Disney Visa Rewards

[Meistee]

We are considering switching to a Disney Visa. We use our credit card for all daily purchases and pay it off in full every month. We were thinking that if we switched to a Disney Visa that we could really get a lot of money towards Disney vacations. What I'm wondering is how often to you need to redeem your points to reward money and does it ever expire???

I guess what I'm really asking is if we are considering taking Disney vacations every other or every 3rd year can we accumulate the points/rewards over multiple years without them expiring?

Thanks!

[Goofy4TheWorld]

Looking at my last statement, it looks like reward points expire from you card statement 3 years after the transaction date, but then if you move those points over to a "Rewards Redemption Card" in that third year you could get another 12 to 23 months before that card expires.

[MegaDisney]

If you use the "search this forum" feature and search for "chase visa" or you will find 20 threads already going on this topic.

[Meistee]

@ Mega Disney -


Sorry for cluttering up the forum but I already did a search and read at least 20 threads before posting this. None of the threads I read addressed expiration of points or rewards and there is no information on the visa website regarding this.

[rjmdds]

We basically do now what you are considering doing. Realize that points do take a while to accumulate. It would be hard to accumulate enough points to say pay for the whole vacation but it definitely comes in handy. We used our points for all of our souvenirs and out of pocket meals during our last trip. We paid for the BBB for our DD7 with it last time as well. It was really nice to have that rewards card. Another added benefit that you didn't mention but may have read about is the 6 months interest free on Disney vacations. It is a very nice feature. If you go to Disney every 3 years or so , use your Visa extensively every month AND pay it off every month, then it is DEFINITELY worth it.

[Pirate Granny]

I have a Disney card...pay it off every month. We used all the points in November 2008. My March 2010 statement had 750 point already accumulated. Plan to use for our March 2011 trip for Grand Gathering type meals outside of the DDP.

[mdhiggin]

My new statement says reward dollars don't expire until 3/2015. It started over from 0 since we used them all last month. So, they must last 5 years unless you put them on the reward card, and they expire with the card which is sometime less than 2 years as PP stated.

Be wary of that 0% thing. We pay our balance off every month too and haven't had a finance charge in over a year until the last two months. If you don't use the cc for anything but the 0%, it's great, but we use ours for everything. That is where it gets tricky. We used the 0% for DVC down payment, as applicable for 6 months. So each month, I would look at the new balance, subtract the down payment from bill and pay the rest. I have occasional refunds on my card since I use it all the time. Apparently, they used the refunds to go ahead and take debt off of the 0% rather than just posting them to the next bill. So when the new bills came, I would just pay the difference subtracting the down payment. Meanwhile, the down payment was getting lower because of the refund deal and I was still thinking it was the same amount. I was told to pay the category of purchases that was in a column of figures lower on the page and not pay attention to the obvious new balance amount at the top in the lined box. I paid it off early so the charges would stop. It totaled up to only $50 of finance charges for the two months it was messed up, $65 before I got them to credit part of one, but it was annoying all the same.

Long story short, the cc companies are in it to make money, so don't play their 0% game unless you put the card away until it's paid in full.

[Goofy4TheWorld]

Dug my Rewards Card fine print out, and it states:

Earned DDRDs that are not transfered to your Disney Rewards Card remain available for 5 years from the date they appear on your statement.

So you have 5 years to move them from your statement to your separate Rewards card, and then your rewards card will expire on either the next December or the December after next, depending on when you order your rewards card.

So if you plan on taking a trip every 3 years, you will be okay.

[Genie1953]

Keep in mind that when you order your rewards card there is an expiration date on it. You can move reward dollars over to it at any time but remember...whatever amount of reward dollars you move over that card...they will expire when the card expires and you will lose unused reward dollars. For example our rewards card will expire in December 2011 so if we transfer $50 reward dollars over to it in November of 2011 we must use those reward dollars before the card expires or we will lose them.

[KylesMom]

Meistee, don't worry about "clutterering up the boards". The Disney Visa card benefits and uses can be very confusing - and so can the search features of the boards until you get the hang of it! That's what we're here for!

As another INTERCOTEE mentioned, your points (dollars) will expire five years from the date that they are earned, provided you don't transfer them to a Rewards Card that you have to order separately. The Rewards Card itself is good roughly two years from the time you order it. For example, if I ordered my Rewards Card today & transferred all of my earned money over to it, it would expire on December 31, 2012. However, I could "bank" my rewards up to five years from the month they are earned.

I hope this helps. If you have any other questions, please ask!

On your monthly statement, it will give a "run down" of when your rewards dollards will expire.

[Meistee]

Thank you all so much for your responses. They were very helpful! We hope to be back to Disney World soon!

[brownie]

It's worth it if you pay it off each month, otherwise you pay more in interest than you make in points. We are going to have a lot for our trip later this year (they've been accumulating for almost 3 years now.)

The points need to be transferred to a rewards card within 5 years of they expire. Once transferred to the card, they need to be used before that card's expiration date. If the card expires and you have points on it, those points are gone.