It is officially time for Disney Vacation Club owners to pay their annual dues. Some DVC owners may be looking for ways to lower their dues and find that utilizing Disney gift cards is an effective way to save money.
Purchasing Disney gift cards on sale is a great strategy for those looking to buy anything Disney related. These gift cards can be used for paying your 2021 DVC annual dues, buying merchandise, park tickets or passes, and even at restaurants in the parks. Finding Disney gift cards at a discounted rate could potentially save guests hundreds of dollars. The key to getting these savings is all about where and how you buy them.
Although there are many places to purchase Disney gift cards, there are three places in particular that will give you the most bang for your buck. These places include:
Target
Target is a great choice for people looking to purchase Disney gift cards. The way to get the savings here, is to have the Target Redcard. Those who make their purchases with the Redcard will automatically receive 5% off of everything they buy, including gift cards. Unfortunately, gift cards are always excluded from extra coupons or the 1% Target Circle savings. However, 5% off is still a great deal, especially when in large quantities. Although you only receive a discount if you pay the Redcard, the benefit to purchasing at Target is that it is an extremely accessible location to buy these gift cards.
Sam’s Club
Sam’s Club is a member’s only establishment, and therefore is mainly worth the effort for gift cards if you already have a membership. The membership costs $45 per year to shop.
At Sam’s Club shoppers can regularly find gift cards for sale at a 4% discount. This equates to a $50 gift card for $47.98. Buying at Sam’s Club is a great choice because there is also the potential for higher savings more than the original price of the gift card. You can learn more about it in the “Stacking Savings” section.
BJ’s Wholesale
Shopping at BJ’s Wholesale also requires a membership. However, you can purchase a BJ’s Wholesale membership for only $10 per year. Even if you only purchased the Disney gift cards here, you could save much more than $10, making it still worth it to buy your gift cards here.
The best savings that you can find at BJ’s Wholesale is going to be around 4% off, or a $100 Disney gift card for $95.99. Although it is not as high of a savings as Target, the benefit of BJ’s Wholesale is that you can make your purchase with any payment method, whereas at Target you will need to use the Redcard to get the savings.
Stacking Savings
Although 4 – 5% savings is still quite substantial, there are ways to increase the savings even more. Stacking strategies, done by utilizing multiple methods of savings are the best way to get the most significant money off.
For example, you could use a cash back credit card to purchase Disney gift cards at Sam’s club. Depending on your card, you could receive 1-5% cash back from purchasing gift cards. This will bring your overall savings to 6-10% off.
In addition to using the cash back credit card, those looking for more savings could download an app called Dosh. Dosh provides cash back for purchases at participating retail stores, such as Sam’s Club. Depending on the deal at the time using the Dosh app could lead to up to an extra 10% off of Disney gift card purchases.
If you research your credit card terms, store deals, and Dosh deals, you could potentially save almost 20% off your Disney gift card purchases.
How To Pay DVC Annual Dues With A Gift Card
Now that you know where and how to best purchase your Disney gift cards, you need to know how to use them to pay your dues.
Once you have all of your gift cards, you can pay your dues online using the pay by contract feature. You may also choose to combine all your gift cards online so that you have fewer cards to deal with. You are able to combine up to $1000 on one card on the disneygiftcard.com website. Combining would be a good strategy if owners are choosing to pay by phone as there may be a limit to how many cards they allow you to use per day with this method. If paying using the pay by contract feature it is not necessary to combine the gift cards first as you would end up typing all the numbers twice.
In conclusion, it may seem like a lot more effort to purchase the gift cards and upload them online in comparison to just using a regular card, but the work can be worth it for DVC members who are paying their annual dues. Depending on how well you stack your savings and where you buy, you could save hundreds of dollars on your DVC dues. That’s hundreds of dollars better spent in the parks having a great time!
Have you ever used gift cards to pay your dues? How much money did you save? Let us know in the comments below.
If you’re not using your membership, now is the time to sell!
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Written byRachel Van Norman
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