How to Plan a Disney World Vacation on a Budget!
Disney World on a Budget
Going to Disney is often a Dream Vacation for many but Disney is expensive! I recently planned a trip to Disney and want to share some tips on how to do a budget Disney trip, because we all deserve to have our dreams come true. This will include how to use points and miles, while also highlighting using cash if you need to and some travel hacks.
Getting Flights to Disney World
Flights to Orlando were pretty easy to find and had a decent range to fit any budget!
- Points and Miles
- A great way to find the points price for flights to Orlando is to use a tool called Points Path. Points Path is a free Chrome extension that shows you the points price while you are searching on Google Flights. It then tells you how to complete the transfer and takes you to the site to book!
- Cash
- If you want to pay cash for your flights, many airlines now offer Buy Now, Pay Later options that allow you to split the cost into manageable payments.
- Companion Pass
- Southwest Airlines
- Many often earn a Southwest Airlines Companion Pass, which is a great time to use it to head to Orlando.
- Delta Airlines
- If you hold a Delta Branded American Express Card such as the Platinum or Reserve, then you earn a Companion Pass each year after your first year! This is great to use if you are bringing someone with you to Disney! It is a Bogo Flight, so it will help cut the cost. This is how I paid for my trip with a friend to Disney World in December 2024, so I made a detailed guide on how to book with the Delta Companion Pass.
- Southwest Airlines
Where to Stay near Disney World
If you want to save money, you are probably not going to be able to stay at a Disney World Resort. Instead, there are resorts and hotels near Disney, part of their Walt Disney Good Neighbor Program, that offer shuttles to Disney and are more affordable, especially for families.
- Points and Miles
- Hilton
- Hilton Orlando Buena Vista Palace Disney Springs Area has stays starting at 60,000 points per night and includes a shuttle to Disney Parks. At this hotel, your room can have views of Epcot Fireworks or Disney Springs. They have a sky bridge that connects to Disney Springs.
- Hyatt
- Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress has stays starting at 12,000 points and includes shuttles to Disney World, Universal Studios, and Disney Springs!
- Hyatt Place Orlando/Lake Buena Vista has stays starting at 6,000 points and includes a shuttle.
- Hilton
- Cash Options
- We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn Lake Buena Vista, which is about 4 miles from Disney. It is a great budget-friendly hotel that cost us $575 for three nights. It included shuttles to both Disney World and Universal Studios. These shuttles only operate once a day.
- Hotel Credits
- Delta Stays: If you have a co-branded Delta American Express Card, you have a Delta Stays credit that you can utilize once a year. This would be a great time to use it to bring the cost of your hotel down and save you some money!
- Chase $50 credit: If you have a Chase Sapphire, they have a $50 credit for hotels booked through their portal that you can utilize to take money off your stay!
- Venture X: The Venture X has a $300 Travel credit that you can use to book your hotel stay through the Capital One portal!
Getting Disney World Tickets
The budget-friendly method for Disney Tickets would be not to get a park hopper ticket and to only visit one park each day. Park Hopper tickets add about $80 to the cost of the ticket. However, if you must visit at least more than one park each day, which I would recommend, add the park hopper option.
- Points and Miles
- If you are interested in redeeming points and miles for a Disney vacation and have a Captial One Card you are in luck! Specifically, the Venture Cards and Spark cards have a feature called purchase eraser for travel purchases. When purchasing your tickets, you cannot buy them from Disney because they will be coded as entertainment. You have to buy them from a third-party agency such as Undercover Tourist or Get Away Today. Once you purchase them and if you have enough miles, you will be able to use “Purchase Eraser” to cover the price of the ticket.
To the right, is how much the tickets are on Undercover Tourist for 2 days with Park Hopper. Since the Final price is $442.00, you would need 44,200 points to erase just one ticket!
This is an option, if you have the points in your Capital One account. Keep in mind, depending on your card, you may be earning 2x the points on the purchase.
This is not the best use of points because transferring points gives you the most value, but to make your trip budget-friendly, I think this is an option.
This is not the route I took because I decided to pay with Paypal on the Disney Site, because I wanted to get 5x the points for the Q4 Chase Freedom Categories and then I put a payment plan through Chase since Chase no longer lets you do payment plans through any of the Buy Now, Pay Later sites like Klarna, Paypal or Afterpay.
You can break your cost into 3-months, 6-months, and 12-month options when paying with a Chase Credit Card!
2. Employee Benefits: Many Jobs offer a site that has discounts. A previous job of mine had used Plum benefits. This site had Disney World Tickets and included dining dollars in the price.
To the left is the price that Plum Benefits gave me for the Disney Tickets. It is cheaper than Undercover Tourist and the Disney Website.
You can utilize Buy Now, Pay Later via Paypal when you pay. This is a great option to break the cost up into manageable payments over time.
Getting to Disney World Each Day!
I highly recommend staying in a resort that offers a shuttle. If not, you can easily Uber or Lyft to the park!
On most days I ended up taking a Lyft to the first resort we were heading to. It cost us $10.99 to get to Universal and it was $15.99 to get to Epcot.
We also chose the wait-and-save option most of the time to save the most money!
Going between the Disney Parks
To go between the Disney Parks each day, they have buses, the monorail, and the Minnie Van. The Minnie Van is EXPENSIVE. If you are interested in the Minnie Van, you can call it through Lyft.
The buses are free and are very easy to find as you leave the parks. There are signs telling you where to head to and what lane to wait for your bus in.
The buses were comfortable and no ride took us longer than about 10 minutes.
We did take the skyline but we took it to a resort to call a cab to then head to Disney Springs to have dinner.
Conclusion
Disney is the happiest place on Earth and making a trip there can be a Dream come true for many! These tips are a great way to make the trip affordable so that you can see the magic at Disney. Let me know what ways you have found to make Disney affordable. Let’s head to Disney World on a Budget!
Save for Later!
| ravel Resources | Information about Resources |
| Airalo | If you need phone service while out of the country, check out Airalo to avoid all the fees. |
| Amazon | Find the perfect items for your next vacation! |
| Booking.com | If you want to book a mix of hotels and houses check out booking.com! |
| Expedia | If you need a package that includes flight + hotel or want to add a car? Expedia is the perfect site to book an entire vacation. |
| Priority Pass | If you do not have a credit card, you can still get lounge access by purchasing a Priority Pass Membership! |
| Ticketmaster | Heading to a concert or event, make sure to check out Ticketmaster. |
| Vrbo | Find the perfect rental house for your vacation and/or staycation. |
| Viator | The perfect place to find all your excursions and things to do in the many cities you visit. |
We went to Disney World in Orlando last summer, and sure it was expensive! All suggestions to save on flights and accommodation are much appreciated. One thing I am struggling with especially is gift prices. They are extremely high, and kids want to buy everything in the store… I wish there were some program to bring these down 🙂 We spend more on these than hotel!
I’ve been to a few Disneylands and I love them each time. Thanks for the great post, it brought back lots of great memories.
Travelling to Disney World can be expensive for family trips. So great to know there are some ways to save money and visit on a budget. I did not know there were so many great points options to help with the cost. We would also plan to picnic at least once a day to save a bit on food costs.
Wonderful tips here for visiting Disney on a budget. Very helpful for families. I think visiting just one park per day is a great idea.
This was so interesting to read. I didn’t actually realise that there are multiple parks within Disney world. Thank you for sharing.