The best credit cards for booking a trip to Disneyland or Disney World

The Citi Premier® Card is no longer available for new applicants.

A trip to a Disney park is a bucket list item for many families, but can also be magically expensive.

There are ways to cut the cost of a Disney vacation, but eating cheaply and visiting at off-peak times will only go so far. However, with the right mix of rewards credit cards and cash-back credit cards, you can save on airfare, hotels and park tickets.

The best credit card for a Disney vacation may not be the most obvious choice. There are Disney credit cards that earn Disney Rewards Dollars, but — as you'll see — you'll often be better off earning more flexible rewards.

Here, CNBC Select reviews which credit cards offer the best value for a Disney vacation. The cards we selected earn either cash back or flexible rewards, have an annual fee under $100 and come with additional perks (see our methodology for more information on how we choose the best cards).

• Best overall: Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
• Best travel rewards card: Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card (see rates and fees)
• Best cash-back card: Capital One Savor Cash Rewards Credit Card*
• Best no-annual-fee card: Citi Double Cash® Card
• Best for Bank of America customers: Bank of America® Premium Rewards® Credit Card

Who's this for? The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is one of the most versatile rewards credit cards, which makes it the perfect option for a trip to Disney World or Disneyland. You can redeem the rewards you earn with the Sapphire Preferred for flights, hotels, car rentals or cash back so you can cover any expenses associated with your vacation.

Standout benefits for your Disney trip: The Sapphire Preferred card earns Chase Ultimate Rewards® points, which can help you book a Disney trip in a number of ways. You can redeem Chase points for cash back, use them to pay for travel or transfer them to 14 airline and hotel partners. The Sapphire Preferred also has a variety of travel insurance and purchase protection benefits, which can save you money when things don't go as planned.

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Who's this for? The Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card (see rates and fees) is ideal for those who value simplicity and flexibility. This card has a straightforward, yet generous points-earning structure and easy-to-use rewards that can be transferred to valuable airline and hotel partners.

Standout benefits for your Disney trip: The Capital One Venture Reward Card earns at least 2X miles per dollar on every purchase so you don't need to keep track of confusing bonus categories to maximize your spending. Capital One miles transfer to 15+ airline and hotel loyalty programs.

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Who's this for? The Capital One Savor Cash Rewards Credit Card earns bonus cash back in categories that are likely to take up a good portion of your Disney vacation's budget: Dining and entertainment. This makes it a great choice for anyone who wants to maximize the rewards they earn while at Disney World or Disneyland.

Standout benefits for your Disney trip: The Capital One Savor card stands out because it earns 4% back on dining and entertainment (which includes theme park tickets). If you prefer to pack your lunch, this card also earns 3% back at grocery stores.

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Who's this for? The Citi Double Cash® Card is a solid card for anyone who doesn't want to deal with an annual fee or complicated rewards program.

Standout benefits for your Disney trip: The Citi Double Cash Card focuses on one thing, and it does it well — it earns cash back. With this card, you'll earn 2% back on every purchase with no annual cap on the cash back you can earn. You'll get 1% back when you buy and 1% back when you pay.

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Who's this for? On the surface, Bank of America® Premium Rewards® Credit Card is a good cash-back credit card. But if you're a Bank of America Preferred Rewards member, this card transforms into an absolute cash-back earning machine.

Standout benefits: If you're a member of the Bank of America Preferred Rewards program, you can boost your credit card rewards earnings by up to 75% based on the combined total of your deposit account and investment account balances with Bank of America and Merrill. If you qualify for the maximum 75% bonus, you'll earn at least 2.6% back on every purchase and 3.5% back on travel and dining purchases.

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It's hard to go wrong with the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card because the points you earn can be redeemed in many different ways. Not only that, but it also comes with an excellent welcome bonus, lucrative bonus categories and some other useful perks.

Rewards

• 5X points per dollar spent on travel purchased through Chase Travel^SM
• 5X points per dollar spent on Lyft rides through Mar. 31, 2025
• 3X points per dollar spent on dining
• 3X points per dollar spent on online grocery purchases (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs).
• 3X points per dollar spent on select streaming services.
• 2X points per dollar spent on all other travel purchases
• 1X points per dollar spent on all other purchases
• 10% anniversary points boost
• $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit

Bonus

75,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.

Annual fee

$95 

Notable perks

You can transfer Chase points to over a dozen airline and hotel partners. This includes World of Hyatt, which has several hotels near Disney World or Disneyland that only cost 8,000 to 15,000 points per night.

Chase points are also useful for booking domestic flights and Chase partners with several airline programs that allow you to book certain routes for 10,000 points or less each way. For a family of four, it may only take 80,000 points to fly roundtrip to Orlando or Anaheim. Alternatively, Sapphire Preferred cardholders can redeem points for 1.25 cents apiece through Chase Travel^SM, which makes 10,000 points worth $125 in travel.

The Chase Sapphire Preferred Card is also great for the many travel protections it offers, including primary rental car insurance, trip cancellation and interruption insurance and baggage and trip delay insurance. Just remember that you must pay for your travel with your card to be eligible for the insurance protections.

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The Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card is a popular travel credit card that can help you earn rewards to use for just about any travel expense. Plus, its straightforward points-earning structure means that you'll be able to maximize the return for spending with minimal effort.

Rewards

• 5X miles per dollar on hotel and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel
• 2X miles per dollar on every other purchase

Bonus

Earn 75,000 bonus miles once you spend $4,000 on purchases within three months from account opening.

Annual fee

$95 (see rates and fees)

Notable perks

What makes the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card shine is how you can redeem its rewards. The simplest way to use Capital One miles is to offset recent travel purchases at a rate of one cent per mile. This allows you to shop around to find the best deal, rather than be limited to the bank's travel portal. Plus, although tickets Disney park ticket purchases are typically classified as entertainment spending, there's a way to redeem miles for them. The trick is to purchase your tickets through an online travel agency like Undercover Tourist or Expedia as they code these transactions as travel purchases, which means you can offset them with miles.

To potentially receive an even greater value for your miles, you can take advantage of Capital One's transfer partners. For example, you can transfer Capital One miles to Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles at a 1:1 rate and book round-trip domestic award flights on United for only 15,000 miles.

Other perks include a credit of up to $100 to cover Global Entry or TSA PreCheck® membership.

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The Capital One Savor card* earns bonus cash back in the categories where you're likely to spend the most. The card offers bonus rewards for spending on Uber rides, dining, groceries, streaming services and entertainment.

Rewards

• 10% back on purchases with Uber and Uber Eats
• 8% back on Capital One Entertainment purchases
• 4% cash back on dining and entertainment
• 4% on eligible streaming services
• 3% at grocery stores
• 1% on all other purchases

Bonus

Earn a one-time $300 cash bonus once you spend $3,000 on purchases within the first three months from account opening.

Annual fee

$95

Notable perks

While there are many cards that offer bonus rewards for dining and grocery store spending, the Capital One Savor card* is among the few to offer 4% cash back on entertainment purchases. This makes it a go-to option for sporting events, concerts, movies and, of course, Disney tickets.

The Capital One Savor card* charges $0 in foreign transaction fees, so it's a great option if you're visiting a Disney theme park in Europe or Asia. Cardholders can also benefit from a complimentary Uber One membership (through 11/14/2024) and access to exclusive entertainment events, such as the iHeartRadio Music Festival and the Capital One JamFest.

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The Citi Double Cash Card has no annual fee and earns a flat 2% back everywhere. If you like to keep things simple, you can't beat that.

Rewards

• Earn 2% back on all purchases, 1% when you buy and 1% when you pay.
• For a limited time, earn 5% total cash back on hotel, car rentals and attractions booked on the Citi Travel^SM portal through 12/31/24.

Bonus

Earn $200 cash back after you spend $1,500 on purchases in the first 6 months of account opening. This bonus offer will be fulfilled as 20,000 ThankYou® Points, which can be redeemed for $200 cash back.

Annual fee

$0

Notable perks

Let's put the Citi Double Cash Card's 2% back on all purchases (1% when you buy and 1% as you pay) in perspective. The Disney® Premier Visa® Card — which has a $49 annual fee — only earns 2% back in Disney Rewards Dollars at gas stations, grocery stores, restaurants and most Disney locations. And the Citi Double Cash's unlimited 2% back is double what the no-annual-fee Disney® Visa® Card earns in rewards for everyday spending.

To put it simply, if you want to earn rewards from purchases that you can put toward a Disney vacation, the Citi Double Cash is more lucrative than the branded Disney cards.

While the Citi Double Cash is technically a cash-back card, it earns Citi ThankYou® points, which you can redeem in a variety of ways for one cent each. You can also transfer rewards to three of Citi's travel partners: Wyndham, JetBlue and Choice Privileges. However, if you pair this card with the Citi Premier® Card, you'll be able to transfer your ThankYou® points to all of Citi's transfer partners and potentially get more value from your points.

Before using the card when traveling outside of the U.S., beware that it charges a 3% foreign transaction fee.

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For anyone with a sizeable amount of money deposited with Bank of America or Merrill (including retirement savings), the Bank of America Premium Rewards Credit Card is a stellar cash-back card.

Rewards

• 2X points for every $1 spent on travel and dining purchases
• 1.5X points per $1 spent on all other purchases
• Up to 75% bonus on rewards for eligible Bank of America Preferred Rewards members

Bonus

Earn 50,000 bonus points after spending at least $3,000 in purchases within the first 90 days of account opening

Annual fee

$95

Notable perks

The Bank of America Premium Rewards Credit Card comes with emergency travel benefits like trip cancellation/interruption insurance, trip delay reimbursement, lost luggage and baggage delay insurance and transportation assistance. It also comes with purchase protections like extended warranty and return protection coverage. Although there's a $95 annual fee, it can be offset by the annual airline incidentals credit of up to $100 and Global Entry/TSA PreCheck application fee credit.

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• How to choose a credit card for Disney?
• Which is the easiest Disney credit card to get?
• Which credit card is best for Disney?
• What are other kinds of credit cards to consider?

To choose the right credit card for your Disney vacation, you'll need to know where you'll be spending the most money. If you live within driving distance of a Disney theme park, earning airline miles may not be the best strategy. And if you prefer camping or packing your food, then hotel points or bonus cash back on dining purchases won't do you much good.

Once you know what you'll spend the most on, you'll have an easier time choosing the right credit card, or credit cards, to help offset your biggest expenses and reward you for your most common purchases.

As with most rewards cards, the best credit cards for a Disney vacation will typically require a good to excellent score (670+ according to Experian). Secured credit cards are easier to get but often don't earn rewards. However, a secured card could be a stepping stone to becoming eligible for lucrative card offers because it helps you rebuild and strengthen your credit.

The best credit card for Disney depends on your personal situation. That said, the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card is so versatile that it's likely to be the best choice for most people. If you need to book flights or hotel rooms, you have multiple ways of doing that with Chase points, so you can cherry-pick the best deals. And if you want to pay for Disney tickets or just put gas in the car, it's easy to convert Chase points into cash back.

On top of all that, the Chase Sapphire Preferred has one of the best welcome offers and is generously rewarding for all sorts of purchases.

Unless you have one of the Disney Visa cards and you prefer earning Disney Rewards Dollars, a cash-back credit card is a good type of card to consider for a Disney trip. Cash-back rewards are generally the only option for offsetting park tickets, food and other incidentals. If you know where you want to stay or what hotel chain you want to stay with, opening a hotel credit card can help you earn the points you need to book an award stay. And the same is true for airline miles, earning miles with an airline that serves your home airport may make sense. In that case, the right airline credit card can help save on airfare.

You can also easily search CNBC Select's credit card marketplace for even more options. It allows you to filter the results by the credit score you need for approval, card type and card issuer.

At CNBC Select, our mission is to provide our readers with high-quality service journalism and comprehensive consumer advice so they can make informed decisions with their money. Every credit card review is based on rigorous reporting by our team of expert writers and editors with extensive knowledge of credit card products. While CNBC Select earns a commission from affiliate partners on many offers and links, we create all our content without input from our commercial team or any outside third parties, and we pride ourselves on our journalistic standards and ethics. See our methodology for more information on how we choose the best credit cards.

To determine which cards offer the best value for Disney vacations, CNBC Select analyzed over 230 of the most popular credit cards available in the U.S. We compared each card on a range of features, including: rewards, welcome bonus, introductory and standard APR, balance transfer fee and foreign transaction fees, as well as factors such as required credit and customer reviews when available. We also considered additional perks, the application process and how easy it is for the consumer to redeem points.

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* Information about the Capital One Savor Cash Rewards Card has been collected independently by Select and has not been reviewed or provided by the issuer of the card prior to publication.