Chase Disney Credit Card Review – $200 Disney Gift Card Sign Up Bonus

This is another post in our Weird Wednesday series where we look at credit cards that aren’t often talked about. You can view more posts in this series by clicking here.

Chase cards are talked about a lot, so it’s a bit weird writing a post about a Chase credit card. That being said, I almost never see anybody talk about the Disney card they offer so I thought it was worth a look. Before we get started, it’s important to note that there are actually two Chase Disney credit cards: Chase Disney Premier & Chase Disney Rewards.

The Basics

Let’s have a look at the marketing bulletins for each of these cards.

Chase Disney Rewards

• No annual fee
• 1% in Disney Dream Reward Dollars on all purchases
• Disney perks:
  • Character Meet ‘N’ Greet at a private Cardmember location
  • 10% off select merchandise purchases of $50 or more at Disney Store and DisneyStore.com

Chase Disney Premier

• 2% in Disney Dream Reward Dollars on card purchases at gas stations, grocery stores, restaurants and most Disney locations
• 1% in Disney Dream Reward Dollars on all other purchases
• Annual fee of $49
• Disney perks:
  • Character Meet ‘N’ Greet at a private Cardmember location
  • 10% off select merchandise purchases of $50 or more at Disney Store and DisneyStore.com

Getting this card doesn’t make sense, you’re basically paying $49 annually to get 2x on certain categories. It’s easily possible to get 2% cash back on ALL purchases, so getting the premier makes very little sense.

The Benefits

Character Meet ‘N’ Greet

Both of the cards offer this benefit, there are some restrictions and fine print that we should go over though.

• Only available at Disney California Adventure® Park and the Walt Disney World®
• Must present your valid Chase Disney credit card to gain entry
• Allows entry for up to 6 people
• Each card can only be used for one entry per day (e.g for a party of up to 6)
• Only offered at set hours at Epcot
• Includes one complimentary 5 x 7 photo per valid cardmember account per day
• Complimentary photo must be picked up at a Disney PhotoPass location the day the photo was taken
• Cannot be combined with any other offer

This benefit sounds pretty good, but it’s hard to get a good gauge without having actually used it yourself. Thankfully, lots of people have used it and have shared their experiences. It actually sounds like a pretty good experience from the reports I’ve read, but I’d encourage you to read them as well. Here are some of the better ones I’ve found:

• Disney Chase Visa Cardholder Private Character Meet and Greet at Epcot Center – Includes FREE Souvenir Print
• Character Meet & Greet with Chase Disney Card Disboards
• Anybody Ever Do the Chase Character Meet ‘N’ Greet at EPCOT? intercot

One thing that a lot of people reported is that they will take some pictures using your camera as well if you ask nicely. 

10% Discount

There are a number of restrictions that apply to the 10% discount that both cards offer. Let’s have a look at them:

• Offer valid only at Disney Store and Disney Baby Store retail locations in the U.S. or orders placed online at DisneyStore.com
• There is a minimum purchase order of $50
• Offer excludes Shipping & Handling, Theme Park Passes, Disney INFINITY, Disney Electronics, DVDs, Blu-rayTM, CDs, Video Games, Books, Art & Collectibles, Jim Shore, Lenox�, Enesco Busts and Figurines, Olszewski, Precious Moments, Vinylmation, Limited Edition Dolls, D23 Memberships, D23 Merchandise, gift cards or certificates, Disney Dollars, personalization, gift wrap and gift boxes and items not in stock
• Not valid on purchases at The Disney Studio Store Hollywood & Ghirardelli Soda Fountain Shop
• World of Disney® locations are not operated by Disney Store
• Cannot be combined with other discounts
• Must use promotional code DRVCMEMBER

How useful this benefit is probably depends on how often you shop with Disney and what type of other discounts they usually offer. I imagine it’s usually cheaper to buy the same products from a third party than from Disney directly, but it’s really not my forte.

The Sign Up Bonus

If you’re observant you’ll probably notice I haven’t mentioned anything about a sign up bonus on either of these cards yet, but I did mention $200 in the title. The current public bonuses are a $100/$50 statement credit. There are two ways to get a Disney gift card of $200 after $500 in spending, one of these works for the no annual fee card and the other works for the annual fee card.  Here is how to get these offers:

• Get a referral link from somebody who already has the card. For some reason the referral bonus is $200 after $500 in spending, the person who refers you will also receive a $50 bonus if you are approved. It’s usually possible to find somebody in this thread with an active referral link (go to the last page or just search for ‘Disney’), if you have one then you’re more than welcome to share it in the comments.
• Order a free Disney planning CD from the Disney website. The CD that you want is called ‘Disney Vacation Planning‘. I learned this trick from Frequent Miler, he has a great guest post titled ‘Hacking Walt Disney World‘, which is well worth a read if you plan on going to Disney World.

Now obviously using a referral link is better because it’s for the no annual fee card and the annual fee doesn’t have any benefits/features that are actually useful. Your best bet might be to try and split the referral bonus the other person gets, which would bring your total of $225 which is a very competitive bonus (Disney gift cards sell for 80% of face value, but they will be similar to cash if you’re actually going there).

Final Thoughts

This isn’t an amazing card, there are cards that have higher cash sign up bonuses. That being said if you’ve already got all of those higher bonuses and don’t really value travel rewards and are planning on going to Disney then this is an OK choice. It doesn’t make any sense to put any actual spending on these cards, but the meet ‘n’ greet features and the fact that it’s no annual fee should make it worth keeping (if you go to Disney World on a regular basis).

The major downside is that this is yet another card issued by Chase and they offer a lot of really great bonuses (e.g the Freedom is often a bonus of $225 in cash with rotating categories). Because of this I wouldn’t recommend this card to most people.

Disney lovers, what did I miss? Are there any hidden benefits that make this card a must have? Would you recommend it to others? As mentioned previously please feel free to share your referral links in the comments below.