Meredith,
Thanks for your great question!
You do not have to be on a
Disney Dining Plan to use the
mobile food ordering service on the
My Disney Experience App. On my last trip I used this feature several times to order food and charge it to my room, and so can you.
How do you charge something to a gift card when using the mobile order process? The easiest way is to have applied your gift cards to your room account in advance. Here is how;
Take your gift cards to your hotel front desk and have them applied to your resort account. When you charge something on your
MagicBand, or your My Disney Experience App, the charge is added to your resort hotel account. If you have had the balance of your gift cards already put onto your hotel account, they deduct those costs from your credit balance rather than bill the credit card you have on file for your room.
DOUG'S TIP: I recommend you only put gift card dollars onto your resort account in amounts that you are certain to spend. Why? Disney cannot refund any of those transfers to you, so if you put $100 of a gift card onto your resort balance and only spend $90 of that, you lose the $10 balance. When I go, I transfer money in small amounts that I know I will spend, and every couple of days I return to the front desk and add more funds as I get closer to spending that credit balance. Oh, and remember that you can check your balance from your My Disney Experience!
Have a Magical (and delicious) Vacation!