Rewards points are a great way to pay for part of your Disney trip

After my family’s first trip to Disney last year, I thought I’d look into getting a new credit card with better rewards to help pay for another vacation this summer.

After investigating our options in Canada, my husband and I both got new credit cards with better rewards accumulation. Even though we need to pay for an annual fee, I think the faster accumulation of points is worth it. We currently use our credit cards to pay for everything and pay the bills in full each month, so we can get the extra points.

In less than a year, we already have over $1,200 in rewards points.

  • I used one credit card’s rewards points to get about $600 off the cost of our flights to Orlando.
  • My hubbie got $350 off his last credit card bill using his points.
  • I still have about $300 in points that I am planning to use for a car rental.

The point of my post is to look at what your credit cards are earning in rewards points each year. I previously had no fee credit cards but they were taking forever to accumulate points. Sometimes the credit cards with an annual fee are better, if you can pay off your bill each month.

I think if you use this strategy, you can easily earn enough points to pay for some of your vacation to WDW.

Danielle

I got my 7 days tickets for myself, my DW, and my twin DD (age 9 at the time of our trip) with points. I’m also getting us tickets to MVMCP tickets with points. Points are AWESOME!!

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We use this strategy a lot. Most of our expenses go on our Amex blue cash preferred card, which gives 6% back on groceries, 3% back on gas and some department stores. We also use the Citi Double Cash card, which has no annual fee and gets 2% back on everything (plus great extended warranty and price rewind which gives a refund if the cost of your item goes down after purchasing).

Another good option is to accrue points or miles that can be used to “erase” travel purchases. For our next trip, we’ll use “miles” accrued on our Barclay Arrival Plus card to offset any purchases that code as travel, including packages, hotels and anything sold by a travel agency (i.e. Undercover Tourist).

That works for us, but the number 1 rule is spend within your means, and pay off the balance in full every month. If you have to pay interest on your purchases, the rewards you get are not worth it.

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I know there are better cards (and savings strategies), but I like my basic Southwest credit card because the reward I earn is earmarked for vacation. If we had a cash reward card then we might just use it to pay basic bills.

I personally know someone who opens multiple cards, buys gift cards at a discount to beef up points used, and other strategies to accumulate huge amounts of points. She has flown to Europe and Hawaii business class using points, but has extremely complicated spreadsheets and other ways to track it all (and make sure she doesn’t pay any fees). Amazingly, her credit rating is very, very high even with having so many open cards.