Hiya Stephanie
Welcome to planDisney! When it comes to
Disney Gift Cards, I consider myself the unofficial princess of Disney Gift Cards. I never travel without them, and I use them for every aspect of my trip, from dining, merchandise and paying for my resort hotel stay. Before each vacation, I carefully estimate all of my expenses and then purchase my Disney Gift Cards in advance, so I don’t have to take my credit card out of my purse.
Stephanie, if you reserve a “room-only” reservation instead of a
Walt Disney World Resort Vacation Package, you will be asked to pay your final balance upon arrival at your resort hotel for check-in. At that time, you provide the Cast Member with your Disney Gift Card for the remaining balance. For any remaining charges during your trip, I recommend asking the Cast Member at the front desk what their policy is for billing charges when you check in. It is subject to change, and during my last visit, my credit card was charged every other day of my trip instead of each time I made a purchase. If you are going to be charged every other day, you could plan to go to the front desk during those days and apply your Disney Gift Card for those charges. If you are like me, that sounds like just another thing to add to your daily checklist. What I would suggest is pre-paying for your charges instead. When you check in, ask the Cast Member to pre-load funds from your Disney Gift Card to your resort account and then have your charges deducted from that amount. Since you can set the pre-loaded amount, I recommend underestimating how much you will spend. Once you credit your account with an amount, it cannot be refunded to your Disney Gift Card, so if you don’t spend the total amount you credited to your account, you will lose it. My tip is to put smaller amounts on your account, and you can add to it when it starts to get low. That way, you don’t have to worry about it.
I hope this was helpful, Stephanie. Before I let you go, don’t forget to combine your Disney Gift Cards before your trip. You can have up to $1,000 on one Disney Gift Card, and it is a lot easier to manage one or two gift cards than several. Please come back and see
us if you need anything.
Happy Planning,
Ashley F.