Welcome back to Day 2 of Debt Free Disney! I’m probably most excited about this post because:
A) I know it will save you some money.
B) You can be on the inside loop of a great hack to save money on Disney vacations.
C) You’ll see up close and personal how my money saving shenanigans can cost me time and avoid my mistakes.
So it’s not a big surprise that we’re not fans of credit cards. And while more than once friends and family have told me great stories of how they’ve traveled for free or at a great discount using rewards points on their credit cards, we decided back in 2008 that credit cards were no longer going to be a part of our story. I’m not hating if this is a route you use. For us, it’s symbolic and powerful. We once did not handle credit cards well. We’ve decided no longer to use them.
End of story.
But when we got ready to book our Disney vacation and we began to put back money (Have you read Day 1: How to Save for Your Disney Vacation?), I had read about the fact that you can actually use Disney Gift Cards to pay for your vacation. I also knew that you can purchase gift cards a couple of places and either rack up reward points or pay less than face value. I went into evaluation mode about the best way to approach this. For us, there were three primary programs to take into consideration.
Sam’s Club
We have a membership to Sam’s Club through Brian’s job (by the way, read The Best Ways to Save Money at Sam’s Club to learn all of the ways we save money there). Sam’s Club sells several gift cards for less than face value (my favorite deal is the $85 worth of Outback for $71.98). In particular, they sell $150 in Disney Gift Cards for $142.98 (give or take a penny depending on your location). $7 and change isn’t that big of a deal until you consider spending $2000+ on a vacation. For us it meant a savings of over $100 which is not chump change.
Kroger
I’m not a regular Kroger shopper. I pop in every once in awhile when I can score a good deal or I have a craving for one of their desserts (by the way, you can read The Best Ways to Save Money at Kroger for some of my strategies if you shop there). However, I know so many people that are excellent at making good use of Kroger’s Fuel Rewards Program. On a regular basis, Kroger offers 4x the Fuel Rewards for Gift Card Purchases, which you guessed it ding, ding, ding includes Disney Gift Cards that you can use to pay for your vacation. And even when they don’t offer 4x the rewards, they still offer 2x. Essentially you could rack up as many as 8000 and as few as 4000 fuel points (1000 gets $1 off per gallon of gas per fill up) by choosing to buy your gift cards there. It’s not a bad deal overall and could help ease the costs if you’re driving to Disney (or just do a lot of driving in general).
Target
In a perfect storm, buying your Disney Gift Cards at Target is probably the best deal. If I could create the perfect conditions, I’d buy Target Gift Cards at a discount on Black Friday (the past few years, they’ve offered them at 10% off face value as a door buster before noon) and then turn around and use those gift cards to purchase Disney Gift Cards. However, there are too many variables involved for a regular day of the week to make that work. Just keep it in mind if there’s another deal like that because I’d love for you to crush it. Instead, if you have the RedCard Debit Card (again, I’m not a big fan of credit cards), you can get 5% off of your purchase making $150 in gift cards $142.50 which works out to be a little bit better of a deal than Sam’s Club. If you could do the Black Friday deal, you’d end up getting $150 for $135 which would be awesome (as long as they don’t smell my tricks and change the terms). Oh and while we’re at it, you can find other money saving strategies for Target in The Best Ways to Save Money at Target. I also get that some people have decided not to shop Target but that’s not the topic of this post.
Which Path We Chose
In the end, we went with Sam’s Club because it was the easiest and most practical for our family. That meant that I transferred all of the money from our vacation fund into the checking account and went and bought 17 packages of $150 gift cards. For me, this was such a huge purchase that I nearly passed out. But it was more than enough to pay for our entire vacation and then have spending money for food, souvenirs, and extra fun on the trip (more on using gift cards while you’re in the park tomorrow).
However, I didn’t take one thing into consideration. Here comes the shenanigans part . . .
To use the cards as payment, I had to scratch off the code on the back of the card and then add it to my Disney account. And the Sam’s Club gift cards while sold in $150 packs are actually 3 $50 gift cards. So I had to scratch off 51 cards in total to consolidate all of the money and pay for the trip. It resulted in a lot of that silver stuff all over my couch and a few moments of panic because you can only enter 3 cards at a time and then you have to combine them all together.
Not my brightest moment. I’d still do it again. I’m a money saving nerd. I get it.
I’ve read in a couple of places that perhaps Costco also sells gift cards at under face value and maybe a few other places, too. Tomorrow, I’m going to share some of my favorite strategies for getting gift cards either through rewards programs or taking surveys so that you can score a chunk or maybe if you’re devoted your entire vacay for free.
Have you taken a Debt Free Disney vacation? Did you use gift cards to pay for it? What hacks did you use to save money?
My book is now available: Slaying the Debt Dragon: How One Family Conquered Their Money Monster and Found an Inspired Happily Ever After. You can also check out The Debt Free Devotional on Kindle.
This post contains an affiliate link. That means when you get a great deal or maybe even something for free, you also help our family pay off our mortgage early. And for that, we royally thank you!
jenniferburgett says
Target is no longer allowing you to buy Disney gift cards with Target Gift Cards. I processed an order sucessfully on 8/15 but today (8/23) they canceled my order due to the fact I was using a Target Gift Card.
Queen of Free says
Oooh that’s good to know! That must be a recent change.
Kathaline Hansen says
Target has a RED DEBIT card now. Bring a blank check, ID, and request one. They use the check to access your checking account and link it to the card. That way you can get the 5% discount just like their credit card holders.