Frugalists, what are your optimal payment strategies?

[OATS09]

Paying for the Disney cruise I buy gift cards via BJ's wholesale. Since I have bought a lot in the past I've been targeted by the sales department for sales. I can get Disney gift cards anywhere from 6.7% to 10% off via these directed sales. I use my credit card so I can get anywhere from 1.67% to 5% (depending on bonuses) back as well.

For flights I use my Southwest card for signup bonuses or general spend to get companion pass. My wife and I have had companion pass each for the past few years, so 2 of the kids fly free with us. We use our Southwest points to book our flights as well.

For hotels if we are going out of Orlando I will stay at Disneyworld and use gift cards to pay. If elsewhere we stay either at Country Inn & Suites (Radisson) or a Hilton property. We have hotel credit cards for both to get us discounted or free rooms.

That's awesome! My wife currently has the Hilton Aspire but there's about a 90% chance we cancel it come October. I'm super jealous that you and your wife EACH have a companion pass. That's a lot of spending and/or flights.

And I did just buy a Sam's Club membership. The $50 egift card was $47.98 for anyone interested. Amex gave us $25 back for signing up and my wife and I each had a $15 off $30. So for $85.96 I just got two $50 Disney egift cards, a Sam's Club membership, 189 Hilton points, 48 cents cash back, and 45 American Airlines miles. I'm happy with that.

 

[mmmears]

That's awesome! My wife currently has the Hilton Aspire but there's about a 90% chance we cancel it come October. I'm super jealous that you and your wife EACH have a companion pass. That's a lot of spending and/or flights.

And I did just buy a Sam's Club membership. The $50 egift card was $47.98 for anyone interested. Amex gave us $25 back for signing up and my wife and I each had a $15 off $30. So for $85.96 I just got two $50 Disney egift cards, a Sam's Club membership, 189 Hilton points, 48 cents cash back, and 45 American Airlines miles. I'm happy with that.

If you're willing to play with credit card deals (and it looks like you are based on what you are posting here), pop on over to the credit card thread on these boards. You can do better than 5-10% most of the time. I have a stack of Disney gift cards that are averaging around 20-25% off with those Amex deals, plus I'm getting lots of points that I use for flights and hotels (non-Disney).

https://www.disboards.com/threads/i...v3-0-see-first-page-for-addl-details.3784063/

 

[remlap]

I booked through Costco but they won’t accept Disney gift cards for payment from what I understand. However, I can use my Costco MasterCard to pay and receive cash back in those payments.
I can still use Disney gift cards on the ship, correct?

You can pay your entire cruise, excluding the initial deposit made on on the ship, with a Disney gift card. Please combine them on disney gift card's website first up to $1,000 first.

 

[remlap]

I booked through Costco but they won’t accept Disney gift cards for payment from what I understand. However, I can use my Costco MasterCard to pay and receive cash back in those payments.
I can still use Disney gift cards on the ship, correct?

You can pay your entire cruise, excluding the initial deposit made on on the ship, with a Disney gift card. Please combine them on disney gift card's website first up to $1,000 first.

 

[TreeFalls]

10 + 10 + 5.25 + [2.25 OR 2.5] = 27.5% to 27.75% off/back. Yes, some of that is percentage off, some is cash back, some is locked into a specific place (Costco and Best Buy), and you need several credit cards and banking rewards status, but I'm good with all of that.

Quick math point....

You can't add up percents straight up like that, you need to subtract from the previous savings each time.... the 10% (or whatever) back from Costco will be only off of what you pay, not the total cruise value:

10% off total cruise value
+ 10% off of the remaining 90%= 9% more off of total cruise value
+ (5.25% +2.5%) off of the remaining 81%, cause that's all you need gift cards for=6.28% off the total cruise value

=25.28%

This is a minor difference, but it is important especially when comparing deals.

 

[ChicosWife]

If you get the executive Costco membership, you get another 2% back from Costco.

I saw that but the price of the cruise is higher than what we paid from booking directly on the DCL website. Is there another benefit that I am missing?

 

[DisBNewB]

I saw that but the price of the cruise is higher than what we paid from booking directly on the DCL website. Is there another benefit that I am missing?

It shouldn't be higher than what you pay booking directly through DCL. In fact, I'm looking right now at a cruise I'm interested in and pulled it up on both sites, and they're showing the same prices.

 

[OATS09]

Quick math point....

You can't add up percents straight up like that, you need to subtract from the previous savings each time.... the 10% (or whatever) back from Costco will be only off of what you pay, not the total cruise value:

10% off total cruise value
+ 10% off of the remaining 90%= 9% more off of total cruise value
+ (5.25% +2.5%) off of the remaining 81%, cause that's all you need gift cards for=6.28% off the total cruise value

=25.28%

This is a minor difference, but it is important especially when comparing deals.

Fair enough. I wasn't getting that detailed but it does make a difference. One small thing to note is that the (8+2)% back at Costco is essentially store credit for a future purchase and isn't a discount off the cruise. So I still have to pay that amount to Disney so the remaining cruise fare still is 90% and not 81% as you have listed.

BUT now on that 10% store credit, I'm not getting Costco rewards on that future purchase at Costco, I now won't earn (2+3.5)% on whatever I buy so it still adds back up.

 

[kylaura]

We go spring break so she's out of school and flights are expensive too. So I use Google.com/flights. You can set up a flight and track prices. They will send you an email when price changes, just got to be patient and not wait until last minute. Got our flights for April at $360 each, it's been from $400-$650.

And we use Marriott points for night before cruise in Orlando. We get the best for our points to stay in Orlando, not at Port Canaveral. It's a short drive and there are many more choices in Orlando.

 

[su_A_ve]

Fair enough. I wasn't getting that detailed but it does make a difference. One small thing to note is that the (8+2)% back at Costco is essentially store credit for a future purchase and isn't a discount off the cruise. So I still have to pay that amount to Disney so the remaining cruise fare still is 90% and not 81% as you have listed.

BUT now on that 10% store credit, I'm not getting Costco rewards on that future purchase at Costco, I now won't earn (2+3.5)% on whatever I buy so it still adds back up.

The 2% comes as a rewards check and this you can still cash. The 8% is Costco Cash and no longer able to cash it. I did cash my last cruise card a few months ago of over $650...

 

[smmco]

Just keep in mind if you pay with gift cards and if you need to cancel the money only goes back to the gift cards. I personally would never use gift cards because of that reason, but a lot of people do it and our comfortable with it.

 

[OATS09]

The 2% comes as a rewards check and this you can still cash. The 8% is Costco Cash and no longer able to cash it. I did cash my last cruise card a few months ago of over $650...

Thanks for this. We move back to the states in May so we'll be getting a Costco membership at that time. That's good to know that the rewards check is actually cash and not store credit so to speak.

Just keep in mind if you pay with gift cards and if you need to cancel the money only goes back to the gift cards. I personally would never use gift cards because of that reason, but a lot of people do it and our comfortable with it.

Yeah that's fine with me. I load up to $1,000 onto a card (via disneygiftcards.com) and then make a payment with that one card and put it back in my lockbox and still treat it as cash until we take the cruise. Even if we cancel, I'll still use it at some point.

 

[GatorMomInNC]

Just keep in mind if you pay with gift cards and if you need to cancel the money only goes back to the gift cards. I personally would never use gift cards because of that reason, but a lot of people do it and our comfortable with it.

I keep track of my cards on the Disney Gift Card website- I "name" them on the website as MDAS cruise, or Halloween cruise, etc. I write that label on the actual gift card with a Sharpie and keep it in a safe place. You can have up to $1k on each GC. Once I have "spent" it by applying it towards my deposit, I put it away and move on to the next $1k GC. Then if I have to cancel I know which one(s) it went back on and I can go through my stash and find it and re-use it ---although this rarely happens since once I get past PIF date I'm pretty much all in and not getting that money back most likely...

I buy gift cards whenever I see a deal - $50 here at Staples with $10 back (20% off); or if there is 8% back at BJs, whatever. Then I go online an combine it to my primary, labeled GCs and throw away the smaller amount GC. I think of it as a fun way to save up for my next cruise; and if that cruise cancels it I "bank" the money back to the GC and use it for another cruise, or a trip to WDW, etc. As I get closer to PIF date I look for the best deal to buy a large amount to pay off my balance.

Right now I need about $1k more to pay off my upcoming cruise, including tips, transfers and hotel. I can easily get 5% back, I'm waiting to see if I can get a better deal (short of buying $5k worth at BJs right now). I also decided to book Hyatt through Disney and transfer this time not only for the convenience, but because I can pay with GCs and I figured with the additional 5-10% off it is not much more than booking a hotel and rental car on my own and for a 3 night cruise saving time is worth extra $$.

I bring GC with me to use on the cruise and add to my account; I also usually use my Disney Rewards for my on board account; and paired with my 10% Platinum discount I use that to buy things in the shop, pay for drinks, etc. Then when I shop in the stores I know I am really getting about 15% off between the GC discount and the Platinum discount. You don't need to be Platinum to do this - I believe (but not sure) you get 10% off $50 purchases if you link you DIsney Visa to your account.

I hadn't thought about buying through Best Buy to get the 2.5% back. The only down side is that goes to my husband's reward card and I want it to go to mine so I can spend it

 

[GatorMomInNC]

I also have a SWA companion pass. I was short last month (December) by 20k points and wasn't going to qualify. At the last minute I booked a nearby hotel for 2 weekends through the SWA portal. I didn't sleep there, I just checked in and called and checked out on the last day. I spent $1200. I was REALLY nervous about spending that money and if it would work out.

But I got 29k points, which put me over the top to qualify for companion pass again. I used those points to book my son on 3-4 one way trips (saving about $600); I used the companion pass for my other son - about $600 so far. So right now I have broken even, but anytime I fly on SWA this year I can bring one person with me. It will be my son most of the time, but later in the year I will switch it to my sister and have a girls weekend somewhere. I will probably end up doing at least 3-4 more SWA flights using the companion pass, so overall I will come out ahead. Of course, I had to "advance" that $1200, but I love having the companion pass and it is hard to give up once you get it.

 

[DisBNewB]

You don't need to be Platinum to do this - I believe (but not sure) you get 10% off $50 purchases if you link you DIsney Visa to your account.

This is correct. We took our first cruise this past fall, but I'd gotten a Disney Visa. We had OBC from our booking, and then I'd added gift cards to cover most of the rest. I think we only ended up paying about $30 or something like that on the actual credit card when all said and done but, because we'd put the Disney Visa on our account as our payment method, we got the 10% discount off $50+ in all the gift shops.