Paying for whole trip with gift cards?!?

[Hoosier37]

I just signed up for Quickrewards a few weeks ago. So far I have cashed out for two $25 gift cards and already have over $8 in my account, and expecting that to bump up to $12 tomorrow when a few more surveys credit. So I'm thinking, at $25 per week, times a couple of years, I could easily have the majority saved for a WDW trip by then.

So, I know you can use Disney gift cards to pay on packages, but how much of a hassle is it to pay with $25 cards? I also know I could cash out through Paypal, but I like having the Disney cards because then it is money earmarked specifically for WDW.

Has anyone ever paid most or all of their trip on gift cards?

 

[Virtucomp]

I would love to pay for the entire trip with rewards money but I'm aiming a little lower.

1) A Tour for the family
2) A dining plan for the family
3) If rewards go really nuts then park tickets.

I don't think the rewards are not consistent enough to get the entire trip payed for.

 

[Hoosier37]

Yeah, I doubt I earn enough, and whatever I can get will help.

But my question is, has anyone ever paid a substantial chunk of their package with gift cards, and how much of a hassle is it to do when most of the cards are in $25 amounts?

 

[1osfan]

I paid my trip off today using gift cards that I purchased at Sam's Club. You can enter them online one at a time or you can call and do it over the phone. The cards I entered were $100 cards so you'd have four times the number of cards to enter, but it is doable. If you are going to do that and you save up the gift cards, my suggestion is enter a handful a day. If you try to enter them all at once, it would probably overwhelm you.

 

[jgates]

I have earned $1200 in GCs from Sunshine. As we booked room only I paid for the deposit with one gift card (and small balance on cc) as I could only do one GC during the online booking process.

However, the $1100 remaining will pay for our room as well as about $350 of our food costs. We have an average budget of $50 pp for food per day (some days more - some less) - so not much out of pocket this trip!

We are lucky enough to have 5 days left on non-expiring hoppers from a previous trip, so only DDs bf needs a ticket & he is also paying most of his own food.

 

[Traveliz]

Years ago when the reward programs were just starting I paid for a whole Christmas trip for my family and my brothers with gift cards. I don't remember the specifics now but there were some programs that allowed enough points for you to cash out very often and the points given were so much higher.

Here are a few examples -- Freeride -- I think its still around but a shell of what it used to be. Anyway I could get $10.00 every three (!) days! And this was easy...literally a few minutes. There was no signing up for stuff and having to back out.

There were several points programs that gave Disney dollars...paying for hotels with Disney dollars is a hoot!

My points gave generally 100 points per email they sent you. For them I got all of our hotels down and back (driving) and all the gas cards for the trip.

There were others as well and I am completely blacking out here but anyway it was so AWESOME. We had gift cards for Planet Hollywood and the front of the line access. Gift cards for Rainforest...enought for all 9 of us!

It is ALOT harder now to do that but there are still ways to pay for parts of the trip.


Every now and again I will talk to friends I did those programs with and we sure miss those days!

Liz

 

[lilstint]

Years ago when the reward programs were just starting I paid for a whole Christmas trip for my family and my brothers with gift cards. I don't remember the specifics now but there were some programs that allowed enough points for you to cash out very often and the points given were so much higher.

Here are a few examples -- Freeride -- I think its still around but a shell of what it used to be. Anyway I could get $10.00 every three (!) days! And this was easy...literally a few minutes. There was no signing up for stuff and having to back out.

There were several points programs that gave Disney dollars...paying for hotels with Disney dollars is a hoot!

My points gave generally 100 points per email they sent you. For them I got all of our hotels down and back (driving) and all the gas cards for the trip.

There were others as well and I am completely blacking out here but anyway it was so AWESOME. We had gift cards for Planet Hollywood and the front of the line access. Gift cards for Rainforest...enought for all 9 of us!

It is ALOT harder now to do that but there are still ways to pay for parts of the trip.


Every now and again I will talk to friends I did those programs with and we sure miss those days!

Liz

Ahhh..the old days of rewards programs. It used to be so much easier wasn't it?

 

[omghidanielle]

I'm actually busting my butt right now to do this. I've been blogging about it every Monday. So far, so good!