$0 Out of Pocket for Disney Deluxe Resort

Deluxe Hotel Paid for by credit cards            

I used to be very anti credit card. Similar to most Dave Ramsey disciples like my mother taught me to be. For years I stayed away and most of the time, that was a good thing. When I had a $250 limit credit card, I put it up to the limit in a month, I thought it was so cool that I could buy a big item and just pay $25 a month until it was paid off. After maturing and realizing what type of damage these things can do, my mind was changed. They were not awesome, they were damaging. My mind changed again after my credit score was dropping, I was allowed to have credit cards, I was mature, I was ready to take the benefits without the terrible 30% interest.

So, I did. My credit score has gone up 75 points in a couple of years and I have been able to stay at plenty of hotels and even pay for flights.

For today though, I used the credit card points to my advantage to stay at a deluxe resort at Walt Disney World. A place I never thought my credit card would be slapped down at but with the cost being mitigated by many different areas I decided to go through with it.

The regular price for the hotel is $619 for the Friday night I wanted to stay at. With the annual passholder discount I was able to get 40% off the rate for a total price of $401 before taxes for a one-night stay. This is a really good deal for deluxe hotels on Walt Disney World property and the one I chose is my favorite hotel on property, Wilderness Lodge. Very expensive but an awesome location and an awesome hotel.

After taxes it was $451 and that was before credit cards were taken into account. I opened a new credit card as I am looking to close out all my credit cards before their annual fee gets slapped on me again, so I get $200 off my statement credit plus 2% cash back on $451 which makes it $441.98 and after the $200 statement credit it goes down to $241.98.

After 24,000 credit card points my bill will be 0 and I got 75,000 bonus points on this credit card that I haven’t spent all of them yet, so it is now almost finished. I think I could make another deluxe resort stay after this one if I really wanted to.

$0 out of pocket cost for a deluxe resort stay has me feeling pretty happy with credit card points. It is going to be a great staycation, and I can’t wait to do my next one!