My plan is to give my 2 teenage granddaughters each a Visa gift card to buy their food and snacks for the duration of our visit. We aren’t doing the dining plan. I’m allowing about $55 a day, should be plenty. At least this way, if they have any funds left (pretty unlikely), they can use the balance when they get home. Last visit, they scanned everything to their magic bands = my account, which I paid about every 3 days while we were there. It’s handy but for them it made for more thoughtless spending. Too, I don’t want to have to hassle with payments while there. With the Visa cards, they’ll have to keep an eye on their daily food purchases. They are both looking forward to having their own funds - making their own choices without getting permission every time. The DW restaurants and kiosks all take Visa? Has anyone done this and did it work okay or are there any better ideas I’m missing?
This should work, the only thing might be that I have seen people say that there are carts (like for ice cream and popcorn) that are cash only. I would also maybe split it up onto a couple of gift cards, I don’t know how many days you are going for, but I would hesitate to put several hundred dollars onto a card that may be difficult to cancel if it’s lost or stolen.
I will bring some cash for those expenses. I am VERY appreciative of your advice to split each card into a couple. I was going to do $400 but will get 4 $200 cards. I agree, just in case…Thanks so much!
Does this cover 3 QS meals, snacks, and drinks for each day?
Yes, it does. I’ve done trips on the dining plan (I like QS) and trips not on the dining plan. I ran the numbers and found we spend about the same or less per day than the daily allowance on QS plan, plus we have more choices without the plan. We also felt the dining plan caused us to eat too much.
With Visa gift cards they hold tips at some locations. I found this out the hard way. I though I was being so smart putting money on a Visa GC and went to pay for something and it kept coming up denied because it was looking for extra for a tip. Example: if you pay for a meal that cost $20 it will look for $25 to cover the tip even if the tip is not added it will hold that extra $5 for a day or so.
After this experience with Visa GC, would you use them again?
Yes I still do because now I know, at first I though I lost $100 and my wife was going to kill me. We were at her family reunion and I thought we might get turned away at the hotel. I was on the phone with the Visa card for about 20 min trying to find out what was going on. So instead of being able to pay $100 on the card I was only able to spend $75 and I paid the rest in cash and 2 days later I had the other $25 back on the card.
Lol, glad there wasn’t a criminal act! Thanks for your information, I will certainly keep it in mind if my final decision is to go with GC.
Are you staying onsite? I have not done this but I have heard that you can add credit cards to specific magic bands at the front desk of Disney resorts.
Have you considered Disney gift cards? They can be managed online and funds can be shifted between cards if they are lost/stolen. The downside can be leftover funds are suck and can only be used on Disney purchase. The upside is they can be purchased at a discount at some locations.
I did this for my DD on our last trip with her spending money. But with an Amex gift card. I took a photo of the front and back. If it had been lost you can call and cancel and put the funds into another card. It would have been a hassle but better than loosing the money! Only time she couldn’t use it was at an ice cream cart that only took cash
I contacted DW and they said a Visa or some such GC cannot be loaded on a magic band, but the GC can be used to pay on the expenses charged with the Magic band to the account on file. If $150 in food/snacks was bought on a magic band say, in 3 days time, I could go to the front desk with my granddaughter and she could use her GC to pay that amount. I am not sure at this point if I’m going to use visa GC or not…