Anybody who has been to a Disney resort, be it Disney World or Disneyland, is aware of that it comes with a hefty price ticket. With some cautious planning, although, you may cut back the prices with some strategic strikes.
Previous to the pandemic, I wrote a few posts on travelling to Disney World on factors. This previous summer season, we spent every week in California and visited Disneyland, California Journey Park, and Common Studios Hollywood.
A lot of the suggestions and methods for Disney World additionally apply to Disneyland, however we’ll additionally have a look at a number of further methods within the present context. Let’s dive proper in.
Diversify Your Factors Currencies
Saving for a Disney journey requires the identical technique we’ve been using all alongside: bank card welcome bonuses and maximizing earnings on each day spending. Particular to Disney, the distinction is through which playing cards one wants to join, and which factors currencies one must earn.
Typically talking, we are inclined to focus loads on American Specific Membership Rewards, Aeroplan, and RBC Avion for his or her versatility in flight and resort redemptions. You’ll nonetheless want these currencies on the subject of reserving your flights and resorts, however on the subject of different prices, you’ll have to focus your methods elsewhere.
When reserving a household journey to Disneyland, utilizing factors from quite a lot of applications comes into play. For flights and resorts, you should utilize the standard suspects, whereas to pay for Disney park passes and different incidentals, you may discover numerous versatile factors applications.
In fact, the larger the household you could have, the extra you might have to diversify your level currencies to cowl the prices.
Use Companion Vouchers or Factors for Flights to Disneyland
Flights to Disneyland are straightforward to e-book with money or factors, as Air Canada and WestJet each present flights into Los Angeles Worldwide Airport (LAX). The one factor is that LAX is positioned as much as over an hour’s drive from Disneyland, relying on visitors.
When you’re travelling from Calgary or Vancouver, WestJet runs a direct flight into John Wayne Airport (SNA) in Orange County, which may lower the drive to Disneyland by greater than half. Air Canada additionally flies from Vancouver to Orange County, so when you’re based mostly out of Western Canada, you should definitely contemplate each choices.
For many households, flying financial system would be the strategy to go, given that almost all flights to Disneyland will solely be three to 5 hours in period.
When you’re reserving with money, then make use of a companion voucher to cut back the price. You’ll need your companion to get one, too, when you’re travelling as a household of 4 of extra, which cuts down the price by as much as 50%.
CIBC remains to be providing a Buddy Go as a part of its enroll bonus for the CIBC Aeroplan Visa Infinite Card. With no further prices apart from the taxes and charges for the second ticket, that is basically a 2-for-1 ticket to wherever in North America.
Though much less interesting, with an Amex Aeroplan Reserve Card, you may earn an Annual Worldwide Companion Go redeemable on Air Canada flights after spending $25,000 annually. In contrast to the Buddy Go, there’s a nominal base fare that’s charged to redeem the move that ranges from $99 to $599, relying in your vacation spot.
Remember the move is deposited after your annual renewal date, relatively than proper after assembly the spend.
Signing up for the WestJet RBC World Elite Mastercard will entitle you an annual companion voucher. This companion voucher often exhibits up inside a month or two of getting the cardboard.
Even with a $119 base fare for a second ticket inside North America, you may nonetheless discover nice financial savings with WestJet’s companion voucher. When you’re travelling throughout peak seasons, there could be appreciable financial savings.
Needless to say you too can apply WestJet {Dollars} to your reserving. Simply you should definitely regulate WestJet’s taxes and charges, which you’ll be required to pay it doesn’t matter what.
When reserving on factors with Aeroplan, the redemption charges for financial system flights inside North America are often inside the predicted vary, even with dynamic pricing. The one exception is when you’re travelling throughout peak season, or reserving actually near your date of journey, the place the costs are more likely to be excessive.
Once we booked our flights from Toronto to Los Angeles in the summertime, we have been capable of e-book round-trip for a complete of 20,000 Aeroplan factors per individual, having booked six months out.
Save on Disneyland Lodging Utilizing Factors
Most households will in all probability decide to remain in a resort, and most of us within the factors recreation will lean in direction of a Marriott, Hilton, or Hyatt property. There are at the very least a few choices round Disneyland for every model.
In Canada, Marriott Bonvoy factors are the simplest foreign money to build up of the three. I’ll deal with the Marriott properties, as we stayed at two of them.
The Westin Anaheim, Courtyard Anaheim Theme Park Entrance, and the Fairfield Anaheim Resort are the closest Marriott properties to Disneyland. The Westin is round a 20-minute stroll to the park entrances, whereas the Courtyard and Fairfield are solely round ten minutes by foot.
The redemption charges for the approaching 12 months are as follows:
- The Westin Anaheim prices between 52,000–70,000 Bonvoy factors.
- The Courtyard Anaheim Theme Park Entrance prices between 52,000–70,000 Bonvoy factors.
- The Fairfield Anaheim Resort prices between 31,000–42,000 Bonvoy factors.
You probably have a number of Free Night time Award certificates out of your Marriott Bonvoy American Specific Card or your Marriott Bonvoy Enterprise American Specific Card, you may burn them on the Fairfield. Recall that award certificates could be topped-up by as much as 15,000 factors, successfully making your annual certificates price as much as 50,000 factors.
The Westin will value on common $300 (USD) per evening earlier than taxes. It’s more durable to justify redeeming factors when you discover charges round $300 (USD).
Because it’s a Nice Resorts & Resorts (FHR) property, when you maintain an American Specific Platinum Card, you will get fairly good worth paying the money price when contemplating the perks that come together with it.
The Courtyard prices on common $300–500 (USD) earlier than tax, and tends to be the most costly of the three. As we discovered, this was for an excellent cause, for its ever-so-popular onsite waterpark.
The Fairfield is essentially the most economical possibility, costing round $200–300 (USD) earlier than taxes. As a Fairfield property, breakfast is complimentary for all visitors.
We stayed at each the Westin Anaheim and the Courtyard Anaheim Theme Park, so keep tuned for upcoming critiques.
Amex typically provides switch bonuses to Marriott Bonvoy, or provides assertion credit for Marriott stays by Amex Presents, which may help knock down the money value even additional.
Redeem Factors for a Disney Resort Keep
Disneyland has three official Disney Resorts, that are positioned proper beside the parks. Some even have direct entry into the parks, which could be very handy for lowering transit instances.
You’ll be able to count on the price to be on common $600–800 (USD) an evening, although, which is kind of steep.
I’ve but to remain at any of the Disneyland resorts, as I discover I can get higher worth out of my elite standing with resort applications. Nevertheless, if comfort is a precedence and also you need to expertise Disney hospitality at its greatest, there are a number of methods you may e-book them at a fraction of the price.
The trick right here is to make use of a factors foreign money that may be redeemed as a press release credit score to offset the price. That is when applications reminiscent of HSBC Rewards, TD Rewards, or Scotiabank Scene+ come into play.
- HSBC Rewards factors could be redeemed in direction of journey at 0.5 cents per level (cpp).
- For journey booked by the Expedia for TD journey portal, TD Rewards factors could be redeemed at 0.5cpp. Disney Resorts could be booked by Expedia for TD, permitting for a barely extra beneficial redemption.
- Scotiabank Scene+ factors could be redeemed for journey at 1cpp.
Every financial institution has a number of playing cards underneath their portfolio that earns their respective reward currencies. Based mostly on the redemption charges above, listed below are a number of examples of how a lot you can offset your keep by:
On Expedia for TD, you may e-book a room for 5 folks at Disney’s Paradise Pier Lodge for $644.01 or 129,000 TD Rewards factors. When you don’t have the total quantity, you may apply a partial redemption to the reserving, successfully lowering the general value of your keep.
When you play the Miles and Factors recreation in two-player mode, you may join one, two, or extra of those playing cards to cowl the price of your keep.
Lastly, Amex Membership Rewards factors may also be redeemed at 1cpp for journey purchases. Word that this isn’t the perfect use of those factors, so I’d counsel focusing your efforts on the opposite factors currencies we’ve mentioned above.
Guide Theme Park Tickets with Factors
Considered one of largest prices on a visit to Disneyland are the precise theme park tickets. Fortunately, two Canadian loyalty applications mean you can redeem factors in opposition to theme park tickets: Air Miles Dream Miles and TD Rewards.
For TD Rewards, you should purchase the tickets by Expedia for TD underneath the “Issues To Do” class. To see what dates can be found, enter an extended date vary within the search discipline.
The caveat is that each applications sometimes solely enable redemptions in opposition to multi-day tickets of three days or extra. Since availability is probably not constant, mess around together with your park dates to extend your likelihood of discovering ticket availability.
When you aren’t searching for a multi-day move, then maybe you should utilize your factors in direction of a single day admission to Common Studios Hollywood, Legoland, or Knott’s Berry Farm as an alternative. I imply, when you’re in Anaheim already, you might as effectively go to a number of different parks, proper?
Air Miles permits redemptions for Disney tickets by redtag.ca. After you sign up to your account, you will discover US theme parks underneath Journey, after which US Parks.
In contrast to Expedia for TD, which provides tickets to quite a lot of theme parks and points of interest, Air Miles Holidays solely provides tickets to 4 US theme parks. Fortunately, Disney World, Disneyland, and Common Studios are included.
Needless to say solely Dream Miles could be redeemed in opposition to journey. So earlier than you begin incomes, you’ll need to be sure you have chosen your Air Miles incomes desire to Dream Miles, versus Money Miles.
Air Miles could be comparatively straightforward to build up. Amex has three totally different Air Miles bank cards, and Financial institution of Montreal has two.
Personally, I’d go for the BMO Air Miles World Elite Mastercard, which at the moment has a welcome bonus of two,000 Air Miles and a waived annual charge.
When you’re nonetheless brief on a ticket or two, shopping for tickets from a trusted third social gathering website like Undercover Vacationer will prevent a number of {dollars} off admission tickets. Typically, they run promotions for a further $5 off.
Maximize Incomes with Disney Present Playing cards
You can too purchase tickets straight from Disneyland’s web site, and more often than not, the tickets are at value. Typically, there are promotions for Canadians which have supplied as much as 35% off.
When you’re shopping for tickets straight from Disney, contemplate shopping for a Disney reward card from a grocery retailer on a bank card that earns 5x the factors on grocery purchases to pay for them, so you may at the very least maximize your earn. There are a number of credit score choices right here, together with the American Specific Cobalt Card, the Scotiabank Gold American Specific Card, and the BMO eclipse Visa Infinite Card.
You can too purchase Disney reward playing cards to make use of whereas at Disneyland. Nearly the whole lot in Disneyland could be paid for with them, together with meals, souvenirs, and even Disney Resort stays.
Balances on Disney reward playing cards could be mixed on-line, as much as a most of $1,000 per card. That is nice, as you may simply consolidate your playing cards.
Placing It All Collectively
So, what’s going to it take for a household for 4 from Toronto to go to Disneyland subsequent March Break?
Let’s assume you and your companion at the moment maintain the next bank cards with the next perks:
With some planning, you determine to join the next bank cards and promotions with the next perks at the very least six months previous to your journey:
To assist cut back the price of flights, you can then make use of your factors and vouchers. An instance of what it would seem like is:
- 2 × $119 annual companion vouchers + 2 × $700 base fare + 4 × $170 in taxes = $2,318, with $500 WestJet {Dollars} utilized to deliver the full value to $1,818 out of pocket on WestJet.
For lodging, you’d make use of Free Night time Awards and American Specific Nice Resorts & Resorts, which might seem like:
- 4 nights on the Fairfield Anaheim Resort utilizing Free Night time Awards = $0
- One evening on the Courtyard Anaheim Theme Park Entrance at $624 per evening after taxes booked by Amex Journey, making use of the $200 annual journey credit score with the Amex Platinum Card = $424 (or redeeming 59,000 Bonvoy factors)
To e-book your precise Disneyland park passes with Genie+, you can method it with the versatile factors currencies as follows:
- Ticket 1: $525.45, purchased by Expedia for TD with 100,000 TD Rewards factors for $500 in your account = $25.45
- Ticket 2: $525.45, purchased by Expedia for TD with 100,000 TD Rewards factors for $500 on companion’s account = $25.45
- Ticket 3: Redeem 4,828 Air Miles = $0
- Ticket 4: Purchase from the Disneyland web site with Disney reward playing cards purchased from Sobeys utilizing your American Specific Cobalt card = $525.45
To sum all of it up, the full value of journey earlier than reward redemptions can be $3,480 for the flights, $2,632 for the resorts, and $2,101.80 tickets. This leads to a complete value of $8,213.80.
By utilizing Miles and Factors to offset the price, the full value of journey reduces the worth to $2,818.35, or a reduction of 65%.
When you issue within the annual charges for the bank cards, the full value jumps to $4,415.35, or a reduction of 54%. On the upside, not solely have you ever lower the price in half, however you’d nonetheless get to benefit from the suite of advantages out of your bank cards for the rest of the 12 months.
Conclusion
Disneyland doesn’t should break the bank, and you’ll simply save on flights, lodging, theme park tickets, and extra. As with all journey with factors, it comes all the way down to planning.
The bottom line is to diversify your factors technique, and maybe deal with factors currencies you might usually overlook, like TD Rewards, Air Miles, and Scotiabank Scene+.
This is only one instance of easy methods to make the most of totally different reward applications to offset the price of a household trip. There are undoubtedly many different combos of playing cards and factors currencies that can be utilized which will offer you an excellent larger low cost.
It goes to point out that by having only a few playing cards per grownup in your family, you may wind up financial savings a whole lot, if not 1000’s of {dollars} on a visit to Disneyland.
