There are a lot of Disney World fans among our readers. At least a few times a week, in our  Facebook Group, we get questions like “How to go to Disney World on the cheap?”, “Best way to use points for Disney World”, and “Best tips for Disney theme park tickets?”. Walt Disney World is notoriously difficult to visit using credit card points and miles for nearly free travel. In spite of that, there are a few ways to save some money or at least earn more points towards your next vacation. Here are all our tips and tricks to answer your questions in one Ultimate Guide to visiting Disney World with points and miles.

Additionally, if you’re looking for information on how to use your points and miles for Disneyland or a Disney Cruise, we have more content about that on the our website. We even have a Disneyland podcast episode to check out as well!

 

 

How to Get Cheap(er) Disney World Park Tickets

Disney World isn’t cheap. One day tickets at the Disney World theme parks in Orlando, Florida are $450+ for a family of 4! A full week (6 park days) would be about $2200+. Add in a hotel stay, food, souvenirs, and getting to/from the Orlando Airport (MCO) to Walt Disney World Resort, and you’re looking at a multiple thousand dollar trip for your family. Luckily, with the help of points and miles, plus a few credit card perks, you can majorly cut down on your out-of-pocket expenses for that trip to Disney. Here are our best tips on how to get discounted or nearly free Disney World theme park tickets. 

 

Capital One Purchase Eraser

Capital One has a great feature called Purchase Eraser. With this, you can “erase” any travel purchase on your credit card statement with your points. We already have a great post on how to erase your purchases with the Capital One Purchase Eraser here. If you get the card_name or card_name for the 75k offer, you can erase about $750 in purchases on your credit card. The trick here is that your purchase must be coded as travel.

Room-only reservations through Disney will code as travel, and so will packages. However, tickets purchased without a room through WDW will not. (Confusing, huh?). Any ticket-only purchase through Disney or a Disney travel agent will be coded as entertainment. The best way to ensure your WDW ticket-only purchase codes as travel is to purchase a package through WDW or get your tickets through Get Away Today.

In summary, here are two ways to have Disney purchases code as travel for the Capital One Purchase Eraser:

1. Purchase a Disney package that includes both hotel and tickets
2. Buy your tickets from a third party like Get Away Today

Capital One Purchase Eraser is one of the easiest ways to save money when booking a trip to Disney World with points and miles.

 

Disney Armed Forces Salute Tickets

Suppose you or an immediate family member is serving on Active Duty, in the Reserves, 100% disabled from the military, or a retired Veteran. In that case, you can purchase the Disney Armed Forces Salute Tickets. These tickets are almost 50% off the regular ticket prices.

With this in mind, there are restrictions on who can purchase them, how many you can get, and how to use them. Additionally, the military member must be traveling with you as well.

Disney Military Tips website is a great resource for all the information you need on how to get your tickets.

 

The Chase Portal

The Chase Travel Portal occasionally has the option to buy Walt Disney World tickets. That said, they charge you quite a bit more than buying them directly from Disney. Therefore, it probably won’t make sense for most people to do it this way.

To use the Chase Travel Portal to purchase your Disney World tickets, search “Activities” for the dates you need and make your purchase.

 

WDW Conference Tickets

Disney hosts a lot of different groups, conferences, and conventions. For these events, they offer discounted tickets for attendees. These conference links are public, and anyone can buy them. To find these tickets, type into Google “MyDisneyGroup.com, the month you want.” There is not a conference every month, but sometimes you can get lucky to find tickets for your dates. Full-day tickets are only discounted a few dollars, but if you only have an afternoon to spend at the park, they have extra discounted tickets to enter after 1 pm. 

This can be a particularly easy way to save a little on a short visit to Disney World. (Note: Don’t use the conference site to book a hotel. That’s a “no-no” in Disney’s book.)

 

 

Cheap Hotels Near Disney World Orlando Using Points and Miles

Several cheaper hotels near Disney World include a free shuttle to the park and sometimes even free breakfast! Here are some of our favorites.

 

Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin on Marriott Points

The Disney Swan and Dolphin hotels are considered “on property Deluxe” hotels for WDW. That said, they are different from other deluxe hotels like the Polynesian or Grand Floridian. Marriott owns the Swan and Dolphin, and you can use your Marriott points and free night certificates there. Marriott also gives you your 5th night free when using points.

From time to time (about once a year), there is a Marriott offer that gives you five 50k free night certificates that come out, and these hotels are a great use of those free nights! You can top up these Marriott free night certificates with up to 15k Marriott points. This can make them worth as much as 65k points.

Many nights throughout the year at both the Swan and Dolphin fall into that 50-65k points per night range. The screenshots below are all random dates in September.

 

Walt Disney World Dolphin Hotel

 

Walt Disney World Swan

 

Swan Reserve

 

Other Marriott Hotels Near Walt Disney World

JW Marriott Orlando Bonnet Creek Resort & Spa

There are several nights for about 44k points per night, so this would also work with the Marriott free-night certificates!

 

 

Using IHG Points for WDW

If you have an IHG credit card, you can get your fourth night free on award bookings. So you can book three nights and get the fourth night free.

If both P1 and P2 open an IHG card, you could get eight nights on points/free at an IHG hotel near Disney World!

 

Holiday Inn Orlando-Disney Spring Area

 

Candlewood Suites Orlando – Lake Buena Vista

 

Hyatt Hotels Near Disney World

Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress is a favorite Orlando hotel among our readers. It is a category four hotel, and nights start at 12k points per night. You could use a Hyatt Free Night Category 1-4 Certificate here.

One 60k sign-up bonus on the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card will get you five free nights at this hotel! 

 

 

Hyatt Place Orlando/Lake Buena Vista is a category two hotel, and nights start at 6,500 points per night. That same 60k welcome offer on the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card could get you nine nights here!

 

 

Disney Good Neighbor Hotels

Some hotels in the Walt Disney World area are considered Good Neighbor Hotels. Other hotel brands own these hotels but still get some perks like early entrance to the Disney theme parks. There are several things you can book on hotel points. Browse their website to see all the options.

 

Using Free Night Certificates for Disney World Hotels

One final way to get some free nights at a Disney World hotel is to use the annual free night certificates that come with your credit card each year, such as the IHG, Hyatt, or Marriott. If you have a few of these cards, you could have a number of free nights to use.

Note: You must book each free night certificate as its own night. After booking, you can call or email the hotel to ask them to link your reservations into one. That way, you hopefully won’t have to move rooms each night.

 

Renting Disney Vacation Club (DVC) Points

If you want to save big on staying at a Deluxe resort on the Walt Disney World property, this is a great way to do it. We’ve stayed at the Riviera Resort by renting DVC points and met a minimum spend on a new card paying for it.

Renting a DVC room through a service like David’s Vacation Rentals will also code as travel if you want to use the Capital One Purchase Eraser on this as well.

 

How to Get to Walt Disney World, Florida with Points & Miles

Southwest Companion Pass

You know that TMS loves Southwest® for domestic flights. Even from my small airport in Upstate, NY, we have direct flights into MCO on Southwest. This would be the perfect use of the Southwest® Companion Pass!

If you had one companion pass, you could fly at least one family member for $5.60 in taxes/fees each way, and if you had two companion passes, you could fly two family members for $11.20 in taxes/fees each way. That would essentially make your airfare to Disney World buy one, get one free! Not to mention, being able to use the points you accumulated to get the companion pass, you could use those to cover the other two flights to only pay $22.40 each way. 

 

Using your American Airline, Delta, or United Miles

Sometimes, booking directly with American Airlines, Delta, or United can give you good options from your home airport to Orlando. We always like to run an award search on something like roame.travel to see what the best option might be.

 

Booking AA or Delta Flights on Partner Airlines

Another trick to getting cheap flights to Disney World would be to book American Airlines flights via British Airways. All of the major banks transfer to British Airways, making it an easy way to rack up points to use for free flights. Similarly, you could book your Delta flights via Virgin Atlantic or Flying Blue (Air France/KLM).

If you don’t know all the airline partners, you can find all the details on our Airline Alliance Cheat Sheet.  

 

Driving to WDW

Living within driving distance of Florida could make for a cheaper way to start your Disney vacation by road-tripping. By paying for your gas on any of these credit cards, you could earn more points for a future trip.

 

 

 

Best Credit Cards for Disney World

In this guide to Disney World on points and miles, we’ve discussed some of the best ways to redeem your credit card points to make your family’s Disney trip cheaper. Sometimes, the best card to use is the one you are working towards the welcome offer for. However, we’ve laid out many different ways to pay for your trip to Disney World with credit card points, and, as you can see, there are many options!

 

Disney Credit Card

We get lots of questions about the Disney World credit card and if it is worth it taking one of your 5/24 spots. While the THM motto is “you do you” with points and miles, this card is a tough sell on whether or not it deserves a spot on your list. 

There are a few Disney credit card perks at Disney World, for example:

• 6-month 0% financing on Disney Vacation Packages
• Save 10% on shopdisney.com
• Cardmember photo ops in the parks
• 10% off select dining locations most days at Disneyland and Walt Disney World when you pay with your Disney Visa credit card

Given that, if you or your family takes Disney vacations often, you’ll have to decide if those perks are worth a 5/24 spot when you could be earning valuable transferable points paying for your trip.

 

When is the Best Time to Visit Disney World

While many of the top Disney blogs and travel agencies will tell you that there is no best time to visit Disney World and that it is busy all the time, there are certain times of the year that are the cheapest time to visit Disney World. The best way to figure this out is to take a look at the pricing of the tickets.

Disney uses dynamic pricing, so tickets cost more during their more popular times and cost less during their slower times. Just by looking at the price per day, you can get a good idea of when it is the best time to visit Disney World.

 

How to Find the Cheapest Days at Disney World

When you log into the Disney website to book your tickets, you’ll notice that it says “from $109/day” as the lowest ticket cost. You can scroll through the calendar to find those elusive $109 days. I found most of them in August and September.

 

 

WDW Reader Success Stories

If you want to read about how some of our readers successfully traveled to Disney World with points and miles, check out these three posts:

• Karin’s trip to Disney World
• How Joy used points and miles to Disney
• Podcast 97: Disney World on Points

 

Bottom Line

A Disney World vacation isn’t cheap. Luckily, there are lots of ways, as we’ve shared in this Ultimate Guide to Using Points at Disney World, to use your credit card points to make your Disney trip a little less expensive.