What would you do?

[KTrain15]

I have a STASH of visa gift cards. We fully intend on spending every last dime of them on our trip. I've been going back and forth about whether I should convert them to Disney gift cards for ease of use around the world or just leave them as is. What do you think?

 

[Marionnette]

I have a STASH of visa gift cards. We fully intend on spending every last dime of them on our trip. I've been going back and forth about whether I should convert them to Disney gift cards for ease of use around the world or just leave them as is. What do you think?

I would keep the cash in the form of the Visa GCs. A Disney GC is only good at Disney. The Visa GC will be accepted just about everywhere.

 

[davper]

+1 keep as is

 

[katmatry]

I have a STASH of visa gift cards. We fully intend on spending every last dime of them on our trip. I've been going back and forth about whether I should convert them to Disney gift cards for ease of use around the world or just leave them as is. What do you think?

I would convert them to Disney gift cards. A 20% hold is placed on a visa gift card when used at a restaurant so that if a tip is placed on a card it will not exceed the cards balance. So only $80 of a $100 visa gift card can be used toward your restaurant meal, keeping track of balances could become annoying. I have also found with visa gift cards that if you have a balance of 18.12 on the card and your purchase is 20.12 the card will be declined. By knowing your balance this can be corrected but, again, annoying. I've never had these issues with Disney gift cards on Disney property.

 

[brooke789]

Personally, I would not store Visa GCs. There are known scams where someone has gotten the card number off in store and just waited for someone to purchase it and steals the money off the card. With a stash you'd honestly probably be none the wiser because you'd think you'd already spent that gift card. I'd just keep your money as regular cash in a savings account or something.

 

[eliza61]

Personally, I would not store Visa GCs. There are known scams where someone has gotten the card number off in store and just waited for someone to purchase it and steals the money off the card. With a stash you'd honestly probably be none the wiser because you'd think you'd already spent that gift card. I'd just keep your money as regular cash in a savings account or something.

I think op already has the visa gc's and the choice is between the visa gc's or turning them inot disney gc's.

I'm the queen of flexibility. as previous poster mentioned, visa gc's can be used anywhere. that's why I stopped buying disney gc's in the first place. At the end of the trip I would come back with a few left and be annoyed that I couldn't use them anywhere else. I never shop at Disney.com

 

[wenrob]

I would convert them to Disney gift cards. A 20% hold is placed on a visa gift card when used at a restaurant so that if a tip is placed on a card it will not exceed the cards balance. So only $80 of a $100 visa gift card can be used toward your restaurant meal, keeping track of balances could become annoying. I have also found with visa gift cards that if you have a balance of 18.12 on the card and your purchase is 20.12 the card will be declined. By knowing your balance this can be corrected but, again, annoying. I've never had these issues with Disney gift cards on Disney property.

This. Plus the Visa gift cards come with fees don't they? I'm not sure if all Visa gifts cards are like this but my mom suddenly started sending the Walmart Visas to my kids and my gosh what a huge pain in the butt they are. I had to register each one to activate it and they wouldn't let me use the same account for them all so I had to create separate accounts for each and by the time I got around to using the last one they had taken fees out. This is on top of the fees my mom already paid to get them. Oy, I despise them.

That said, if you already have them it might not be worth it to roll them to Disney cards since you will have to register/activate them to buy the Disney cards anyway. I would have a look at the fine print and find how long after activation the fees will start. If it's a long way out and you will have them spent before that time then stick with those. If it's fairly soon (the one I got charged for was for Jan 1st on a card bought for Xmas) then I would roll them into the Disney cards. This is assuming they all work the same way.

For me, I generally know how much I'm going to spend and take Disney cards + cash. Usually 3/4 Disney gift card and the rest cash. I have kids so I know if I have something left over I can spend it at the Disney store or save for another trip. I have yet to come back with any though, lol. As the PP mentioned they're easier to keep track of (I use an app and number my cards) and won't be declined if the amount isn't exact.

 

[havaneselover]

Can you buy Disney gift cards and get fuel points? If so that's what I would do. I cannot stand visa gift cards for some of the reasons mentioned above and liquidate them ASAP.

 

[scrapquitler]

I have a STASH of visa gift cards. We fully intend on spending every last dime of them on our trip. I've been going back and forth about whether I should convert them to Disney gift cards for ease of use around the world or just leave them as is. What do you think?

One is going to be just as easy as the other to use. And if you happen to have some left over at the end of the trip, you can still spend the Visa ones elsewhere, if they were Disney ones, you'd be stuck. I'd leave them as is.

 

[PollyannaMom]

If I had a large number of them, I would convert them all to one Disney card in advance for the sake of convenience.

 

[Ngwira]

If I had a large number of them, I would convert them all to one Disney card in advance for the sake of convenience.

How do you do this?

 

[PollyannaMom]

How do you do this?

I assumed she meant she was considering taking them to the Disney Store and using them to buy a Disney gift card.

 

[KTrain15]

Personally, I would not store Visa GCs. There are known scams where someone has gotten the card number off in store and just waited for someone to purchase it and steals the money off the card. With a stash you'd honestly probably be none the wiser because you'd think you'd already spent that gift card. I'd just keep your money as regular cash in a savings account or something.

I'm not buying the visa gift cards, they were given out at work as an incentive to do extra shifts (and boy, did I do some extra shifts).

 

[KTrain15]

I assumed she meant she was considering taking them to the Disney Store and using them to buy a Disney gift card.

Or buying wherever I can find disney gift cards......but maybe the disney store would be an easier bet

 

[My3Princez]

If you are staying onsite, I would just charge everything to the room using your magicband and then go to the desk and pay down the balance using the Visa cards before you hit your limit. (i.e. - if you are in a value resort, you can charge up to $500 to the room before they actually charge your credit card on file. The $ limit varies with the resort level.) That way, you don't have to deal with the restaurant hold issue on the Visa gift cards. Any money not spent in Disney can then be spent elsewhere since it's not locked on Disney cards.

 

[Ngwira]

I assumed she meant she was considering taking them to the Disney Store and using them to buy a Disney gift card.

I thought you meant there was a way to convert multiple Disney GC's to a single GC.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

I would charge back to the room and pay it down every few days with the visa GC's.

We have bought Disney giftcards and that's what our plan will be while at WDW.

 

[brooke789]

I'd still burn the GCs ASAP as your money may disappear. The issues I've read about seem to be at the store level and also factory/distribution level. I would not sit on them no matter how I obtained.

 

[supersnoop]

I thought you meant there was a way to convert multiple Disney GC's to a single GC.

Nope, not possible, other than using a Disney Vacation Account.

 

[Ngwira]

Nope, not possible, other than using a Disney Vacation Account.

Thank you.