Guest post by Summer Hall

Do you want to redeem Chase points for a Disney vacation? Be sure to read this guest post by Summer Hall at Summer is Joy who has put together a great guide with several different ways you can use Chase points to cover a Disney vacation!

Ideas for How to Use 100,000 Chase Points for a Disney Vacation

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is a gateway to all kinds of free travel, but especially Disney vacations. You might not think so at first, since you can’t buy Disney tickets or even book Disney resorts in the Chase Travel℠ portal, but with just a little creativity, you can unlock savings on whatever Disney trip you’ve been dreaming of!

It’s never been easier to make those Disney dreams a reality. I’m going to show you how.

As someone who’s visited Disney World over 25 times since discovering points and miles, I’m something of an expert when it comes to saving money on Disney. And all experts agree: Disney vacations are not going to give you the highest possible redemption value for your points. But don’t let that stop you! Chase Points are still my favorite type of points to use for Disney because earning them is so easy! And if Disney is what you value, then you should hear this from me: cashing out your points to pay for something that cannot be booked either with transfer partners OR in the travel portal is not a bad strategy. It’s the only strategy! Well, it’s either that or just switching things up to a non-Disney destination entirely. And we’re not about to do that!

Here are five ways you can use 100,000 Chase points for Disney!

Get $1,250 off Disney World or Disneyland tickets

We’re going straight into an advanced strategy with this one. If you’re familiar with Chase Ultimate Rewards points, you’ll know that 100,000 Chase points = $1,000 when redeemed for cash back. So at a bare minimum, with no other steps involved, you could get $1,000 off theme park tickets. And it doesn’t matter where you buy them from because you’re just going to give yourself cash back (but you should always take advantage of discount sites like Undercover Tourist!).

That’s a win already, but if you want to dive a little deeper, then get the Aeroplan® Credit Card from Chase after you’ve opened the Chase Sapphire Preferred. You can then unlock more value for your points in three simple steps:

Step one: transfer your 100,000 Chase points to Aeroplan.

Step two: use your Aeroplan credit card to purchase Disney World or Disneyland tickets from Undercover Tourist.

Step three: Log on to your Chase account and use your Aeroplan miles to erase $1,250 off your ticket purchase.

This works because when you purchase Disney theme park tickets from a third party, they code as travel. And Aeroplan miles are worth 25% more when redeemed for travel purchases. So by turning your 100,000 Chase points into Aeroplan miles, you’re getting 25% more value than you would get if you just cashed them out. That’s an even bigger win, and I love this strategy so much, I wrote a blog about it that explains more. You can read it here.

2. Stay 3-4 Nights at a Deluxe Walt Disney World Resort

Again, we’re going right for the big prize with this strategy because I didn’t just say a Disney World resort, I said a Deluxe Disney World resort. Now you could easily get five nights or more in one of the Disney value hotels, since those tend to cost less than $200 a night, and that would be great. But Disney World’s deluxe resorts can cost upwards of $600 a night, so how is 3-4 nights possible with just 100,000 points?

Enter Pixie Point Gals, a rental brokerage run by my friends Chelsea & Kim. Their site allows you to book Disney Vacation Club rooms at Deluxe Disney World resorts for 40-50% off. So it’s possible to get the exact same deluxe room that costs over $2100 on DisneyWorld.com for less than $1,100 on PixiePointGals.com (just using a three night summer stay at the Animal Kingdom Lodge as an example). If you cash out your 100,000 points and pay the remaining $100 yourself, then you will have just booked yourself a deluxe Disney stay that’s worth over two grand for 100,000 points and $100. Now THAT’s exciting.

If you’re a family of 4 or less, you could book as many as 4 nights for around $1,000 by requesting Disney’s Old Key West Resort or Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort from Pixie Point Gals. These are the most affordable of Disney’s deluxe resorts, so you can book a longer stay for the same amount of money. You’ll still get all the same perks as if you had booked directly from Disney, and by booking a deluxe resort instead of one of those value resorts I mentioned, you’re getting access to Extended Evening Hours at the theme parks. Plus, these rooms are WAY nicer than value resorts! Here’s a link to request a room from Pixie Point Gals.

As a bonus tip, PixiePointGals.com codes as travel, so if you want to use the advanced strategy I mentioned in #1 and get the Aeroplan credit card after you get the Chase Sapphire Preferred, then you could copy the same steps and erase $1,250 of your deluxe resort stay that way!

3. Stay 4 Nights at the Swan and Dolphin at Walt Disney World

There are three deluxe resorts that are located on Disney World property but not owned by Disney; they’re actually Marriott properties, which is good news! The Swan, the Dolphin, and the Swan Reserve are all bookable in the Chase travel portal, and there are so many reasons to book them. Guests of these hotels don’t just get Early Entry at the theme parks, but Extended Evening Hours as well, plus an amazing location that’s walkable to two parks.

Since these are all Marriott properties, your first thought might be to transfer 100,000 Chase points to Marriott in order to book them. But there’s a better strategy: booking the Swan and Dolphin in the travel portal will actually give you a better value because of the 25% boost your points get in the portal. As an example, let’s take a long weekend in July and compare the cost of using Marriott points versus using points in the travel portal.

On the left you have the cost to book this room with Marriott points, and it would take almost 200,000 of them! But on the right you can see the cash price of these same dates in the Chase travel portal is pretty reasonable, and it would only take 86,347 Chase points to book this way. Neither of these methods include the $56/night resort fee that you will pay at check out. But if you book with Chase points, you’ll have enough points leftover that you could even use them to cover some of the resort fee if you wanted. On the other hand, can you imagine redeeming 198,000 Marriott points and still having to pay over $200 in fees at check out? I certainly can’t!

I didn’t just cherry pick these dates; when it comes to Marriott and the Swan and Dolphin resorts in particular, Marriott points prices are so high that it almost always costs fewer points to book in a travel portal. And don’t forget to enter your Marriott loyalty number when booking in the portal! While you’re not guaranteed to receive any elite status benefits because it’s not a direct booking, it’s not unheard of for these resorts to acknowledge status for bookings made in the portal.

4. Stay 5 nights near Disneyland

We’ve talked about transferring 100,000 points to Aeroplan to cover your tickets, so now it’s time to talk about transferring your points to Hyatt, everyone’s favorite Chase travel partner. While I don’t recommend using Hyatt for a trip to Disney World because there are so many closer and more convenient options on property, I would absolutely recommend transferring to Hyatt to book your Disneyland accommodations.

The Hyatt House at Anaheim Resort/Convention Center is an excellent choice for a few reasons: it’s literally 0.6 miles from Disneyland, it has free breakfast, and the point prices are so reasonable. This Hyatt House is a Category 4, which means free nights start at just 12,000 points for off-peak dates, 15,000 points for standard dates, and only go up to 18,000 points a night for peak dates.

Doing some quick math tells me that even if you went during all peak nights, you could still get 5 nights for free with 100,000 points, leaving some to spare. That’s more than enough time to see and do everything Disneyland has to offer – most people only do 2-3 nights. If you can travel during off-peak nights, you’ll spend even less and perhaps be able to book two or three different visits to Disneyland, all with 100,000 points.

These four nights in December would only cost 48,000 points when you transfer your Chase Ultimate Rewards to Hyatt; that’s so affordable you could repeat the same trip again next year!

Just be aware that because the Hyatt House is such a great value, it does tend to book up quickly on points. Plan to book your stay in advance if you have particular dates you want, and remember to use MaxMyPoint.com to set up an alert if a night you want to book isn’t available.

5. Stay 3 nights at Aulani, a Disney Resort & Spa

We’re going all the way to Hawaii for this last one! If you’ve read this far, I’m assuming you’re a true Disney fan like me and you already have this unique Disney resort on your bucket list. But when you combine an expensive vacation like Disney with an expensive destination like Oahu, you get eye-wateringly high rates of $900 a night. And I am not suggesting you book a three night stay at Aulani for $2,700 and then use 100,000 points to give yourself $1,000 back, not at all. We’re going to borrow a strategy I’ve already mentioned and book Aulani through Pixie Point Gals to save half off that $900 rate.

Just like many of the deluxe resorts at Walt Disney World, Aulani has Disney Vacation Club rooms that you can “rent” from a DVC member. Pixie Point Gals does all of the work on the backend with these members so that all you have to do is make a request for Aulani, and they fulfill it, starting at just $383 a night in the off season. That means you could book a three night stay for as little as $1,149.

Now, when you redeem your 100,000 Chase points for cash back, you’re covering all but $149 for a stay that would have been around $2,700. That’s the incredible result of getting creative with how you book Aulani instead of booking directly, and then applying your points to make a luxury stay downright affordable.

Annie has stayed at Aulani thanks to Pixie Point Gals in the past, and I’m about to check the resort off my list this summer. I will definitely be referencing our friends’ free resort guide to Aulani to make the most of my stay. I’m even excited about the fact that renting DVC to stay here means I won’t have to pay for parking at the resort!

Again, you can find the form to request a quote for Aulani here.

Bonus way to use 100,000 Chase points: Universal Orlando!

If you’re headed to Universal Orlando to experience the brand new Epic Universe theme park, these points can get you $1,250 off Universal theme park tickets through the travel portal. You can also book Universal’s on-property resorts through the portal. This is especially intriguing because some of their hotels give you free Universal Express Unlimited Passes, an insanely valuable perk that will make riding all the attractions at their original two theme parks a breeze.

You could redeem points for one night at a signature Universal Orlando hotel and get free Express Pass on your check in AND check out day. That’s more than a $1,600 value for four people!

The Bottom Line

Now that we’ve discussed just a few of the ways you could use 100,000 Chase points for Disney, hopefully you can see that there is so much potential for your future trips, and maybe I’ve given you some new ideas you hadn’t thought of. We didn’t even talk about Disney Cruise Line or international Disney parks, but the strategies are as much the same as they are tried and true. I’ve been using Chase points to fuel my Disney adventures for five years now, and I’m not slowing down anytime soon.

If you haven’t applied for the Chase Sapphire Preferred yet, now is the best time to get started on making more magical memories with points and miles!

5 Ways You Can Redeem Chase Points For a Disney Vacation