Should I upgrade my disney Visa

[qv09vvp]

Hello

I've had the Disney visa since "day one" . Never used it for much until the panademic . Now I find myself turning to it for a ton of amazon purchases and for places like Costco that won't take my American Express

It occurs to me that maybe I should consider updating it to the next level disney visa .

Does anyone know if i would qualify for the current promotion just by upgrading?
Thoughts on using it at amazon and restaurants , Costco to make up for the 49 dollar yearly fee ?

 

[bluezy]

We use our Disney Visa for everything so it was really a no-brainer for us to upgrade. We accrue enough "extra" rewards dollars to more than offset the yearly fee by using the premier card. That being said, most of our purchases are groceries, gas, and restaurants which are all 2% categories. If we didn't use the card for those, it wouldn't be worth the $49 annual fee for us. When we were thinking about upgrading, I pulled up our most recent year-end summary chart and calculated how much extra we would have earned in rewards with the premier card as opposed to the standard one. I don't remember the exact amount, but I remember that it was way more than $49, so it made sense for us to upgrade.

I don't think upgrading will qualify you for the current card promotion, but it doesn't hurt to ask. I think those are targeted at new customers and you would be considered an existing customer.

I know there are other rewards cards out there that offer a better reward rate (namely airline credit cards), but we don't fly and we prefer to have the rewards be specifically for Disney. We do also use the Chase Freedom card for whatever the 5% bonus category is for that quarter. April-June is Amazon and something else that I can't remember -- but we'll max out the bonus with Amazon alone. I usually take the statement credit or cash on rewards from that card -- which goes towards Disney trip costs as well.

 

[EACarlson]

The Disney cards never made sense to me. Pretty much everything you get with a Disney card you can get with a Chase Checking account and Disney Debit Card. Then use a credit card that gives much better rewards. There are numerous 2% cards or category cards that will get you more than anything the Disney cards will get you.

 

[Pooh2]

I've had a Disney card for over 10 years with no annual fee.
Wanted to try the upgraded version which had a $300 statement credit for new users.
So my husband signed up for the card with the credit and we are trying it for one year to see if it is worth it for us.
I use it only on the categories which give 2x points, otherwise we use our other cards.
We are about 2 months in, the rewards add up slowly..

 

[lanejudy]

Does anyone know if i would qualify for the current promotion just by upgrading?
Thoughts on using it at amazon and restaurants , Costco to make up for the 49 dollar yearly fee ?

We've also have the "Day One" card. As PP suggests, take a look at the spending summary to see what categories you use most. If you have enough spending in the 2% categories to offset the annual fee, you might want to upgrade. If your purchases are more clothing, home, health/wellness, etc. - it probably doesn't make much sense. ALSO check if Costco purchases can qualify as 2%; years ago I recall warehouse club purchases only qualified for the base reward. But we don't shop at a warehouse club anymore so I'm not sure if that's still true.

As to the current promotion -- an offer for opening a new premier account? Probably not because it's targeted to get completely new customers, but I do think they usually waive the annual fee for the first year when you upgrade. You can cancel back to the regular card if you don't feel it's worth it.

 

[EACarlson]

I took OP to mean they were considering moving to the Disney Premier because they were spending so much on the card at Amazon and Costco, neither of those are included in the bonus categories for the Disney Premier. I only used my Disney card for the 5%, everything else should be a minimum of 2% back on a different card.

It would be very rare to get a SUB on a Chase card for product changing it. Really only AMEX does that. You would have to apply for the Premier and then close your Disney Visa.

 

[Mle8308]

There are so many cards out there with better cash back offers than the Disney Visa. I have the free version but really only have it for potential Disney discounts (room discounts, free shipping from ShopDisney, etc.). I would look into other cards with better offers before upgrading and just keep the free one.

 

[disneedee]

i have a day one card. don't want to lose the day one stamp. you can have multiple disney cards. if you want to try the premium, sign up for it. don't "upgrade" it. see if you like it and if not cancel after a year, but keep the no annual fee one. i currently have both but have had 3 at a time. you can get a lot of great credit card advise on the credit card thread.

 

[Mommb]

i have a day one card. don't want to lose the day one stamp.

I upgraded my Disney credit card to Premium a few years ago, and my Premium card still says "Day 1" on the front and "Charter Cardholder" on the back.

 

[qv09vvp]

Thank you everyone. Ya'll were very helpful!!!! I think I'll just keep the free card for the discounts, etc. I thought i was missing something but it sounds like . I have plenty of other cards that get better deals.

 

[dwiz]

Disney Visa is such a bad card. Like one of the worst out there. If you have any type of expenses, like $1000/month that you can put on your card, you can get $800 cash back in 4 months with capital venture. $95 annual fee, so $700, but it gives you $100 credit for TSA pre-check. Or you could spend $80,000 to get that back on the disney card.

 

[Bellex917]

I did upgrade when they offered me a free promo and obviously it was worth it with the upgrade being free. With that said, I will pay for it next year because I more than made the difference of $49. My main spending categories are gas, dining out, and groceries and those are the three categories you get 2% for. Costco doesn't count towards the 2%, unfortunately.

I know there are better cards out there. But, for us, we like knowing we have the money earmarked for Disney. We don't "need" our rewards points to pay bills or save, so it's "fun money", so to US, we know we can make more on other cards, but prefer to know it's going to our next Disney trip. We go down with a solid chunk of change every year.

 

[kylenne]

I did upgrade when they offered me a free promo and obviously it was worth it with the upgrade being free. With that said, I will pay for it next year because I more than made the difference of $49. My main spending categories are gas, dining out, and groceries and those are the three categories you get 2% for. Costco doesn't count towards the 2%, unfortunately.

I know there are better cards out there. But, for us, we like knowing we have the money earmarked for Disney. We don't "need" our rewards points to pay bills or save, so it's "fun money", so to US, we know we can make more on other cards, but prefer to know it's going to our next Disney trip. We go down with a solid chunk of change every year.

I have the og Chase Freedom and a Discover IT cashback, both are rotating 5% category cards and one quarter each year always has warehouse clubs. Usually doesn't overlap with each other either so I max out cashback on each of those quarters buying discounted Disney gift cards from BJs. That's money I can't use for anything but Disney and we pay for our whole trips with them and end up saving a lot, for example we're basically getting lightsabers from Savi's at the original price using this method. Otherwise I stick to my Chase trifecta (the CF + Freedom Unlimited and Sapphire Preferred) and I just use the debit card solely for the discounts and offers, which are exactly the same.

 

[bluezy]

I did upgrade when they offered me a free promo and obviously it was worth it with the upgrade being free. With that said, I will pay for it next year because I more than made the difference of $49. My main spending categories are gas, dining out, and groceries and those are the three categories you get 2% for. Costco doesn't count towards the 2%, unfortunately.

I know there are better cards out there. But, for us, we like knowing we have the money earmarked for Disney. We don't "need" our rewards points to pay bills or save, so it's "fun money", so to US, we know we can make more on other cards, but prefer to know it's going to our next Disney trip. We go down with a solid chunk of change every year.

That's exactly how we feel. When we went last June, thanks to 3 trips being cancelled by Covid, we had about $4,000 in rewards accumulated for that trip. And we're already over $1,000 for our next trip and probably won't go until 2024. By then, between the Disney Visa and the Chase Freedom card we should have at least $2500 in fun money to use on the trip.

 

[EACarlson]

Disney Visa is such a bad card. Like one of the worst out there. If you have any type of expenses, like $1000/month that you can put on your card, you can get $800 cash back in 4 months with capital venture. $95 annual fee, so $700, but it gives you $100 credit for TSA pre-check. Or you could spend $80,000 to get that back on the disney card.

Apples and oranges comparison. You're including the SUB in your calculations, if you don't include the SUB, with $1,000 month in spend you get 8,000 Venture points or $80. So after annual fee you just lost $15, compared to the $40 in Disney Rewards. If you were to use say a Citi Double Cash, PenFed Power Cash Rewards or similar 2% CB card you would have $80 in cash back with no AF. Even staying with Chase and going to a Freedom Unlimited would be $60 assuming no spend in bonus categories. If that $1,000/month is all in dining, it would be $120 in 4 months.

 

[DLgal]

I'd upgrade. The Premier card is much better than the base one. I have a Premier card and it's not even my primary card, but I earn about $1000 in rewards dollars every year. I have a total of about 9 credit cards, each one for some specific perk. I use the Disney one for all our Disney related expenses (Magic Keys and all our in park spending) and for gas and groceries. I use other cards for dining and basic shopping. I have our recurring bills on the Disney Visa also, even though technically I could get more on another card, but I try to keep things simple. I don't want to make 9 credit card payments per month, so we really only use 3 regularly. The others are airline cards that give stuff like free bags and priority boarding. I make sure that the annual fees are offset somehow. $49 is a VERY low annual fee, so the Disney Premier visa is a good deal. All you would have to do is spend $2500/year on gas, groceries, or Disney purchases to recoup that. I can do that in one month.

 

[LiDa]

Hello

I've had the Disney visa since "day one" . Never used it for much until the panademic . Now I find myself turning to it for a ton of amazon purchases and for places like Costco that won't take my American Express

It occurs to me that maybe I should consider updating it to the next level disney visa .

Does anyone know if i would qualify for the current promotion just by upgrading?
Thoughts on using it at amazon and restaurants , Costco to make up for the 49 dollar yearly fee ?

It depends on what your goals are. I have 4 credit cards, but use my Disney visa only when I get something in return that makes it worthwhile, such as 10% off at a Disney business or on a special offer, etc. Otherwise, my other credit cards are much better because instead of 1% they give 2-5%. (To be fair, I got one of my cards because they gave me a BOATLOAD of frequent flier miles that will never expire, but once I got those, I stopped using the card & will cancel at the end of the year.) If the rewards are worth the extra money, then it's good. If all they're giving is 2%, well, to be honest, you can get that many other places.

Having said that, if you want to accrue Disney rewards to save for a trip & this is a way to sort of "hide" the money so you won't spend it, this may work for you. I would rather take the cash back on my cards & transfer it into a high-yield savings account & let it accrue there. "Hiding" isn't really an issue for me for right now, but I have been there so I totally get it.

 

[bnf0522]

Like many others here, I use the Premier Disney Visa for any Disney purchases, gas, groceries and eating out because those are the 2% back rewards categories. My other credit card has 1.5% cash back so I use it for everything else. For me, the spending in the 2% cash back categories more than made up for the $49 annual fee.

 

[amylevan]

Disney Visa is such a bad card. Like one of the worst out there. If you have any type of expenses, like $1000/month that you can put on your card, you can get $800 cash back in 4 months with capital venture. $95 annual fee, so $700, but it gives you $100 credit for TSA pre-check. Or you could spend $80,000 to get that back on the disney card.

How the heck are you getting 20% rewards on a credit card? I’m assuming you’re including a sign up bonus or something?

We don’t fly, and I don’t have the patience or desire to churn or chase category bonuses, so I never really pay any attention to the different options out there, but 20% hardly seems like a good way for that card to stay in business.

 

[gottalovepluto]

Nope.

If you want another visa specifically for those purchases and you don’t play the cc sign up game I’d do the Costco card. 4% gas, 3% restaurants, 2% Costco, 1% everything else, no AF.