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How to Visit Disney with Points
For a lot of families, saving up for a Disney vacation is a big deal! In this post, we are going to walk through options for using points to cover parts of your Disney vacation! We’ll dive into hotels and tickets.
Looking to hit up an international Disney park? Check out my post all about Disneyland Paris or our Japan Trip Highlights which included a trip to Disneyland Tokyo.
If you want to plan a Disney vacation with points and you’re starting from scratch, I highly recommend starting with these two steps:
- Download my free Travel Points 101 Guide
- Start following my Three Year Plan
Cover Disney Tickets with Points
There are a few different ways you can think about covering the cost of your Disney tickets with points. Purchasing Disney tickets directly with points isn’t as straightforward as using points to book a flight or hotel. Here are my favorite options for covering tickets with points.
Use an Aeroplan® Credit Card to Pay Yourself Back
This is the method we used for our 2025 trip to Disneyland. Read all about this method here.
Through December 31, 2025, you can use up to 200,000 Aeroplan points to pay yourself back for travel expenses you’ve booked on an Aeroplan® Credit Card. You’ll need an Aeroplan Credit Card to use this method.
The main trick here is that you need to book your Disney tickets in a way that causes them to code as a travel expense. If you book straight through Disney, they’ll code as “entertainment.” But if you book through a travel agent like Undercover Tourist, they will code as travel.
Then once the transaction posts to your credit card, you can use points to “Pay Yourself Back” and offset the purchase at a rate of 1.25 cents per point. That means if you use 50,000 points, you can cover a $625 travel expense.
If you have Ultimate Rewards® points, you can transfer those to Aeroplan (and you’ll even get a 10% bonus) and use those, too!
Redeem Venture miles
Capital One allows you cover eligible travel purchases from your credit card bill for 1 cent per mile. You can use it for travel purchases made within the past 90 days.
Like with the option above, you will need to book your Disney tickets through an online travel agent like Undercover Tourist so that your purchase codes as “travel.”
Because you can use this option for purchases in the past 90 days, one advantage of this Capital One benefit is that you can earmark covering travel with points you don’t have yet. For example, you get your Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card and haven’t earned the sign up bonus yet. However, you want to use the bonus to cover some of your tickets. You can charge $750 for those tickets )which will go towards your minimum spend requirement), and then after your bonus hits, you can go back and cover the $750 spend with 75,000 miles.
Mentally Offset Disney Tickets with Cash Back
There are a lot of credit cards that offer straight cash back and this can be a great way to offset the costs. Of course you could use the cash back for anything!
Check out my Best Offers page for some of the best cash back offers right now.
Book Offsite Hotels to Stretch Your Points
One of the best ways to stretch your points for Disney is to book offsite hotels.
If you already have points saved up with a certain hotel program, I recommend looking at that hotel site first to see what options you can find.
Otherwise, our standby advice (especially if you’re following our Three Year Plan) is to transfer Ultimate Rewards points to Hyatt to book Hyatt hotels. There are Hyatt hotels close to both Disneyland and Disney World that offer a great experience and value. See our full Hyatt guide here.
You’ll find great options with with IHG Hotels and Choice Hotels, too! As well as Hilton and Marriott. For our stay in 2025, we used Marriott points to book at the Fairfield Anaheim Resort, right across from Disneyland.
Rent Disney Vacation Club Points to Stay at Disney Hotels
How it Works
Disney has timeshare owners that buy into the Disney Vacation Club (DVC) that have points that allow them to book stays at Disney Hotels and Resorts.
DVC rooms are called villas and vary in size and how many people they can accommodate. Studio Villas sleep 4-5, 2 bedroom villas sleep 8-9 or 3 bedroom Grand Villas sleep 12.
You can rent points from a DVC owner who is not using all of their points that year. My friend Kim has a very detailed post on this process on her blog — so definitely read that if you are interested in this method!
How to Use Points
If you want to pay with points, you’ll need to book using an online broker that accepts credit cards — and it will have to code as a travel expense. Based on Kim’s experience, using David’s Vacation Club Rentals works for that.
You’ll want use use a card that allows you to offset travel purchases that you make. The best options are the Aeroplan Credit Card, Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card, and Capital One Rewards Credit Card.
What It Costs
In my sample search for June 1-5, 2025, these are the rates for 4 night stay at the cheapest option.
Disney World
Disneyland
Best Credit Cards for This Method
My two favorite cards for using this method would be the Venture X or the Aeroplan Card. You can read my full post on the Venture X and see the other benefits I love on this card. Or read up on the Aeroplan Card.
Even better — you and your spouse could both get the cards and combine your points to offset your travel purchase — and save even more!
Capital One does offer you the option to refer a friend (or spouse) but will only award you referral points if that person has never had any account of any kind with Capital One before.
ELEVATED OFFER!
welcome offer:
Targeted 100k Offer: Some people receive a targeted offer for 100,000 miles after spending $5000 when going through preapproval at certain links (like the one below) Just be careful because many people see a 75k offer and other people are only pre-approved for a different card with low offer. (Community Referral below)
Annual Fee:
Stay at Marriott’s Swan or Dolphin Properties at Disney World
How it Works
Marriott has three properties at Disney World that are actually on the Disney Property — the Swan, the Dolphin, and the Swan Reserve.
At the Swan and Dolphin, you’ll get free resort shuttles to and from the parks plus special Disney benefits early theme park entry, the chance to make individual Lightning Lane reservations seven days in advance, and Extended Evening Theme Park Hours just for guests of Disney Deluxe resorts!
How to Use Marriott Bonvoy Points
Both hotels cost between 40,000 and 70,000 points per night due to variable pricing.
You will still pay a $50 per night resort fee.
The easiest way to see availability and prices is to use the Flexible Dates calendar when you are booking. You can see in June 2025 there is a lot of availability with prices all over the place.
Best Credit Cards for This Method
There are 4 different credit cards you could open to earn a bonus with Marriott points. Two are issued by Chase and two are issued by American Express. You cannot open the Marriott cards from Chase if you have the ones from American Express and vice versa. The card I’d recommend would depend on current offers. I’d suggest waiting till you see an offer of at least 100,000 points per night.
Book Disney Hotels on Hotwire
Disney Resort hotels are sometimes listed on Hotwire, especially closer in.
How it Works
When you book with Hotwire, it automatically codes as a travel expense.
Cards like the Capital One Venture and Venture X allow you to use your miles to cover travel purchases that you make. If you have 100,000 points, you can cover a $1,000 travel purchase.
How to use Points
My two favorite cards for using this method would be the Capital One Venture and Venture X. You can read my full post on the Venture X and see the other benefits I love on this card.
Even better — you and your spouse could both get the cards and combine your points to offset your travel purchase — and save even more!
Capital One does offer you the option to refer a friend (or spouse) but will only award you referral points if that person has never had any account of any kind with Capital One before.
Earn Swagbucks to offset your Disney Hotels cost
This method won’t get your Disney hotel paid for directly, but it is a great way to earn some extra cash that you can mentally earmark for your Disney stay.
How it Works
First you’ll sign up for Swagbucks. Swagbucks has different ways to complete deals to earn “Swagbucks.” Here is their description from their website.
If you’re new to Swagbucks — I so appreciate if you use my referral link when opening an account.
Then you complete various offers to earn “Swagbucks.” 1000 Swagbucks is worth about $10. Some offers allow you to earn 25,000 Swagbucks ($250!)
You can then redeem those Swagbucks for gift cards to a number of places or just transfer them straight to your PayPal account.
How to Find Worthwhile Offers
Doctor of Credit regularly posts deals from Swagbucks that are money makers.
I’m starting a Swagbucks challenge on March 1 to help people earn $500 in 1 month on Swagbucks. Join my private Facebook group for all the info and to join the challenge!
Questions? Comments? Let me know!
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[…] This works for any expense that codes as a travel expense. This is the easiest way to pay for Disney Vacations using points! […]