Canadian Disney Gift Cards for trip?

Zombie

Mouseketeer
Joined
Sep 13, 2014
I’m not quite wrapping my head around the advantages of buying Disney gift cards in Canada before a trip to use on a trip? What am I missing? Is it an exchange rate thing? Low dollar thing? Or just a convenience factor? Can some one please help me out with better understanding the pros and cons - and even whys of making these purchases ahead of our December trip. tIA.
 
There are a few benefits of buying and using gift cards. Here are some of them:

1) Disney gift cards don't charge you the ~2.5% f/x fee that most Canadian credit cards charge you when you purchase something in US$, so you are essentially saving 2.5% vs. using most Canadian C$ cards.

2) Since you are paying for them in C$, you don't have to buy US$ from the bank and pay the banks' higher exchange rate. So a savings of ~2.5% vs using a Canadian US$ credit card.

3) If you buy them at a grocery store or drug store that allows you to buy them with a credit card, and you use a credit card that, say, gives you 5% back on purchases, you are essentially getting the card at a 5% discount.
 


This is all really helpful. Thank you. Do you know if the cards can pretty much be used for anything in the parks? We’d mostly want to be using them for tips (we got the ‘free dining’ in our reservation period) and the Droid Depot and likey Savi (if we manage to get a reservation).
 
This is all really helpful. Thank you. Do you know if the cards can pretty much be used for anything in the parks? We’d mostly want to be using them for tips (we got the ‘free dining’ in our reservation period) and the Droid Depot and likey Savi (if we manage to get a reservation).

Yes they are able to be used property-wide. We've used ours for food, drinks, resort charges, DVC dues, Bibbidi Bobbidi, etc.
 
I think everyone has well explained the ~2.5% savings. I got some at Petro where I was able to use my points towards them as well, and earn on the portion I paid for. Some places you can earn points like that.

I used mine to pay off my package, memory maker, pay for dining while there and at Droid Depot. Also used it at the Disney store at the airport.
 


I also sort of use my PC points to buy mine - you can't do that directly anymore, but if I'm going to get $100 in groceries, and have $100 worth of PC points banked, I'll grab a $100 gift card, and then pay for the groceries with points and buy the gift card. I've then saved $100 on groceries and converted it to Disney, so it's really a free Disney gift card.
 
Yes they are able to be used property-wide. We've used ours for food, drinks, resort charges, DVC dues, Bibbidi Bobbidi, etc.
Do you happen to know if you can specifically use them to give a tip too? We won’t really be paying for food since we’ll have the dining credits. But will be leaving the appropriate tip amount.
 
Do you happen to know if you can specifically use them to give a tip too? We won’t really be paying for food since we’ll have the dining credits. But will be leaving the appropriate tip amount.

Yes you can. I’ve paid tips multiple times with a GC. Just keep a tab on how much is left. You can also charge the tip to your room with the magic band and pay your bill at front desk with a GC.

Make sure you register your card to disneygiftcard.com website in case you loose it. That way you can easily transfer the money left on it to another GC. I also use the website to combine GCs so I don’t need to carry multiple cards.
 
Do you happen to know if you can specifically use them to give a tip too? We won’t really be paying for food since we’ll have the dining credits. But will be leaving the appropriate tip amount.
Yes you can.

What I usually do is charge the tips to our room and then go down to front desk to apply the gift cards at the end of the week.

But you can also just use a gift card at the restaurant to pay for tips.
 
Yes they are able to be used property-wide. We've used ours for food, drinks, resort charges, DVC dues, Bibbidi Bobbidi, etc.
We usually pay our bill with USD purchased in Canada, but I'm seeing the benefits of buying these gift cards and then combining them into one card and using that to pay off our bill. How do you use them to pay your DVC dues? Could be quite a savings on the exchange rate markup.
Thanks,
Tony
 
I got some at Petro where I was able to use my points towards them as well, and earn on the portion I paid for. Some places you can earn points like that.

Oh I did not realize you can use Petro Points for gift cards! That is awesome!
 
We usually pay our bill with USD purchased in Canada, but I'm seeing the benefits of buying these gift cards and then combining them into one card and using that to pay off our bill. How do you use them to pay your DVC dues? Could be quite a savings on the exchange rate markup.
Thanks,
Tony

To be fair, now that I think of it, I have only paid my DVC dues using US Disney gift cards, but I imagine it is the same exact process for Canadian Disney gift cards. We rented out some of our points, got paid in USD...I then bought Disney gift cards with that money via PayPal. When my dues is due I just select "pay with Disney Gift card" at the payment page and enter the card info. It's pretty seamless.
 
To be fair, now that I think of it, I have only paid my DVC dues using US Disney gift cards, but I imagine it is the same exact process for Canadian Disney gift cards. We rented out some of our points, got paid in USD...I then bought Disney gift cards with that money via PayPal. When my dues is due I just select "pay with Disney Gift card" at the payment page and enter the card info. It's pretty seamless.

Thank you Minniemoo15. I too rented some of my DVC points and have a few thousand USD in my PayPal account. If I take it out, I have to pay the exchange and take it in CAD. I've been looking for a way to use the USD without having to pay exchange and this would be ideal. Do you just buy the Disney gift cards at Disney online and use Pay Pal at checkout?
Thanks,
Tony
 
Thank you Minniemoo15. I too rented some of my DVC points and have a few thousand USD in my PayPal account. If I take it out, I have to pay the exchange and take it in CAD. I've been looking for a way to use the USD without having to pay exchange and this would be ideal. Do you just buy the Disney gift cards at Disney online and use Pay Pal at checkout?
Thanks,
Tony

Yes that's exactly what we did. On the US Disney gift card site, select e-gift card and they will email it to you. Select PayPal at checkout. I am not sure if you can buy a physical US gift card and have them ship it to you in Canada.
 
Yes that's exactly what we did. On the US Disney gift card site, select e-gift card and they will email it to you. Select PayPal at checkout. I am not sure if you can buy a physical US gift card and have them ship it to you in Canada.
Thanks. I have US money in PayPal that I felt was stuck. I don't want to take it out just to have to convert it again. I didn't know we could buy e-card from the Disney site.
 
Thanks. I have US money in PayPal that I felt was stuck. I don't want to take it out just to have to convert it again. I didn't know we could buy e-card from the Disney site.

If you have a USD physical card you could transfer that e-card onto it. I keep one of the $5 ones I got through disney movie rewards to do this with the giftcard you get for not using mousekeeping. I prefer to have a physical card rather than the electronic one.
 
Oh I did not realize you can use Petro Points for gift cards! That is awesome!
You can optimize this too. If you are a CAA member you get 20% more Petropoints and CAA dollars, pay with an RBC mastercard you get another 20% more Petropoints and 3 cents off each liter of gas, and link your HBC rewards card you get another 20% more Petropoints and HBC rewards points. That's 60% more Petropoints when you fill up along with other benefits. Petropoints is the only points program I can find that allows us to convert points to Disney giftcards. If anyone knows of another points program that converts directly to Disney giftcards, please share.
 

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