Did someone say bucket list Disneyland Vacation for less than a MILLION dollars?!? I am telling you, taking a Disneyland family vacation on a budget IS completely possible. You just need to get a little creative :). We are walking you through step by step exactly how to make that heavily discounted travel magic happen below 👇🏼

Strategically using credit card points IS your answer. (RESPONSIBLY in a way that will not only leave your credit score in tact but potentially even HIGHER than I was before).

And when done well, can earn you some epic, nearly, free travel ✨

For years and years, we used our credit card like a debit card and would just reimburse our travel purchases using our points when we took a vacation, dollar for point. Although that is better than using a debit card, there IS an EVEN BETTER way.

A few years ago we started to *really* learn how to get the most out of our normal every day spending and points. This is what we are going to show you below 🙂

Now we go on multiple dreamy family trips a year AND both have credit scores in the “excellent” range at 815+….so hear me out here 🙂

Make sure to check out our FREE Points/Miles 101 guide for families here to answer all your burning questions. Like what about all the annual fees? Isn’t this just going to kill my credit score? So you spend thousands of extra to get a “free” vacations…yeah right.

Answering all your FAQ’s and giving you a basic overview of the points world there- it’s a MUST READ.

Disneyland Family Vacation on a Budget – START HERE

Here’s exactly how to get a trip to Disneyland and airfare and hotels for only $234.50! (additional ways to save on food + tickets at the end!!)

If you are skeptical of the points world (like we were), we encourage you to just try it one time. If it’s not for you, no problem! The worst you can get out of it is a heavily discounted vacation, and your credit score either staying level or potentially even going UP.

*If you’re in a season of life where all your financial ducks are not in a row or you are in a ton of debt, we do NOT recommend this means of discounted travel. Don’t worry we have all been there :). But take some time to get that sorted out, then you can come back to the points strategy later! Paying off your credit cards in FULL and ON TIME (every single month!) is KEY here.

1. You (Player 1) apply for the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card

Once you’ve decided if want to leverage points for a (mostly) free trip to Disneyland, you will apply for your first card! Making a trip to Disneyland happen for your fam is insannnleyyyy expensive, so can personally vouch for maximizing your credit card points to make this seemingly “out of reach” trip, 100% IN REACH.

There is a wholleeee lot of travel rewards card out there, but hands down the most widely recommended as the overall best value travel card is the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card.

Like we said, if you start in any place at all it is without question best to start with the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card (typically, the bonus on this card is around 60,000 points!).

It has huge variety of airline and hotel travel partners and uses for your points, a very low annual fee for the value it provides, and offers 3x points on dining and restaurants. The card provides just so much flexibility and value ongoing. Read the in depth post on WHY this is consistently the TOP travel card HERE!

You will meet the minimum spend (typically $4,000 in 3 months) and then earn a big ole’ pile of 60,000 bonus points.

We WISH we had enough normal everyday spending to rack up the amount of points needed for multiple vacations a year. The reality is most people don’t.

The bulk of our points are earned from credit card welcome bonuses. We then use those welcome bonuses of points to transfer to hotel and airline partners of the card to take nearly free vacations! (Again, visit the FAQs here if that is a new and uncomfortable idea…we get it!)

*The key here is meeting the minimum spend with your normal everyday spending, NOT A DIME MORE! Making additional purchases you wouldn’t normally buy to earn a welcome bonus, literally defeats the entire purpose of the “nearly free” travel. 🙂

Set auto pay up to pay your statement balance in FULL as soon as you get your card. Interest fees = *not* free travel.

Learn more about that golden card HERE! Even if you don’t want to go deep in the points world, the Chase Sapphire is absolutely something you want in your wallet if you travel at all and value SAVING MONEY.

💳 Learn how to apply for the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card HERE!

2. You refer your spouse (Player 2) to that SAME card

….pocketing 10,000 referral points along the way. The next step is to refer your spouse or partner to that very same card. Make sure to use your referral link, found either within your rewards section of your Chase account or generate your link HERE.

Now don’t worry, after the one year mark, we are going to downgrade this card to a no annual fee version, so you aren’t needlessly wasting any of those precious dollars long term.

**This is why we never recommend adding your spouse as an authorized user on your card in the points world. Because it is FAR more lucrative to refer them for their own version of the card, combine alllll your points together for some epic travel, and then downgrade one of the cards in time!

Your partner (or commonly called “player 2”) will meet the minimum spend on THEIR Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card and will be rewarded with another pile of 60,000+ points. That’s 130,000 points between the both of you you’ve now got in your pocket for DISNEY💃🏽!

If you are thinking wow that’s a whole lot of spending I need to do, we can’t do that…think again. 🙂 $4,000 in 3 months is only $1,333/month! Most families spend more than that on groceries, gas, and eating out for the month alone!

3. You and spouse call into Chase to combine those points allllll together!

This is the really easy part! Sometimes you will already see your spouse’s card linked when you click “Combine Points” in the rewards section of your travel account, however more often it is not. Simply call into Chase customer service at 1-800-432-3117 and tell a representative you would like to combine you and your partner’s points.

You can combine points across ANY Chase card with anyone that you share a household with :).

Now you’ve got 60,000 (your bonus) + 10,000 (referral bonus) + 60,000 (your spouse’s bonus) = for a total of 130,000+ points to get you to Disney!

4. Player 1 will apply for their last card to get that Disneyland family vacation on a budget!

The last card I recommend applying for would be one of the Chase Ink Business cards.

If you’re thinking, well SHOOT I don’t have a business or officially LLC…no fear! Truly anyone can qualify for a business card- you are likely eligible and don’t even realize it! This is a MUST READ here!

*The most important thing here is that player 1 or 2 does not apply for this business card until 60-90 days after their Chase Sapphire application!*

If done responsibly, reward travel will most likely only increase your credit score. BUT if you don’t play by the rules, your credit WILL absolutely be very negatively impacted. Applying for multiple cards back to back to back will, without a doubt, do that.

The Chase Ink Business Cash® Credit Card and Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card are amazinnngggg because they help you rack up a massive load of points for FREE. Both cards offer No Annual Fee, the ability to transfer your points to your personal Sapphire “homebase”, AND don’t impact your personal credit long term!

This is huggeeeeeeee! Business cards truly are the MVP of all these nearly free vacations.

Again don’t count yourself out!! Business cards are the secret sauce to nearly free travel and I am guessing you are already eligible 🙂

💳 Learn how to apply for the Chase Ink Business Cash® Credit Card HERE!

💳 Learn how to apply for the Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card HERE!

(If the idea of applying for a 3rd card feels new and uncomfortable to you…just stop at those two Sapphires and take the massive savings you can already get from there! )

If you DO want to go for that business card, you are likely going to have a whopping 210,000 Chase points to use for one EPIC vacation to Disneyland!

5. Transfer Points to purchase your flights!

There are a ton of ways to redeem your points for flights. The main thing you need to know is the power of TRANSFER PARTNERS. Transferring your points to a travel partner of a credit card will 9 times out of 10 get you the very MOST VALUE out of those points (compared to reimbursing yourself for travel purchases with those same points)

❌ STOP cashing out your credit card points for gift cards

❌ STOP using your points to reimburse yourself for travel expenses

✔️ START transferring your points to airline and hotel partners of your card

Southwest is a super easy transfer partner of Chase for beginners, so that is what we are going to use for this example.

Southwest has flights to John Wayne Airport (SNA is the closest to Disneyland!) for as low as 8,000-10,000 points Round Trip if you can be a bit flexible on your dates. (even cheaper if you can catch a Southwest sale I am certain of it!)

So if you don’t already have a free Rapid Rewards account with Southwest, set one up! Check flight availability, and once confirmed you will transfer the needed points from Chase to Southwest for your Disneyland flights. **Keep in mind, once points are transferred, they can never be sent back, so always check availability and rates first!**

In your rewards section of your Chase account you will see a “Transfer your Points” option. Click that, find Southwest in the list and put in your Southwest loyalty number. Those points should show up instantly over in your SW account!

When booking your Disneyland flights for your family, you will only now be responsible for paying the taxes on the flight. They are usually $11.20 per person for domestic flights!

The cash cost of these flights for a family of 4 would EASILY be $1,000 PLUS …and that’s just to GET there.

6. Transfer Points to reserve your FREE Disneyland Hotel!

Start by setting up a free World of Hyatt membership account if you don’t already have one. Next, same drill as above, transfer those remaining Chase points over to your Hyatt account. This is where the MAGIC happens!

*The BEST part is that Hyatt does not charge taxes or resort fees on award stays, so this is truly a FREE booking!*

Simply by TRANSFERRING your points to Hyatt (instead of booking in the travel portal or reimbursing yourself for the hotel charges with your points)- you are going to get SO much for value!

For example, the cash value for 4 nights at the Hyatt House at Anaheim Resort would be around $1,580 (NOT including taxes and fees!!). If you were to reimburse yourself with points you would need 150,000 points JUST to pay for 4 nights at this prime Disneyland resort.

But insteadddddd you started following me and transferred your points to book with Hyatt directly instead, and will spend 12,000-15,000 points a night instead. So 60,000 points instead of 150,000. Mind BLOWN.

✨ TRAVEL MAGIC!! ✨ That’s literally double to tripling the amount you can travel.

Your Chase points will hands down always go farthest with Hyatt and the best part is you can use this EXACT same strategy for a million other trips!! Hawaii!? SAME EXACT SAVINGS!!

When we did this trip for our girls as a surprise Christmas gift a few years back, we did 2 nights on the coast after the days at Disney and it was the BEST decision.

Truly was the perfect way to decompress from ALL THAT IS DISNEY and spend some intentional time together by the water. 100/10 recommend and honestly don’t know how people don’t have a few days to compress after it all?!

With those remaining Chase points you could book a few nights at the gorrrrrgeeeoussss Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach for FREE!! Instead of paying over $1,200 for a luxury resort for your family, it would be 21,000-29,000 points a night!!

7. Enjoy magical (nearly) free Disneyland family vacation!

✨ BOOM Disneyland Family Vacation on a budget for a fraction of the normal cost! You did it! Do you see the power of points?! Just by signing up for 2-3 new cards, you earned yourself a heavily discounted Disneyland family vacation on a budget for your entire fam!

So that total was 2 annual credit card fees ($95 x 2) + let’s say for the sake of math four sets of taxes on the flights ($44.50) = $234.50 for your families airfare and lodging for a bucket list trip to Disneyland 🤯

Again, you could JUST do the two Sapphires, or if you wanted to make it even cheaper, just the Sapphire and one no annual fee Ink card and stop there! STILL taking an out of reach trip and making it soooooo much more affordable.

**I do HIGHLY recommend keeping one Sapphire per household long term (if I could only have ONE card in my wallet it would be this one!). However, after that one year mark you can downgrade the second Sapphire to a no annual fee option!

8. One Step Further for STEEPER SAVINGS

Now if you’re thinking, well what about that INSANLEY expensive Disneyland tickets??! You are right.

Unfortunately, there is no magical transfer partner for Disneyland tickets…however there is one pretty straightforward way you can get some savings!

Although, this won’t get you the HIGHEST return on your points like the hotels in the examples above…free is free sometimes right?!

The last thing you could do would be so sign up for the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card.

This card allows you to use the points earned to reimburse yourself for travel expenses. So that 75,000 point welcome offer could be used to reimburse $750 worth of Disney ticket costs. By the time you meet the minimum spend you would have 83,000 points (so the ability to take off $830 of that ticket cost!)

Simply go into your account and click “Cover Travel Purchases” and you should see your Disneyland ticket cost listed!

**Just make sure to purchase your tickets from a third party source like Undercovertourist.com (this is where we and most others purchased from) which offers even further discounted Disney tickets, because the actual Disney website will not code as travel with Capital One and make that charge reimbursable!

💳 Learn how to apply for the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card HERE!

Things to keep in mind…

✔️ Minimum Spend- you are ONLY making purchases you would normally make, not a dime more. (or it completely defeats the whole “free” travel part 😉)

✔️ After 1 year with the card, you have the option to downgrade to the no annual fee version of the card, ask for a retention offer, or cancel the card. I go over in depth all these next step decisions in my free Points Guide HERE!

✔️If you play by the rules and are RESPONSIBLY spending, paying your statement balance in FULL every single month, you will most likely only see your credit score go up!

Other Disneyland Budget Tips

A few other tips for keeping your Disneyland vacation costs to a minimum:

• INSTACART groceries for breakfast!! Now if you are staying at the Hyatt House above, you get FREE breakfast for the whole family!! One whole meal EVERY day also covered with those golden points! However, if not I highly recommend Instacarting some basic groceries (we did bagels and yogurts) to our hotel room to save on that first meal of the day.
• DYNAMIC PRICING: Disneyland prices their resort days with dynamic pricing, so if you CAN have flexibility with your dates (I know not realistic for many!), I highly recommend using the flexible date calendar on Disney’s site to plan your trip over the cheapest days possible.

• We did all of our meals via mobile ordering! We didn’t do a single one of those sit down FORK OVER YOUR WHOLE LIFE SAVINGS fancy meals. This saved us hundreds…and honestly did not take away from the experience at alllll! I can still confidently say we had the FULL and best Disney experience and made such sweet, fun memories with our kids without that!
• We usually pick ONE “splurge” activity per trip that we all agree upon. And Disneyland was the same, for us it was a few Lightening Lanes we were really excited about as a family. This helps from those fun expenses snowballing and coming home with a massive unexpected bill!

We really hope this was helpful! Sending you all the Disneyland family vacation on a budget positive vibes! For more where this came from, FOLLOW us at @wayfarenco over on Instagram. We’ll show you how to take more dream family vacations for LESS! 👏🏻👏🏻