Did you know that you can pay for your entire Disney vacation with Disney gift cards? Why would you want to do this? Because if you buy discount Disney gift cards, you are in essence saving money on your Disney vacation. Show
There are a few places that sell discount Disney Gift Cards and if you know where to find them, you can save up to 5% on your vacation right off the bat. 5% may not sound like much, but if you consider that the average Disney vacation costs about $5,000, 5% is $250! That is like one night at a Disney Resort or two days of Disney park tickets!  Target Disney Gift CardsWhen looking for ways to save on your Disney vacation, don’t overlook Target. You can shop at Target for Disney Gift Cards and save money when you use your Target Red Card. First off, you don’t have to have a Target credit card to get in on this deal. Target Red Card is a Target card that attaches to your checking account and works just like a debit card (but can only be used at Target stores). It saves you 5% on your Target purchase every day, and this includes when you purchase Disney Gift Cards at Target! It’s like saving 5% on your entire Disney Vacation. BJ’s Disney Gift CardsYou can purchase Disney gift cards at a 4% discount at BJs Wholesale. This makes a $100 Disney Gift card $95.99. Keep in mind that you will have to have a BJ Wholesale membership to get this deal and if you don’t already have one, the membership costs are as low as $10 a year (for an online pass). This means you can purchase your Discount Disney Gift Cards online and never have to deal with the lines inside the store! If you have the BJ Perks Rewards account, you can get an additional 2% back which is a total savings of 6%. Now, this is only a deal if you already have a BJ Perks Rewards Account. It is not so much of a deal if you have to pay the heavy annual fee of $110. How to get a Discount BJ Wholesale Membership to shop in the store? Use Groupon or if you are a teacher, you can get a deal on Inner Circle Membership. If you have never joined a warehouse club, Groupon often has the best deals on discount memberships. Sam’s Club Disney Gift CardsLike BJ Wholesale, Sam’s Club offers a 4% discount on Disney Gift Cards for its members. Membership at Sam’s Club is comparable to BJ’s Wholesale in that if you don’t already have a membership you can get one for as low as $40 through Groupon. Military families can get a $10 gift card to Sam’s Club when they join which makes it a better deal than BJ Warehouse. If you have their premium membership (at $100) then you will get 2% cash back (maximum $500 per year). How to Manage Disney Gift CardsThe last thing you want to do is keep up with tons of Disney Gift Cards. Instead each time you buy one, combine your Disney Gift Card to one card and trash the other. This can be done on the Disney Gift Card website. Log in and go to “Manage Cards” at the top of the page. From there, hit “Transfer Balance.” Choose the card you want to be the main Disney Gift Card and transfer the balance of the other gift cards to the main card. The most you can put on one card is $1000. Where Can I Use Disney Gift Cards?Disney Gift Cards spend like cash at Disney World. You can use Disney Gift Cards to purchase your Disney World tickets, pay for your Disney World Resort stay, or make purchases inside the Disney World Parks. Have you used Disney Gift Cards to pay for your Disney vacation? Where you able to get them for a discount and if so, how much did it save you? We may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post. Please click my disclosure policy to learn more. Saving money is always a good thing, and this is especially true for taking a trip to Disney World. Everyone knows that a trip to Disney is
ridiculously expensive. This post takes a look at how you can use discounted Disney gift cards to bring down the overall cost of your Disney vacation. Honestly, there are ways to get Disney gift card deals which get pretty convoluted. I want to highlight a few of the more straightforward options before pairing them with some higher level savings techniques.
Let’s start off with the basics: taking a look at what a Disney gift card entails compared to a discounted Disney gift card. What is a Disney Gift Card?Disney gift cards are pretty much exactly what you think they are, little plastic cards that hold money to be spent on Disney products. Once Disney gift cards are purchased and activated there are no fees and they never expire. Disney gift cards can be used to pay for just about anything owned by Disney. Here’s a list of places to use your Disney gift cards:
Within any of the Disney owned and operated entities you can use those gift cards on the following things:
I think you can begin to see just how useful having Disney gift cards can be. What is a Discounted Disney Gift Card?The actual definition of a discounted Disney gift card is pretty easy. It is simply a Disney gift card that is purchased in such a way that the cost of the card is less than the face value of the card. For example, a $100 Disney gift card which actually costs $95. Unfortunately, actually buying discounted Disney gift cards is a bit of an art form and can take some effort. The amount of effort you are willing to put in is really up to you. There are some very straightforward ways to easily save 5% off each gift card you buy. While 5% isn’t the greatest discount in the world, when you take it off of a few thousand dollars it adds up. For example, let’s say you buy $3000 worth of Disney gift cards at a 5% discount. With little to no effort you just saved $150. But what if you can make that discount even greater? That’s what this post is about. Discounted Disney Gift Card StandardsThere are a few basic standards to consider when embarking on your discounted Disney gift card journey. Because not all “savings” are created equal. Anything Less Than 5% Savings is NOT a Good Deal (Unless You Have No Other Options)Like I mentioned above, getting a 5% minimum discount is actually pretty darn easy. It takes no extra thinking, planning, or jumping through hoops. If you are bending over backwards for a 3% discount, it’s really just not worth the effort. Ideally, we want the discount to be even greater, but this is the minimum threshold. However, if you don’t have any other option and you can easily get 3-4% off because you have a Sam’s Club or a BJ membership, then just go for it. It’s still better than paying full price. Stacking Deals Gives the Greatest ResultsThis is the beginning of where everything starts to get way more complicated but the savings become even greater. There are a few different techniques which involve combining deals with credit card cash back rewards or other shopping rewards. This doesn’t take the money off the up front purchase price. Instead, you get the discount on the back end in the form of statement credits or direct deposit. More on that below! Best Uses of Discounted Disney Gift CardsAs I mentioned above, you can use Disney gift cards to pay for any aspect of your Disney vacation. However, there are some pieces of the vacation you *might* be able to find cheaper in other ways than using discounted Disney gift cards. Two examples are park tickets and resort. Some of this simply depends on how much of a savings you are able to manage on your discounted gift cards. If you average 5-6%, odds are you can find a greater discount at places like Undercover Tourist. However, if your savings is closer to 10%, the game might change. Always do the math first to see which avenue gives you the greatest deal. But there are some great uses of discounted Disney gift cards regardless of how much of a discount you bought them at. Any purchases made during your trip when you are a captive audience fall under that heading.
Stacking Deals for Better Discounted Disney Gift CardsOne more very important thing before we get down to business. I mentioned this briefly a moment ago, but stacking deals is a very in depth and often complicated part of buying discounted Disney gift cards. I do want to remind you: if this is more than you are willing to do, you can still buy your Disney gift cards at a discount. If this part isn’t for you, skip it and start reading the next section. If you are interested in how to increase your savings, read on! Credit Card Cash Back RewardsI think we are all familiar by now with the idea that you can use credit cards to earn rewards. This might be through travel points, cash back, gift cards, etc. Clearly, if you use a credit card that earns rewards of any sort to buy your Disney gift cards, you get extra savings. Most cards will earn rewards in the range of 1-2%. Which is fine, really. But we’ll also highlight a couple that COULD get you up to 5% cashback. Capital One Venture Card – 2%I do this on the regular with my Capital One Venture card which gives me 2% back on every purchase I make. I then use the rewards to pay for travel, usually to Disney! You can book hotels and airfare directly through their portal. Or you can use the purchase eraser after your trip to get credits for travel purchases. I usually do this to cover Disney expenses after the fact. Really, this is my go to card for travel rewards as most only give 1% rewards or you have to pay a ridiculously high annual fee. The Venture card does have an annual fee, but it’s $95 a year, and I earn way more rewards than that in a year (and sometimes the fee is waived for the first year). If you want to check out this card, use my Capital One referral link. There’s usually a 60,000 mile sign on bonus when you reach spending requirements ($3000 in the first 3 months). That equals $600 in rewards, just for signing up and using it for a few months, plus the 2% back on your $3000 in purchases. Win-win! That’ll take a nice chunk of change off of your Disney trip and then give you an easy extra 2% rewards on other discounted Disney gift cards you buy, which of course gives you even more money to put towards paying off your Disney balance. Discover Card Cash Back – 1-5%Discover Card offers 1% cash back on all purchases but offers 5% cash back on a rotating quarterly basis. This picture shows an example of the reward categories for 2022. If any of the categories listed sell Disney gift cards, you can now get an additional 5% off your purchase. This opens up options for you at grocery stores or Target for an easy 5% discount in the form of earning cash back. Depending on the reward categories for the year, your opportunity for savings can become even greater. In 2018 there were 2 different quarters that gave you a 5% cash back reward on purchase made at Wholesale Clubs like BJs and Sam’s Club. This was HUGE for discounted Disney gift cards. And yes, it showed up again in 2020 (and 2021). As an added bonus, Discover will match all of your 5% cash back earnings in the first 12 months of spending. That means if you use your Discover It card to buy your Disney gift cards during that 12 month period you actually save 10% on those cards. Score! If you sign up for Discover Card using my referral link then we both can earn a $50 statement credit for some extra Disney savings. Chase Freedom 1-5%The Chase Freedom card is another very popular cash back card. Just like Discover, Chase Freedom offers a rotating quarterly schedule of offers that allows you to get 5% cash back on your purchases. In 2019, the bonus quarters for Chase Freedom cardholders are gas stations, grocery stores, home improvement stores, and PayPal. These options open up grocery stores and home improvement stores as discounted gift card options. Chase Freedom has also been known to offer their quarterly discount at wholesale stores as well. Cash Back PortalsMost cash back portals, like Rakuten, automatically disqualify gift card purchases from any cash back bonuses. However, there is one that does not: Dosh. DoshDosh is a cash back app on your phone (or desktop) that allows you to get cash back on day to day purchases. You simply link your credit cards to the app and presto you get the discount at qualifying stores when you use that credit card. If you sign up through my Dosh referral link you get a whopping $1 sign on bonus. I can’t even lie, this is lame. This does seem to change regularly, so check to see if it happens to be better. I’ve seen it go up to $10 even. Buying Discounted Disney Gift CardsOn to the main attraction! Let’s get down to the business of figuring out the most straightforward ways to get your discounted Disney gift cards. Target Disney Gift CardsDiscount: 5% Buying Disney gift cards at Target is probably the easiest way to get discounted Disney gift cards. Target offers a 5% discount on purchases made when you use the Target REDcard. And while the discount doesn’t apply if you buy Target gift cards, IT DOES apply to Disney gift cards. What I like about the Target REDcard is they offer both a credit card and a debit card option. If you are someone who doesn’t like having a lot of credit cards then the REDcard debit card is a safe way for you to get the benefits without the dangers of a credit card. Seriously, discounted Disney gift cards aside, if you do a lot of shopping at Target you should sign up for the REDcard. I’m not even sure how much money I’ve saved over the years, but it’s probably in 4 digit realm now. For every $50 Disney gift card you buy you are actually charged $47.50. Again, that number doesn’t look all that impressive. But remember our example above? If you bought $3000 in Disney gift cards and paid $2850, it starts to look much better. Using Target Gift Cards to Buy Disney Gift CardsThis used to be one of the greatest hacks for buying discounted Disney gift cards. However, Target no longer allows you to buy Disney gift cards using a Target gift card. They finally caught on to us! I’m really bummed about this because I was able to easily save 10% on Disney gift cards this way. Target Savings ExampleLet’s take a look at a simulated example of the easiest way to get the discounted disney gift cards: Target. Let’s say my family of 4 wants to add the standard Disney Dining Plan to our 7 night trip.
I don’t know about you, but if I could save almost $90 by simply purchasing Disney gift cards with my Target REDcard, it’s a bit of a no brainer. BJs Disney Gift CardsDiscount: 3-9% Wholesale clubs are another popular place to buy discounted Disney gift cards. BJs is a very popular option among them. Part of the reason why is because BJs offers a $10 online membership. This is a justifiable amount to spend on a membership when you only plan to order Disney gift cards. The $10 online membership also makes it accessible for those who don’t have a BJs located near them. BJs offers Disney gift cards in a number of denominations, including $25, $50, $100, $150 (3x$50), and $500. Typically, these max out at a 4% discount with the $100 and $500 gift cards as your best options. So, if you have no access to Target but do have a BJs membership, at least 4% is better than nothing. And if you have even a basic credit card rewards program, you should get 1-2% back on top of that. If you have a cash back credit card like Discover or Chase Freedom and they offer the 5% discount for one quarter, that is when you stock up. That equals a 9% discount, which is nothing to sneeze at! In addition, there are times that BJs randomly offers promotions on gift cards that gives them a greater discount. For example, in fall 2020, the $100 Disney gift cards were 8% off bringing the price down to $92. Plus Chase Freedom had 5% off if you paid with your card via PayPal, bringing the discount up to 13%. Sam’s Club Disney Gift CardsDiscount: 4-10% Sam’s Club is another wholesale store that is popular for buying discounted Disney gift cards. The prices are pretty similar to BJ’s, with your best discount reaching 4%. However, I will say that I’ve noticed my local Sam’s Club offers a slightly cheaper price on the $150 pack in store than is offered online. If possible, check to see if this is true for you as well. This slight discount knocks my instant savings up to 5% instead of 4%. The Sam’s Club discount can be improved upon with either a rotating credit card cash back bonus or with using Dosh (sometimes). If you have 5% cash back through Discover or Chase Freedom that is a great addition. The Dosh cash back offer changes periodically but works both in store and online. Sometimes the discount is only on opening a Sam’s Club membership. However, they often have a cash back offer as well. Currently, the Dosh cash back for Sam’s Club is 2% off your total online purchase. The biggest drawback for Sam’s Club is the cost of a membership. Sam’s charges $45 for a one year membership. There are often deals on Groupon to get it for cheaper. Also, Dosh offers a $35 discount on the membership. If you already use Sam’s regularly regardless than this isn’t an issue. But $45 is a little steep and eats into your overall savings if only using it for gift cards. Do the math first. You might be better off with BJ’s $10 online membership. Because we already have a Sam’s Club membership, the Sam’s Club Disney gift cards are one my go to options. Sam’s Club Savings ExampleIf I get that $150 Disney gift card for $142 at Sam’s Club I’m saving 5%. If I use my credit card during the 5% cash back period, I get an additional 5% off the price I paid for the card. That’s an additional $7.10 off the cost of the card. That means I got $150 in gift cards for $134.90, or for $15.10 off. This is a total discount of around 10% (with some slight rounding). Now, if I buy $1000 worth of gift cards my actual cost would be $900, or $100 savings. Let’s look at how that would work with our trip example from above.
Those Sam’s Club Disney gift cards are worth it, right? Best BuyDiscount: 10-11.5% This is a new deal and is a bit of a one off. Unfortunately, you’re limited to the purchase of a single $50 Disney gift card, but hey, an easy 10% is always something to look for. This deal is done by purchasing an electronic Disney gift card online at Best Buy’s website. You have to have a Best Buy account in order to qualify for the discount. Simply go to the website and search for Disney gift cards. You’ll see the digital Disney gift card offered for $45 instead of $50. Put it in your cart, pay for it, and check your email. They do limit your purchase to one per account. You’ll notice they don’t even give you an option to change the quantity of cards. People have tried going back in on a different day and making a separate order. It seems that sometimes it works, and sometimes the order is cancelled after it’s placed. I haven’t tried to buy more than one personally, but I will at some point just to try it out. You could also consider creating Best Buy accounts for you and your partner. That way you could get 2 cards. Or perhaps having accounts for different email addresses. I have a million email addresses it seems, so that’s probably what I would try first. And how do I work out the extra 11.5% I put under the heading? That’s assuming I’ve purchased it with my Capital One Venture card which gives me an additional 2% rewards on the purchase price. There’s definitely some rounding there, but you get the point. Best Buy + SwagbucksDiscount: 9.5-11.5% This option is a little bit next level so might not be for everyone. Best Buy does not offer any sort of discount on Disney gift cards in and of themselves. However, there is a deal you can take advantage of through Swagbucks which ups the ante considerably. What is Swagbucks?Swagbucks is an online earning platform. Truly, there are so many ways to earn points on Swagbucks and I’ve only scratched the surface. But the bottom line is you can turn those points into gift cards. Unfortunately not Disney gift cards, but Target, Amazon, Walmart, Sam’s Club, etc. How Do Best Buy and Swagbucks Work Together?This deal has been temporarily paused for quite a while now. I don’t know when it will come back, if ever.
In your Swagbucks account under shopping you can find Best Buy listed as a partner. The screenshot above shows what you find on that page. See the button that says “Get Code” under Shop In-Store? Print out that code and bring it with you. The fine print under special terms lets you know how many Swagbucks you’ll earn on your purchase. If you buy a $100 Disney gift card you earn 750 bonus Swagbucks. This is the equivalent of $7.50. In addition to the bonus Swagbucks you also get the standard 2% cash back, or $2 in this example. Now you are up to $9.50 cash back on your $100 gift card. If you have a credit card that earns rewards on Best Buy purchases, even better. My Capital One card gets me 2% rewards on the $100 gift card. Now my total savings is $11.50 or a whopping 11.5%. I essentially just got $100 for $88.50. Honestly, I only ever did this once. It’s a little too convoluted for me. And with it on pause, I’ll probably just delete this whole section eventually. Best Buy + Swagbucks Saving ExampleHere we are, back at our Disney Dining Plan example. Let’s see how much savings we get with an 11.5% discount, shall we?
As you can see, the savings get more and more substantial the more effort you put into it. Other Places to Find Disney Gift Card DealsThe options listed here are the most popular choices, but they are the tip of the iceberg. Opportunities do exist to get discounted Disney gift cards at other locations. Ask for Disney Gift Cards as GiftsSeriously, if you have a trip to Disney planned this is an obvious response to the question, “what would you like for your birthday/Christmas/any other holiday?” Because you can’t beat a 100% discount. Grocery StoresGrocery stores have become a great place to get a wide variety of gift cards. Each grocery store has its own reward options when you buy gift cards so look into what your local store offers. The Kroger line of supermarkets is well known to offer 4x gas points as rewards on gift card purchases during promotions. My local ShopRite has offered deals that give me a $10 off coupon for buying $50 in gift cards. When it’s Disney’s turn in that promotion you better believe I buy one. That’s a 20% savings. Home Improvement StoresLowe’s and Home Depot also stock gift cards these days. If you have a rewards card that gives a bonus for home improvement stores this could be a good option for you. Office Supply StoresDitto for office supply stores such as Staples. I have the Chase Ink card which gives 5% cash back on any purchases made at office supply stores. This gives me another option other than Target for an easy 5% off. In addition to this, Chase Offers occasionally offers an increased discount at purchases made at Staples. I currently have an offer for 20% off. You better believe I plan on buying Disney gift cards with that! Using Discounted Disney Gift Cards During Your TripThere are a couple of different ways you can use your discounted Disney gift cards during your trip. The easiest way is to use the gift cards directly at the point of sale. Simply hand over your gift card to the Cast Member and they take care of the rest. The other option is to pay your room balance off at your resort with the gift card. Unfortunately, there is currently no way to attach a Disney gift card to your MagicBand. If you are a Disney resort guest you can opt to charge everything to your MagicBand first, then pay down the balance with a gift card at the front desk of your resort. However, timing is key. Disney will charge your room balance to the credit card on file the night before check out or every 5 days, whichever comes first. It’s easiest if you make sure to pay down your balance with your gift cards before the charge goes through. I use the discounted Disney gift cards to pay down the balance every couple of days. But if you forget, a Cast Member can easily take the charge off your card and use the gift cards instead. It just takes a little more work and time. Combining Disney Gift CardsInstead of hauling around a stack of gift cards in small denominations, it’s a good idea to consolidate them all on the Disney gift card website. This website allows you to combine your gift cards onto 5 cards, each totaling $1000. This enables you to store up to $5000 on 5 cards instead of having 100 different gift cards in your suitcase. I highly recommend that you mark the 5 gift cards with the money on them clearly with permanent marker matching the labels you give them on the website (i.e. Dining, November Trip, Resort, etc.) and put them in a safe place. This helps you make sure you have the right cards when you need to use them. I always keep the empty cards that I have already transferred, but that’s more due to my own paranoia than anything else. When I leave for Disney I take one extra empty card with me along with the cards with the money on them. This is the back up in case I lose one of the cards with my money on it. If that should happen, I simply need to go on to the Disney gift card website and transfer the entire balance of the lost card onto the empty card. Final ThoughtsUsing discounted Disney gift cards to pay for a Disney vacation isn’t for everyone, and that’s OK! If you do decide to use some of these strategies just stick with whichever ones feel most comfortable to you. I tend to use a combination of these strategies to grab Disney gift cards here and there. I’m VERY opportunistic when it comes to collecting my Disney gift cards. When I see a good deal I scoop it up. On average I probably end up with savings between 10-15% for each trip. In part this number is due to the fact that I ask for Disney gift cards as gifts. That will clearly bring my overall savings up considerably. But I also use wholesale club stacked deals as much as I can. It is possible to hit these numbers, but it’s definitely work. But lately, I’ve been lazy and have gone for the straight and easy 5% off at Target. Sure, there are quite a few people who’ve taken this whole idea next level. But if you are content with an easy 5% discount from using your Target REDcard to buy gift cards, then stick with that. From my point of view, any savings is better than no savings at all. Your ThoughtsHave you found other ways to get your discounted Disney gift cards? If so, let us know what tricks you have used in the comments below! Don’t forget to follow The Disney Journey on Pinterest and Facebook to stay up to date with all the latest news and updates. How can I get Disney Gift Cards cheap?Target is a great way to purchase discount Disney Gift Cards. They offer Red Card members 5% off gift cards. So If you purchase a $500 Disney Gift Card you'll save an automatic $25. That's a free $25 just for buying a gift card that you're going to spend at the parks!
Are Disney Gift Cards 5 off at Target?Target's version – called the Target REDcard – provides an extra 5% off merchandise at Target & Target.com, free shipping, and extended 30-day returns. This means that you can purchase your Disney gift cards – using the REDcard – and automatically save 5% on the purchase.
Can you get Disney Gift Cards at Costco?Unfortunately, Costco does NOT sell Disney gift cards in any of its US stores.
Are Disney Gift Cards cheaper at Sam's Club?Discount: 4-10%
Sam's Club is another wholesale store that is popular for buying discounted Disney gift cards. The prices are pretty similar to BJ's, with your best discount reaching 4%.
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Best way to buy disney gift cards
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