Gift Cards?

[GMRO]

OK, so maybe someone or a CM can explain this or why there is a problem??? Sorry if it's been talked about before...

2 years ago in December my wife and I went to the world with friends. We’ve all been there many times before but this was our first Christmas trip. This time we took $300 worth of Disney Gift Cards. Our friends daughter sold them for a school function so we figured since we’d spend that much anyway on items why not help her school by buying the cards. We did and so did my friends and their family. We had a “magical gathering” of sorts during this trip. Well…ALL of us had trouble redeeming the Disney Gift Cards while on property during our shopping sprees as well as at DTD. They should spend just like cash or any other plastic money right? Each time we used the cards it created confusion at the register. What we found out was that it took a manager to get the cards to work. Many times the person on the register had no idea how to get the card to work. SWIPE, SWIPE…SWIPE, SWIPE…nope still not working. Then they call for a manager who then swipes their ID badge and presses a few buttons on the register…swipe the card again and vio-la…it works. Needless to say our group could not wait to burn through all the money on those gift cards per the issues it caused. LINES were backed up as this process took at least 5 mins each time we attempted to use the cards to pay. And the other shoppers figured it was US that caused the problems, not so! Anyway we vowed to NOT get any DISNEY GIFT CARDS AGAIN per this issue and inconvenience and some embarrassment over the delays it caused.

NOW to present time…I’m chatting with a co-worker who visits WDW each DEC with his family. They just got back 2 days ago. We are talking about the world and he said they have a great time! BUT he also says that Disney has one problem. I asked what? He said we had $200 worth of Disney Gift Cards and we could not get them to work. I said no kidding? He never even heard me speak of our issues 2 years ago. He said this trip his family decided to purchase Disney Gift Cards from a store chain to get what we call “fuel perks” in PA. They figured why not get the cards since they would spend at least that much on gifts while at the world. He said and almost to a “T” mimicked my experience explained above. Only instead of him buying them from a school, which my group thought could have been the issue; he got his from a retail store to get them. End result was WE all had the same issues. YUP, it took managers to get them to work. He said his wife was at the Emporium shipping in MK and had close to $125 of stuff. The gal at the register swiped her Disney Gift Card 3 times…and then said you’re going to have to pay some other way as this card won’t work. My friend’s wife replied NO- nicely - you’re going to have to get this card to work or get a manager to check it. OR I can leave all the merchandise here and not buy it. This is the card I want to use. YES they also have Disney Credit Card too. A manager came over and he got the Disney Gift Card to work. Apparently some CODE needs entered into the register for the cards to work from what they witnessed.

SO – why in 2 years can’t Disney train their employees to know how to properly key or swipe the register so their OWN gift cards work? This is ridiculous! 2 years? REALLY???

AND now that I have a Disney CC with accumulating Disney/Dollars/points…when I redeem the points to a Disney Gift Card I will have the same issue likely redeeming this money!
DISNEY FIX THIS!!!

 

[britlightyear]

We have made trips to WDW every year for the past 5 years and have used gift cards every time and have never once had a problem. Granted, I buy my gift cards directly from the Disney Store so maybe that's why they always work :shrug:

 

[GMRO]

Good to know.

Again, both our cards and my friends were not purchased directly from a Disney store or at the parks. Ours were from a school that must have gone thru a broker or some organization and his were thru a store that sells many types of gift cards. Either way, they are official Disney Gift Cards.

Maybe since our points will be from the Disney Credit Card...the Gift Card they issue will work without a hitch since Disney themselves issue it. I HOPE!

Thank you!

 

[bamillerpa]

We purchased close to $500 in gift cards at our local grocery store and had no problem using them. However, we didn't use them at Disney, we used them at AAA to pay off our trip. She had to run them through as a Discover card (I think) which was kind of weird but it all worked smoothly and it felt like a gift since we had purchased them all with grocery money by using coupons and buying their sale items. Every penny we save on grocery bills we put into the gift cards.

 

[dreamfinder]

I've never had an issue using agift card, or a Disney visa rewards card. Sorry to hear about the issues. To the OP, the rewards card act more like a credit/debit card and not a gift card. They have a 16 digit number and everything on em.

 

[mickeysshoes]

I plan on buy Disney gift card from the local Disney store or Giant Food Store and use them to pay for our trip online. I sure hope i dont have any issue doing it this way.

 

[Tiggerfanatic]

I plan on buy Disney gift card from the local Disney store or Giant Food Store and use them to pay for our trip online. I sure hope i dont have any issue doing it this way.

I am in the process of paying off a trip on-line using gift cards I bought at Giant Eagle. I asked when I made my reservation if I could use the cards to make payments on the trip and the CM I spoke with said absolutely. When you retrieve your reservation on-line and select "Make a Payment", there is even an option for paying with a gift card. So far no problems - as I've gathered up several hundred dollars worth of $25 cards, I just go on line every day and make a $25 payment. Receipt is e-mailed to me overnight.

 

[GMRO]

Good to know on all counts! Glad the cards issued from the Disney Visa points are like a CC in itself.

YES - my friend got his Disney Gift Cards at Giant Eagle the week before their trip... They just got back Wednesday of last week.

I'm sure they work on trips as the other said. Our experience(s) are from the stores on property while buying merchandise at the world. None of it was in using them for trip payments or else.

I hope it's just an issue with new employees and or Seasonal Help. We never used them during our May trips. Our issues with the cards were ALL during the holiday season in December. I felt his pain since we went thru it too during our Dec trip. Not fun when you are standing there trying to pay and they keep saying this card won't work while the line grows behind you to check out.

Thank you for all the input!!!

 

[PurpleDisFreak]

Sorry to hear of your negative experiences with the Gift Cards, OP. We just returned from the World. I used ALL Disney GCs while there for 5 days. Purchased them to get my "fuel perks" and paid for them using my Disney Visa to get my Reward Points. Not one single problem occured, thankfully

 

[mickeysshoes]

I am in the process of paying off a trip on-line using gift cards I bought at Giant Eagle. I asked when I made my reservation if I could use the cards to make payments on the trip and the CM I spoke with said absolutely. When you retrieve your reservation on-line and select "Make a Payment", there is even an option for paying with a gift card. So far no problems - as I've gathered up several hundred dollars worth of $25 cards, I just go on line every day and make a $25 payment. Receipt is e-mailed to me overnight.

Thanks very much!! I will look for the payment via gift card when i make my first payment!! Does it limit you how many cards can be used per day???

 

[GMRO]

PurpleDisfreak,

That is exactly what we had planned to do...sort of DOUBLE DIP if you will! Glad it worked for you. On paper it sounded very good.

Maybe we will give it another try. Tell the truth I was not even thinking about it until we had our chat just last Friday. I figured at that point it was just too good to be true.

BUT now I see it could work per your recent trip/experience! Hope you had a good time. My friend said it was the coldest Dec trip so far. They still had a great time. How could you not! He told me he drank all the coco he could and that at their MK party they could just walk up and ride. That is after the parade was over in the night.

Thanks again!!!

 

[Tiggerfanatic]

Thanks very much!! I will look for the payment via gift card when i make my first payment!! Does it limit you how many cards can be used per day???

When I tried to use 2 cards at once, I only got a receipt the next day for one $25 payment. So I went back in and used the card that did not get credited again, and it went through the next day. So I have just been using one card per day. Kind of a pain but when I started buying them at Giant Eagle they only came in $25 and $50. Now you can buy $100 or even $500 and as soon I burn thru my $25 cards I have enough of the bigger denominations to pay off my trip (my final payment isn't due until mid January so I have plenty of time.) The biggest problem I was having for awhile was Disney's reservation site but it seems to be working OK now.

 

[Rob562]

Put me down as someone who's bought gift cards directly from Disney (both at the local Disney Store and online at www.disneygiftcard.com) and have not had a single problem with them.

It sounds like their register system has problems with processing the not-sold-directly-by-Disney gift cards...

Sometimes I use my gift cards in the park, other times I charge things to my room account and then pay off the balance at the Front Desk by using the gift cards.

-Rob

 

[jmb2676]

I used at least $300 of gift cards bought from Giant Eagle with no problems 3 times within the last year. I guess it just depends on where you use them? I used them mostly at the hotel to pay for my DDP. It sounds like maybe I just got lucky with CM's who knew what to do?

 

[buseegal]

this summer, i used gift cards that our church sold as a fund raiser at Christmas and Easter. had no problems using as tips and in stores. looked like Disney cards.

 

[PeoplemoverTTA]

On my trip in 2006 (I think it was that one...we were at POFQ) the gift cards were still pretty new. We bought some right in the World, and had that problem everywhere. We also had an issue where a cast member said that if the balance on the card was less than the total amount, we couldn't use it (pretty much making it impossible to use all the value on the card).

For my grandma's birthday, I ordered her one on disneystore.com. I hope there's no issue with it.

 

[Magical Dreamer]

I brought $700...but charged using my room card....

I paid the room key off with the gift cards the day before we left.

 

[Rob562]

On my trip in 2006 (I think it was that one...we were at POFQ) the gift cards were still pretty new. We bought some right in the World, and had that problem everywhere. We also had an issue where a cast member said that if the balance on the card was less than the total amount, we couldn't use it (pretty much making it impossible to use all the value on the card).

For my grandma's birthday, I ordered her one on disneystore.com. I hope there's no issue with it.

Just an FYI, that CM definitely didn't know what they were talking about. While it's sometimes an issue with gift cards that carry a Visa/MasterCard/AmEx logo, it's not true for gift cards. Pretty much every register system in any modern retail outlet is smart enough to look up the card, check the balance and then deduct either the amount of the purchase or the full remaining balance, whichever is less, automatically.

With the credit-card-branded gift cards, you need to know beforehand how much is left on it. Then the person on the register needs to know how to put through a charge of exactly that amount to deduct it from the purchase total. I'm sure not everyone manning a register (at Disney or at other retail locations outside WDW) knows how to do that, and thus would have to ask for a manager to do it.

-Rob