Refunds to Disney Gift Card > $1000

[squirk]

I have a Disney cruise booked, and I have been paying down the cruise using Disney gift cards over the last several months. Whenever I was at Sam’s for a shopping run, I’d pick up a few $500 gift cards and have my travel agent apply them against my cruise fare.

Recent circumstances may force me to switch from a cruise to a WDW vacation instead. As DCL and WDW are two different companies, there is no way to “journal” what I’ve already paid for the cruise over to a WDW rez. So, DCL will have to refund to the gift cards (yes, I kept them all), and I just re-apply them to the new rez.

But here’s my problem - to keep things simple for my TA, I consolidated those gift cards multiple times onto the same “master” card. So while I may have purchased eight $500 cards over time, they were all transferred to one card, and that was the card I kept giving to my TA over and over in $1,000 increments. I figured that was easier than giving my TA a new bunch of card numbers every time. Does that make sense?

So, since these cards are only supposed to hold $1,000, what will DCL do when they see $8,000 is to be refunded back to a single card (the “master” card I used)?

 

[mommajo143]

2 years ago we cut our trip short due to Hurricane Irma.... Obviously a bit less than your scenario but WDW graciously refunded a prorated amount....we were refunded a little over $800 & I’m almost certain it all went on the last GC we used, face value of $500. I can check later when I get home, but I’m really pretty sure that’s how it was done.

 

[Narnia_girl]

I have a Disney cruise booked, and I have been paying down the cruise using Disney gift cards over the last several months. Whenever I was at Sam’s for a shopping run, I’d pick up a few $500 gift cards and have my travel agent apply them against my cruise fare.

Recent circumstances may force me to switch from a cruise to a WDW vacation instead. As DCL and WDW are two different companies, there is no way to “journal” what I’ve already paid for the cruise over to a WDW rez. So, DCL will have to refund to the gift cards (yes, I kept them all), and I just re-apply them to the new rez.

But here’s my problem - to keep things simple for my TA, I consolidated those gift cards multiple times onto the same “master” card. So while I may have purchased eight $500 cards over time, they were all transferred to one card, and that was the card I kept giving to my TA over and over in $1,000 increments. I figured that was easier than giving my TA a new bunch of card numbers every time. Does that make sense?

So, since these cards are only supposed to hold $1,000, what will DCL do when they see $8,000 is to be refunded back to a single card (the “master” card I used)?

Sorry you had to change plans. I do my gift cards the same way you do, having my agent pay using one large card, rather than a bunch of smaller ones. If refunded, that one large card would be over $1000. So I'm curious as to how they will handle your situation.

(edited for clarity)

 

[gottalovepluto]

No it cannot. You should call your TA today to find out the process in case it requires some manual initiation due to complexity or something and -might go without saying but just in case it doesn’t- don’t do this in future. If it works like hotel reservations you’ll have to wait for new gift cards via snail mail.

 

[MickeyMouseCD524]

I can talk about this since we were on the Dream sailing that was cancelled and the whole thing was paid with one gift card!

So we called DCL since we ended up stranded in WDW when they made the call to cancel and needed access to the money to buy food and book rooms (cause I do not have the means to pay for two vacations right now) and they refunded $1000 to the gift card immediately and then told me to go to the front desk and use that to pay for the additional nights we needed and if there was anything left over to empty it onto a different gift card via the gift card site, and then they said the remaining $900ish would be refunded in the next 48 hours to the gift card. They said under normal circumstances usually what they do is refund the $1000 to the gift card and then issue new gift cards for the remaining balance. But given the circumstances for us they were able to expedite everything back to the one gift card so we could use it.

 

[squirk]

No it cannot. You should call your TA today to find out the process in case it requires some manual initiation due to complexity or something and -might go without saying but just in case it doesn’t- don’t do this in future. If it works like hotel reservations you’ll have to wait for new gift cards via snail mail.

Thx. Yeah, I never dreamed I’d be changing this cruise. Trying to be too clever for my own good.

 

[squirk]

I can talk about this since we were on the Dream sailing that was cancelled and the whole thing was paid with one gift card!

So we called DCL since we ended up stranded in WDW when they made the call to cancel and needed access to the money to buy food and book rooms (cause I do not have the means to pay for two vacations right now) and they refunded $1000 to the gift card immediately and then told me to go to the front desk and use that to pay for the additional nights we needed and if there was anything left over to empty it onto a different gift card via the gift card site, and then they said the remaining $900ish would be refunded in the next 48 hours to the gift card. They said under normal circumstances usually what they do is refund the $1000 to the gift card and then issue new gift cards for the remaining balance. But given the circumstances for us they were able to expedite everything back to the one gift card so we could use it.

Thx for sharing. Did they happen to mention how long it would take to send you the replacement gift cards (if that had been the route you wound up taking)?

My concern is that if it’s a “4-6 week” thing, my desired WDW resort & room type might sell out in the interim.

 

[MickeyMouseCD524]

Thx for sharing. Did they happen to mention how long it would take to send you the replacement gift cards (if that had been the route you wound up taking)?

My concern is that if it’s a “4-6 week” thing, my desired WDW resort & room type might sell out in the interim.

They told me it would be about 10 days. Are you booking room only or a package? You only have to pay for one night's stay when you book if it's a room only, and I think it's $200 if it's a package (don't quote me on that). So you'll have some time between booking and final payment to get the gift cards.

 

[squirk]

They told me it would be about 10 days. Are you booking room only or a package? You only have to pay for one night's stay when you book if it's a room only, and I think it's $200 if it's a package (don't quote me on that). So you'll have some time between booking and final payment to get the gift cards.

Room-only. 10 days should be no big deal. Thanks!

 

[kaytieeldr]

They told me it would be about 10 days. Are you booking room only or a package? You only have to pay for one night's stay when you book if it's a room only, and I think it's $200 if it's a package (don't quote me on that). So you'll have some time between booking and final payment to get the gift cards.

Well I'm quoting you because you're 100% correct!!