Target Disney e-gift card for on board charges - where is the downside?

[scubadiver]

Sorry for the long post, but I want to include as much as possible.

When I pay for a Disney cruise, I always use Disney e-gift cards, purchased on-line from Target, using my Red Card, to save 5%. On-line I can purchase Disney e-gift cards in amounts of $500, $200 and $100. I do not believe you can purchase a $500 gift cards in the store. By paying for our upcoming cruises (Wonder from Vancouver to Hawaii on to Australia) in this manner, I saved about $1,000.00

The goal is to save money.

When I go on a cruise I do not want to add another thing to carry, lose or forget, thus I do not want to take physical gift cards. However, with Disney e-gift cards purchased through Target, I would have many emails to sort through as I am in line at guest services while on board. If you have purchased Disney e-gift cards before, you know after finding the email, you have to click the attachment, then add in your email address, then you get to see the e-gift card. Imagine doing that for 5-6 e-gift cards. This takes up time, for both me and the other passengers standing in line behind me. I try to be considerate of everyone's time, as we want to be enjoying the ship.

Here is my thought, tell the down side -

I would purchase the Disney e-gift cards through Target using my Red Card, as I always have done, to save the 5%. While still at home, access the e-gift cards on my phone. Take a screen shot of the e-gift card. The screen shot will have the 16 digit e-gift card number, as well as the security code. Save these screen shots to my camera roll. Now when I go to on board guest services, I access my camera roll and all the gift cards are all together and I just swipe from one picture to the next as the gift cards are applied to my on board account.

Now I: 1) not carrying physical gift cards; 2) don't have to find the email, hit the link to the e-gift cards store, put in my email to finally access the gift card for each and every e-gift card.

What is the down side? Obviously I have to bring my phone, but like most of us we would forget our kids, before we would forget our phones (just kidding my kids are in there 20's they can fend for themselves). You could delete the photo by accident, but then just recover the pic from your deleted camera file.

Let's not muddy the waters by talking about BJ's, as I do not live in a state that has this store. I live in the country, the closest CostCo and Sam's is 1.5 hour round trip ordeal. On-line, I have found that I can only purchase 3-$500, 3-$200 and 3-$100 Target e-gift cards in a day. Thus it may take a few days, but I am retired and have nothing but time.

Thanks for reading and any thoughts you have.

 

[Fuzzycaterpillar1]

That sounds like a lot of work. There are websites where you can combine all your gift cards online (disneygiftcard dot com).

 

[Carohs]

I can think of no downside! I bought mine in $500 increments, once per month, up til PIF day, and one more for onboard. Getting it added was super easy, but you have to punch in the long number, no pin needed iirc. You can go to GS after first day rush but before grats are assessed and avoid long lines. You literally have until debarkation to settle your onboard account. Learned this when I decided to buy a shutter's pic at the last minute, and we couldn't get off the ship, oopsy, til we paid that last $20. Apparently that one didn't get automatically charged.

 

[Mommb]

I have not done this, but others have posted that you can combine up to 6 gift cards into a single card on the site listed above. As the site indicates, you should still maintain access to the physical or digital cards (as you would by putting the numbers on your phone).

In order to save time during your cruise, you could even buy onboard credit in advance using some of your gift cards (for gratuities, excursions, and onboard activities that you are sure you will be paying for).

 

[DisRecruit]

I also highly recommend combining Disney gift cards on the Disney gift card website. We find it most convenient to have one physical card, and then you can add multiple e-gift cards to the physical card.
There's also a great thread about discounted gift cards on the budget board of Disboards. Certainly the 5% Target discount is good, but you may be able to do better with minimal extra work... Doesn't hurt to look.

 

[NEGeekymama]

I also highly recommend combining Disney gift cards on the Disney gift card website. We find it most convenient to have one physical card, and then you can add multiple e-gift cards to the physical card.
There's also a great thread about discounted gift cards on the budget board of Disboards. Certainly the 5% Target discount is good, but you may be able to do better with minimal extra work... Doesn't hurt to look.

The best discount currently is a $50 card for $45 at Best Buy. You must have a Best Buy account, and you're limited to two total.

BJ's does have a one-day online shopping pass which gives you access to the discounts; currently they range from about 5-6ish%.

 

[Ralph&Pam]

Use you gift cards to purchase onboard credit prior to the cruise, thus avoiding the Guest Services line entirely. Any unused purchased onboard credit will be refunded to the original form of payment. You can check gift card balances on the Disney gift card site at https://www.disneygiftcard.com/checkbalance, so it’s not that difficult to track any refunds.

 

[mama&me]

I agree with all that has been said. I pay off my cruises with discounted DGCs and I also use one for onboard credit as well.
I follow and have learned a lot from the Disney Gift Card Deals thread on the Budget Board forum.
Some just feel comfortable sticking with the 5% discount at Target and that's ok too.
But as recommended, it is best to consolidate the gift cards. You can put up to $1000 on each gift card. That way maybe you will only have to give the CM only 1 or 2 cards and not 6.

 

[Husker Mike]

There are a few downsides. Besides the hassle of dealing with/combining dozens of gift cards, if you have to cancel for some reason, you'll need to retain all of these gift cards until after the cruise since Disney will refund back to the method of purchase. Plus, it's unlikely that you'll purchase EXACTLY the amount of gift cards you'll need on board... you'll either come up a bit short (and have to use another credit/debit card) or have extra left over on a gift card, which you'll have to track moving forward (or lose).

Many credit cards offer rebates on travel of 2% or 3%, which mitigates some of the savings you might be anticipating, yet allow you to retain some of the protections of using a credit card to pay for travel...and certainly simplify things!

It comes down to preferences, and in the original poster's situation, she's taking lots of cruises, so the risk of having leftover funds on a Disney gift card is almost zero. But a sudden illness necessitating a cancellation could be a risk. (My daughter was suddenly hospitalized three weeks before a planned cruise, so I am a bit skittish on this now. Fortunately, all turned out very well - other than missing the cruise.)

 

[mcrowder1978]

The only downside that I can think of is in the event you have to cancel the refund would go back to the Disney Gift Cards and wouldn't be available for anything other than a Disney vacation of some kind. On the flipside you can always use it on a future cruise or trip so it's not like you completely lose it, unless you lose the card or printout with the card number on it.

 

[cmph]

I believe OP is looking for thoughts specifically on the plan to photo-capture her e-gift cards for use onboard. Sounds like she is definitely planning to use gift cards, just trying to make the use of them easier/quicker. (At least, that was my interpretation.)

I would pre-pay gratuities for sure, in your case. There is now a separate button/option specifically for pre-paid gratuities under the cruise extras when you're logged in for your cruise. You purchase that like any other extra item, and gift cards are one of the payment options. It would at least be one less thing to apply onboard. Otherwise, my only "downside" thought would be a minor concern that the CM wouldn't be willing to apply gift card credit given via photo, for some reason.

 

[mcrowder1978]

I believe OP is looking for thoughts specifically on the plan to photo-capture her e-gift cards for use onboard. Sounds like she is definitely planning to use gift cards, just trying to make the use of them easier/quicker. (At least, that was my interpretation.)

I would pre-pay gratuities for sure, in your case. There is now a separate button/option specifically for pre-paid gratuities under the cruise extras when you're logged in for your cruise. You purchase that like any other extra item, and gift cards are one of the payment options. It would at least be one less thing to apply onboard. Otherwise, my only "downside" thought would be a minor concern that the CM wouldn't be willing to apply gift card credit given via photo, for some reason.

Yeah I missed that part.

The only downside to that plan would be if you had to go back to the email and not have any signal to be able to do it with. What I have done is keep the gift card(s) I planned to put on the stateroom account onboard with our travel documents (passports/birth certificates/) and port arrival forms etc. I didn't have any of the physical cards, just printouts from Target's site so it was only a few sheets of paper and was easy to put in the same folder/big envelope with our other stuff we had to have in order to get on board.

Another thing I did just in case was save PDF copies of each of the digital gift cards with the card number and barcode and saved those file in my google drive and on my laptop. Worst case if I had to go that route I could try the google drive on my phone to bring it up and if I had no wifi or cell signal at the time I had downloaded copies on my laptop that I could pull up so they could pull the numbers and put them in the system.

A couple of people have mentioned it but this last time I combined multiple cards into one so that there were less numbers for the cast members to input at guest services. That made it easier on my too because I only needed three card numbers instead of nine when we checked in at the Poly before our cruise and the one that had leftover balance I used on the ship.

 

[auntlynne]

 

[Cheburashka]

If something unforeseen occurs and you can't take the cruise, and Disney travel in the foreseeable future isn't practical, then you're stuck with a lot of money in gift cards, rather than getting your money back. That is the main downside.

 

[auntlynne]

 

[Cheburashka]

That is the big downside for average people - now check out the OP’s signature block.

There is no worry about those GCs going to waste.

Good on you, @scubadiver. Way to plan for and enjoy your retirement.

I said "if something unforeseen occurs". Serious illness, injury and death can afflict anyone's life.

 

[auntlynne]

 

[Cheburashka]

I was just thinking about having money sitting in a gift card with no plans to spend money with Disney. That was a big enough downside to me. . (It can happen if you bring enough money to cover shore excursions that don’t happen.)

Did you check out all the fun adventures The OP has scheduled? I’d like to get adopted by them. @scubadiver

I'm sure everything will work out for them and they will have fun. I was just responding to their question about any possible downsides of loading Disney gift cards with a lot of money.

 

[sagosto]

I am glad I found this thread. Costco doesn't seem to have Disney GC but Target does and I'll take the 5% DVC (10%) + 5% GC = 2022 Disney price increases!