Ok, any other Canadian Liners out there noticed this?
At our local grocery stores in the gift card section, recently Disney GC’s have been added.
When I read the small print it says it can be used for hotel stays, park tickets, merchandise etc (same as any Disney GC)
BUT
How does this work with the CAD/USD exchange rate? Has anyone used these yet?
I think I may experiment…purchase a $50 CAD Disney GC this week and then next while at The World see how it works using it to purchase anything in USD.
Interested in anyone’s input who may have used them…and also
To Be Continued…
I’m interested in your findings @Kyla307 I’ve seen them at stores in Waterloo, ON and thought the same thing. I’d imagine they’d be in Can $. If not, you may have found the best cost saving opportunity ever!!
I’ve heard (no experienced) that it takes the exchange rate of the day to convert your $50CAD into, say, $39USD. I don’t know if there’s a 2.5% mark up or an exact exchange. I also don’t know if the rate they give you is a premium rate, bank rate or the rate you’d get from the guy on the street reselling old tickets.
you can go online to disneygiftcard.com and check your balance. it will give you the current rate which could be changed (up or down) by the time you use it but it will give you an idea.
I’ve been buying the e-giftcards for a few months now, only downside with them is that they can’t be combined (the hard cards we can get in Canada can be combined at the site above) but i like knowing exactly what i have and in my small town the hard cards are difficult to find.
I have seen these at our local grocery store and too was wondering how the exchange worked, if anybody does try this at Disney World please post your findings. I am going in November and this might be a good idea for my niece instead of a bunch of cash.
Disboards has a fairly extensive post about this. There is no 2.5% exchange fee. I believe they use the exchange rate from the day before. I’ve used one to pay part of our tickets. It is a good option to avoid the exchange fee. Use a credit card to buy and you still get your credit card points. They have them at some Shopper’s too.
I used Canadian Disney gift cards to save for and pay for a good portion of our trip, so I can confirm a few things here:
Disney uses the previous day’s closing mid-market exchange rate. This is generally a percent better than your bank will give you.
There is no exchange fee added on.
If you use DisneyGiftCards.com to transfer the balance from a Canadian gift card to a US gift card, you can lock in the exchange rate. This definitely worked in my favour, since the exchange rate dropped in the month before we travelled.
I’m looking at it more as a savings on exchange rate as the Disney cards are in Canadian $. It took some work as I could only buy two $100 IC cards per day in separate transactions. The Disney store treats those as a credit card. Offer is until October 31st as electronic gift cards. The IC cards don’t expire. Ivanhoe Cambridge has malls across Canada.
If you qualify, BMO offers a US$ Credit card that can save a ton in exchange fees. If you sign up for a US$ Chequing account through them, you can convert money from CAD to US at the best available rate whenever you choose, then pay off the US$ Credit card from the BMO US$ account. I have to go to the USA frequently, and even though there aren’t as many BMOs as TD Banks in the US, it’s been a great money saver for taking care of travel costs, meals, etc.
Have you looked at Knightsbridge? They will convert for a better rate than the bank, usually. You sign up with them and give both your bank accounts. When you initiate a transfer, they withdraw from your C$, convert, and deposit to your USD account. They guarantee the rate when you authorize the transfer. They hold the money for a few days - they earn interest on it, and are thus able to offer a competitive exchange rate.
Since you’re paying the exchange rate no matter what on any C$ you use to pay for Disney, 10% off is 10% off! That’s pretty awesome. I’d deal with some hassle for that. Especially stacking it with credit card rebates.
Also… TD has some free banking products that might work for you if you’d rather use them. You can get a free chequing account that’s actually located at a TD Bank branch in the US, and it comes with a Visa debit card, which obviously is a USD card. But not a credit card. You can pair that with a free USD account located at your usual TD Canada Trust branch.