WDW Hotel Credit Card plan
Spread your own Pixie Dust on your WDW trip by getting your hotel for free (or at a huge discount with some nights free)! Here’s some sample credit card plans to get you started.
Swan Reserve
Click here for a full review of our stay at the Swan Reserve.
One of our Favorite non Disney owned hotels, the Swan Reserve has a fantastic location and has most of the perks of staying at a Disney Deluxe Hotel. Early Entry, Extra Magic Hours, and Lightening Lane available at 7 am. But not the same cost as a Deluxe Resort.
So here is the plan we suggest to get some of your nights for FREE.
Card to Open-Chase Bonvoy Card
Bonus- 100,000 Marriott points
Min. spending- $3,000 in 3 months
Annual fee- $95
How many points needed per night? 40-60k
You will get two nights free, which is around a $700 value. This doesn’t include the points that you will acquire with day to day spending (which at a minimum would be 6,000).
Hyatt Grand Cypress
Don’t want to stay on property or, like us, need a hotel for a night before you vacation because flights are SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper one day earlier? Then Hyatt Grand Cypress is a fantastic choice! Here’s our plan to reduce your expense at this hotel
Card to open- Chase sapphire
Bonus- 60,000 points
Min spending- 4,000 in three months
Annual fee- $95
Nightly points needed- 12-18k
This plan will get you on average 4 nights free with points. You can either book your room with the chase travel portal, or transfer the points you need to your Hyatt loyalty account. If you are lucky enough to go on an off peak time, it’s a full 5 nights free!
How about on property?? We’ve got you covered too!
Pop Century (just as an example but this is our strategy for any non Disney Vacation Club room owned by Disney). If you love bright and happy and don’t mind a little smaller room, or think that most of your time will be in the parks- this might be a great choice of a resort for you! It’s also on the sky liner so getting to Epcot and Hollywood Studios is easier than ever. The sky liner is one of our little Disney fans favorite rides!
Can you use credit card miles for a Disney Hotel? Yes! Our sample hotel can be booked a couple of different ways. You can find it sometimes on the chase travel portal and use chase points to book the room. The easiest is to book either directly from Disney or with a travel agent, and then use Capital One miles to erase the charge. No matter which way you book, your room will code as travel, so you can use those every useful Capital One miles to get your hotel for free!
What card to open- Capital One Venture
Bonus- 60,000 miles
Annual fee- $95
Min. spending- $3000 in 3 months
Points needed per night (can vary by season, but usually $200)- will need around 20,000 miles per night
Whatever Disney hotel you are looking to book, just add two zeros at the end and that is a good estimate of how many miles you will need for each night. Major bonus- you will have charging privilege’s at these resorts and can use your magic band to pay for sit down dining and snacks! Learn how you can do this here.
Last but certainly NOT Least is how to rent a DVC (Disney Vacation Club) studio or villa using credit card miles!
If you want an quick overview of what the differences are between Deluxe and other categories, you can read our post here
What if you have a big family? Or two families that want to stay together? Our choice is renting a DVC villa. For our example we are using a two bedroom villa Saratoga Springs.
If you want a more detailed post on renting DVC, you can find that here
Saratoga Springs
The newly remodeled villas at Saratoga Springs are So Nice! This is the full review if you want to find out what makes this a great choice for larger groups. Here is our plan to help you get into that magical villa, including a full kitchen, laundry in the villa and sleeps 9 (with no sofa bed!) and laundry!
Card to open – open 2 Capital One cards (either splitting with another family or with a spouse)
Bonus- 120,000 miles
Min. spending- $6000 (if one family is doing it, open one card then another after a few months)
Annual fee-$190 (total with both cards)
Miles needed per night (this varies depending season, view, etc.) but for our example I used a standard 2 bedroom in September.
If you rent from Pixie Point Gals and pay with a credit card, it will code as travel. So you can use Capital one miles to rent a DVC room! In our example, renting with us a 2 bedroom is $513. So we need 51,300 miles per night and (enter the tinkling of Tinker bell!) you have two nights free! And with everyday spending, you could easily make three nights free a possibility! When I looked up the rate if you paid for this direct from Disney, it’s $872 per night!!!
Which option would you choose?
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