The Best Credit Cards for Disney and Universal Holidays

From Disney World in Florida to Universal Studios Hollywood and Dollywood ARRIVE Knott’s Berry Farm in California and more, there are typically more than 500 million annual visits to theme parks around the world in a normal year.

Tickets to many popular parks often go up to $100 per day, and in the case of Disney World, prices go up to $189 for a day pass on the busiest days. This means that there are easily billions of dollars spent annually on amusement park tickets, not to mention all the other associated costs of going to the amusement park. That’s a lot of spending ripe to earn rewards or use points to offset some expenses.

With that in mind, here are the best credit cards for Disney rides, Universal Studios vacations, and other theme park adventures.

It may sound like we’re starting with unnecessary details, but the best credit card for buying amusement park tickets depends a lot on how your credit card purchases are encoded. And that means where you buy your amusement park tickets is important. That said, the most likely reward types for theme park tickets are entertainment or tourism.

When purchasing park tickets directly from the theme park, the fee will most likely be encoded as an entertainment purchase. On some credit cards, entertainment will be considered a travel fee, but usually not.

However, if you buy a park ticket from a travel agency (such as secret travel), charge them to your hotel room, or include them as part of a larger vacation package, chances are high that the purchase will be encrypted as a travel fee.

This is important because if you pay with Chase Sapphire Reserve and your $500 ticket purchase is encrypted as travel, you will earn 1,500 Ultimate Rewards points (3 points per dollar). If the tokenized purchase is entertainment, you’ll only earn 500 points as a non-reward category on that card.

Related: Why you might want to use Disney Vacation Planner

• Capital One Savor Cash Rewards Credit Card: 4% refund of entertainment expenses.
• Venmo credit card: 3% back on the category you spend the most that month, with two options entertainment and travel. This card also gives you 2% cash back in the qualifying category where you spend the second most that month, making it a pretty solid choice when you’re taking a trip to the big theme park.
• Citi Prestige® Card (no longer available to new registrants): 5 points per dollar at travel agencies, so best when buying from a site like Undercover Tourist or other travel agencies.
• Disney visa: 2% cash back on most Disney purchases, but you can earn higher rewards with other cards.

Information about the Capital One Savor Cash Rewards Credit Card, Venmo credit card, Citi Prestige card, and Disney Visa card has been independently obtained by The Points Guy. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.

Best credit cards for travel credit at Disney

If you want to use $300 Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit on your trip to Disney World or Disneyland, you can use it most easily for a hotel-only package or a hotel + ticket package that you book directly with Disney or through a travel agent, such as Partner of TPG Mouse Consultants.

If you just want to buy a Disney ticket, you can usually use your Sapphire Reserve travel credit to buy it by going to a site like Undercover Tourist.

For annual use, up to $300 travel credit from Capital One Venture X, you need to book an eligible trip through Capital One’s travel website. Luckily, this site often shows Disney World hotels for booking.

Related: For free assistance with booking your Disney vacation, you can contact Travel booking partner of TPG Mouse Consultants.

Best Credit Cards to Use Points at Disney

Bad news first: not all credit card points work for a trip to Disney.

For example, Chase Ultimate Rewards points aren’t very useful for components of a Disney trip, such as Disney tickets or Disney hotels. However, Bilt Rewards points and Capital One Venture miles are useful for using points at Disney.

Bilt Points can be redeemed at a rate of 1.25 cents per point on Disney tickets and hotels in the Bilt travel portal, making it the most valuable point for Disney vacations.

With Capital One, you can also book Disney hotels on that travel booking site (just like with Bilt), but for a fee of 1 cent per mile. However, since you can also use your miles to offset any travel fees on your card, you can also book directly with Disney or elsewhere (as long as the card has a code of travel) and use points at the rate of 1 cent per mile redeemed.

This also opens up the possibility Rent Disney Vacation Club Points from a site like David’s Holiday Club to save money on your Disney accommodation compared to Disney cash rates while using credits to offset costs.

Pro tip: Swan, dolphin and swan sanctuary belongs to Disney property and comes with many Disney perks. Since they’re in the Marriott family, you can use your Marriott points to stay at Disney hotels. Points per night for staying at Marriott properties vary, with the lowest price days starting at around 40,000 points per night. This makes Marriott Bonvoy Boundless® credit card And Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card great credit card option if you want this on-site accommodation option.

The same credit cards that are best for Disney vacations are also considered the best for trips to Universal Studios. However, Universal holidays have some extra options that Disney doesn’t have. Notably, you can use Chase Ultimate Rewards points to bet Hotels in Universal Studios and theme park tickets.

This means you can redeem points from Chase Sapphire Reserve® for 1.5 cents per point to stay onsite at Universal and even get your theme park tickets through the Chase travel portal. The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card would be another good credit card for a trip to Universal Studios as its points each would be worth 1.25 cents towards on-site hotels and theme park tickets.

Related: Guide to visit Universal Orlando

If you’re not sure how the theme park fee will tokenize and you want to be sure and earn rewards, consider using strong card for daily spending.

TPG founder Brian Kelly did just that when he buy an expensive Disney VIP tour use your own Unlimited pursuit of freedom. Earning 1.5 points for every dollar is a sure bet on increasing points for that thousand dollar fee.

* The value of the reward is based on TPG . valuation and is not provided by the issuer.