A trip to Disney World is fun, magical, full of delicious eats and drinks (at least if you’re anything like us), and more. But, it’s also downright expensive.
Slinky Dog Dash
In fact, seeing the final price tag on a Disney vacation might make your jaw drop, and we don’t blame you. Between securing your hotel, purchasing park tickets, planning out your meals, and more, the cost of your trip can add up fast. But, that’s why it’s so important to us that we help YOU save as much money as possible with Disney deals and discounts! And we have another little tip that can help you save even more!
Disney accepts many forms of payments — cash, credit card, MagicBands, and Disney Gift Cards. And though you might think to use a Disney Gift Card to pay for merchandise at a souvenir shop or for those iconic Mickey Ice Cream Bars at a snack kiosk, did you know you can also use Disney Gift Cards to pay for your entire vacation package? Disney gift cards can be used for practically all things Disney:
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To pay for Disney vacations, including hotels and tickets. These include visits to: Walt Disney World resort, Disneyland resort, Aulani, Disney Cruise Line, Hilton Head, Island, Vero Beach, and Adventures by Disney
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For pretty much anything else you purchase from Disney at those locations
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At Disney Stores nationwide
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At shopDisney.com
Dollar-for-dollar, Disney gift cards are (like all gift cards) worse than cash since they can only be spent at Disney locations. But if you’re already committed to spending a significant amount of money at a Disney destination, then they’ll be basically as good as cash for you.
Disney 100 Gift Card
There are even ways to get discount Disney gift cards, and that’s where the real value lies. If you’re taking a Disney vacation anyway and are able to get Disney gift cards at a discount, there are some good opportunities to save.
How Much Can You Save?
You can reasonably expect to save between 5% and 10% on your trip using discount Disney gift cards.
You can also find ways of getting gift cards for less by using credit card points, or cash-back incentives, but we’re not going to dig into the financial pros and cons of credit cards, interest, reward programs, annual fees, and all that goes into a decision to get a credit card. We just wanna address the easiest way to find Disney Gift Cards for less.
Who wouldn’t love Mickey saying Happy Birthday?
The more straightforward discount is when you purchase a gift card for less than the value of the card. Like getting $50 in Disney gift cards for $45 cash is a purchase of discount Disney gift cards.
Where To Buy Disney Gift Cards
You can buy Disney gift cards at a discount at many locations both online and in a store, such as:
- Sam’s Club
- Target
- BJ’s Wholesale
Sam’s Club Disney Gift Card Discount Pros & Cons
Sam’s Club is also a wholesale club that offers a variety of discounts on Disney gift cards of different amounts. The discount availability varies, but members can typically get a $200 gift card for $185, or 7.5% off. There are occasionally additional sales and bonuses available, like around the holiday season.
OoooO The Perfect Gift for a Disney Movie Fan
- Pros: save 7.5%, can pay with any method
- Cons: must have a $45 membership
Let’s take a final look at that same scenario above. If you want to book a stay at Disney’s Port Orleans-French Quarter for 6 nights from November 5th through November 11th, it’ll run you about $1,983. If you pay for that with 10 Disney Gift Cards purchased with the Sam’s Club discount, you’ll end up saving yourself $150! That savings can buy you 21 Pineapple DOLE Whip Floats!
Target Disney Gift Card Discount Pros & Cons
Target issues “REDCards,” and when you make purchases from Target using your REDCard, you get 5% off. While this discount excludes purchases of Target gift cards, it does NOT exclude purchases of Disney gift cards, which you can purchase at Target. That’s an easy 5% to save if you can’t access the best method.
Disney Gift Card
Let’s look at that same scenario above. If you want to book a stay at Disney’s Port Orleans-French Quarter for 6 nights from November 5th through November 11th, it’ll run you about $1,983. If you pay for that with 4 Disney Gift Cards purchased with the Target REDCard discount, you’ll end up saving yourself $100! That savings can buy you 6 Turkey Legs!
- Pros: can get them in-store or online, 5% savings
- Cons: must pay with a REDcard
Buy one or…21 with your savings!
BJs Disney Gift Card Discount Pros & Cons
BJ’s is a wholesale club that offers a variety of discounts on Disney gift cards of different amounts. The discount availability varies, but members can typically get a $500 gift card for $480, or 4% off. There are occasionally additional sales and bonuses available, like around the holiday season when you might get up to 6% off.
Aurora Gift Card
Let’s look at some quick math. If you want to book a stay at Disney’s Port Orleans-French Quarter for 6 nights from November 5th through November 11th, it’ll run you about $1,983. If you pay for that with 4 Disney Gift Cards purchased with the BJ’s discount, you’ll end up saving yourself $80! That savings can buy you 10 Mickey Pretzels!
- Pros: can pay with any method
- Cons: only save 4%, must have a club membership, limited locations
BJ’s has a $55 minimum annual membership fee. Occasionally, they may offer a one-day pass or a free trial, so if you happen to stumble across one of these options, then this deal might work out in your favor.
These are our tried-and-true gift card discounts. Around the holidays, you might find additional discount offerings, like when we found some $50 Disney Gift Cards at Best Buy for only $45.
We hope this little tip helps you save some money! With all the recent price increases and added expenses in Disney World, every little money-saving tip can help! Be sure to stay tuned as we look for more Disney deals and other news.
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Love your content. How do you spend, for instance, 10 Disney Gift Cards as you use in your example when the My Disney Experience App only allows me to use one gift card to make a payment to my vacation package, and Sam’s Club will only sell 2 gift cards per membership?
Hi Neil! We have the solution for that. Register your gift cards on the Disney Gift Card website (www.disneygift.card) to transfer the balance of all of the cards onto one card and then register that one card on your MDE account. You can continue to reload that gift card as often as you want.
If your club restricts purchases to 2 per membership, don’t buy all of your gift cards at once, but spread out your purchases over the course of a few weeks or even months to take advantage of the discounts.
My experience with Samsclub is that the $200 Disney E-Gift card is rarely available — almost always shows up as “Out of Stock” online — and it’s only available online — I’ve never seen a $200 Disney card when shopping in person inside an actual Sams Club store. I’ve only been able to get a $200 card twice in the past year (early am Black Friday Nov and early am May 4). The ones typically available are the $50 cards and the $500 cards — the $50 cards are typically $47.98 (a 4% discount) and the $500 cards are $484.98 (only a 3% discount). And as previous comment advised, Samsclub has a rigorous limit of 2 online gift cards per membership, which they only reset occasionally (perhaps once a month — ie, you can only get 2 online Disney gift cards a month, if that). However, I don’t believe there is a limit if you buy physical (plastic) Disney cards while shopping in person at an actual Sams Club store (maybe they’ll change that soon too).
I visit WDW or Disneyland at least twice an year and decided to apply for the Target card. When I went to purchase gift cards I was told they do not discount gift cards. Just an FYI. Wanted to share. Maybe it was the store here. I would think they would all be the same.
Hi Mike! That’s odd. I have the Target Red Card and always get the 5% off Disney Gift Cards.
I buy all my gift cards at Target. I have the Red Card, debit card which was easy to apply for. The only gift card that is not discounted is the Target gift card. I am a DVC member so I visit Disney 2 or 3 times a year. Each month I buy a $50 gift card, when I get a bonus I buy a few, so I always have plenty of gift cards for my trips. The 5% savings has really added up over time.
Hi Mike, maybe someone you spoke to was just confused by what you were asking, cause I have the Target Red Card debit card and the discount automatically comes off on Disney gift cards, when I ring them up even at self checkout, it does not work on actual Target Gift Cards though.
I use target’s 5% every time I need to reload my gift card! Been doing that for years and have saved tons of money!
What about Costco? Don’t they sell discounted gift cards as well?
Costco doesn’t always have them. We dug into it one day and found out that those are pretty seasonal and we didn’t want our readers to waste time looking for cards that might not exist at the time they read the article. 🙂
For the Canadians out there. Buying and using the Canadian funds gift cards instead of credit will save you the Foreign Transaction fee at a minimum. Disney doesnt charge one when coverting you Canadian funds gift cards. And, if you have a cash back credit card, you may be able to get up to 4% (or more back). My cash back credit card pays back 4% for groceries. Bought my Disney gift cards at the grocery store, earned 4% in cash back. I see it as saving 6.5%.
I just went to BJ’s and bought some Disney gift cards and did not get the 5% discount. The customer service desk explained that the 5% discount is only for gift cards with a specific amount. The Disney gift cards at BJ’s are $100-$500. You pick an amount to put on them. They are a range and not a specific amount (e.g. “$100 Visa Gift” ~ this card is specifically for only $100). They ended up refunding me the $100 I had just spent on a Disney gift card as I didn’t want it if I wasn’t going to get the 5%