Walt Disney World Archives - The American Travel Project

One of the most common questions that I get asked is about Disney vacations, whether it relates to where to stay, how to get a good deal, or which credit cards to get to make a Disney trip more affordable. In this post, I am going to focus on which credit cards for free flights to Disney in Orlando.

How to Get Free Flights to Orlando for Your Disney Vacation:

The easiest way to get free flights is by signing up for travel rewards credit cards and getting the bonuses for meeting the minimum spending requirements (for more information see here and here). Your ideal airline will not necessarily be the same as mine, as it is based on where you live (which airport you are using). I will give some examples from my home airport (PHL) so that you can go about doing your own research into which airlines may work for you.

Orlando International Airport (MCO) is a quick and generally easy flight for those of us who live near a major East Coast airport. Which is probably why I have lost track of how many times we have been to Orlando. Sometimes the flights are reasonable, and we pay the cash rate. Other times flights are more expensive (or we are miles-rich and cash-poor), and we choose to use Frequent Flyer Miles for our flights. Each individual family situation will be unique, and only you can decide when it is best for you to pay or to use miles.

I picked a random date and did a bit of research for direct flights from my location (PHL or nearby smaller airports).

As you can see, most of the airlines use a Low, High, Medium kind of a system, and the number of miles you will need can vary in a crazy kind of way. If your dates are flexible, you can look at the award calendar to try to choose lower redemption rates. Here are some examples from USAirways and American Airlines:

USAIRWAYS Award Calendar for PHL-MCO

American Airlines Award Calendar PHL-MCO

The British Airways Avios “Trick”

But wait, there is yet another option! And it just may be the best one. It may sound complicated, but once you get the hang of it, it’s really not. Check out British Airways Avios (their frequent flyer program).

The difference between BA Avios and, say, American Airlines’ Aadvantage Miles, is that BA is a distance-based program. What that means is that instead of saying, for example, that any ticket within the Continental United States is 25,000 miles…British Airways bases the number of miles needed on the distance between 2 points. You can go to the British Airways Avios calculator to find out how many Avios you need to get from point A to point B. In our PHL-MCO (Orlando) example, you would need 7,500 Avios each way. So for 15,000 miles roundtrip, it’s obviously a bargain.

Now, you may be thinking to yourself…but British Airways doesn’t fly from Philly to Orlando (or most USA domestic flights, for that matter). This is your aha moment. You can use British Airways Avios on their PARTNER airlines’ flights. American Airlines is a British Airways partner. American Airlines is in the midst of a merger with USAirways.

What’s the catch? Well, in order to use your Avios on American Airlines (for example), there has to be SAVER level availability for the AA flight. In the AA chart above, do you see the green highlighted dates that say 12.5K? Those are the saver dates available (in that example). Those are the dates that you can get using 7,500 Avios instead of 12,500 AA Miles. Yes, for the same exact flight. This also applies to first and business class tickets, which are obviously more.

I have used this “trick” (it’s not actually a trick, but it sounds more fun that way) a bunch of times now. For West Coast to/from Hawaii for a total of 6 different flights, for flights to Florida, and to Aruba. It’s legit.

So which airline is the winner?

So even after my detailed description of the British Airways program, I would say that Southwest is the winner in this situation. In fact, on our flight home from Orlando in January 2014, we flew Southwest. If you haven’t flown Southwest before, then you will want to know that it is a bit different than other airlines (like USAirways & American Airlines).

Things to know about Southwest:

Seats are not assigned. When you check in online (as close to 24 hours before your flight if you are savvy), you will be given a boarding order number based on a number of factors, such as “first come first served” for the order in which you checked in online
The other factors for getting a better boarding number: people who buy the more expensive tickets, you can pay $12.50 per ticket each way for automatic check in, and elite members who fly Southwest a ton
To repeat the point: If your flight leaves at 9am, check in online at 9am the day before (if you don’t fit into one of those categories I just listed). The closer to 24 hours you check in, the better your boarding number will be (for example A45 or B33).
Southwest will have everyone line up in order (there are sections A, B, C and then numbers 1-30 and 30-60)
You then enter the plane in your order & choose your seat
They give you snacks (last week we got peanuts and crackers) and soft drinks/water/juice. You can buy alcohol if need be.
They tend to release their flights about 8 months out (unlike the 330 days of some other airlines). From their website:
“We are currently accepting air reservations through January 4, 2015. On July 21, 2014, we will open our schedule for sale through March 6, 2015. This date is subject to change! Please check back frequently.”

We have flown Southwest a bunch of times, and even when I forgot to check in at 24 hours (gasp!), we were still able to get seats that we were OK with. I’ll be honest, I’m not super picky about where I am resting my butt for 2 hours. As long as the kids are next to one of us parents, it’s all good. The guy who boarded at the end of the C group last week (and got the middle seat right behind me) was not happy though. He obviously did NOT know about Southwest’s seating procedures, and he was pissed that he got a middle seat. You snooze, you lose.

So why Southwest? I’d actually be happy with the British Airways scenario OR the Southwest scenario. I just tend to find it (sometimes) difficult to find the SAVER level availability. Plus I have a Southwest Companion Pass (I’ll write more about that someday), which allows me to bring someone for free when I fly. Until my pass expires, it’s a no-brainer for me.

As you plan your own Disney trip, you have to play around with your dates and your airports to see which strategy works best for you.

How can I get Frequent Flyer Miles?

The quickest and easiest way is through credit card sign up bonuses (after you make sure you are credit worthy, etc). So here are the current best offers (as of June 3, 2014 – these things can change at any time) for the airlines I mentioned (NOTE: I am not affiliated in any way with these & get nothing out of these suggestions). You can click on the links to get to the application page and also to read more about the other benefits of the card:

American Airlines:

Citi Platinum Select Aadvantage World Mastercard = 50,000 Miles after spending $3000 in 3 months ($95 annual fee waived first year)

Citi Executive AAdvantage World Elite Mastercard = 100,000 Miles after spending $10,000 in first 3 months, plus $200 statement credit ($450 annual fee NOT waived the first year)

British Airways:

Chase British Airways Visa Signature Card = 50,000 Avios with $2000 in spending in first 3 months ($95 annual fee)

NOTE: I have gotten this card when it was a 100,000 Avios bonus, but that doesn’t come around too often.

Frontier Airlines:

Frontier Airlines Mastercard = 40,000 miles with $500 spend in 90 days

Southwest Airlines:

Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards^® Premier Card = 50,000 bonus points after you spend $2,000 in your first 3 months of opening your account ($99 annual fee not waived)

Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards^® Plus Card = 50,000 bonus points after you spend $2,000 in your first 3 months of opening your account ($69 annual fee not waived)

USAirways:

USAirways Mastercard = 40,000 miles after first purchase and payment of $89 annual fee

And just to make things even more complicated for you…..

There are credit cards that offer different types of miles/points that can be transferred to different airlines

Any card that offers Chase Ultimate Rewards points (check out the Sapphire Preferred card for a 40,000 point bonus) – points can be transferred directly to some of your other frequent travel programs (like British Airways)
Any card that offers American Express Membership Rewards points (can be transferred, often with a bonus percentage, to British Airways)
SPG points can be transferred to many airlines. You can (for most) transfer 20,000 points and get 25,000 airline miles (if you email me at theamericantravelproject@gmail.com, I can send you the link for an offer of 30,000 SPG points that I got to send to people via email)

And if you have a business, you can pretty much double any of the above offers because there are business versions of most of these cards & you can get BOTH! I just blew your mind:0)

So how are you going to get to Disney?

Free hotels at Disney using Miles & Points – it’s possible!

Free Disney Hotels

We have been ~~crazy~~ lucky enough to visit Walt Disney World in Orlando about a million times. One year in the not so distant past, we even had annual passes (and we live in Pennsylvania, so that’s some pretty hardcore Disney devotion). One of the ways that we have made this work for us is by staying for free in our Disney hotels using our Miles & Points. Many of the hotels have been off-property, and we are totally fine with that, often preferring to trade proximity to the parks for lots of extra space. That is a whole debate in itself though. I will show you how to use Miles & Points for both on-property and off-property Disney hotels to make them free. The following are places we have stayed & points we have used.

Disney Hotels where we have used our Miles and Points to make them FREE -

Christmas in July at the Swan & Dolphin

1. The Swan & Dolphin

The Swan & Dolphin are 2 adjacent hotels that are located right in the heart of Walt Disney World, but they are operated by Starwood and not Disney. This is great for you because it means you can use your SPG points to stay at this hotel for almost free (you usually still have to pay a resort fee). At the time of this writing, The Swan and The Dolphin are each 10,000 points per night, with the additional benefit of the 5th night free when using points. 40,000 SPG points for 5 nights at a Disney “on-property” hotel is a fabulous deal. You can even call the reservations department to ask if they have any suites or larger rooms available. If so, they will often let you use extra points (like 11,500 vs 10,000) to book one of the larger rooms. We have stayed at both of these hotels a couple of times, and will be reviewing them in another post (But a little hint: Thumbs Up!).

Walking around the grounds at the Sheraton Vistana Villages in Orlando

2. Sheraton Vistana Villages

This is another great hotel near Disney World (and also near Universal Orlando) that you can get for free using your SPG points. It is also 10,000 points per night or 40,000 points for 5 nights. Although not on-property, you will get lots of space plus a kitchen. You will need a car, as it is about 10 miles from both The Magic Kingdom (some of the other Disney parks are a bit closer), and 10 miles from Universal.

One of the pools at the Sheraton Vistana Villages in Orlando

When we stayed at the Sheraton Vistana Village, it was a better deal for us to use American Airlines miles to “pay” for our hotel. We had tons of AAdvantage Miles that we were not planning on using for flights, and the value was much better than using our SPG points at the time. We were also able to choose a room type, since AAdvantage uses your miles to book through a travel agency. The miles correlate to the price of the room, so you can sometimes just use more miles for a larger room type. We were able to use our miles to get a huge 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom condo with a full kitchen and washer/dryer.

Liki Tiki Resort in Orlando, FL

One of the pool areas at Liki Tiki in Orlando

3. Liki Tiki Village

Similar to the Sheraton Vistana Village, we were able to book this timeshare resort hotel using our AAdvantage Miles. It ended up being a very, very low amount of miles per night for the room that we booked (something like 6,000 miles). We had a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom unit with a full kitchen, washer/dryer, living room, and lanai. It was about 15-20 minutes by car from the Main Gate to Disney. Not a bad drive at all.

The Pirate Pool at the Marriott Harbour Lakes in Orlando

4. Marriott’s Harbour Lake

Marriott has several properties in the Orlando area, and this is consistently ranked as one of the best. Once again, we were able to score a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom unit with full kitchen, washer/dryer, living room, lanai. It was one of our favorite places we have ever stayed, and we have friends who just got back and loved it as well. It is close to Sea World and Aquatica (so fun), and an easy drive to Disney and Universal as well. While you will need a significant amount of points to stay at this Category 7 property, you can often get 70,000 points just by signing up for the Chase Marriott card and completing the spend requirements, which is enough for 2 nights on a regular reward (or 4 if your significant other or travel companion gets the card too).

Nights Stay	Points Needed	Point Savers*
One night	35,000	30,000
Two nights	70,000	60,000
Three nights	105,000	90,000
Four nights	140,000	120,000
Five nights	140,000	120,000

* Some locations offer these limited-time, reduced-point offers.

Using Miles to Book Disney Properties

You can also book some on-site, Disney-owned properties using your American Airlines miles. This is something we almost did last time we visited Orlando, but we decided to (gasp!) go to Universal Orlando for the first time instead. More on that later. Here are some tips for using miles to book Disney Properties:

Assuming you have AAdvantage Miles in your account, you should make sure you log in to get the best prices. For some reason, the price (in miles) always goes down once I log in (and I have no status of any kind on AA, as I haven’t paid for an airline flight in 10 years). For example, when I go to the website (without logging in) and put in June 7, 2014 for Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort, it gave me the cost of 27,467 miles per night. After I log in, the cost is 16,500 miles per night…huge difference!

Here are some examples of some more of Disney’s own hotels that show up on the AAdvantage site, searching the random date of June 7, 2014. (TIP: since there are hundreds of hotels in the area, type “Disney’s” in the search box, and the Disney-owned hotels will pop up like this):

Disney’s Hotels on www.useaamiles.com

As you can see, the miles for each of Disney’s hotels vary widely, but so does the cost in dollars. You have to make your comparisons for your dates based on many factors. As an example, I checked the same date on the Disney reservations website for Port Orleans Riverside. The price was $205 (which included a promotion discount). The cost in miles would be about 19,000. It’s not a stellar points redemption value, but maybe you have millions of AAdvantage miles that you earned on your company’s dime? Sometimes we are points-rich and cash-poor and we just would much rather use our miles. We tend to save more money by using miles/points to stay offsite (and even more when there is a kitchen to help cut down on food costs). We have paid to stay in many on-property Disney hotels though (Wilderness Lodge, Animal Kingdom Lodge, Port Orleans French Quarter, Boardwalk, Grand Floridian). There are so many factors that go in to making the choice that is best suited to the family’s needs at the time, so it is helpful to evaluate all of your options.

The Wilderness Lodge – probably our favorite on-site Disney hotel

There are also many, many more options for free Disney hotels using miles and points, and I will explore this further in a future post.

Have you ever used your miles and points for a free Disney hotel?

Which Credit Cards for Free Flights to Disney in Orlando

One of the most common questions that I get asked is about Disney vacations, whether it relates to where to stay, how to get a good deal, or which credit cards to get to make a Disney trip more affordable. In this post, I am going to focus on which credit cards for free flights to Disney in Orlando.