Paying resort balance with gift cards, but heaven forbid need to cancel question.

[Duck143]

I am planning on buying enough g.c.'s from Target to pay off the balances of our room only resort reservations (multiple rooms booked). The current balance is over $10k.
My question is, what happens if I pay off 100% of the balance and then one of the rooms needs to be cancelled for some reason. Will Disney only refund back onto multiple gift cards or can you get a refund in a different way.
We didn't qualify for ANY of the resort discount offers, so I'm trying to save 5% by buying the g.c.s. With a balance that large, it comes out to over $600 savings.

 

[afan]

I am planning on buying enough g.c.'s from Target to pay off the balances of our room only resort reservations (multiple rooms booked). The current balance is over $10k.
My question is, what happens if I pay off 100% of the balance and then one of the rooms needs to be cancelled for some reason. Will Disney only refund back onto multiple gift cards or can you get a refund in a different way.
We didn't qualify for ANY of the resort discount offers, so I'm trying to save 5% by buying the g.c.s. With a balance that large, it comes out to over $600 savings.

Your refund goes back to whatever you paid with. Which means whatever gift cards you used to pay is what it'll go back to. You can combine up to 1k but don't get rid of the cards.

GC don't make sense for everyone due to this. If you go often enough having money tied up in gc isn't a big deal or if you can use it for food and stuff when there since it's only 1 rooms worth.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

The refund will go to every gift card that you used, and each gift card can have a maximum balance of $1,000.

 

[gmi3804]

Yes, back to the GCs. Save them. It’s a pain to have them reissue GCs, and it takes them a LONG time.

 

[Duck143]

Thank you for your replies! I think I am going to wait until 7 days before to purchase the gc's and apply them to the balances.

 

[Deeleebaker]

Last time I was at Target, they limited my GC purchase to $500 or something like that.

 

[Best Aunt]

The nice people over on the I Love Credit Cards thread might have some ideas for you. They know a lot about saving money.

https://www.disboards.com/threads/i...2022-see-first-page-for-addl-details.3865061/

 

[Duck143]

Last time I was at Target, they limited my GC purchase to $500 or something like that.

I'm able to purchase 3 $500 e-gift cards using the Target website.
Years ago, mt DH and I went to Target and bought enough gc's to pay for our AP's. We had so many to cash out and the cashier asked us how many kids we had lol.

 

[Disneyfan754321]

I no longer had that orginal giftcard so I took it on a giftcard they provided.. (I used so many cards I was unsure)
I made a joke everyone in the family is getting shop disney for Christmas..lol

 

[Jimsig]

Just last month I paid for my room using GC's. I waited until I got there until I did it. The said they had already charged part of the room to my CC but they gladly refunded that amount and ran my GC's.

 

[Duck143]

Just last month I paid for my room using GC's. I waited until I got there until I did it. The said they had already charged part of the room to my CC but they gladly refunded that amount and ran my GC's.

Good to know! I have been trying to buy g.c.'s, but held onto them and I will call to apply to our balance the day before our trip starts. I have been having a heck of a time buying them from Target. They keep locking my card until the funds clear. It was a better idea in theory than its working out lol.

 

[scrapquitler]

I am planning on buying enough g.c.'s from Target to pay off the balances of our room only resort reservations (multiple rooms booked). The current balance is over $10k.
My question is, what happens if I pay off 100% of the balance and then one of the rooms needs to be cancelled for some reason. Will Disney only refund back onto multiple gift cards or can you get a refund in a different way.
We didn't qualify for ANY of the resort discount offers, so I'm trying to save 5% by buying the g.c.s. With a balance that large, it comes out to over $600 savings.

in case you were unaware...if you have a room only reservation you only need to pay the first night as a deposit, and don't need to pay the balance off until your visit.

 

[robinb]

Good to know! I have been trying to buy g.c.'s, but held onto them and I will call to apply to our balance the day before our trip starts. I have been having a heck of a time buying them from Target. They keep locking my card until the funds clear. It was a better idea in theory than its working out lol.

You can also pay for any and all charges while at WDW that are charged back to your room with gift cards. Simply bring a physical gift card down to the front desk the night before you check out. You can buy e-gift cards from Target which will be emailed to you and then you can transfer your emailed gift cards to your physical card. It's easy to do even on the phone.

It sounds like you have a debit Target card. I have a Target credit card and I have zero problems with having my card locked even when buying $500 or more. How long do they end up locking your card?

 

[Duck143]

You can also pay for any and all charges while at WDW that are charged back to your room with gift cards. Simply bring a physical gift card down to the front desk the night before you check out. You can buy e-gift cards from Target which will be emailed to you and then you can transfer your emailed gift cards to your physical card. It's easy to do even on the phone.

It sounds like you have a debit Target card. I have a Target credit card and I have zero problems with having my card locked even when buying $500 or more. How long do they end up locking your card?

It's the debit card and I need to purchase 13 more $500 cards to pay for the resort (extended family trip, so 3 rooms) It was a great idea to save $$$, but it has become difficult with the debit because the funds have to clear before I can purchase an additional card. I actually signed up and got instant approval for a Target cc, but they limit purchases to 1k for the first 7 days. Maybe, I have my fingers crossed, that the cc increase will happen before we check in and I can get the remainder of the gc's purchased.
Great to know about paying the room charges with gc's too.

 

[robinb]

It's the debit card and I need to purchase 13 more $500 cards to pay for the resort (extended family trip, so 3 rooms) It was a great idea to save $$$, but it has become difficult with the debit because the funds have to clear before I can purchase an additional card. I actually signed up and got instant approval for a Target cc, but they limit purchases to 1k for the first 7 days. Maybe, I have my fingers crossed, that the cc increase will happen before we check in and I can get the remainder of the gc's purchased.
Great to know about paying the room charges with gc's too.

Have you looked at the Gift Card thread?

https://www.disboards.com/threads/u...deals-and-more.3784942/page-536#post-64343319

The current Disney Gift Cards deals are all on the first post. BJ's and Sam's Club also sells DGCs but at 4% off. You can use a credit card that gets cash back to get up to 5-ish percent. I believe that both places have online memberships.

 

[Duck143]

Have you looked at the Gift Card thread?

https://www.disboards.com/threads/u...deals-and-more.3784942/page-536#post-64343319

The current Disney Gift Cards deals are all on the first post. BJ's and Sam's Club also sells DGCs but at 4% off. You can use a credit card that gets cash back to get up to 5-ish percent. I believe that both places have online memberships.

Thank you! This is a fantastic idea! If I can't purchase them through Target online in time, I'm taking a drive to BJs to do this exact plan.

 

[robinb]

Thank you! This is a fantastic idea! If I can't purchase them through Target online in time, I'm taking a drive to BJs to do this exact plan.

Good luck! I would call BJs to see if they have them in the store. You may have to order them online and it can take a while for them to arrive.

 

[Duck143]

Good luck! I would call BJs to see if they have them in the store. You may have to order them online and it can take a while for them to arrive.

I'll keep you all updated! I'm trying to get it all paid by Friday before our flight, but we do have a split stay, so I have until 10/10 to get it all paid.

 

[cjnix29]

Also, take pictures of the gift card numbers. If you happen to lose one, you will have the number and can combine that balance with one you have on disneygiftcard.com.

 

[TheSouthernBelle]

I am planning on buying enough g.c.'s from Target to pay off the balances of our room only resort reservations (multiple rooms booked). The current balance is over $10k.
My question is, what happens if I pay off 100% of the balance and then one of the rooms needs to be cancelled for some reason. Will Disney only refund back onto multiple gift cards or can you get a refund in a different way.
We didn't qualify for ANY of the resort discount offers, so I'm trying to save 5% by buying the g.c.s. With a balance that large, it comes out to over $600 savings.

We've done this before and let me say it's a process and will take some planning and a good chunk of time out of your life. Especially for $10K, you will be in for a long haul on this process. We have done this in the past but for lower dollar amounts. We had an issue with one of our rooms so Disney wanted to credit us back one night's stay to our gift card, well we didn't have the card so Disney issued us a new GC. The CM did say you are supposed to keep the card but they can issue you a new card since they know how you paid for the trip. But lesson learned, keep ALL cards!!

You may know all this but here's a few helpful tidbits/heads up-

• Do make sure you can get the largest increment gift cards at Target. More times than not you may have to buy them online as your store may only have $25-$50 gift cards. If you can order $500 gift cards online, that's your best bet but the purchase is limited to 3 via email delivery and as of now, they only have up to $100 increments for physical card delivery or in store, so that will be 100 total cards if you even can get the $100 amounts. That's a lot to manage. I never ordered online for fear of not being able to order more so only have experience purchasing cards in store.
• you may run into issues at check out as I had to split purchases. I have a red debit card not the credit card so that may be why. It's a long check out process and a hassle for sure. I also encountered a few cashiers over the years that said there was a limit on number of cards purchased, so don't leave this for the last minute since you may have to do this in different trips over multiple days. I had to buy half at one target and buy the other half at another.
• You literarily have to scratch the pin code off each card and then register it to the disney GC site (https://www.disneygiftcard.com/mycards/list-of-cards) to consolidate the cards. You can certainly use your disney gift cards as is to pay the trip but it's so much easier to consolidate them to have fewer cards to make the payment which is done by phone, also a pain in the butt. So if you left your $100 gc as is, you'd have to supply 100 GC numbers to disney but if you consolidate them to $1k per card, that's only 10 gift cards. Let's just say I enlisted my kids for scratching, and then reading those darn cards and keying them all in, it's no bueno and I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.

It's definitely a tangible savings but it's an ordeal and time sucker for sure. I don't mess with them anymore just for the shear aggravation of it all and have found other less intrusive ways to save $ as best we can. ETA- it might make sense to do this for a portion of your GC for food, gifts, merch etc and maybe some of your trip if it becomes impossible to get to $10K in gift cards, some savings is better than none.