- Joined
- Oct 22, 2008
- Messages
- 5,281
- Reaction score
- 4,900
- Location
- Rural Alabama
- Resorts Owned
- DVC:
Grand Floridian
Copper Creek
Beach Club Villas
Hilton Head Island
Marriott:
Barony Beach
Mountainside
We have a Sam's Club membership which allows us to buy electronic Disney Gift cards at 5% off face value. Costco occasionally sells the same for 10% (Sam's has special sales in this range too). On a previous visit, I tried to use DVC gift cards purchased at Costco and it was a PIA because without a physical card, you're forced to enter two long strings of numbers to make a purchase with a gift card. I was storing the card as a screenshot in my photo album on my phone, whereas my DVC blue card (for DVC discounts) is in my digital wallet and switching between the two at the time of payment was annoying. I could not figure out how to add these gift cards to my digital wallet, even though in theory I should be able to and the DVC gift card customer service is downright rude!
I came across a PlanDisney post that suggested buying a small denomination DVC giftcard directly from the Disney Store because these come with a "button" in the email to push to add the digital card to my Apple wallet. I was leery of doing this because my other digital cards also "should" have come with this button.
However, I did it and it worked perfectly. I was able to add the Disney-purchased $25 gift card to my Apple wallet and then transfer the balances from the Sam's purchased cards using this website. https://www.disneygiftcard.com/checkbalance It sounds complicated but once you get the hang of it, it only takes a few seconds.
Once the card is in your digital wallet, you can show the digital card to your waiter/sales person and they can quickly scan a bar code when you pay. In table service restaurants, the waiter needs to take you phone away for a moment. But it was very easy and trouble-free to use.
Overall, a 5% savings wasn't worth the hassle to us with the mechanics of using it without the card in our digital wallet. However, once I was able to get the card into my Apple Wallet, it was so easy to use that I expect to continue paying this way. The limitations are that you can't use it for mobile ordering without typing in all the long string of numbers on the card (not worth it) and if you want to use it to pay for a resort stay, most resorts charge your credit card daily or every few days so you have to go to the front desk repeatedly (not worth it) but this does not apply to those of us on DVC stays.
Bottom line, last trip we loaded $1000 onto Disney gift cards and thats pretty much what we spent on the trip. Our savings for the trip was $50, which heck is a quirk service meal for 2 and a couple of park snacks. The savings added up when combined with 10-20% DVC or AP discounts. I estimate between the two forms of discounts that we saved overall around 10% on the cash expenditures on our most recent trip (alcohol and tips are not discounted). We had also used 10% savings Disney Gift cards purchased at Costco and Sams on Black Friday to pay our dues. Whatever painless things we can do to drive the cost of these trips down!
YMMV- some of you might find more benefit in paying with a reward credit card. We did not apply to the Disney Visa when it came out because we had just gotten a new IHG card. We don't travel to WDW every year, so there's no point in our considering it until Dec 2027, our next planned trip. Who knows, maybe there will be some even better hack to use at that time! Just thought I would report these details. It works if you have a Sam's membership, which I got cheaply through work.
I came across a PlanDisney post that suggested buying a small denomination DVC giftcard directly from the Disney Store because these come with a "button" in the email to push to add the digital card to my Apple wallet. I was leery of doing this because my other digital cards also "should" have come with this button.
However, I did it and it worked perfectly. I was able to add the Disney-purchased $25 gift card to my Apple wallet and then transfer the balances from the Sam's purchased cards using this website. https://www.disneygiftcard.com/checkbalance It sounds complicated but once you get the hang of it, it only takes a few seconds.
Once the card is in your digital wallet, you can show the digital card to your waiter/sales person and they can quickly scan a bar code when you pay. In table service restaurants, the waiter needs to take you phone away for a moment. But it was very easy and trouble-free to use.
Overall, a 5% savings wasn't worth the hassle to us with the mechanics of using it without the card in our digital wallet. However, once I was able to get the card into my Apple Wallet, it was so easy to use that I expect to continue paying this way. The limitations are that you can't use it for mobile ordering without typing in all the long string of numbers on the card (not worth it) and if you want to use it to pay for a resort stay, most resorts charge your credit card daily or every few days so you have to go to the front desk repeatedly (not worth it) but this does not apply to those of us on DVC stays.
Bottom line, last trip we loaded $1000 onto Disney gift cards and thats pretty much what we spent on the trip. Our savings for the trip was $50, which heck is a quirk service meal for 2 and a couple of park snacks. The savings added up when combined with 10-20% DVC or AP discounts. I estimate between the two forms of discounts that we saved overall around 10% on the cash expenditures on our most recent trip (alcohol and tips are not discounted). We had also used 10% savings Disney Gift cards purchased at Costco and Sams on Black Friday to pay our dues. Whatever painless things we can do to drive the cost of these trips down!
YMMV- some of you might find more benefit in paying with a reward credit card. We did not apply to the Disney Visa when it came out because we had just gotten a new IHG card. We don't travel to WDW every year, so there's no point in our considering it until Dec 2027, our next planned trip. Who knows, maybe there will be some even better hack to use at that time! Just thought I would report these details. It works if you have a Sam's membership, which I got cheaply through work.
