Paying for park tickets with gift cards?

[mp2bill]

We went on a Disney cruise in pre-pandemic 2020, and we paid for it using gift cards that you can get at a discount at our local wholesale club.

I was wondering if I could do the same with tickets at WDW, or, if like many other things, they used the pandemic as an excuse to do away with this. The only thing I could find online was one blog post that said that they cap it at one gift card, which maxes out at $1000.

Our tickets for an upcoming 7 day trip will be well over this amount, so I called WDW, and even the customer service person didn’t know, and it was taking a specialist forever to get back to her. In talking through it, she said that it should be possible, but it’ll have to be done in multiple transactions, so it’ll be helpful to have as few gift cards as possible.

So who’s correct? The blog post, and the highest amount you can apply is gift cards is $1000, or is the customer service person correct and there is no cap?

 

[Patcheslee]

That's my understanding of them. Unless you want to divide the ticket purchases to less than $1000 each. So purchase as many as possible under the $1000. Use another GC to purchase more, then combine all the balances left onto one for spending later.
Example: my tickets would be $2773 total or $924 each. I would combine 2 gift cards to the $1000, roll the $76 left from those for $152 balance, then add an additional $775 to pay the 3rd ticket.

 

[mp2bill]

That's my understanding of them. Unless you want to divide the ticket purchases to less than $1000 each. So purchase as many as possible under the $1000. Use another GC to purchase more, then combine all the balances left onto one for spending later.
Example: my tickets would be $2773 total or $924 each. I would combine 2 gift cards to the $1000, roll the $76 left from those for $152 balance, then add an additional $775 to pay the 3rd ticket.

Oh, I didn't think about purchasing tickets for each person one at a time. Thanks for the tip!

 

[Weather_Lady]

If your ticket purchase is rolled into a hotel-and-ticket package, you can use as many gift cards as you want to pay for the whole thing. (We did this last year -- and then canceled, meaning it all got refunded back to the gift cards -- and now I'm rolling in WDW gift cards!)

There's got to be a way to do the same if all you're buying is tickets -- although, if you're buying them a la carte, you may save more by purchasing them through an authorized reseller and paying through traditional means, rather than buying them from Disney with discounted gift cards. (For example, when I buy discounted Disney gift cards at BJ's during the months when I can stack it with a Discover card "5% cash back at wholesale clubs" offer, I end up saving a total of about 8.5%, but if I purchase WDW tickets from an authorized reseller like Undercover Tourist or Boardwalk Ticketing, I can save over 10% over the Disney-direct price -- not huge, but enough additional savings to buy an extra round of Dole Whips for the family.)

Calculator here, if you want to compare reseller prices with WDW prices: https://touringplans.com/walt-disney-world/ticket-calculator

 

[cjack300zx]

I do this every trip, there is a option for gift card on My Disney Experience for payment

 

[mp2bill]

If your ticket purchase is rolled into a hotel-and-ticket package, you can use as many gift cards as you want to pay for the whole thing. (We did this last year -- and then canceled, meaning it all got refunded back to the gift cards -- and now I'm rolling in WDW gift cards!)

There's got to be a way to do the same if all you're buying is tickets -- although, if you're buying them a la carte, you may save more by purchasing them through an authorized reseller and paying through traditional means, rather than buying them from Disney with discounted gift cards. (For example, when I buy discounted Disney gift cards at BJ's during the months when I can stack it with a Discover card "5% cash back at wholesale clubs" offer, I end up saving a total of about 8.5%, but if I purchase WDW tickets from an authorized reseller like Undercover Tourist or Boardwalk Ticketing, I can save over 10% over the Disney-direct price -- not huge, but enough additional savings to buy an extra round of Dole Whips for the family.)

Calculator here, if you want to compare reseller prices with WDW prices: https://touringplans.com/walt-disney-world/ticket-calculator

Thanks for the tip. I’ll check those out.