I use my Disney Visa points mainly on airfares. I use the card to get 10% off merch in the parks, and we usually get the dining plan, which I pay for using my card, and get points. I see no reason to use the rewards in the parks, because A. I won’t get available discounts, and B. I’m not earning points on that.
As do I - good point!!
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Question on the Disney rewards — how long until they are credited to your account? Is it in the same month the purchase occurs?
It is when your statement is ready for that billing cycle.
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That’s quicker than I thought. Thanks!
The Disney Visa without the Annual fee is useful for the 10% off at select restaurants but it’s a really short list of restaurants. The merchandise discount is a double-edged sword. It’s good in theory but the $50 minimum made it harder to use (or convinced me to spend more than I originally planned in order to “save money” via the discount 
). So in all, it’s not a bad idea as it can save you some cash but it’s not a huge discount method. The 2% back on most Disney purchases (including your hotel stay, I believe) can earn you more rewards than you may get from your other cards.
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One thing I’ve been meaning to say…in general, I don’t like to get credit cards with an annual fee. So, when I got our Disney Visa, I chose the one with no annual fee. But, that one only offers 1% rewards, versus the 2% on the one with the annual fee.
In hindsight, it was an unwise, because instead of having earned $450 to date, as is the case, I would have earned $900…the difference of which is far more than the cost of the annual fee for two years.
Oh well. I don’t regret getting the card…just wish, now, I had just gone with the one with the annual fee!
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Most likely they will send you offers to upgrade? I receive emails every few months. As a back up card I can never make the fee work for me.
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I have two credit cards total. The Disney Visa is for all purchases, on-line and otherwise, that we would pay for using a credit card. Our other is only used for things we have that automatically are billed, such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc. The reason we did it this way is because we kept having our credit card information stolen, which would mean we’d have to go in and update all our automatic billing accounts. I decided to just have a card that is not used for any other purpose than paying automatic billing so that never happens. Even if our Disney Visa card info was stolen, I don’t have to update anything now. Much nicer.
Anyhow, as a result, we earn almost all our rewards using the Disney Visa. Our other earns rewards toward the purchase/lease of a vehicle. Once our December trip is over, I’ll probably cancel the Disney Visa and get some other rewards card. Maybe. We’ll see. 
We’ve received the offers, but at the time I never imagined we’d earn as much in rewards as we have, so I didn’t bite. And my planned “expensive” purchases this year are significantly less than last year, so I’m not sure it is worth upgrading now.
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I don’t know if I am looking at it right? I figured if I spent $4900 on Disney or the 2x charges I would have $49 rewards dollars for the no fee one and $98 rewards for the fee one, but a $49 fee. So basically I have to charge over $5000 at Disney or another 2x category to make it work ?
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Yeah. That’s true.
I’ve had the Disney Visa for years and love the 6 months no finance fee when we traveled to Disney. We also used some perks as the character spot and viewing spots for cardholders (this was years ago). Now that I am traveling to Disney for a work conference, the money I’ve accumulated will pay for my park tickets and food that the conference doesn’t cover. It’s a sweet bonus for me.
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We’ve gotten those upgrade offers too - but if you ever do go for the fee card, I’d suggest waiting until your 24 months runs out since you earned the last bonus, cancelling, then applying for the Premium card (hopefully using a referral link.)
Then you’ll get the best of both worlds: 2x points and the sign on bonus.
(We don’t have the better points / fee card either , but I probably need to crunch my numbers since Costco probably is driving our usage up.)
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This is such a smart idea!
In hindsight, it was an unwise, because instead of having earned $450 to date, as is the case, I would have earned $900…the difference of which is far more than the cost of the annual fee for two years.
You can get better credit cards that pay 2% (Citibank Double Cash) cash back with no annual fee. The Disney Visa is definitely worth holding for the perks (10% at a lot of places), but not as your primary card. Ours sat unused for a couple of years, and then just as we were starting to plan a new trip, they notified us they were cancelling our card for inactivity. So I went online, referred my wife, earned a referral bonus on my account and a new signup bonus on hers. It’ll sit until our trip, when we’ll bring it along for the perks. That’s $300 we made right there.
Another great card to carry is the Capital One Savor card… It pays 4% on restaurants AND entertainment. (Like Disney World admission tickets) Because we were going to be going to Disney and Universal in March, we went ahead and renewed it despite the $95 annual fee, as we’re going to make that up easily. They just added a no fee version (SavorOne) that pays 3% back on restaurants and entertainment; I may switch to that when this comes up for renewal.
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Since they expanded the 2x points categories it’s really not that tough… the yearly Disney trip and any Disney store purchases go on my card, plus all gas, restaurants, and groceries. I can actually get there with the non-Disney categories now, actually.
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I think it depends on what you put on a card and priorities. My SW is my main card. I just think my free flights are a better value for me. Of course others might not live as close to four airports with SW flights so Disney might be their primary and they might like another no or low fee card as a back up.
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Yeah… SW has almost zero non-stops out of Detroit and limited flights in general, so it’s very rare that we’d be on them.
I do have the Delta Amex, but I use it very, very little and mainly just keep it because we’re a Delta hub so Delta is almost always our airline, and it means I get 1 free bag for everyone on my reservation regardless of how I pay for it. I actually use my Disney card rewards to pay for my flights most of the time… I get my flight for free (or almost free… the way it works is you pay with the Disney card and then take a statement credit up to the amount of the flight cost, so you don’t have to have enough rewards to cover the whole charge), plus I still get free bags. Also, Amex has good presales for concert tickets and such.
I have recently been looking at the Jet Blue Card mainly for the free bags!
My primary card, in case anyone is curious, is the American Express Blue Cash Preferred card, which has a $95 annual fee with 6% back on groceries, 3% on gas, and 1% on everything else. I get about $1000 in rewards annually which I apply in cash to my statement. I like cash back because I can use it for anything and don’t feel like I have to go out of my way to travel to use the benefits (i.e., it doesn’t encourage bad spending habits!).
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