Disney Gift Cards on Magic Band?

I am planning to purchase extra gift cards to cover the cost of food and souvenirs and wanted to know if there is some sort of “trick” that would link it to my Magic Band so that I don’t have to carry a gift card around and risk losing it.
If not, I have a Disney Visa, so could I link the card to that and use the gift cards to pay on it?

I’m not sure that you can link the gift card to your MB (though I’ll be following this to see if anyone knows for sure). One thing you could do though is link your Disney Visa to the band, and leave your Disney GC in your room. In the evening you can always settle the account at the front desk with your GC so the charge doesn’t go through to your card.

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So I can charge it all to my Disney Visa and then use the gift cards to make payment?

I use,the magic band and pay the desk at the resort at the end of the day.

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So what is it charging to? A credit card or your room?

They run the charges to the credit card after so much is accumulated, or during the overnight hours. If you settle the account each day at the desk with the gift card, you won’t ever have a charge go TO your Visa. But Disney is happy because you have a credit card secured to your account. You get to be happy by going home with no Disney Sticker Shock coming to you in 30 days after your trip. :slight_smile:

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Well, that’s perfect then. I would cry…REALLY cry…if I lost a $500 gift card on a ride or something.

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My last trip I had two $400 gift cards- one was for food and one was for souvenirs. I carried them in my wallet, and just used them as we went. We were staying off site that trip, so no magic band charging issues. This time, we will be staying on site, and doing this- just settle at the desk each night.

There are ways to protect yourself if you lose a gift card. Read this article. Learn it. Live it. Love it!
I did and it worked great!

Also, here’s everything else you need to know about Disney Gift cards:

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I’m not sure if it’s been mentioned here yet or not, but you also might go to https://www.disneygiftcard.com where you can add up to five gift cards. If you happen to lose one, you could log into the site and transfer its balance to another one.

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That is what the article adamwsh posted said. I suppose that may not be a bad idea. But who knows how much of the money would be spent by the time I noticed it was missing, ya know?

I would definitely PREFER to just use my Magic Band to pay for stuff and settle it at the end of the night.

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Just be aware that Values, Moderates, and Deluxes all have different amount balance limits before they charge your card on file. This is generally done in the early hours so be sure to confirm the amount and pay off using your gift card the night before or your last night on property.

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So if it DOES hit my card, would I be able to use the gift card to pay on the credit card since it’s a Disney card?

I’m not sure. I’ve done it both ways (pay using Gift Card paying as we went and also settled up at Front Desk using Gift Card). Really a matter of preference. We drive so I would get dropped off after a night in the parks and pay the balance while family waited. Generally checking on balance every two nights and paying the remaining balance last night of stay. What I liked about using Gift Card in the parks was the receipt always shows your remaining balance versus the running tab of using the Magic Band being invisible until you go to pay at Front Desk, but you still have to carry it with you. Does that make sense?

I had $600 in gift cards that I brought with me. I had mistakenly assumed that they charge the room-only charges at the end of your stay, but in actuality they charge you at midnight on your check-in night. So I went down to guest services mid-way through the trip and tried to pay my balance, but at the time it was only in the $250 range from restaurant and gift shop charges. They were able to refund $350 to my credit card and then use all of the gift cards at that time. Obviously this wasn’t ideal, but they definitely were willing to help. I wasn’t concerned about the refund timeframe, but that may be of concern to some people.

The magic band is ALWAYS charging to your room. If you go each night to pay off the room charges, then you should be all set. I am not sure if you can use gift cards to pay the Visa bill.

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I guess I’ve never understood the logic for prepaying gift cards for a trip. Most credit card companies show pending charges online to allow you to monitor your spending, so bringing gift cards just means more things to have to keep track of. So many credit cards already provide you with cash back of 2% or more on purchases, so you aren’t really saving much. And if you go under your budget, you don’t have any money locked into onto a gift card.

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I am actually purchasing the gift cards from BJ’s, which saves me 5%. Plus I get bonuses by uses my credit card, so it’s saving me a ton…otherwise I would have just charged it to my card directly.

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I did the same as @ItaliAnna. I used my rewards credit card to buy discounted gift cards so in effect double dipping the rewards. I also had $200 in rewards from opening the Disney Visa.

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Based on my “plan”, I am going to end up saving over $500. It’s totally worth opening credit cards to me for that.

Me too – that’s also why I am bothering with the hassle of the gift cards