BIG GIFT CARD NEWS!!!!!!
(Well, maybe this is old gift card news, and I've just been really dumb for years, but this was new news to me, and I am VERY excited about it!)
You can add Disney GCs to Apple Wallet (or the Android equivalent)! The caveat: I *think* this will only work if you start with an e-gift card from
shopDisney. When you get the confirmation email, it's got an option to add the e-GC to Apple Wallet. Click that button and voila! (See pictures)
Just show the bar code at any Disney register, and they'll scan it. No more fumbling around with physical GCs all the time!
The drawback, as mentioned, is that I think you can only do this with an e-GC bought from shopDisney. I checked e-GCs from Target, Sam's and Raise, and didn't see any "Add to Apple Wallet" option. I also don't see how you'd add a physical GC. BUT, you could easily buy the lowest-priced e-GC from shopDisney ($25) (make sure it's an e-GC - any of the really cute designs are going to be physical cards), and then use disneygiftcard.com to add money to that e-GC and thus to the GC in your Apple Wallet. I've still got confirmation emails (yes, I'm an email hoarder as well as a "stuff" hoarder) from old e-GC purchases at shopDisney, so I'm just going to reload those GC numbers and use those on future trips.
The other drawback is that Apple Wallet will always just show the starting balance, but every receipt you get will have the new balance after you buy something, so that's not really different from a physical card, except that it's maybe a little more confusing.
Credit to Shannon at WDW Prep. She made an offhand comment about adding GCs to Apple Wallet in a F&W article, which led to me DMing her and then me going on a deep dive to figure out all the details!
Am I just dumb? Is this old news? Because I’m kind of irrationally excited about this!