Target Disney Cards Fear

[chrystalc77]

Help me get over my fear of purchasing Disney gift cards to pay for my trips!!! I have purchased several Disney gift cards to pay for extras while on our trips but have never bought them exclusively for paying for our trips. Simply because it scares me. Well I have done something crazy and we have a Disney cruise booked for spring break in April (our first cruise!) ad we are booked for a Cars suite in November 2014! We have had the WDW trip booked since July but I just decided on the cruise a couple of weeks ago. So by paying with gift cards from Target would save me some money between the 2 trips. I've just never done it so I'm a bit scared. How did you get over your fear of putting hundreds or thousands of dollars on Disney gift cards???

 

[Buzzsgramma]

I am a Target shopper...i buy the Dis gift cards all the time they usually only have $50.ones...but i think Walgreens or Jewel has the $100....

We charge everything on our room key and usually the nite before we leave i go down with about 10 g. c. and pay the balance...sometimes up to $1000 or more..
It takes a little time so i wouldnt try to do this the morning you are leaving.. I have bought these for years...I do keep all the receipts tho...but have never had a problem...

 

[Firefly09]

Keep the cards in a safe place until you're done with your trip. The #1 concern I have with the giftcards is if you have to cancel for any reason they refund it back to the original payment. For Disney this means the original GC, not just issuing you a new GC.

 

[DMGeurts]

I am a Target Team member - I have paid for 2 trips in their entirety (resort/food/dining plan/park tickts/tips/souvenirs...) using Disney GCs purchased at Target...

Part of getting over my fear is this... I never buy the GCs until I am with in 90 days of my pay off date... Otherwise, if something happens, I can't return them... I NEVER scratch them off until I use them (they won't take them back if they are scratched off)... I save ALL of my GC receipts. Once my trip is paid in full - if something happens and Disney needs to refund, it will go back on each individual card... So I never throw them away either. At this point, I cannot return them to Target - but I could roll them over onto another trip.

When I am in Disney, I carry a small sharpie with me - I never throw away those GCs either, because if I have to return something while I am there, they will refund the acutal card. Sometimes - carrying all those cards is a real pain...

On our last trip... I brought $40 cash (for airport food) - the rest of my $$ was Disney GCs only... Coincidentally, I forgot my bank card and CCs at home, so I literally only had $40 on me and my GCs... We were perfectly fine for our 10 day trip.

I encourage everyone to get as much savings as they can... And purchasing Disney GCs through Target is a great way to do it... Not only do you get your 5% debit/CC discount... You can also stack it with your 5% shopping pass you can earn through Pharmacy Rewards and in my case - I can also stack with my 10% Team Member discount. All of those stacks = a nice trip discount.

D~

 

[sissy_ib]

What worries me is if you have to cancel and need the funds then you are stuck with it all in gift card form. I remember someone here on the DIS a few months ago (maybe last year) asking where to sell her gift cards because they had an emergency and needed the cash. I would not buy to many cards until right before the trip.

 

[smiths02]

What worries me is if you have to cancel and need the funds then you are stuck with it all in gift card form. I remember someone here on the DIS a few months ago (maybe last year) asking where to sell her gift cards because they had an emergency and needed the cash. I would not buy to many cards until right before the trip.

That is my thought when someone says they buy gift cards instead of the dining plan.

It also seems like a pain to keep up with.

 

[jodywgirl]

I have used these for dining and extras the last two times. I am a DVC owner so don't have room costs and haven't used it for tickets. I charge everything to the room and then the day before we are leaving I go down to the front desk and put them against my charges. I also don't purchase my gift cards until just before we are leaving. 5% savings is worth spending 20 minutes at the front desk. The first time I used them I kept them on me and paid for everything but I came home with small balances on a bunch of them charging things to your room and paying for them at the end is much easier.

 

[Judique]

I have used these for dining and extras the last two times. I am a DVC owner so don't have room costs and haven't used it for tickets. I charge everything to the room and then the day before we are leaving I go down to the front desk and put them against my charges. I also don't purchase my gift cards until just before we are leaving. 5% savings is worth spending 20 minutes at the front desk. The first time I used them I kept them on me and paid for everything but I came home with small balances on a bunch of them charging things to your room and paying for them at the end is much easier.

I collected a few with small balances as well and then started just presenting the leftover card first. They will ring more then one card at the cash registers.

 

[DMGeurts]

I have used these for dining and extras the last two times. I am a DVC owner so don't have room costs and haven't used it for tickets. I charge everything to the room and then the day before we are leaving I go down to the front desk and put them against my charges. I also don't purchase my gift cards until just before we are leaving. 5% savings is worth spending 20 minutes at the front desk. The first time I used them I kept them on me and paid for everything but I came home with small balances on a bunch of them charging things to your room and paying for them at the end is much easier.

I collected a few with small balances as well and then started just presenting the leftover card first. They will ring more then one card at the cash registers.

Usually, towards the end of our trips, I will log on to disneygiftcard.com while my family is doing some down time at the resort... I double check the balances on my GCs, and I make sure I use those first - I have used several GCs in one transaction. I usually come home with a few GCs with a small balance on them, but I just consider it savings towards our next trip.

D~

 

[Angie789]

You can use the Disney gift card app for an easy way to keep track of all your cards. I use a Sharpie to number each card, save the card in the app with that number as the name of the card, and boom - easy to see exactly what I've got on each card.

 

[arwood82]

You can use the Disney gift card app for an easy way to keep track of all your cards. I use a Sharpie to number each card, save the card in the app with that number as the name of the card, and boom - easy to see exactly what I've got on each card.

I love the disney gift card app!!

 

[bluezy]

That is my thought when someone says they buy gift cards instead of the dining plan.

It also seems like a pain to keep up with.

If you charge everything to your room key and then use the GC's to pay off that balance, it's not a pain at all.

I buy gift cards every month to put towards future Disney trips. We don't even have a trip planned or booked right now but I will still buy $50-100 worth of gift cards every month for the *next* trip (whenever that will be -- probably 2015). It's our "forced" Disney saving plan.

 

[luvmy3]

I used GCs from Target to pay for our entire trip last August.

 

[Gamegrl1]

What worries me is if you have to cancel and need the funds then you are stuck with it all in gift card form.

This concerns me too because we were originally supposed to go in 2012 and had to cancel because of health issues. So thanks to the PP's who said to not buy the cards until within 90 days of the trip and to keep all cards and receipts.

In my case, if we had to cancel, my boss goes to WDW every year (DVC)...I could probably sell some of the cards to her (with the discount, of course) that she could use for their food & souvenirs. But I'd rather go myself!!!

 

[RoyalMom]

for multiple GC users who don't want to carry a whole deck:

A CM can transfer your balances onto a single card; we did this with one of the F&W wristlets at Epcot.

/$.02

 

[MaleficentRN]

It's all good! No worries!
I used gift cards to make payments on my last cruise and brought some with me to pay for my on board charges. I just paid off my next cruise today using gift cards and then will start gathering more for OBCs. Last month I used gift cards to pay for meals and souvenirs during a WDW trip.
I would hang onto gift cards you use on the cruise because there are sometimes adjustments in your favor because of fee or tax changes. I ended up with about $20 this way almost 6 months after our last cruise.
Seriously. It will be OK.

 

[IBelieveInTheMagic]

I'm another Disney Gift card buyer from Target so I can get a minimum of 5% off and usually stock up at the extra Rx 5% off which equates to about 9.75% off total. I've paid for most of our cruises this way and will be using my new batch to pay for dining and our room next week at WDW.

My biggest advice - stay organized. I write on the back of each card, the date I purchased it, the date I redeemed it and for what. For example, I was recently paying on three different cruises so I'd put the date of the sailing I used the card for. I prefer not to hold on to them too long as it's like having cash in the house and I just worry so I call them in, in batches (I book through Costco for our cruises to earn their Costco cash card in addition to my 10% off and OBB discount).

I understand if I have to cancel for any reason I won't get my money back and I'm okay with that so we'd just re-book at that point. I budget each week how much to buy or how much to put back in my savings account. I'm very disciplined so I'm not afraid of overspending and I enjoy the savings. I also agree with the great advice - keep up with the last few you've used to pay off a cruise since it will likely be the last card you used that is given a refund for any port or taxes. This just happened to me on our 1/2014 Magic cruise since I had paid it off early so the tax refund of about $24 was issued to my last used gift card and DCL was able to tell Costco the last 4 digits and I had it right on top.

Don't be afraid, once you get a system down and stay organized you'll love it! Hang on to all the cards though!

Heather

 

[DisneyMissy318]

for multiple GC users who don't want to carry a whole deck:

A CM can transfer your balances onto a single card; we did this with one of the F&W wristlets at Epcot.

/$.02

I think it depends on the cm... just got back and was told they couldn't load a gift card with other gift cards.

 

[albarellic]

You can use the Disney gift card app for an easy way to keep track of all your cards. I use a Sharpie to number each card, save the card in the app with that number as the name of the card, and boom - easy to see exactly what I've got on each card.

I saw a lot of gift card apps on Google play, but no Disney ones. Is the one you use available from Google? Thanks.

 

[CadenZanesMom]

My mom gave my son and my nephew Disney gc's from Target as part of their gifts last Christmas. This was a great idea for our trip last this past May. My son didn't spend all of his so he now has extra for our "hopeful" trip in January for his birthday. Love the Disney gc as gift idea!!