I've been working on a little bit of an experiment over the last month and a half to try to figure out a great way to save on Disney Gift Cards. There are tons of ways and I've shared some before in a previous blog post. I also shared a little bit about using the cash back site Shop Smarter. Now that the month is over and I have a check in the mail, let me tell you what I've learned!
Shop Smarter is a new site to me, and kind of just to see what happened, I clicked through the site to buy Disney Gift Cards through Target and Sam's Club. Both of these sites offer a discount on Disney Gift Cards already (5% from Target with a RedCard, either debit or credit, and around 4% at Sam's Club). The potentially great thing about Sam's Club is that you can use discounted Walmart or Sam's Club gift cards to purchase them through Top Cashback and Raise. I also always cash out my Swagbucks (check out this post for more on Swagbucks!) for Walmart gift cards, which can be used to purchase Disney gift cards at Sam's and Walmart, but Sam's offers discounts on Disney gift cards and Walmart does not.
I am very happy to say that my experiment worked! I purchased gift cards at Target and Sam's Club after clicking through the Shop Smarter site. This allowed me to save 15% at Target and even more at Sam's since I bought gift cards through Raise or earned them on Swagbucks.
Here was my experience a for my purchase at Sam's Club. I purchased gift cards on Raise for 5.5% off by clicking through Top Cashback at Walmart, so I purchased a $200 gift card for a total of $189. Then, I spent that money, plus a little extra that came from $25 gift card I earned through Swagbucks on my purchase. I got $225 in Disney gift cards for a total of $215.94, o4 about 4% off. So far I have spent $189 out of pocket for these gift cards, which adds up to 16% off. With my cashback from Shop Smarter, I will have spent just $167.40 for $225 in gift cards! That's over 25% off. Now, not every transaction works this well, and I purchased most of my gift cards from Target, which gave me 15% off, but, it is possible and it's what I'll be doing from now on!
I was pretty unsure about whether this would work or not because gift card purchases are usually disqualified on cashback sites. However, these went through without a hitch and I was able to save a ton! I really wish I had known about this method sooner, but I'll keep using it now! A disclaimer is that these sites can change their policies at any time, so I can't promise that this will work forever, but I think it's worth a shot. This is the best cashback option that I have found and it can lower the overall cost of your Disney vacation significantly!
ShopSmarter offers you a $10 reward the first month and a trial membership for 1 week for $1.97. After that it costs $9.97 per month. There is a yearly cap of $1,000 in cashback for this site, so if you were to reach that, definitely cancel your membership. Obviously it was worth it for me this month, but if I'm not saving for Disney, I don't plan to keep this subscription as it will often cost me more than I will get back. Not every site is available for cashback, but a lot are, including some that don't usually offer high cashback percentages like Walmart, Target, Sam's and Disney Store. I suggest saving up your gift cards and buying a lot in one month rather than buying a few here and there to maximize your membership fee. I would also suggest buying a lot of cards towards the end of the month as you as the cashback cycle is by calendar month. So, if you shop from March 1-31, you get paid on April 15th but if you make a purchase on April 1st, you won't get paid until May 15th.
I think Shop Smarter is definitely a site that's worth a shot. You can get 15% off from Target with almost no work and a lot more through Sam's Club with some more.
I am not receiving any kind of referral bonus from recommending Top Cashback, but there are links for Swagbucks, Raise and Top Cashback that can get you a little extra to set up an account with them! Also, if you are thinking of taking a Disney trip, I would love to help you book and plan your vacation! Send me an email at lauren.hasanov@gmail.com or fill out this quote request form to get started!
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