Visit Disneyland Paris with Points

Advertiser Disclosure – Katie’s Travel Tricks is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as MileValue.com. This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. This site does not include all financial companies or all available financial offers. Terms apply to American Express benefits and offers. Enrollment may be required for select American Express benefits and offers. Visit americanexpress.com to learn more. For Capital One products listed on this page, some of the above benefits are provided by Visa® or Mastercard® and may vary by product. See the respective Guide to Benefits for details, as terms and exclusions apply

In March 2020, our family visited Disneyland Paris right before pandemic lockdowns took affect. We had a great time! We decided to go because we had been told it was less crowded and a smaller and more manageable park. Ticket prices are cheaper than US parks — and even better — US military members (including Veterans) get 50% off tickets. Here’s how we paid for it with points, and how you can, too.

Flights to Paris

The first part of hacking a trip to Disneyland Paris for most people will be the flights to get there. We were in the midst of our family gap year when we went to Paris so we were just coming from London. We booked cheap flights on Vueling Airlines. It cost us 123 Euro for all four of us to fly from London to Paris, or about $150.

Your best option for round-trip flights to Europe will partly depend on your home airport and if it is a hub for a certain airline. Here are a few card combos that could get a family of 4 to Paris. There are some other options with airline partners and transferring points for more advanced award bookings, but these will be more straightforward for newer travel hackers.

American Airlines

A round-trip economy ticket from the US to Europe is typically 60,000 miles round trip, or sometimes as cheap as 45,000 miles round trip if you travel off-peak.

What I like about saving up American Airlines miles is that there are four different cards that can each give you a big chunk of miles. That makes it easier to save up for a family trip. Two of the cards are business cards and two are personal credit cards. If you and your spouse each open them all, that’s 8 possible cards! The cards are issued by both Barclays and Citi.

The Barclays AAdvantage Aviator Red World Elite MasterCard is especially easy to earn a bonus on, usually you can earn 60,000 miles after your first purchase and paying the annual fee of $99. Just keep in mind the Chase 5/24 rule if you are new to applying to cards.

United Airlines

United flights can generally be found for 60,000 miles round trip from the US to Europe if you are somewhat flexible and can book in advance. Officially there is no award chart or standard price.

One nice perk when booking with United miles is that due to what’s called the “Excursionist” Perk, essentially you can add one more destination into your itinerary if you wanted to see another place in Europe. So you could fly from Chicago to Paris, then from Paris to Venice, and then from Venice all the way back to Chicago for the same price as a round-trip Chicago to Paris.

To save up United miles, I’d recommend the opening a United Explorer, United Quest, and United Business card. What’s nice about United is that once one person has a United card, they can refer their friends (or spouse) to another United card and get a referral bonus.

You can also get a Chase Sapphire Preferred and transfer the points to United.

Delta

As a Christmas present, we flew my mom to meet us in Paris. We booked my mom a flight on Delta in Comfort + for 64,000 points round trip + $90. Delta has variable award pricing — I have seen round trip flights to Europe for as little as 32,000 points round trip, or much much more. Traveling off-season would definitely help.

American Express has 3 personal and 3 business cards that earn Delta miles. Bonuses often range from 60,000-90,000 miles.

Hotels Near Disneyland Paris

Disneyland Resort Properties

One of the big advantages of Disneyland Paris is that you can book into the Disneyland Resort properties on points! This gives you easy access to the parks with free shuttles and even better — Extra Magic Hours where you can enter the park an hour early. The best way to do this is with a Capital One Venture X. You will earn 10x miles (essentially like a 10% discount) on your hotel booking and then you can “erase” your purchase with your miles. Prices will vary based on property, season, and dates. These are some of the cheapest weekend rates I found in Spring 2022. There may be some dates that don’t show availability.

You could also combine miles from two people’s accounts — or between a Venture and Venture X.

Marriott’s Village d’ile-de-France

This is the property our family stayed at while we were visiting Disneyland Paris. You can take the hotel shuttle to Disneyland Paris for about 2 euro per person or the public bus. We took the public bus because we had week-long Paris transport passes.

As a Category 4 Property, rooms start at just 25,000 points per night. Standard rooms are Studio Suites that include a full kitchen. Unfortunately I cannot currently find even 1 date of availability on points at this property in the next year! We didn’t actually use Marriott points to book when we stayed because cash rates were low. Instead we used our Chase Ultimate Rewards points to book through the online portal. This way we were also able to book a 3 bedroom townhouse which was incredibly spacious. We had a full kitchen and washer and dryer.

This property also has a drop-off kid’s club with free activities for kids. We even enjoyed complimentary adult activities — like wine tasting and painting.

Other Properties

There are a lot of properties in the vicinity of Disneyland Paris that can be booked through the Capital One portal and erased with miles. Just like the Disneyland Paris resort properties, you will earn 10x on your booking if you book with a Venture X and can erase your purchase with points.

Disneyland Paris Tickets

Disneyland Paris ticket prices vary based on dates. We purchased 2 day, 2 park tickets and found that was a good amount of time to explore both parks. We especially enjoyed the shows in Walt Disney Studios Park — the stunt show was great!

Currently, Disneyland Paris is not offering anything but 1 day, 1 park tickets online. Other options may be available at the gate.

US Military and Veteran Discount

Tickets are even cheaper if you have a US Veteran or military member in your group! You have to buy a 2 day, 2 park ticket to access this 50% discount. You can purchase your tickets at the gate and just show a military or veteran ID.

Some report says 5 is the maximum tickets you can purchase with this discount. We were able to buy 3 adult and 2 children’s tickets with no issue and my husband showing a veteran ID.

2 day/2 park tickets were about $200 each when we went, so after the discount we paid $100 each.

Using Points for Tickets

The easiest way to cover your ticket purchase with points would be to use a card that gives you a cash back bonus. The Bank of America Premium Rewards is an easy one and the one we used.

Bank of America Premium Rewards – $500 cash back

• $95 annual fee
• $100 annual airline incidental credit

Miles and Points Strategy

Look at the categories above to determine which areas of the trip you want to cover with points. Take into account the Chase 5/24 rule when determining when to apply for cards. Apply for cards steadily, taking turns with a spouse. Then enjoy your trip!

Leave a comment below if you have any questions!

Editorial Disclosure – Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post.