I have the blue card with the castle in the sky. I, too, was fortunate enough to receive the $200 offer, and even more fortunate because it was in the weeks leading up to our trip in April, so when we arrived, I was able to go to the Visa place at DTD and get my card. By then, I had acquired 4 extra points, so my card was for $204 which I was able to use for spending on our trip.
I'm not one to go out and buy a bunch of junk just because I have a credit card...unless you count periodic stops at McDonalds which I might not otherwise make. :lol: I think credit cards are fine as long as you don't abuse them and go out and buy a bunch of stuff that you wouldn't intend on buying without the card. But I have decided to use this credit card for anything that I don't need cash or a check for; grocieries, gas, going out to eat, etc. Things that we would be doing anyway and now, instead of having dozens of entries in the checkbook to have to keep track of (and remember to write down), just put them all on one credit card bill and write one check for the total. This allows me to streamline my checkbook, as well as gradually saving up for a future Disney trip. Right now, I have around $110 in rewards points (not bad since we cashed out my first round of points back in April) and when I pay my April 2011 trip in full, I intend to first put it on my Visa card and then pay my card back, thereby getting another $41 or so in rewards points. Rather than using those points for the April trip, however, I intend to keep using it and accumulating points until probably 2013. My wife wants to stay at the Grand Floridian that year for our 10 year anniversary. So between our April 2011 trip, a hopeful April 2012 trip and all the other normal spending in between now and 2013, I am hoping I will have enough points racked up by 2013 to cash out for a $500 gift card to use on our anniversary trip. :sohappy:
And I guess that leads me to a question that I had regarding that. Did I read somewhere that these points cannot be used to book a trip? We like to do the magic your way plus dining, so unless we could use this gift card towards the initial booking of the package, then that means that when we get there, our tickets and dining would already be paid for, so we couldn't use the gift card for that. And I'm not sure that we would be able to spend $500 on souveniers, unless we just went on a spending spree to use the gift card.
So, ideally, we would use the accumulated points towards the booking of our stay and then pay the difference. If we can't do that, I wonder if we should just forgo the dining plan for that trip and use the gift card towards our dining. Heck, by that time, they may have whittled the dining plan down to where there is no real value in it anymore such that I wouldn't want it anyway...
