Start planning EARLY. That is my best advice for planning a Disney Vacation. That, and get the Disney Premier Credit Card, but I’ll get to that later. Our first trip to Disneyland was when the boys were 3 and 5. It was in February and Wyatt had just turned 3 about 2 weeks prior to the trip. So they were young. We did not do the typical things everyone expects to do on a Disney Vacation like long days and big rides. But, because of their age, we did a ton of fun things that I had never done before. If you ask me, they were a perfect age. We are now planning our second trip and I am going to do a few things differently, but mostly the same.
Planning a Disneyland Vacation
In this post, I’ll link through to all of my blog posts about Disneyland. I’ll cover how our first trip only cost us $53.87 to fly there, rent a car and get into the park. Yes, that’s correct. If you plan properly and squeeze every last reward point out of your credit cards and the internet, you too can get free tickets. But, as mentioned before, it takes planning.
Financial Planning for your Trip
Reward Points are the easiest way to earn your way to Disneyland. But it takes time. When we began planning the pregnancy for Cash I opened my Disney Credit Card. We put all of our prenatal/delivery expenses on that card so Cash, and then eventually Wyatt, earned their own trip just by being born.
Cash’s pregnancy was very expensive due to our insurance not being that great. Billy worked in the private sector with no benefits and I am self-employed. Needless to say, the points added up quickly after two pregnancies. The points do expire after 5 years so the grand plan was always to take them on a Disney Vacation when Cash turned 5. The points expired in March, so we went in February. Thanks to our *labor-intensive* point-earning, the trip was nearly free!
I understand most of you reading this do not have 5 years to build up your points… We’re now going two short years after we blew all of our points so I’m starting off fresh again too. After only 2 years of planning trip two, I’ve still found ways to earn a lot of points and nearly free tickets…
Reward Point Credit Cards
The absolute best thing you can do is apply for the Disney Premier Credit Card {*if you qualify.} This card gives you 2% in rewards points as opposed to the Disney Visa which only gives you 1% cashback. I talk more about that in my first post below about Financial Planning.
Chase Sapphire Card
If you do not qualify for the Disney card try the Chase Sapphire Visa. This card gives you 2% rewards also, which you can redeem for Target Gifts Cards. The Target Gifts Cards can then be used to buy Disney Gift Cards!
Target Red Card
I have two reward points earning credit cards that I use to redeem for direct Disney Rewards Dollars and then for gift cards to Target. Target is a big piece of the Disneyland puzzle if you’re not in the loop… Target Red Cardholders get a 5% discount in-store on ALL purchases. That includes Disney Park Passes and Disney Gift Cards. YEP! So when you’re buying that $300+ pass, you can buy it at Target and get 5% off. Trust me, there a no discounts anywhere for Disneyland tickets… unless you’re a veteran, employee or California resident. Even then, the discount is very small. Point Pinching your way into free tickets is the best way to go at the cheapest rate. But, it is also time-consuming.
More on Target in a later post. If you do not have a Target REDCard yet, you should apply for one now!
Disneyland Vacation Posts
Enough about the money, let’s get to the fun part! Below I’ve listed all of my Disneyland related blog posts in order. I would bookmark this page and keep coming back to it after you’ve read each post down the list.
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Awesome post! Keep up the great work! 🙂
It is wonderful that this post shared that planning a trip to Disneyland can be costly when it is planned poorly. My wife and I are planning to go to Disneyland end of the year. I will plan the trip and consider our expenses.