Can you pay for charges to the room with gift cards?

AdamsMum

DIS Veteran
Joined
Sep 12, 2009
I have a credit card attached to my reservation, but I was wondering if I can use gift cards to pay for charges to the room by storing them on my account at check in?
 
I don't think you can attach gift cards to your account to automatically pay for room charges. But what you can do is monitor your balance, and periodically go to the front desk and pay down your balance by giving them the gift cards. Your credit card won't be charged until the end of the trip - or if you hit the max allowed by Disney (when they'll charge the card and put your open balance back to zero). But again, unless things have changed, you won't be able to automatically use the gift cards for room charges.
 
My late night quiet walk was always to venture to the front desk while my wife got everybody settled down and in bed. I always grabbed a cold libation and walked down and paid the balance each night. Sometimes i used gift cards and others just my debit card. Good way to keep track of what you are spending, etc.
 
As mentioned, charge to the room and then pay off the balance at the front desk. You won't be charged until the night before check-out, but even if they do they can reverse the charge and then have them apply the GC.
 
We having paying off room charges from magic bands for years. Instead of cash using Disney Gift cards from target. You can save 5% when buying cards.
 
We having paying off room charges from magic bands for years. Instead of cash using Disney Gift cards from target. You can save 5% when buying cards.

Target RedCard at 5% is the simplest option.
If you have a Sam's Club membership you can get 4% ($191.98 for $200 gc) but use any credit card you'd like to earn the additional cashback/rewards.
 
Attached is not the right word.....
What you can do you after you have made room charges, and before you check out,
Go to the front desk and have them take a payment from the gift card.....
They charge the cc on file over night so it is best to do it after dinner.... or after a larger purchase....

Not all cast members seem to know how to do it, but usually you will find one that does.
 
We buy GC's at BJ's, put our CC on the room charge privileges, use our magic bands for purchases, then around every 3 days, we take our GC's to front desk and pay off balance.

You may already know this, but we combine our GC's, usually 2 $500 cards(they limit you to $1,000 per card). By combining cards, it keeps you from having so many to carry on trip, plus, it helps CM's to not have to put so many cards through at one time. Just a nice gesture to help them and also shaves off a few minutes to allow you to get back to having fun! :thumbsup2
 
We buy GC's at BJ's, put our CC on the room charge privileges, use our magic bands for purchases, then around every 3 days, we take our GC's to front desk and pay off balance.

You may already know this, but we combine our GC's, usually 2 $500 cards(they limit you to $1,000 per card). By combining cards, it keeps you from having so many to carry on trip, plus, it helps CM's to not have to put so many cards through at one time. Just a nice gesture to help them and also shaves off a few minutes to allow you to get back to having fun! :thumbsup2
This is what I do. I like using the gift cards to keep me on budget and charging to the room helps me know what I am spending per day.
 
Honestly, I would just be using the gift cards at the point of sale instead of charging back to the room. Especially if you're going to be doing a lot of mobile ordering for food.
I don't usually charge much to the room, but I'm taking my ds, dd and her significant other. He's the shopper, he can buy gift cards with his reward points from his bank. I guess he has quite a lot that he'd like to use up. Wants some of the Star Wars merch on site.

ETA when I was there last (Dec 2021) mobile order charged directly to my cc on the reservation, so not to the room account. Is that still the way it works? I hated that, my cc bill looked like a shopaholics with all the individual charges.
 
I don't usually charge much to the room, but I'm taking my ds, dd and her significant other. He's the shopper, he can buy gift cards with his reward points from his bank. I guess he has quite a lot that he'd like to use up. Wants some of the Star Wars merch on site.

ETA when I was there last (Dec 2021) mobile order charged directly to my cc on the reservation, so not to the room account. Is that still the way it works? I hated that, my cc bill looked like a shopaholics with all the individual charges.
By default it would pay with your stored CC on your MDE profile. However, as others have noted you can tell it to pay using an alternative method. Just enter (or copy / paste) your gift card number into the proper box.
 
You cannot have a credit on your room charge. You can pay down the balance as you go at the Front Desk. I usually have a bunch of points on rewards cards so I just stop by the front desk at a convenient point and apply my cards. I find it easier to keep track that way.
 
I always just stop by the front desk at the end of the day and ask for my current balance. I pay it off at that point with my gift card so that my balance doesn't hit the threshold where it will charge my credit card. I only use my gift card for food purchases so I keep one card with $1000 on it any any extra gift card funds that I have, I transfer to the Disney e-gift card that I keep in my Apple Wallet. That way, I can either use my Magic Band and charge it to the room, or use my AppleWatch and pay with Apple Pay.
 
I bring my cc to the lobby on the way from the bus at night. Great way to take advantage of gift card discounts without having to pull it out for all charges.
 

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