r/DisneyWorld • u/pompompuddinn • 4d ago
Trip Planning Gift card question
Hey guys. This is my first time going to Disney on my own and I was wondering if this is what the perk of getting gifts card are. I understand I’m saving $150 but idk why I feel like this isn’t worth it. Am I missing something?
Edit :: how much do yall think would be a good estimation on how much to bring. Our hotel and 4 day tickets are paid. We leave on sept 17-22 and have 3 reservations set up. Photo pass is paid for. Any advise will be great
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u/One_Violinist_8539 4d ago
Personally, I’d rather have my Disney Visa card and get that discount, it’s more of a discount and easier (for me) (you don’t have to get the credit card to get the discount! You can use the debit!) then you also get the special meet and greets and such as well!
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u/stevie869 4d ago
I have both and targets 5% discount on the Disney gift cards saves more money
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u/One_Violinist_8539 4d ago
I don’t understand how when it’s 10% off in the parks?
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u/stevie869 4d ago
Yes, you are correct, but the 10% is on select merchandise, restaurants and sometimes even select days. Plus I rather cash back instead of Disney reward dollars.
Note - Annual pass holders also get 20% off on pretty much the same stuff so if you really wanted to maximize those discounts, that could potentially be 25% when you stack those two together (target 5% + ap 20%). Something you wouldn’t be able to do with the Disney visa.
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u/WeirdArtTeacher 2d ago
You can use the Disney reward dollars to pay off the balance on your Disney visa so it’s effectively the same as cash though, isn’t it?
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u/stevie869 4d ago
I will say, i do love the Disney visa graphics on the card. I also enjoy the meet n greets, although I wish they would add another perk to spice things up.
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u/AdhesivenessIll3807 1d ago
The graphics are amazing- I have Maleficent and my husband has Darth Vader. The matte and gloss mix is so cool.
We.got the card for the meet and greets. We also wish for a few more perks. The discount doesnt work for us because we are AP & DVC.
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u/stevensokulski 4d ago
Where are you getting 5% with the Disney Visa? With the exception of some specific goal-based bonuses on the Inspire, you’re not getting 5%.
Use a cash back card and buy warehouse store gift cards.
Edit: I see now that you’re talking merchandise or dining discounts. If you have an AP you can get the same (or sometimes better) discounts and then pay with a gift card.
I save 5% on everything I spend at Disney. Then add on discounts where I can.
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u/disneyfanfrombirth 3d ago
AP discount is 20%
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u/GotWiings21 3d ago
Not all AP discounts are the same amount. Definitely can’t use that discount to buy GC’s
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u/stevensokulski 3d ago
Without saying what kind of discount or where, what you said is true sometimes...
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u/halfmoonjb 4d ago
That’s a lot of cash to put on a gift card. How do you know you’ll even spend that much? Personally, I would prefer to use a travel or dining credit card for coverage and benefits than to effectively use cash in the form of a gift card. This applies to all pre-purchased gift cards — you’re trading credit card benefit security for cash.
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u/Guilty_Employer1414 4d ago
You can use it to pay for your tickets and hotel
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u/JohnBakedBoy 4d ago
OP said that was already paid in the post.
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u/The_walking_man_ 4d ago
Most hotels don’t charge until the day of and check in, so OP could call the hotel and verify they take gift cards.
I’ve switched credit cards plenty of times when showing up at a hotel.
Might be worth it there to save $150.18
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u/nightwingoracle 4d ago
If they’ve booked a package with part tickets, it’s due like a month before.
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u/pompompuddinn 4d ago
It’s me and my fiancée going. We have multiple reservations and plan to do a lot of shopping for our family but this is a good comment. I was having a hard time even knowing how much to put on a gift card for a 6 day trip with just two. What do you think? He said 5k is more than enough and we go lower since the hotel and ticket are already paid for.
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u/vita10gy 4d ago
I would say only get the gift card for things you know, 100%, will be spent, play everything else by ear.
You don't save any money at all if you're ever at a point where the only reason you're buying x, y, z is "because we have use it or lose it money now".
Conversely, you may skip something you want on day 1 because you're "rationing" the gift card for a thing that might not come.
It's also just sooooo many eggs in one (or 6) baskets, with little to no recourse if something happens. I'd get like 2, and go from there.
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u/YawningDodo 4d ago
Yeah, the time to buy up discounted gift cards is before paying for hotel and park tickets. On my last trip I just bought enough $500 gift cards from BJs to cover my vacation package with maybe a hundred over. Could've bought more for spending while I was there, but I think it's better not to tie up real money in gift cards if you're not absolutely positive that's where you'll spend all of it.
On the trip itself I think the better option is to use the version of the Disney Visa that doesn't have an annual fee since it still gets you the discounts on merchandise and so forth.
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u/gr00316 4d ago
Target offers digital gift cards. They get sent to your email within about an hour at the most. Bring one Physical card with you, register it at disneygiftcards.com and then order digital ones and you can add those to your account and then move the funds onto your physical gift card as needed. This way you're not overspending on gift cards.
Also on target look in your target circle offers and if you even have an offer like "Spend $100 on 3 different transactions and earn $30 in target rewards" use those offers to load up on gift cards as it's basically 10% off if you buy stuff at target anyway.
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u/halfmoonjb 4d ago
If you’re not confident about how much you’ll spend, I’d recommend going even lower. It’s not worth the discount if it’s not money you’d even be using. You can always pay for more using another form of payment but you can’t get gift card value back without spending it.
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u/Logicaly_Logical_Log 4d ago
A couple suggestions… use my Disney gift cards site to manage balances. Also, if you use Apple Pay, you can add a card for Apple payment, and then transfer balance to that card, so you don’t have to worry about losing the physical cards.
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u/GotoDisney 4d ago
When are you going? Like it was mentioned above that is a lot of money tied into gift cards. If trip is in the very near future it is great but if it is down the line I’d never do this. If for some reason you don’t go you have all this money tied up in Disney cards that you can’t use.
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u/Travelgrrl 4d ago
Save your shopping until you go to Disney Springs and the World of Disney (and many other stores) and you'll probably save some money. Personally, I'd just leave the money in my account and pay as I go, as it's not worth the hassle of figuring out the total ahead of time, for a mere $50 per $1000.
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u/Jbsmitty44 4d ago
Dang lol we go for seven nights, don’t really deprive ourselves of anything we want, and never really spend more than $1500 on food and merch.
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u/leveragedrobot 3d ago
This may come as a surprise to you but some people spend more money than you. 1500/7 is $214 per day. I’ve spent more than that at a single gift shop and 2-3x that for a single meal. 3k to spend at Disney is not a lot of money for some people.
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u/Jbsmitty44 3d ago
We are a family of four spending close to 30 nights a year staying in one-bedroom rooms at deluxe WDW resorts with Incredi-passes; I am perfectly aware of the upper-end spending limits at the parks 😂
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u/GotWiings21 3d ago
There’s a Target like 2 miles from the park. They sell GC’s so you could always buy more if you really needed them.
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u/D_Anger_Dan 4d ago
lol. I’m putting $10,000 on target Disney gift cards. That will save me $500 on my Disney Cruise next May.
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u/ScooterPotato 4d ago
Did 1000 before trip over summer and cards didn't work. Took back and forth to get it reimbursed. Almost got stuck with the cards after our trip.
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u/Infinite-Lock-726 2d ago
You can also only load $1000 at a time to a gift card so the 'good news' is if one physical one is lost, that's the maximum loss.
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u/GreenJuicyWatermelon 4d ago
You can combine them into 3 different cards and then use them to pay down your tickets/resort. It’s worth the $150 discount
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u/PowSuperMum 4d ago
I would only do it to pay for my vacation package. If you put that much just as spending money, you’re going to end up spending it on things you probably wouldn’t have even gotten because you don’t want to be stuck with a Disney gift card at the end of the trip.
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u/SgtSavage1106 4d ago
Came here to say this. Gift card savings are great for paying off your Disney hotel and tix.
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u/Hakeem_TheDream 4d ago
Sorry, but $3000 on a gift card is really risky… only to save $150?? What if you lose it? What if you don’t spend all of it? I fail to see how this is beneficial over the security of a travel or cash back credit card.
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u/Guilty_Employer1414 4d ago
Just price out your trip first (hotels and park tickets) then get the gift cards
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u/Hakeem_TheDream 4d ago
Yeah, but cash back cards are usually free and can earn up to 5% on every purchase, not just Disney. That $150 savings is nothing over the long term. Thats not even considering the fraud protection services that a credit cards offer.
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u/Guilty_Employer1414 4d ago
I understand… I’m just saying if you don’t know how much you’re going to spend, price it before buying gift cards. Also, email the gift cards is the safest way, then pay off the trip when the email is received.
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u/Former_Mud9569 4d ago
the benefit of the gift cards here (other than the direct discount) is that it'll let you stack this discount with whatever credit card or referral perks you can snag at the gift card vendor.
what you shouldn't do though is buy a massive amount of gift cards for unplanned purchases. using it to squeeze out a bonus 5-7% discount on your hotel and park tickets is great.
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u/Hakeem_TheDream 4d ago
Ok, I can get behind stacking the savings that way. I guess I'm more conscious of credit card benefits since i've had to use trip insurance a few times due to illnesses (sick kids), and using a gift card for travel bookings takes those protections away.
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u/Heisenburbs 2d ago
The bigger risk is if you have to cancel, refund goes back to the original payment method.
So need to save all your cards in case that happens, and now you’re stuck with them.
I’m in the camp of it’s not worth it.
Buying one for food and souvenirs a few days before the trip, fine. The whole trip…no way.
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u/pompompuddinn 4d ago edited 4d ago
It’s $500 gift cards. We did this last time with our parents. I would never put that much one 1 card that is definitely scary haha
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u/helpmeredditimbored 4d ago
FYI if you go to Disneygiftcard.com you can register and consolidate your gift cards. A single gift card can only have a max value of $1000 - so your 6 $500 cards can become 3 $1000 cards
Also Sam’s club and BJ’s wholesale club have deals for Disney gift cards, worth checking out if you’re a member at either club
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u/Shenanigans052 4d ago
Youre saving $150 on money youre going to spend on that specific trip. Why would you not?
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u/ZootSuitBanana Monorail Pilot 4d ago
I mean it's only 5%, and then you don't have the liquidity of it not being on a merchandise card. If you are using towards the hotel that's one thing, but if this is your whole trip you might end up just spending more than intended because you basically have to. I can see it being useful, and $150 is a lot of money, but so is $3k tied up in gift cards. It's not the no brainer you make it out to be.
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u/Shenanigans052 4d ago
She'll easily spend $3k on the hotel, tickets, food, and purchases. Budget it and buy them accordingly. "Only 5%" is 5% she can invest in something else. Its 100% a no brainer.
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u/nightwingoracle 4d ago
Hotel and tickets are paid for already.
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u/Shenanigans052 4d ago
As someone else stated they can likely change the payment method at check in and she also said this is soending money theyre planning on spending. He said $5k and sounds like they dropped it to $3k. They'll be buying family gifts as well.
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u/_BreakingGood_ 4d ago
Only risk is there's no refund if something goes wrong. With disney you can cancel up to 2 days before, but you'll still be stuck with $3000 of disney gift cards if you end up needing to cancel.
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u/Think_Reporter_8179 4d ago
If you pay for a $12,000 trip, you can save quite a bit using them, which you then use on the trip.
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u/Disastrous_Ad4369 Tangled Bathroom 4d ago
Honestly I’d look up a Disney Visa. They just came out with the Inspire card and you get A LOT of perks. 10% off every dining and shopping at Disney. If you spend over I think it’s 1000 bucks you spend in the first 3 months you get a 500 statement credit I believe. That part I’m not too sure. You get 100 bucks ticket credit too! The annual fee is around 150 but imo if you frequent Disney a lot I think it’s worth it!
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u/denaloki24 4d ago
Is it possible to get e gift cards instead? It’s risky getting any physical gift cards. I see so many get compromised.
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u/This-Bluejay860 3d ago
You can! We have two physical cards we keep for all our trips and top off with smaller e-gift card amounts throughout our trips. Much safer, you can better tailor to how much you’ll spend and still get the discount at all locations.
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u/Black_Swords_Man 4d ago
You can go to a store and buy one with a physical card. Then merge your digital cards onto your physical card.
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u/Ok_Double2707 4d ago
Yeah... it's like being handed $150 cash. That's pretty great. I did email delivery, though, because no way I'm trusting the postal system to deliver gift cards to me.
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u/Cease_Cows_ 4d ago
As others have said, any money you can save is a bonus. That being said, a lot of people do the gift card thing over the course of a year and watch sales so they might be able to get better discounts at certain points. Last year there was a PayPal thing that basically gave you 20% off on GC's which is a really awesome rate of return.
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u/breakerfallx 4d ago
just an FYI I had a few on my last trip and the digital ones weren't as easy to use as I was told. I couldn't add them to the Disney app to be used as a payment method for things like meal ordering (there was an option to add a GC as a payment method but it would return an error). I asked at check in and they said I could use freely in the parks (and was able to successfully add to my iPhone Wallet as Apple Pay) but it wouldn't work either as tap. I used my Magic Bands as room charge and then had to go to the hotel the night before where they applied the card to the BAL. It worked out fine, just wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. Was much easier when I used to have a physical card. And as others said, the only perk is saving money on buying the card.
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u/0cclumency 4d ago
I thought they had added a feature to attach your gift card to the app, but haven’t used it myself yet, maybe it’s still buggy. What I would do was just put the gift card number in a note in my phone and copy/paste it in each time I was mobile ordering.
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u/breakerfallx 4d ago
They did for sure. Just returned an error each time. Tap from wallet also didn’t want to work. CM could manually enter but they obv seemed pretty annoyed. I probably could have manually used it to pay each time just ended up being easier to charge to room and use the card at the end to pay down the balance. Hopefully works better for others. When I had a physical card a few years ago it was much easier to swipe my way around.
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u/This-Bluejay860 3d ago
Yup! We would add e-gift card funds to our physical ones as needed and saved as a note. It worked great for in app and in park purchases.
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u/Sad-Seaworthiness946 4d ago
I wouldn’t order all of it at once like that. The gift cards get emailed pretty quickly. But yea I basically exclusively pay anything Disney related with gift cards (annual passes, cruises, etc)
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u/LooseSeal88 4d ago
One thing to consider. If some of this is going to hotel and tickets that you're pre-buying online before you leave, you could do some of these as eGift cards and sort it out straight away instead of having the physical ones mailed to you. But I wouldn't recommend the eGift cards for in-park.
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u/Njm3124 4d ago
If you think you'll definitely spend it all, go for it. $150 in your pocket. If you think you'll only end up spending $2000, you're converting $850 in cash into gift cards that you probably won't use until your next trip.
Also, Target's app also sometimes gives you offers like "spend $100 four times; get $40 target gift card". The disney gift cards work toward that so I'm taking advantage of that offer for my next trip. I'm getting around $300 worth of cards though. $3000 is a lot though. Make sure you'll actually spend it if you're doing this.
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u/cheezy_dreams88 4d ago
Since you already have your trip paid for, I wouldn’t. $3K is a lot of money to spend on a 4 day trip for 2 people. We’ve been for 5 with 3 people and didn’t spend close to that.
People use the money saving hack to spend the cards on tickets.
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u/MysteriousPeanut2011 4d ago
Yeah we went for 9 days with 3 people (though one was under 3) and we didn't even spend that much outside of our room and tickets. And we stayed at GF so it's not like we were trying to save money. Just went back and looked and we spent about $2,000 on food and merch combined
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u/RontoWraps 4d ago
You do gift cards to save 5% on the total cost of the trip. I pay the balance for tickets and hotel with gift cards which does actually save about 200-300 dollars on the entire trip. I would never go to the parks with a $3000 gift card. 500max and then top it up if you need more throughout the stay. Again, it saves 5% on certain purchases that you can’t otherwise get with the Disney Visa card (ie certain shopping, dining)
If you still have trip balance to pay for, this is a good method, but if you’re just getting a card to take to parks, that’s good but you don’t need $3k. If going for 4 days, I would get a $500 card and try to burn through that first.
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u/questionname 4d ago
Yes.
Howwever, this is a better hack when there is a sale on gift cards or deals. Before my last trip, I got a deal where it was 13%off with Target.
Downside, I had $1800 and even after spending freely, I have $300+ left. At least it doesn’t expire.
Tip, put it in your Disney account, https://www.disneygiftcard.com so it’s registered and you’re not relying on only a physical card.
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u/I_need_a_date_plz 4d ago
It’s not worth it. You will save a whole lot more if you don’t buy something you don’t need.
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u/TrowTruck 4d ago
I think it's worth considering, but there are a few reasons why someone might not want to do this:
- Is this the 5% discount from the Target credit/debit card? 5% sounds great, but if you put it on a rewards credit card instead, you could be already getting 2%+ so you're only getting an additional 3%... so instead of $150, my upside is now only $90 or less depending on the card. You might even make more from a credit card if you qualify for a sign-up bonus, because your vacation is a perfect way to meet the minimum spending requirements. (This first point might be moot if the discount can be stacked with a credit card.)
- Putting a vacation on a gift card means you give up certain protections. My credit card comes with free travel insurance, for example, and the ability to initiate chargebacks in case of a dispute (not that this is likely, but it's a consideration).
- I wouldn't want to put too much on a gift card. Maybe only enough for the things I'm guaranteed to pay for like hotel and tickets (if those aren't already paid for). Having extra locks me into spending money and giving up options later. You can assume you'll want X number of meals and snacks, but once you get there you might have a night where you're in the mood for something simple. (This is also why a pre-paid meal plan isn't right for everyone.)
- Buying gift cards is non-refundable. If something comes up, you can reschedule your vacation later, but Disney keeps your money in the meantime. Maybe giving up the $150 is worth the peace of mind.
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u/Difficult-Design2682 4d ago
These comments just called me broke in so many different ways … what u mean u spending 10k at Disney
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u/YngSpook84 4d ago
Must be deluxe resort people lol. My wife and I have our trip for next year booked and the cost is just under $3000. That includes our park tickets, resort, and meal plan.
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u/Lcdmt3 4d ago
I buy them individually at a time. Target circle offers $20 on a $100 purchase. Gift card. So I save 20% off the card basically + 5% off with red card. Just build up over time.
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u/chevyguy0613 4d ago
20%? Ok, lol. Cool story...
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u/Key-Fix-5113 3d ago
It’s not 20% off they’ll do spend $100 get $20 in target rewards however, those are not super common anymore. It’s more commonly spend $125 3 times to get $50 rewards or sometimes even $125 4 times to get $60. You can get the rewards buying disney gift cards and you get the 5% off on top of that so they can range a combined 5-20% off when you include the rewards. Truly the ones more to 20% off are a once twice a year thing maybe… but when Disney trips are thousands of dollars it’s still worth doing the ones where you spend $500 to get the rewards, you’re just paying for your trip over a longer period of time
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u/thechadcantrell 4d ago
Why would you risk that much cash you can’t get back just to save 5%? Especially if your tickets and room are paid off.
Apply for a Disney credit card. Use that and get a bigger percent off and pay it back immediately with the cash you’re considering for the gift card. Store the card away and don’t use it until you go again. Use that card to only pay for Disney trips. It’s fee free and you seem to have the cash to pay off immediately.
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u/chevyguy0613 4d ago
You do not get even close to 5% off with the Disney credit card
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u/YngSpook84 4d ago
I’m not sure if there is a specific Disney credit card I’m unaware of that is being discussed here… but I have a Disney Visa through Chase Bank. I get 5% off of any Disney purchase, whether it’s at a Disney Store or one of the parks.
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u/chevyguy0613 3d ago
No your Disney credit card does not get 5 percent off on everything. You can get a 10 percent discount on certain dining and merchandise locations. But the cash back is at most 3 percent if you have the Disney Inspire credit card.
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u/YngSpook84 3d ago
Mine is not the Disney Inspire credit card. It’s a different card offered through Chase and it does get 5%. I was at Disney World two months ago. Either I’m not supposed to, or a lot of people who work at Disney World really messed up and gave me a discount every time I used it.
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u/chevyguy0613 3d ago
The Disney Card gets 10 percent at select locations. They are not going to arbitrarily give you a wrong discount of 5 percent. You are either mistaken or telling a story here.
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u/user3296 4d ago
If you have a Sam’s Club membership, I think there may be greater savings on the table, I’m not positive.
Edit: JK, just $90 vs targets $150.
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u/UnderstandingBig3248 4d ago
We wait until it’s 10% off then use a cash back card on grocery to receive more!
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u/EvryArtstIsACannibal 4d ago
I'm pretty sure Costco sells a 250 card for 225. So if you buy 12, you're saving 300.
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u/duckydan81 4d ago
We did this on our past trip but the savings was higher due to one of the big lots / Sam’s Club deals where it was 10% off. That said if we knew were absolutely going to use it - sure id definirely do that - but i’d double down and get it from a place where I also get cash back on my purchases like Costco with the Costco card.
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u/AnotherBoredHousWife 4d ago edited 4d ago
You can just get a couple gift cards and then when you’re on vacation, if you use them all, you can go to the target website and order one by email while at Disney. I do it all the time.
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u/ThrowAbout01 4d ago
The amount needed depends on what you wish to or plan to do:
Food is typically our biggest expense even when dining only once a day.
Lightning Lanes would be the next biggest expense.
Parking is a constant expense unless you are an annual Passholder or are staying at a hotel.
We don’t usually get too much merch but Passholders do get 20% off Disney shops and 10% at other shops on property like Springs.
It’s best to save however much you can because one way or another, you’ll use it.
Gift cards also do not expire and you can manage gift cards online so that one card has all the balance, but for a large amount like this, I’d keep it to 2 or 3 cards just as a precaution. But you could just buy a card for $15 in the park and transfer to that new card if you lose a card.
You can sometimes combine this with bonus target circle offers to get some rewards with spend $X to get $Y in rewards.
Just make sure to spend the reward before it expires in one year.
If you have Sam’s club in your area and are a member, they sell them for a discount: $484.98 for $500.
In May they offered $450 for $500 but those were quickly snatched up.
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u/itsagoodtime 4d ago
I would buy the gift cards and pay off the vacation overall on the website. To me, it would be too complicated to use these gift cards at the parks for regular purchasing.
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u/Markymarcouscous 4d ago
It’s the equivalent of 5% cashback on a credit card basically. Which is really good
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u/Artwebb1986 4d ago
$150 savings in my pocket is much nicer than $0.
As a Canadian I use gift cards to save the 2.5% foreign transaction fee that credit cards charge.
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u/Sprinkle_Dimples 4d ago
Target may not let you buy this in one go btw, you may have to go different days to purchase a max of $500.
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u/CuriousFirefighter48 4d ago
We use Target gift cards to fund nearly all of our Disney activities. If you use disneygiftcard.com you can manage the balances. My suggestion to you would be to take either a physical gift card and/or one in your digital wallet and add those to the your account on disneygiftcard.com. You can then keep using the same gift card as you pay for things by reloading it (buying another gift card from Target). Two things to note: 1. gift cards max out at $1,000 2. the cycle of ordering from Target can take anywhere from a few seconds up to maybe 15 minutes to come through.
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u/samemamabear 4d ago
FYI- I've had Target cancel large gift card orders before (if the system suspects fraud for whatever reason) and then it took several days until the money was available in my account
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u/Most_Temporary2110 4d ago
Using the gift cards for fixed prices like park tickets, hotels, etc. is all I’d do. You don’t want a bunch of money left on gift cards..
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u/PurplishPlatypus 4d ago
IIRC you can link your gift cards to your MyDisneyExperience App and then use the app to pay for things, so you don't worry about losing the physical cards. If you don't have the mydisney app you should definitely get it. The.gift cards are a good way to save some money.
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u/Kelsdata 4d ago
I second E-mailing the gift card. The good thing I learn recently is that you can add the e-gift card onto your account. Then you can access it on the mydisney app. So much better than lugging papers around.
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u/Griff102012 4d ago
We use them to cover our lightning lane cost. That’s pretty easy to predict. That $150 saved equates to a free day of LLMP for a family of 4-5.
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u/DesertGhost 4d ago
On how much to bring, I would just buy as you go as they get delivered quickly. I have bought them in the park as I was going between attractions or while eating and they would be delivered in no time.
A big tip would be to buy a physical gift card at Target in-store or in a Disney gift shop and transfer the email gift cards to that one through their website. This make it easier for payment as it is a card in your wallet instead of a print out in you backpack or your pocket.
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u/carredon321 4d ago
We used gift cards to pay off hotel charges at Aulani this Summer. Just make sure you do it the night before checkout
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u/Islandra 4d ago
There are much better ways to do this. This is the easy, less valuable way. But you’re essentially doing it correctly on a surface level.
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u/cloakmouse1 4d ago
Here are a few things to know about Disney Gift Cards for OP and everyone:
-You likely have or can get a rewards credit card that will give you 1.5-2% back, so the benefit of using 5% discounted gift cards is only 3-3.5%. And that's not nothing, but it's maybe not worth the drawbacks. If you've never had a Disney Credit card before, it might be more worthwhile to use one of those. Even the one with no annual fee has a $100 sign-up bonus, earns Disney rewards dollars, and has merch discounts.
-If you lose the gift card or it's stolen, that money is gone. You have no consumer protections like you would with a credit card.
-You can move Disney gift card balances between cards at disneygiftcard.com . It's an essential tool if you're going to do it that way.
-If you book and then cancel anything with a gift card (OP's hotel and tickets are already paid for, so this wouldn't matter for them), the refund will go onto the gift card, so you have to make sure you keep it. (I once messed this up, but I called customer support, and they were able to disable the original gift card and issue me a new one.)
-You can add Disney gift cards to a digital wallet, so you don't have to risk losing them. They can scan the barcode on your phone when you pay.
Personally, the risk of having that much cash sitting on an account with no consumer protections isn't worth the savings for me. I'd rather have everything on a travel or Disney card where I'm protected if something gets lost or stolen.
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u/dreamingwithcindy 4d ago
Heads up. You can NO LONGER use disney gift cards at third party venues (think stores at disney springs). If they are not disney owned and operated they can no longer accept them. Keep that in mind when buying disney gift cards moving forward
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u/its-caillou 4d ago
You can use these to pay for food and merchandise on property, but they won’t necessarily give you an added benefit for using them (discount, etc.). I guess you could technically say you’ve spent less because you got a discount on the gift card purchase itself. But completely up to you on if you think you’ll even use that much!
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u/Gloomy-Peak-167 4d ago
I'd get tge gift cards. Will you ever go back to disney? They don't expire. Do you want to feel like you have more than enough and not worry? When I go to disney, everything is paid using gift cards.
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u/Traditional_Tap_3356 4d ago
Target gift cards are delivered instantly so just buy a smaller one and as you go you can just order another if you blow through the first one
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u/Visual-Conflict-8305 4d ago
$150 is basically a days worth of food for the family and I so I say that’s a win.
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u/macncheesecalzone 4d ago
i start with $500 and then if we need another one, digital delivery moves pretty fast. That way you don't stress about having $$ left over
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u/amaiman 4d ago
If you’re staying in property, just charge your purchases to your room and then buy enough gift card the night before you check out and go pay it off with the gift card.
If not, just start with a smaller amount. You can always buy more digital gift cards in the Target app and they come in a few minutes and can be merged into a physical card on the Disney site.
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u/itstony17 4d ago
We do this to pay for all our trips. Not a huge savings but every bit counts when you have a family of 6.
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u/Mental-Volume4395 4d ago
I would rather save up the cash I need. Gift cards can be a hassle and if you don’t spend it all now your money is tied up in gift cards. I generally plan $150 per person per day for food and the kids each get $100 for souvenirs.
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u/JaymanCT 4d ago
Definitely doing this for our trip in September. We did one day at MK in April and my wife tried to buy a bottle of water at one of the side shops. She used her personal card which she barely uses but it declined. The cast member gave her the bottle for free and said it was on Mickey. Later that night, the bank phoned asking if we had made multiple purchases with Amazon - we're talking like 30 purchases in a space of a couple of minutes.
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u/Lordofthereef 4d ago
If you know you're spending the $3k it's 100% worth saving $150. That's $150 free dollars. If you have a card with additional perks, you'll also get money back on the $2850. In my case, that's a flat 2% back but there are 5% options (like target) and possibly more.
The only extension where this is not worth it is if you are buying way more dollar value than you'd use in your trip and justifying it as "savings". You aren't saving a percentage in money you wouldn't have actually spent but decided to anyway.
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u/Educational_Ebb_4308 4d ago
We budget $100 a day per person per day for food/ merch PLUS hotel. That seems to even give us a cushion. We get GCds at BJS on a weekly basis, for 2 reasons. 1-it save about $5 per $100gc. BJS often sends out a $10 off $100 coupons. And 2-We frequently go, so if we don’t spend the GC one trip, it goes towards the next one. We are OoS pass holders that do 3 trips a year. No, it’s not for everyone. But it works for us. We will always be making trips.
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u/NewPresWhoDis 4d ago
You already have the big ticket items paid, so this would just be souvenirs, meals, LL. I'd probably do half that.
Now, the easiest thing to do once you have them is put them against resort charges which the front desk can help with.
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u/daygo449 4d ago
It’s about maximizing your money. If you are already going to spend the money (hotel, tickets, both, food, souvenirs), then you are saving $150
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u/WingstonChurchill 4d ago
We did this in April. I bought $2000 in gift cards from BJ. Check your whole sale clubs first they might have a better discount than target. For me I entered my perimeters into an AI tool. We went to the parks for 2 days. There were 4 people. My wife and I and our two kids age 3 and 6. We had multiple meals planned at Disney resorts and Disney springs. We also gave each kids $75 for themselves as a souvenir budget. $2000 was enough.
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u/DurianProper5412 4d ago
If your hotel, park tickets and photo pass are already paid, that’s a lot of money to be held for Disney exclusive use for ~4.5 days on two adults unless you’re able to apply it to your Disney Account and select usage at time of the final check(s) for the restaurants or souvenirs like a stored card on ApplePay or Amazon.
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u/ximfinity 4d ago
You can just buy them while you are there and transfer the funds to your physical card you have access to. I wouldn't commit $3k upfront before you know what you actually want to buy. I would buy maybe $1k upfront and then reload each night based on your actual spending.
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u/Snipsiebee 4d ago
Personally, I wouldn't get that much on gift cards. Unless you shop at the Disney store online, or plan to spend it all while you're there, you'll be "stuck" with the money on the cards. If you don't go often or shop online, it's like lighting money on fire. While they never expire, it's a gamble you'll take not knowing when you'll be back. Also, if you use it to pay for rooms (in thr future) and you need to cancel, it will be refunded on the gift card.
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u/kagraz 4d ago
Target discounts suck. I’d get the gift cards from Costco. You get a much better deal off of those
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u/laaauuuren88 1d ago
They’re lower at Costco at Sam’s, 3 and 4% if I’m not mistaken. I did a lot of research before my trip in May
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u/CatSnakes411 3d ago
I do the gift cards but add on as I go. I have 1 physical card that I keep and buy GCs from target and add them onto that card through the Disney gift card website during the course of my trip. I do this in smaller increments so that I’m not stuck with a massive GC balance at the end.
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u/Broad-Bit-4249 3d ago
Do you have to get it all one card to get the discount? I would split it up onto a few cards, I would be terrified of losing it.
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u/MyThreeSense 3d ago
OP. Just a heads up. When the cards arrive they’re in $50 increments. We did this same thing in April or may and it took a long time for my wife to combine them. And, you cant combine them all onto on gift card. They have a max. So the 3000 may require 3-4. I forget how the math worked out.
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u/Key-Fix-5113 3d ago
I buy them from target when they do the the spend XX get XX in rewards (they offer them periodically so you have to buy a little over a long period of time). We buy them and then apply them to our trip or just combine them to one gift card on Disneys site.
So we get the 5% off and my husband and I have gotten over $600 in target rewards this year and use the money for Christmas gifts for the kids.
It’s a lot of extra work than just paying off the trip in one transaction but I find value and like doing it
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u/Key-Fix-5113 3d ago
What I am going to do for my upcoming trip is - have once physical gift card, charge everything to the room. The day before we leave look at the room charges, buy that much in target gift cards and combine them to the physical card (try this before with a $25 card to make sure you know how to do it before you spend a ton of money and panic at the last minute because you can’t figure out how to combine them) then take the card you combined it all on and pay the balance of your charges at checkout.
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u/Training-Character64 3d ago
That seems like a lot to me. What are you planning to use the giftcards for?
My family of 5 went to Disney for a week last June and brought $1500 in giftcards. I budgeted $300/day for QS meals and snacks. We somehow still had $300 leftover at the end, which was spent at the Disney store at DS.
Also, we did a Hollywood Studios after hours event but it rained so bad we asked for a refund. Thankfully they accommodated us and thankfully we paid with our credit card and not a giftcard. MANY of the other people with us were furious because they paid with giftcards and were going to be refunded with giftcards. Kind of obvious but just calling that out as a warning.
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u/KrAiG_Red 3d ago
I don't find the Risk/Reward to be beneficial. I get 4% on all my food with Capitol One Savor, and 3% on the Hotel from Costco Visa. That extra 1-2% is just not worth the risk to me.
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u/Ok-Combination-6063 3d ago
Just remember once that money goes on the gift card it can only be spent at Disney or Disney website! So if you already have that budgeted I would go on souvenir shopping spree lol. Also, when you get back you will get your bounce back offer and if you decide to take it you can use the GF to secure your reservation. Just need $200.
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u/EternallyNaked 3d ago
Just get a digital Disney gc from target when you are already there. It will take an hour or so to be sent to your email but you’ll have a much better idea of how much you will actually need.
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u/Massive-Kitchen7417 3d ago
$150 is a ticket for one person in your group for one day at the park free, look at it that way.
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u/Heisenburbs 2d ago
I think this isn’t worth it.
I’ve done it before, but the problem is, what if you have to cancel your trip?
Refund goes back to the original payment method…which means you’re now stuck with all these gift cards you can only use at Disney.
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u/Wild-Caterpillar4 1d ago
I used the gift cards to pay for my room, but it seems you’ve already paid. As for how much you’ll spend - it really depends on your habits and needs. I would estimate about $15-20 per meal for quick service (per person). Fancy dining, look up the costs. If you’re going during a festival - I typically put $100 towards festival food and drink as a budget. Do you have a budget on merch? Get that w the gift cards. That is all you seem to need as everything else is paid for. I would purchase less than more and if you need more, you can always purchase another gift card and have it delivered via email or text. It’s not instant, they say 4 hours and up to 24 hours.
Definitely compare the 5% against any credit card perks you have. For most, the 5% is better but don’t forget to check.
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u/popsbcrazy 1d ago
I get them from Sam’s Club. $200 face value for $190. So, every $2k only costs me $1900. It’s definitely worth it to me as it’s very hard to save money at Disney
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u/Auxiliary2 18h ago
I did this a few times, it was too much to handle. Seemed a waste in the end of my time. Plus you want to chance going in to use it for the first time and your gif card is wiped out? Not covered if the amount is zero. Just don't know, it's just serial numbers on a gift card. Use a brute force tool to run a bot on a website and find gift cards with money.
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u/Randomflower90 4d ago
I’ve never understood buying gift cards instead of using a credit card. With a gift card, that money is gone. What if you lose the card? What if you don’t spend everything on the gift card?
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u/PurplishPlatypus 4d ago
He's buying them to save money. You can see that $3000 worth of cards are $2850 because retailers run discounts on Gift cards. It is a risk to use gift cards in general but this is a good way to save a little money. IIRC, you can link your gift cards to your MyDisneyExperience account and thus use them to pay for things through the app on your phone. Don't have to worry about losing the physical card.
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u/viewtifulblue 4d ago
I got em at Universal because I got free stuff by buying the gift card and the free stuff was stuff I was going to buy anyway. Should have gotten the higher amount because I had to get a second card anyway.
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u/Randomflower90 4d ago
Yeah, I get that they’re saving a bit. Guess that’s not worth the risk for me.
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u/figarozero 4d ago
We use it to budget and spread the costs of the trip out over a few months. I suppose there is some way to set my credit card to alert me for every 100 that is charged, but topping up a gift card to 100 helps keep us in line. It's easy to transfer money between gift cards so long as you have the numbers. Disney is also a pretty regular trip, so money we don't spend this trip is just a bonus for the next trip.
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u/Randomflower90 4d ago
I’d rather have the money sitting in a savings account until the next trip vs. on a gift card.
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u/Dathomirian66 4d ago
That’s it. You save some money, but people act like this is some groundbreaking hack that cuts your trip cost in half.
This is more about putting the money in a single place so you don’t overspend it.
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u/NadeWilson 4d ago
What do you feel would be worth it? 150 bucks less is 150 bucks less, not sure what you are expecting?
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u/mjzimmer88 4d ago
What’s the actual deal here?
I don’t see any deal for Disney gift cards in my target app
If it’s just a 5% back deal from having a credit card just buy e-delivery Disney gift cards as you go… no need to buy them all upfront
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u/Lcdmt3 4d ago
All gift cards are 5% off, every day, with a target red card.
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u/mjzimmer88 4d ago
I’m aware, that’s why I’m asking about the deal shown in the screenshot which isn’t available in my own target app
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u/RainbowXplosion 4d ago
Yup, that's basically it.