The common school of thought posits that you can’t use miles and points to offset your Disney World vacation. The advice lots of big blogs defer to generally revolves around cards like the Barclays Arrival+ or Capital One Venture where you get one cent per point. But as I’ve written elsewhere, you can save money on Disney tickets and hotels if you buy Disney World tickets with Ultimate Rewards points using your Chase Sapphire Reserve. So how do you use Chase points to buy Disney World tickets?
Update: Chase has told its cruise and tours department they can no longer book anything Disney related. Crushing news.
Huzzah! You can pay for your Disney tickets with points!
Before we start, the common retort I’d expect to hear at this point is “you could get so much more value using your Ultimate Rewards points for hotel rooms (Hyatt) or for first class flights (Korean, United, etc.)! You’re dumb for this!” I’m not going to get into it, but suffice it to say, use points in a way that will make you happy. If you want to redeem for 1.5 cents per point (if you have the Reserve) for flights, hotels, cars, or Disney World tickets, you just do you.
Now I’ve confirmed this works with Chase Sapphire Reserve (1.5 cpp), Ink Plus (1.25 cpp), Freedom (1 cpp). I sort of assume it will as well with the Chase Sapphire Preferred at a rate of 1.25 cents per point but I cannot confirm this as I ditched my Preferred years ago. If you have any experience please let me know!
Anyway, here’s how to use Chase Ultimate Rewards points to buy Disney World Tickets if you have Chase Sapphire Reserve.
1. Call 1-855-234-2542
This is the Chase Sapphire Reserve travel agency number. You’ll need your card with you to input the number.
If you are using Ink or Freedom the number is 1-866-951-6592.
2. Select option “2” – Cruise or Vacation Package
Normal business hours are Mon-Fri 9 AM -9 PM EST and Sat 9 AM – 5 PM EST.
3. Tell the agent you are interested in booking Disney World tickets
You may have to clarify you are interested in tickets only. The agent should also ask you whether you are interested in Disney World (Florida) or Disneyland (California), make sure you know where you want to go! You can book room packages as well if you’d like, though I won’t go into that here (see this post for some details on that).
4. Figure out which type of ticket you’d like and confirm price is where you want it to be
One quirk is that you cannot buy one day tickets – Disney wants you to just buy those at the gate. Other than that, you can buy pretty much any ticket you’d like. The base Magic Your Way tickets allow you to visit one park per day. Add a Park Hopper option and you can visit multiple parks in one day. You can also add the Park Hopper Plus option which allows you to visit the water parks.
For some reason, the prices Chase quoted were a little bit off from what I saw on Disney’s website. (Don’t forget, you should be comparing the price to ticket discounters who usually knock a few bucks off).
You’ll need to decide whether you value the points more or cash, but these days I like to redeem points first. If you can earn Ultimate Rewards at a cost of 1 cent each (not too difficult overall), then you’re effectively getting a 33% discount on park tickets. That’s tough to beat.
One important note: Chase can book through two avenues, Disney itself and this company called Funjet. Ask the agent to book you through DISNEY – that way you don’t have to wait until 60 days before your trip to confirm your tickets in My Disney Experience.
Anyway, here are the prices from Chase Travel compared with Disney and Undercover Tourist as of Feb 2018 (including tax):
| Ticket Type | Chase Travel price | Chase Travel price in points (w/ CSR) | Disney World price | Undercover Tourist price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2-Day Magic Your Way | $222 | 14,800 | $211.94 | $217.76 |
| 4-Day Magic Your Way | $373 | 24,866 | $372.75 | $356.95 |
| 3-Day Magic Your Way | $325 | 21,666 | $324.83 | $309.99 |
| 5-Day Magic Your Way | $395 | 26,333 | $394.05 | $373.95 |
| 6-Day Magic Your Way | $416 | 27,733 | $415.35 | $394.35 |
| Mickey Not So Scary Halloween Party 2018 (Select Dates) | $85 | 5,609 | $84.14 | $79.88 |
As you can see, Chase Travel prices are basically the same as Disney rack rates, but you can pay for them with points! Easy peasy. Also, note that Disney doesn’t offer discounts for 1 and 2 day tickets for buying in advance.
Final Thoughts
While Citi’s travel concierge won’t sell you Disney World tickets outside of a package, you can use your Ultimate Rewards points to buy tickets with your hard earned points from the Chase Sapphire Reserve. So don’t let anyone tell you you can’t use points to offset costs on your Disney vacation (if you want to). If you have any experience with this, I’d love to hear it, let me know in the comments!
Update: I just called last week (4/21/2018), and confirmed that you can also use Ultimate Rewards to book holiday parties like Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party and Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas party. Also, reader Judah Wilkins e-mailed me to say that Chase told him they could do Annual Passes as well!
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Joe, can you purchase other theme park tickets this way? Thinking along the lines of Sea World, etc.
I just called. For some reason cruise and vacation only sells Disney tickets, but the regular airfare agents sell other tickets (so option “1”). I asked about Universal Orlando and sea world, they only had universal. Same points uplift. If you like around yourself please let me know!
just called, and I can’t get chase travel to sell just tickets. They say it must be with a package. Thoughts?
Weird. I just called and they didn’t give me any issues. Will they not even quote a price? What kind of card do you have? I’d suggest calling back and say your friend literally just did it today. Email me if you need to
I have the CSR. Spoke to 2 reps. No both times (1 spoke to supervisor), without hotel. I’ll call again, and say my friend was able to.
Did they price it out or you didn’t even get to that point? Because I didn’t actually buy today just asked. Disney world?
WDW. I didn’t even get prices. We have reservations at the Dolphin, so just canceled the call when we they wouldn’t price just tickets.
To be clear I called three times and they never said no though I was disconnected twice (they were looking up prices)
One should confirm that they are actually speak g to the cruises and tours department. This method does work. Excellent info.
Buy tickets through Viator with CSR and you can use your annual $300 travel credit towards the cost.
I like it!
I did this for Universal Studios Orlando last year. Used the CSR to get 1.5x. Some would scoff at that redemption but I got tickets for 5 with UR points–nothing out of pocket!
I just came back from a Disney trip. I paid for airfare, hotel and car completely with UR points. I called — more than once — to try and secure theme park tickets with UR points and was told consistently that they do not offer Disney theme park tickets. I ended up taking a reimbursement on another credit card, but I would have much preferred using my UR points since I get 1.5 with my CSR. Asked a couple of other people who have tried and had the same response. NO Disney theme park tickets available. Only a couple of Disney higher end hotels as standalones.
Did you specifically ask for cruise and tour department? Commenter Judah and I both confirmed that works as of last week
Just bought 2 day base tickets using UR and they matched Disney’s price. I linked them to mde account. Easy peasy.
How fast did you get the tickets? Was there any involvement from an outfit called Funjet Vacations?
Thanks for the guide, worked 100%
Just booked with Judy at extension 8128 via the cruise option listed in the guide. Super helpful and actually checked another site they use to see if I could get the tickets cheaper. She quoted me $420 ( 2 adults non park hopper) and used 28k UR points. They said there wasn’t a email option so they would be mailed.
Excellent! I wonder if there is a confirmation number in your email confirmation you might be able to add?
I just got an email back from the agent that she was mistaken and they do indeed have etickets, which was in the next email I opened. She sent me a copy of the same email Disney sent me with my tickets enclosed, that she received. Wife already added them to her Disney app to be redeemed off her phone.
nice. I’ve found the chase agents to be very responsive. Unrelated, I think I’ve booked with Judy before too haha
I’d also like to add for anyone that’s redeeming UR points, as this is what this post about, check your hotel prices before transferring to a partner. We were going to transfer to Hyatt as you can usually get .02 per point value per UR, but due to the hotel (Hyatt Place Anaheim) being a cat 3 at 12k per night it made sense to use UR points to pay for it as the price was $134 a night for 5 nights instead of transferring directly to the hotel. The only downside is if you have status it might not get recognized if you book using UR instead of transferring directly.
Worked perfectly! I have a Chase Preferred, so wasn’t sure if that would change anything. Easy to do after a couple long waits on hold with my agent. I already have my ticket confirmation from Disney and linked my tickets to My Disney Experience (within minutes of hanging up). Thank you!
I bought tickets via Cruise dept for this fall this morning. Points are gone from my account and all I have is a forwarded confirmation from the person I talked with at Chase from an outfit called Funjet Vacations with a Funjet Res # not valid in Disney’s system. I called Funjet for the Disney # and the person basically laughed when I said it had been an hour since booking and told me it takes at least a day but since my trip isn’t until fall I might not get the number until 60 days before my trip! I hoped it would process through today but it’s nighttime and I have nothing. Obviously Chase Cruise will be my first call tomorrow morning after seeing others here got tickets with an hour!
Hey Laura, yeah that’s weird I’ve never heard of fun jet. You bought tickets only? My confirmation says vendor is Disney itself. Please do update after you call
Yep, tickets only. I called Chase today and they said that’s their vendor and they can’t do anything but put a request in the tickets be processed before 60 days and that I should call back every other week to see if Funjet processes it. But I most likely won’t get it until 60 days before departure. Which is a disaster for anyone looking to book Fastpasses at 7am EST 60 days prior to departure, there is NO wiggle room! Stupidest thing I did was give Chase my actual dates of travel in Nov, I should have said I was leaving in a couple weeks! I’ve emailed the original Chase Rep who sent me the Funjet confirmations. Will update.
Hmm weird. Yeah I generally have given fake dates, maybe that’s why? What if you tell Chase your dates have changed, they should be able to move them up since you “paid” already? I’d probably do that if I were in your shoes, I don’t like things being up in the air!
Gonna be my next tactic if that email doesn’t work. I know someone else who is this boat who booked yesterday and got a Funjet confirmation number as well and even though they are within the 60 day window from departure they too don’t have their tickets or even a Disney confirmation number and Chase says there’s nothing they can do about it the person just has to wait.
Maybe they changed vendors. That’s annoying of them! Which CC, reserve?
Reserve.
Ok Laura I just called chase. They said they can book through Disney OR funjet. Seems like the prices are the same either way. Obviously if that’s the case booking through Disney is better, I will update the post so others don’t run into a similar issue. And please continue to keep me posted and thanks for drawing attention to this, I had no idea
Will do. Hate being the DP on this but that you for contacting Chase and figuring out what happened so it doesn’t happen to others. I feel I have more solid ground now to deal with Chase since I know they have the capability to have gotten me my tickets right away.
Heard back from the original booking agent with Chase. They called Funjet who said it should process in a week or two. The agent said they usually see confirmations come through within a week. A week I can deal with. Agent also gave me the opportunity to cancel & book direct with Disney and not use points so apparently not all the agents in the Cruise dept know how to use points when booking direct with Disney. I told them I was fine waiting a couple weeks so I will update with how long it takes Funjet to process.
Reading through the comments here and it mentioned giving fake dates. You don’t have to provide the actual dates? Won’t the date be printed on the ticket?
No dates on tickets, they expire in December of year after they are bought (but you can apply value to new ticket). See here : https://disneydeciphered.com/2018/05/09/episode-10-walt-disney-world-ticket-types-and-what-to-buy/
If one wanted to purchase tickets (not using points), could you call the Chase Cruise/Vacation department and pay with your CSR and have them code as travel? IIRC, they don’t code as travel when purchased through Disney directly.
Great question, no idea!
I’ve heard Undercover Tourist codes as travel fwiw. Might be something to look into to score discount tickets plus travel coding.
Called Chase today and my agent was not there. Explained it’s been two and a half weeks and I don’t have my Disney Confirmation number yet. Eno (I think, was hard to catch his name) looked into it for me, got on the phone with Funjet and then told me he would see if we could cancel the Funjet reservation and book straight through Disney. He was able to cancel it, refund our URs and book straight with Disney for the same cost. Took over an hour, but half of that he was on hold with Funjet. For some weird reason he said our tickets had to be mailed but there was no extra charge and we received an email immediately from disney with a ticket confirmation number I put in MDE right away. (Fwiw he said his supervisor said if I waited on Funjet I wouldn’t get the ticket until 60 days prior to my departure date!)
I have a friend traveling next month who was also booked through Funjet, she received her will-call number a week and a half after booking and was able to put it into MDE.
Definitely make sure your tickets are being booked directly with Disney & if the agent doesn’t know how HUCA.
Thanks for sharing the dp Laura! I’ve updated the post warning people to avoid funjet 😛
Hi All. I followed the instructions, and this worked perfectly. However, I have a question. I received the e-mail with ticket info and instructions to stop by will call for actual tickets. On that e-mail it says that I must have the credit card that was used to purchase the tickets. On the e-mail it lists the last 4 digits of the card used to buy the tickets. I’m assuming that is a corporate card that Chase uses to buy the tickets. So, I don’t have the credit card listed as the purchasing card. Has anyone run into an issue with this?
Hi Joe. I followed your instructions and tried to purchase some tickets to Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party on Oct 23 using Ultimate rewards, but was denied. The guy said that they can’t sell 1 day tickets, only tickets that are 2 days or longer. You mentioned that it worked on April, but could you please double check if it still works now? Is there a special person I need to contact? Thank you so much for everything you do!
Hmm – did you use cruises and tours? You might have to explain to him that it’s a SPECIAL ticket, not a regular one day ticket.
Joe – It worked! The key was to mention that it was a SPECIAL TICKETED EVENT. At first she couldn’t find it, but once I mentioned those 3 words, she easily found the drop down option. Ended up using 27404 UR ($411 value) for 4 tickets to Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. I’m so excited and can’t wait to go. Thank you so much Joe!
Worked perfectly for me today, too! Yes, help the agent by saying they are SPECIAL EVENT TICKETS so they are easy to find. I’m a CSP holder so 2 adult + 2 kids tickets totaled $325.90 after tax on Disney website. This is the same price I got from Chase agent and the UR points used was 26,072. All told, took less than 10 minutes between wait time and processing time. Tickets are being emailed to me to print at home. Agent was Amanda 8115.