I am looking into getting as many email gift cards as I can in order to pay for meals and such. So far I have $1600 worth in physical cards from email cards. Now the other day I booked my coming Spring vacation and they asked whether I wanted to use these cards toward the one day deposit. I said no because I bought them for meals and such. Got to thinking though that if I was able to buy more of these email gift cards at a 5% savings per $200 card, I might be able to use them toward my resort payment. Generally Disney will bill my credit card for the total of my stay when we first arrive. How can you use these email gift cards to the amount owed for resort stay before they bill my credit card? Thanks
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I have done this in the past. At the end of your stay, they will reverse the charge to your credit card and charge the gift cards. But you will have to do this before they check you out! You might have to use the gift card website to transfer amounts from your digital gift cards to physical gift cards. But I think that recently they started allowing you to add gift cards to your Disney wallet!
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- Use the Disney Gift Card Website to roll those smaller denomination cards to a single card (can be a physical or digital card and is limited to $1000) 2) Your resort folio gets settled in the wee hours of your checkout morning and charges are made you your securing credit card. Save yourself the hassle of having to reverse those charges and settle with the front desk the evening before checkout.
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If you are buying your GCs at Target for that 5% off, don’t forget to check for any Target Circle bonuses on your account - most of the time you can buy GCs for those and get your savings up to 12-18% off.
Target can be finicky with putting bonuses on your account sometimes - I’m in the middle of a dry spell right now, but over the last several months I had a group of ones like “Spend $150 three times get $40 back” etc.
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Also watch out for trying to purchase too many cards per billing period at Target … They have some really strange policies about paying off your credit balance early.
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Oh yeah, most of the time never a good idea to max out a card and pay it off before the cycle ends - especially more than once. Looks money-laundering-y to banks.
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Right now I bought four email gift cards of $200 a piece. Prior times they showed up in my email within minutes of the purchase. Not this time. Notified that I bought them and I would be informed when they have been shipped from Sam’s Club. This is strange as no physical anything needs to be shipped. Guess I just hang in there and wait for them to show up in my email acct. or cancel them.
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You can call any time before your arrival day to make that payment
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I’ve experienced long delays with Sam’s Club in the past. This isn’t a Doorbuster, right? Just the usual deal?
I tend to “get rid of the middle man” and just pay for everything with my gift cards. I’ll use the dgc website to consolidate all my cards into bigger values, just so I can keep using the same card over and over again.
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You don’t even have to add them. If you have them registered with the Disney Gift Card site, they will automatically show up now in your MDE wallet…and when you go to pay for things like mobile order using the app, it will automatically suggest using the balance from your gift card(s) and/or Rewards card! It is great…and was a long time coming.
Note: If you have a Disney Visa card, and you visit a restaurant that offers the Visa discount (typically 10% off) you will save more to pay with your Disney Visa Card or Rewards card than your discounted gift cards unless you managed to obtain the gift cards with at least a 10% discount.
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I have a annual pass for I and my wife. Therefore, we book room-only. Because of this Disney will not let me make advance resort payments on-line but must call by phone if I pay with gift cards.
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I’d forgotten this, but you’re correct. They will let you pay online if it’s a package, though. You can have a package without tickets, but I prefer room only and pay via phone.
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Note, however, that the 10% discount for using Disney Visa or rewards card does not include alcohol, tax or tips. So, it’s going to be less than 10% off overall, and in some cases, may not be much (if any) better than using a gift card.
That’s worth noting, although if tax is 10% of the bill (rounding) and tip is 20%, then you aren’t saving 10% on 30%, which means you aren’t saving 3%, but still saving 7%. (Leaving alcohol from the calculation since we rarely have alcohol.) But if your gift card discount is more than 7% off, you are correct! (And for those who have alcohol, would need to be factored in more.)
Here’s my reasoning. I am staying at Pop room only. Now I pay every year on arrival or rather they deduct the amount from my Discover account. If I am able to buy $200 gift cards for $190 a piece with a limit of 4 cards max, I save $40 total. Now if I am able to get this offer 4 times which it looks now like I will be able to do before my trip, that means $160 off via Sam’s Club purchases of this type. Now it is too late for me on this go around to get a Sam’s Club special sale of 10% off or $80 with the purchase of 4 $200 email gift cards. Still considering I am paying resort, dining, etc. $160 off the balance is better than no discount. For me and my wife we stay two weeks twice a year. Pop costs about $3000 for that period. Meals cost about $1600 for sit down and lets say another $600 for quick service lunches and soft drinks throughout the day. All this adds up and this isn’t counting on purchased items over the stay. We have been here so often that we really don’t spend a lot on Disney items. Remember also that Discover charges have a discount associated with their use as well. 
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Have you considered the current promotion on the Disney Visa Inspire card?
I will call the resort to pay most of the bill with the GC purchased that I buy from Sam’s Club on-line $200 cards for $190. I than transfer them to either a physical card or my Disney wallet. At present I have two $800 physical cards and one $800 wallet card. I also have a $25 physical card for transfers if the other cards get lost. I am hoping to get four more $200 email card from Sam’s club before we go. I will pay resort with one of the physical cards $1000 and the Disney wallet card $1000 also. The remaining $200 email card will be added to the $25 card to make it $225. Then plan to pay part of the resort bill using $2000 of these cards keeping $1000 physical card plus the $225 physical card for dinning and other expenses. Rest goes to a Discover card. Two weeks isn’t cheap. Fun, fun!
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