Here is an easy way to add to your fund…
Check the gift card racks at your local stores to see if they sell Disney cards. I know I have seen them at my Walgreens and Publix. When you are shopping, throw one in your cart.
Also if your store offers rewards (such as gas discounts) when you spend so much money, gift cards are a great way to boost your total to be eligible for the discounts.
Disney gift cards can be used anywhere at the parks that credit cards are accepted. I used $2000 worth of gift cards on my last trip to pay for our tickets, meals and souvenirs. It was so easy.
Does anyone do this? I’d love to hear your opinion.
Be sure to check out all the ways you can add to your fund as you Coupon to Disney!
{ 41 comments… read them below or add one }
Can you pay for the hotel too? I’m hoping to go to Disneyland since I live in Ca:)
Yep!!
The only thing I don’t like about this idea is the fact that your money is tied up as Disney gcs as opposed to cash. If I’m planning a trip, have saved $2500, and the engine on my car goes, the vacation gets cancelled. If I’ve saved cash, then I can use it to pay for the engine. If I’ve saved in Disney gcs, I can still go to Disney but have no car to get to the airport lol.
I do agree with you here Amy. I only put money in GC’s that I can afford to not have access to. I could spend more on GC’s but I only do a bit at a time – like right now I’m just trying to save up enough for the deposit and then spending $$, not the entire trip for exactly the reason you state!
Aside from that, if the money is still in your bank account, it will earn interest. If you buy a Disney gift card, then the money will be in *their* bank account, earning *them* interest.
I am doing this for our trip next year!! My youngest has been having a lot of fun picking out different characters on the cards each week.
Right now, there are a couple of deals to get some ‘free’ money with Disney gift card purchases. Publix has a $5/$25 Gift Card coupon wyb $5 in Hallmark products. Not bad if you need to buy cards (Easter? Mother’s Day?). There’s also a $2/3 Hallmark Cards Coupon to make this deal even better. There’s a rumor that Kroger has a special deal on their multi-packs of Disney gift cards. Buy the $45 multi-pack (3 cards x $15) get a $5 coupon to use on you next purchase. This hasn’t been verified that I know of, but could be a great idea for Easter baskets!
I know that Kroger usually does a promo around Easter time. I also think that I heard they have a deal when you buy hersheys?
Last November Sam’s club was offering a $100 Disney World gift card for $98.47 and as a bonus you received a $10 Disney Store gift card. We purchased 42 of these to pay for a trip for 10 people in Novemeber, it worked perfectly and we had $420 to spend at the Disney store just in time for X-mas. Also We were able to use our Disney Visa to purchase the gift cards at Sam’s to earn even more rewards for our trip.
I’ve been stashing gift cards away as I can. I try to grab one every pay day and whenever I have spare $$ that can go into the fund. I think it’s a great way to save for a trip because once you get the card you know the only thing you’ll use it for is your vacation!
Working on this right now!
Last year I had purchased and earned $1100 worth of Disney gift cards. I am terrible at saving money but I do pretty good if I put a little money here and there into a gift card. Also, I do surveys and when I cash out I deposit the funds to my Paypal. When I reach $100 or more I pop over to the Disney store and purchase a new gift card. Of course, I take advantage of Disney gift cards as payment for surveys where I have that option too. The cards that I saved up last year ended up covering the majority of our dining for 2 weeks and our souvenirs. So handy to not have to carry so much cash! At first my husband kinda frowned at the idea but even he had to admit that it was so easy to just pay with the cards.
Just yesterday I found an unexpected way to add to my vacation savings. My husband had received $300 worth of gas gift cards from his credit card reward program. Unfortunately, there was no where we could use them in our area. However, I ran across Plastic Jungle and will be sending them in to cash in and apply the money towards more Disney gift cards. They did end up offering $8 less than the face value but that was still way better than nothing at all and a $276 infusion into MY pocketbook that otherwise would have not been put to use.
If you happen to have any gift cards laying around that you cannot or will not use it might be worth looking at their website to see if you can generate a little extra spending money your way too!
Marie
Was wondering if you could share the websites you do surveys on. I’m very skeptical and never know if it legit.
Also I’m new to the idea of saving for disney trips via disney GC, can the cards exprire? What if it take me 2 or 3 years to save up for a trip. Or say i wanna save but my kids are to little to remember it and I wanna wait til they are old enough to truely enjoy it?
Thanks!
Ashley, I apologize for taking so long to reply! I must have missed or misplaced the notification. Anyway, I currently am signed up with way too many surveys sites. I can’t keep up with everything they send and I am in the process of weeding out a few. The ones I seem to do best with are Pinecone, Surveyhead, MyView, Ipsos-Isay, Opinion Outpost, and QuickRewards. I like Opinion Place and E-poll but be advised that they do not send surveys very often. Global Testmarket pays fair but it takes a long time to reach the cashout level and I get disqualified way too often. Not sure if this is the case for everyone. I do Sunshine Rewards, Swagbucks, SimpleGPT for misc. daily points and Inbox Dollars for paid e-mails. I’m also signed up with MyPoints, Ebates and ShopatHome for shopping rebates. And, Retailmenot is my favorite coupon code source. So you see there are lots of possibilities for building up that Disney fund!
Oh yeah… almost forgot! Disney gift cards do not expire.
I just bought $2000 worth of Disney gift cards at Sam’s Club and I got $200 worth of Disney Store bonus gift cards for free!! I am so excited! We are going in June and I just finished saving for our trip so I was happy that Sam’s had this promotion again! I’m going to use the GC’s to pay for our vacation package and then I’ll use part of the Disney Store GC’s for souvenirs before we go and the rest I’m keeping to use for Christmas gifts!!!
How recent was this? Can you do it online or only in the store??
Do the Disney gift cards ever expire? I thought this was a great idea but it would take us a couple of years before we are ready to go to Disney again! Thanks for the great ideas!
Erin, it depends… If you live in California (and some other places…) it is against the law for gift cards to EVER expire. But I know that is not true everywhere.
I get the gift cards for the kids. They love to buy their own items. We also started a big jar on our counter to put extra change and money in. The kids decorated it with a sign and stickers. I used your idea…whenever I save money using coupons, I put that money in the jar. Fun to see how much we can save up for our Disney World trip in August. It will be our 15th wedding anniversary.
We are actually getting married at Leu Gardens in May and are going to Disney in a party of 25. I live in Northeast Ohio and we have Giant Eagle/Get Go. At GE, I purchased our entire hotel and ticket bill in gift cards and received .20 cents off a gallon of gas for each $50.00 in gift cards. And I used our Disney Rewards Visa to purchase them as well. I’m not sure on the exact total but we received lots of free gas doing it this way. Also at GE, be sure that you buy during the .20 cents for GC promotional period or else it will only be .10 cents per gallon per fifty dollars!
This is a great idea, but a little narrow? It definitely can get the creative juices flowing! How about expanding the idea to also purchasing gift cards for gas (if travelling by car) Walmart, Target? I often stop at the local Target before to purchase “Mickey” shirts and Disney products are in abundance and much cheaper than the park. It wouldn’t be a bad idea if those spot runs into the store were already paid for… I’ve been known to run in for tylenol and leave with $50+ unplanned expenses…
We went to Disneyland January 1st this last year. I told family and friends we would giftcards for Disney, McDonald’s, In N Out and Target for our trip. It was funny because my family gave us more because we were going on a trip. Santa also brought my girls disney and build a bear gift cards.
I’ve been doing this for a while already, as well as Bubba Gump’s bc my son is a Forrest Gump fan. I’m also stocking up on cards for gas, a little at a time. I’m all about having everything possible paid for in advance.
Also at my work, we collect money for everyone’s bday to get a gift card somewhere. My best friend is going to DW with her grandkids so we got her a Disney GC for her bday too.
I am going to tell my 11 yr old daughter that if she helps me cut coupons and I am under our monthly budget, I will use part of the difference for a gift card of her choice. This would be a good incentive for her too. She will pick Build a Bear, Justice, or Disney I am sure. At Vons in CA a while back they had a promotion that if you bought a $50 GC, you got a $10 oyno catalina. I wish they would bring that one back!
Thanks for the great idea! I live in florida so we have the weekday pass which is only a down payment of 1 regular price ticket per fl weekday pass you buy and then its only like $8 and change for adults and $7 and change for kids each month and you get to go to disney mon – fri anytime its not a black out. Since we are so close to disney this works great for us because we would rather go during the week when they are not so busy and the blackout time in the summer is no problem because we dont want to go in the middle of summer heat! The only delay in not going every other week is saving up spending money ;) so this is a great idea for us! Thanks so much.
I love this idea!
Our local grocery store, Albertson’s ran a gift card promotion from Thanksgiving time to the middle of December. For every $100 in gift cards purchased, a $20 grocery coupon was given. We bought $1,400 of Disney gift cards for our annual passes and got $280 in free groceries! It was an incredible deal!
The employees say the store will probably run the promotion again this coming year, it was very popular.
Rather than buying toys for my kids on their birthdays and holidays, my mom gets them Disney gift cards. We don’t need any more toys, that’s for sure! The kids still get something else to open, but the gift card gets put away and no one misses out on anything…and in the end, they’ll get a Disney trip out of it!The cards add up quick. I’m going to start buying some of them too with my coupon savings. Hey Mickey, here we come!
We do this! This June we aren’t on the Dining Plan so we are purchasing GCs each week with our normal groceries to use for our food at Disney. That way we won’t feel like we are spending a FORTUNE on food at Disney.
I also give my kids Disney GCs for each holiday. They love spending them on our trips. DD usually rations out her $$ throughout the trip and DS saves up his money for a bigger purchase at the end of the trip.
Glenda
We started saving gift cards for our trip about 6 mths before we left. We were able to cash in on our bank reward program for 2 resturant gift cards, and a smaller ($10) WalMart gift card. Then I won a $50 Target gift card in a giveaway. On top of that we ask people to give our girls gift cards for Disney for their birthdays. Since people found out that they were choosing to save for their upcoming trip rather than get toys they were more inclined to offer them a little more than usual. It worked out great, and each of the girls were gifted over $100 of their own money to spend as they chose in Disneyland. They were thrilled! Plus whenever they went to the registers to pay for their stuff the cast member helping them always treated them so nicely, it made the girls feel so special.
This is the BEST idea EVER!!!! You wouldn’t miss the money if you just threw one in your cart and before you know it you’d have a nice little fund! Thanks for sharing!
We went to Disney and did a Disney Cruise last August… so much fun….. but expensive. we are already planning our next trip for April 2012 or August 2012. I am always at the store at least 2 times a week. a 10 dollar GC each time would add up fast. Thanks for the idea’s. I will also check int Sam’s or Costco….Also, then my husband doesn’t see the actual cost of a Disney Vaccation :)
If I spend some of my Disney gift card can I get the change in money
If I spend spend some of it can I get the change in money?
This is my only way to keep m from spending what I have saved! I save my loose change, and when I cash it in, I go to the store and get Disney cards so I’m not tempted to use it on other stuff!
Not really a Disney gift card, but we used restaurant.com and registered one in my name and one in my mom-in-law’s name and were able to use each on different dinners. We stayed at the Hyatt Regency Orange County, CA which was lovely and they had a restaurant (two actually) and Starbucks in their lobby. We are staying there this coming Dec. again. I had so much fun last week, even being 5.5 mos pregnant, that we are cancelling christmas presents (Isaac plays with toys for about ten minutes then I just have to clean them up!!!) and doing a Disney trip each year around Christmastime. I am so excited. We had five kids in our group and six adults, it was a lovely ratio. The baby is 12 mos but the size of maybe a 9-10 month old and was able to go on several rides on his mom’s (my sis in law) lap. We had my husband, me, our 4 yr old son, husband’s brother and wife, their four kids, and husband/brother in law’s parents. It was freaking awesome. When my son got off Big Thunder Mountain he looked at my husband and said, “That choo was fast!!” I literally cried when it was time to go home. We made the mistake to only do three days at disney and did one day at sea world and one at legoland. the lines there move so slow it really made me go insane and it was such a long drive to san diego. Next time, Disney all the way, so we will be booking five days. Not sure if I want to do a park hopper because I don’t know if we will go back and forth from park to park, and it saves 45 dollars to get five disney tickets but you can only use it for the specific park (you choose each day if you want California Adventure or Disneyland) instead of going back and forth to each park.. Sorry I rambled!! :)
you can buy a disney gift card at your local disney store for as little as five dollars, and add money to it until you have enough for your trip. You can use the card to pay for your vacation package. I do this every year for my disney vacation it’s easier for me because once the money is on the card you can only spend at disney stores or disney parks.
It is a great idea to get GC’s since you don’t even notice $10 every once in awhile. Sometimes on Disney Movie Rewards they offer gift cards for points. I was able to pickup $20 CG for 750 points so it is good to watch there web site. My grand daughters get a kick out of it when they have their own cards to use.
My local stores don’t carry Disney Gift Cards. Is there a way to purchase them online?
Yes ma’am! Disneystore.com or Disneygiftcard.com. I get mine there once a month. I always make sure to buy with my Disney Rewards card and earn a few points in the process.
When planning for our 2011 Disney trip I asked relatives and friends that normally would buy my son gifts for birthdays and Christmas to consider instead purchase Disney gift cards for him to use on our Disney trip. As a single mom it took a lot of saving and coming up with creative ways to fund our trip. We ended up with enough gift cards to purchase anything my son wanted plus snacks while we were in the park. I had a few friends that even bought a few for me. I was able to buy small gifts for the person who watched our pets and home for us while we were away as well (as a thank you).