards to sort out. All went smoothly and we are reaping the benefits at the pump

*on a side note, we saved cash for these tickets, bought the giftcards with our Southwest credit card and payed the cash to our credit card, so we have more points for future flights too

 

[dhardawa]

Is the phone/internet limit of 2 or 3 gift cards only if you're buying your tickets separately, or does this apply to packages as well?

I'm crossing my fingers for free dining in late fall, and would like to pay with a combo of my Disney Visa rewards and Disney GCs bought at Target.

I did a package and paid for it with over 100 gift cards online. I had to do each as a separate transaction, but had no problems at all.

 

[thelionqueen]

I did this very recently and went through every single avenue I could. You can only use 2 (not 3) forms of payment for park tickets by phone or online. The only way I was able to get this to work was a CM who did our tickets in 3 separate purchases..and ONLY because each guest was over 9 (this method wouldn't have worked if I wanted to purchase any child tickets). This was for MNSSHP tickets but she told me that every park ticket only allowed 2 forms of payment by phone or online. She actually also told me that every ticket vendor at Disney is the same, so even at the parks (or any ticket vendor @ Disney) you can only use 2 payment forms. However, Cheshire Figment has proven to be more reliable so the information I got contradicts hers/his.

I would definitely call and speak to a manager to confirm or deny the information I was told about only 2 forms of payment at ANY Disney ticket counter. The CM I talked to was very specific giving me additional details as to why this policy was in place and she sounded very credible to me. And after being transferred to every dept @ WDW and speaking with 2 managers to try to buy my tickets, she was the only one who was able to take care of my ticket purchase

 

[Cheshire Figment]

A few weeks ago I sold three Premium Annual Passes (total over $2,000) in one transaction and processed about 30 Disney Gift Cards at my window.