Money Saving Tips for Discount Disney Gift Cards
This covers our best money-saving tips for buying discount Disney gift cards via Target, Kroger, Meijer, Sam’s Club, Best Buy, and beyond. Some deals offer big savings for your Walt Disney World vacation, while others are modest but easier. (Updated December 11, 2023.)
Since we are pretty big on stretching our vacation dollar with all sorts of travel hacks, we thought we’d share some of the best methods for scoring discounted Disney gift cards. Some of this might sound complicated and intimidating, but it’s really easy once you get the hang of it, and the upside is so tremendous that it makes the effort of learning well worth it.
With that said, I understand that this is not going to be for everyone. If you don’t have a credit card or are uncomfortable making online purchases, this definitely isn’t for you. While there are a few 101 level travel hacks here, a couple of the tricks are more 404 level.
As good deals come and go, we update this post with the best options for saving money on Disney gift cards. (If you see a “last updated” date at the top of this post, it’s because we’ve found a new limited time deal.) Some of them are convoluted and have limited applicability. Others are open to everyone but have stricter purchase limits.
Regardless, this is one of the easiest way to save money on Walt Disney World vacations–and one of the few that is “stackable” with other discounts. Subscribe to our free email newsletter for a heads up if or when more Disney gift card deals go live.
With that said, here are the various options for saving money on Disney gift cards. Note that these are not always available–they come and go. If you click a link and full price gift cards come up, you’re not missing anything–the deal isn’t being offered!
Costco
Costco Wholesale currently is selling $250 Disney eGift Cards for $225 (deal available as of December 11, 2023–no end date is known). You need to be an active Costco Member and signed in to your account to purchase at sale price. This is delivered via email, so the recipient’s email address must be supplied in email field on the Shipping Address page.
There’s a limit of 2 Disney gift cards per membership, meaning $500 for the price of $450. These can be combined with other gift cards via Disney’s online management tool. We’ve seen scattered reports (with hit or miss results) of some Costco members being able to make two different transactions, each with 2 gift cards in them.
It seems like you’re more likely to be successful if you have a membership with multiple members on it, each having a unique ID. Or if you place one order one day, and another the next. Regardless, don’t be surprised if your second transaction is unsuccessful. (We haven’t heard of anyone managing 3 or more orders. Two is the max.)
Sam’s Club
From time to time, Sam’s Club members may purchase Disney gift cards for 10% off, to be delivered electronically. When offered, these deals are online only and while supplies last; prices may vary in club. The last time we saw this offered was at the start of the Christmas 2023 shopping season.
Note that this is an eGift card, and it will be emailed within 48 hours of purchase. It’s also worth noting that Sam’s Club is available via various credit card and online cashback portals. Almost all of those explicitly exclude gift card purchases from receiving cash back, but it still doesn’t hurt to try. Might get through and end up saving even more money!
Best Buy
Another currently unavailable but frequently repeated discount is Best Buy offering 10% discounts to My Best Buy Plus or Total members. For those who are unfamiliar with it, this is essentially their version of Amazon Prime, offering expedited shipping and access to exclusive sale prices.
It’s also not uncommon to find discount Disney gift cards are sold at Best Buy without the need for a BB+ membership. That’s happened multiple times for Black Friday or Cyber Monday, with the retailer selling $50 Disney gift cards for $45, or a savings of 10% off.
Where this deal gets really sweet is if you have If you have any Chase credit or debit cards (or the Best Buy card), as many of these have targeted offers for 10% cashback at Best Buy. That should be stackable with this offer, making the discount even better.
In terms of fine print, you’re limited to one Disney gift card per transaction and account, although some people have reported success placing 2 separate orders or buying more with different accounts. Others have had their subsequent order(s) cancelled, not that we know from personal experience or anything. Basically, it’s YMMV after the first order.
Kroger Fuel Points
For those of you near Kroger grocery stores, this is one of the better “everyday” ways to save on Disney gift cards (well, technically, you’re saving money on gas, but it’s because of the gift cards). Normally, every dollar you spend at Kroger earns 1 fuel point, or 2 fuel points on gift card purchases. On occasion, Kroger offers 4X fuel points (sometimes it’s for a period of weeks, sometimes for a single day), which really sweetens the deal.
For every 100 fuel points you redeem, you save $0.10 off every gallon of gas (up to $1/gallon off) you purchase on a single fuel purchase. The precise value of this deal varies based upon how large of a gas tank you’re filling (and how empty your tank), so obviously those with trucks and larger vehicles are going to do better here.
Let’s say your gas tank has 25 gallons of empty space: the normal offer could be worth $25 for every $500 spent (5% savings). With the 4X deal, you’re looking at 10% savings. Stack this with a credit card that earns extra at grocery stores, and this can be one of the best deals out there when the 4X bonus is available.
While we use this for Disney gift cards, like many of the offers here, the same theory can be applied to a variety of other stores, including Target, Lowe’s, Southwest Airlines, GAP, iTunes, and Visa. Note to be mindful that the generic ‘Visa’ gift cards have an activation fee, which more or less kills the deal.
Target REDCard
The Target REDcard gets you an automatic 5% discount on any purchase at Target, including gift cards. Among other things, Target sells Disney gift cards both online and in-store, making for a simple way to save 5% on your Walt Disney World vacation.
If you don’t have a Target Red Card it might be worth getting one just to take advantage of this deal. Consider this: many Disney fans are Disney Visa cardholders (a fairly crumby credit card, honestly) because of the Disney perks. However, by virtue of this one deal, the Target Red Card is unquestionably a better card from a rewards perspective for Disney fans.
It may not have Mickey Mouse’s picture on the card, but the Target REDcard gives Disney fans (who know how to use it) greater rewards. You can also take advantage of it with the Target Red Debit Card, which can be a good option for those who don’t want a credit card…or another one.
Meijer Mperks
If you live in the Midwest or one of the other regions in the United States with Meijer stores, they often run $5 off $50 promos on gift cards. When available, this is limited to a total of 10 rewards purchases–or $500 in gift cards–per Mperks account. (Meijer routinely runs this offer, usually multiple times per year.)
This means you can purchase a single Disney gift card for $500 and you’ll earn ten rewards of $5 (or $50 total) to use on future purchases. This essentially makes it identical to the BJ’s deal, albeit without the membership and Chase Freedom credit card requirements–the only catch here is that not everyone has Meijer stores near them. Sadly, we don’t!
BJ’s Wholesale Club
Another good deal available from time to time is via BJ’s Wholesale Club. Members can purchase a $500 gift card for a discounted amount, sometimes as low as $469.99 during sales. This savings isn’t huge on its own, but it’s sometimes the best option–and it can be “sweetened” for some Chase credit card holders.
That’s because if you have a Chase Freedom credit card, the quarterly 5% bonus category can include PayPal purchases, and you can use pay on the BJ’s site using PayPal linked to your Chase Freedom credit card. In that scenario, the effective cost ends up being under $450 for the $500 Disney gift card. Double win!
Warehouse Clubs
Even easier than the Kroger Fuel Points is the discounted Disney gift cards Sam’s Club and Costco sometimes sell. These gift cards (or packs of gift cards) aren’t always available, and when they are, the savings are usually 4-6%, but if you’re not too keen on the other methods (or don’t have Kroger near you), it can be a “better than nothing” scenario.
This deal can be sweetened if you have a Chase Freedom credit card, as wholesale clubs are one of the rotating 5X categories (this quarter, in fact). Speaking of credit cards, make sure you have the correct credit card when visiting your warehouse club of choice (Sam’s Club now accepts Visa; Costco stopped accepting AmEx). You don’t want to have to pay in cash, causing you to lose out on that bonus!
Cashback Portals
Another way to sweeten the deal is by combining the gift card churning with cashback shopping portals. There are a variety of these, and the percentages of cashback they offer can vary based upon what promos they’re offering, and the product purchased. I like to use cashbackmonitor.com or evreward.com for a quick “at a glance” comparison of the cashback portals.
I use cashback portals fairly regularly, but this typically does not hold true when it comes to gift card churning. Many retailers exclude gift cards from their cashback offers, and while you can still game the system to get cashback on gift card purchases (although they are technically excluded, the retailers and cashback sites often do not effectively communicate as to the substance of the order), it’s inconsistent.
More importantly (for me, at least), I’ve heard stories of people being blacklisted from certain online retailers as a result of “manipulating” the cashback portals for their gift card purchase rackets. This is another “your mileage may vary” situation, so consider giving it a try for greater savings.
This is another option that can be leveraged in myriad different ways, and with cards that have nothing to do with Disney. If you’re really serious and/or crazy, you could go full circle and apply the principles gleaned here to do manufactured spends. I’m not going to go into further detail on that, as the line between that type of churning and “gift card laundering” is a thin one. Both sides of that “line” are totally legal, the latter might cause some headaches.
With all of these strategies, I’d recommend not doing this too far in advance of your trip; if you’re doing any of this 3 years in advance, you aren’t beating the system at all–you’d be better off making actual investments given typical ROI and the time value of money.
I’d also recommend not tying up more money than you can afford to be stuck in limbo; if you’re paying interest on credit cards to fund this, you’re also losing in the grand scheme of things. Finally, be careful. While all of this is perfectly legal, businesses aren’t exactly “fans” of customers exploiting their policies. If you are cycling a lot of money through any retailer solely in gift card purchases, you might draw some attention to yourself, and risk catching their ire.
With all of that said, good luck leveraging these Disney gift card hacks to save a little more money on your Walt Disney World vacation! With a little work, these strategies can be incredibly valuable and make those exorbitant prices a little more palatable. Once you learn the ropes with using these tactics for Disney, think bigger picture. There are entire blogs and websites devoted to travel hacks, including churning, manufactured spends, etc. Once you get the hang of it, the possibilities are almost endless.
Likewise, if anything sounds confusing, feel free to ask questions–everyone starts from the beginning, and my explanations as someone who has been ‘hacking’ for a while might be insufficient for walking beginners through these processes from start to finish.
Need Disney trip planning tips and comprehensive advice? Make sure to read Disney Parks Vacation Planning Guides, where you can find comprehensive guides to Walt Disney World, Disneyland, and beyond! For Disney updates, discount information, a free download of our Money-Saving Tips for Walt Disney World eBook, and much more, sign up for our free monthly newsletter!
Your Thoughts
Have you tried purchasing “discount” Disney gift cards to cut the cost of your vacation? Any other strategies you’ve used to save for a Walt Disney World trip? Questions about any of the techniques we’ve shared? We love hearing from readers, so please share some of your favorite ways to save, or any other thoughts or questions you have, in the comments!
Awesome tips, I used to buy gift cards from https://www.giftcardspread.com but you suggested as raise I would definitely try.
You *can* use the Target method– and it WILL stack with your RedCard 5% discount– if
1) you buy non-gift card items, as well (tossed in two cute disney shirts to my cart)
2) spend slightly more on Disney cards than the total you have on Target gift cards (e.g.: I bought $140 in Target cards, but purchased $150 in Disney cards).
It throws off Target’s risk algorithms that would otherwise block the transaction.
Good luck!!
You are wonderful! I came to this page on the right day!
Awesome tip–I was wondering why some people are still reporting success at this, and that explains it. Thanks!
Thanks for the tip!! Do you think you could purchase these in large quantities – we have a big family, and would like to purchase gift cards to use for food at Disney restaurants – like $2000 worth.
Tried buying a $27 pair of men’s pajama bottoms along with $100 Disney Gift Card.
A couple things
1. I had random Target cards that I bought before the ban adding up to roughly $120
2. I chose the Redcard to pay the $8 balance
3. Not really sure what the 5% discount applied to but it only amounted to less than 50 cents.
4. did not matter anyways – almost immediately the transactuion was cancelled after being submitted.
Drats.
I have $120 in electronic target gift cards i hope can buy a disney card in store
I can’t seem to get the discounts to stack. 🙁
Whenever I add the gift card, it bumps the red card discount down (like it only discounts the remaining balance after the gift card has been applied). I’m trying to buy $300 in Disney gift cards with the $281 Raise Target gift card. I added non gift card items as well (two tops for $24 total). Maybe it’s not enough, but I didn’t want to add anymore unnecessary items when the point was to save money. Also, Raise does have a disclaimer about gift cards not to be used towards the purchase of other gift cards. =\
But, I did get the $5 off due to the referral link of this blog!
It looks like you can use a Disney Savings Account to cash out for gift cards, with some limitation. You should then be able to use the gift card to pay DVC dues or use it just about anywhere in the parks. From their FAQs:
How do I use my remaining balance to purchase a Disney Gift Card?
To purchase a Disney Gift Card with your Disney Vacation Account, please call (407) 939-7734 to make your request. No more than $1,000 in total from the Disney Vacation Account can be used to purchase Disney Gift Cards every 90 days. Also, your Disney Vacation Account must be active for a minimum of 60 days in order to purchase a Disney Gift Card. Please request your Disney Gift Card at least 4-6 weeks prior to your trip to allow time for delivery to your mailing address.
BEWARE. Target.com is no longer allowing the purchase of gift cards with giftcards. I tried it, and placed several orders that went through and minutes later they were automatically canceled. You can used discounted Target gift cards to pay for Disney gift cards at the stores, but not online. In person, you will not be able to stack the 5% Target card discount and the discounted gift card you buy from Raise. They are on to us thrifty shoppers!
How come no one has mentioned buying Disney gift cards at Giant Eagle? I’ve been buying them there and they offer $0.20 off a gallon of gas for every $50.00 gift card. After just $600 I have $2.40 off a gallon of gas. Where I’m from that makes it FREE up to 30 gallons. To fill my truck up it usually takes $70. Thats about a 12% savings.
That’s a similar deal to what you see mentioned for Kroger in the article above. The reason it wasn’t mentioned is because Giant Eagle is only in 4 states. Kroger has a national presence through it’s various grocery store brands.
I think my comment is very important for those new to gift cards, target, etc…. I do not normally shop at Target as I live far away. I got a red card and signed up with Raise just to get the 10% off Disney GCs. I don’t see how that can be done. I also spent awhile on Raise trying to get the best possible percent off which didn’t amount to much. Now I have to travel 40 minutes one way to purchase the Disney GCs with the target gift cards and i have to try to figure out how to get the target gift cards on the app (my kid has a smart phone but I don’t know how to use one). This method seems to be a huge waste of time for someone like me who does not shop much at target (I usually end up buying maybe 30 bucks from them a year). I worked for Disney a long time ago and am trying to reconnect with my love of Disney on a low budget but my time is worth money too – was borderline worth it if it worked but totally a bust as is.
Tom – I think you need to edit your post more as I do not think it is possible to get 10% of Disney gift cards. As you have written with an update, you can no longer purchase the Disney gift cards online line at the Target website with the Target GCs purchased at Raise. Some people report being able to download the Target GCs to an app and then using them to purchase the Disney GCs in an actual store BUT you then do not receive the extra 5% off with the red card. In other words, there is no way to get 10% off Disney GCs through this method. If I’m wrong, I’d love to know!
The gift card thing worked for me at Target online. I was able to pay for 2 $100 Disney gift cards online on the Target website with the Target gift cards I purchased at Raise for another $10 off because I have a red card (saved 5% there). The Target gift cards I purchased on the Raise site were discounted 2.2% plus another 5 off using the link (I forgot to use the code for another 5 off) so my saving there was about 4.5% Question – the approximate 10% thing is really only a one time deal right (unless you can get a Raise discount of 5%)? I’ve been checking and only have seen 2.2 to 2.4% off and when the 2.4% came up it was snatched right away before I could check out. Seems after the first couple of hundred bucks of target cards on raise, the savings will be around 7.2% according to what I have observed. Am I missing something? Does anyone have any tips on getting the higher end discounts on Raise? Like certain days or times when available?
TIA!
Nevermind – they cancelled my order! Guess you have to buy the Disney gift cards in person.
I just tried to purchase Disney gift cards on Target.com, and after several failed attempts, a chat customer service representative told me that I can only use Target gift cards IN STORE to buy Disney gift cards.
I took advantage of the 10% off Target gift cards sale on Sunday, December 4th.
Ronald:Oh I can see what is the problem here.
Ronald:What happens is that we only proccess the GiftCard purchase with GiftCards in the stores, online we are not able to do it, I do apologizze.
There you have it. I guess we will head down to Target later today and get those gift cards!
I’m about to try the buying the disney gift cards with my red card and the disney vacation account combo. It takes us a while to save up for trips, but if its around $3000 for our hopful summer trip, thats a discount of $150 plus $60, and thats a bunch of souvenirs! !
Have you ever tried Ebates? It is basically just a cash back site, and it works great. I used it to get a % back at Sam’s Club to buy their $500 Disney gift cards with my Discover which is 5% back right now. We are buying annual passes before the end of the year so we can get 13 months for the price of 12. I saved almost $300 which almost pays for one of our passes!
Chase Disney Visa was offering a $200 gift card to new customers who spend $500 in the first 3 months. After receiving my new Visa I promptly bought 7 $100 gift cards at $95/card from BJs. So for $665 I was able to get $900 in gift cards which I handily combined into one on Disney’s gift card site (and with the Visa I got an early start on discounted onsite hotel rooms for next year’s trip). This is a handy ‘hack’ for those who don’t already have the Disney Visa…
I used a Disney Vacation Account Recently. After purchasing my tickets, I had funds left over. They reimbursed the funds that had been paid with my debit card back to my account and put the rest (that I had added to the account using discounted Disney gift cards) on a Disney gift card and sent it to me in less than 10 days.
Also, some time this summer they stopped allowing the purchase of disney gift cards online with target gift cards. You can buy them online with your redcard though.
Thanks for the report on using Disney Vacation Account! Sounds like it worked out well for you.
As for the Target gift card policy, that’s in an update on the post. (Can you guys not see this? I’m wondering if I need to clear the cache for this post, because it’s been updated but people don’t seem to see those updates…)
This needs some SERIOUS updating!
Care to elaborate? It was updated in early November (before your comment), and I don’t see any policy changes since.
Tom, the Raise/Target thing no longer works. You can still get the 5% from Target, but you cant use gift cards AND the 5% any longer. It worked for me for a couple months in the summer, and then it stopped.
Oops, just saw your update.
also disney vacation account is no longer a thing
Has anyone tried splitting instore payment for your disney gift cards across your egift cards snd your target red card? Does the 5% apply then?
eBay may not be allowing the use of eBay gc to buy 3rd party gc for very much longer, either… I think they are in a transition period now, but that loophole may be closed soon. I’m not sure if that will only apply to “authorized resellers” or even gcs being sold by Joe Schmo on the site.
Yep, as of Oct 1, you cannot earn eBay bucks with gc purchases, and as of Jan 1, 2017, you cannot redeem eBay bucks for gc. Good while it lasted…
Here in Ohio & Western PA – we have Giant-Eagle grocery stores- they normally give 10 cents a gallon off of gas for every $50 in gift cards – but I wait for the special – when it’s 20cents a gallon. I buy the Disney cards with my Disney Visa card, so I get those perks – and a free tank of gas! Works out great!
I’m in the same area – hard to beat 12% off in terms of free gas. (Plus cash back on the credit card used).
The DVA is a terrible way to save. Buying gift cards and migrating them to one makes more sense because if you need to access your DVA to get funds sent on a gift card you are told 4-6 weeks processing. Why mess with that when you can register a gift card, add to its total, and track its use with th gift card. The only caveat (and rebuttal I received when I closed my DVA and told them what I was doing) is there is a $1000 limit to gift cards, so if you’re saving for vacation you might need to load a few cards. This is not an inconvenience to me and we actually like the fact we can personalize a gift card with one of our Disney pics!
You get another 2% ($20 per $1000 spent) with the DVA when buying tickets/passes/rooms, so it works for people planning ahead for a vacation. No extra effort really either.
Lori, you can still use Target gift cards to buy Disney gift cards in the Target stores. In addition, you can still use a RedCard for 5% off your total (even the amount paid with gift cards). Only the Raise.com portion is discontinued.
I just bought $600 in Target cards and found this out the hard way when my online order got cancelled. Do you know if I can convert them to physical cards and buy them at the store? I noticed raise gives an option to add the gift card to the target app.
Use the target app instore to pay for those gift cards. I just did this on $1075 last night. Just have the cashier scan the egift card Barcode from within your account in the target app.
I spent a very heated morning over the same issue. Within the last month (because i completed the gift card for disney gift card transaction last on 8/6) the rules changed and i was informed you CAN NOT use target gift cards to purchase other gift cards online or in the stores. I requested that Target send me a copy of the new policy and they responded back that they do not have this new policy in writing nor is available online or mentioned in the product descriptions. This hack is no longer a good one 🙁 i also learned the hard way but thankfully i am only $250 in the hole and Christmas is around the corner.
How did you get the 5% back with your RedCard? Did you purchase part of your Disney gift cards with your RedCard or did you use all Target gift cards and just showed them your RedCard?
I had the same problem last night with the raise/target gift cards. I tried placing an order 3 times and within 2-3 minutes the order was canceled. I called and they said it’s a new policy that you can’t use target gift cards on specialty gift cards. She was not sure when it started. I know it’s been very recent though since I started doing this a couple months ago and it worked fine. And I didn’t see any verbiage anywhere outlining this. I’m super annoyed and upset this changed. I paid for a part of my disney trip this way but not able to do the entire trip this way and now I’m stuck with target gift cards I’d rather be spending on my trip.
An update to the Target/Raise gift card: I added the Raise GC to my Target app and was at least able to use those in store to buy the Disney GC. You won’t get the 5% discount from your RED card but if you were like me and bought a bunch of Raise/Target cards, at least you have an alternative to having all your money stuck in Target GC’s.
I just went through this, having just purchased the second half of our trip ($2000!) And am now stuck sitting on these cards. I bought the first half of our trip in June, and the Raise/Red card combo worked perfectly. I am so pissed. There is nothing I can do! Will they accept them in store? But I won’t get the additional 5% off right?
They should still accept online Target gift cards in stores to buy Disney gift cards, but you won’t get the additional 5% off from the redcard (I say “should” because I used an online Target gc to buy a iTunes gc in store 2 days ago, but don’t see why Disney gc would be any different.)