Disney gift card goof: Family buys $10K in wrong gift cards to pay for trip

A magical trip to Walt Disney World almost didn’t happen because someone didn’t look closely enough at the thousands of dollars worth of gift cards they had purchased.

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Andie Coston had been planning the trip for her extended family — all 16 of them — since before 2020, but like many plans, the COVID-19 pandemic delayed it. So they rescheduled for this Christmas, WMAQ reported.

To help pay for the trip, her parents, both 78 years old, bought gift cards to offset the cost and to be able to book tickets and pay for reservations. Coston showed a tower of cards she said totaled $10,000.

Dining reservations, according to Disney’s website, are typically made up to 60 days before arrival. As for tickets, parkgoers are required have valid tickets and make park reservations until Jan. 8, when the COVID-era policy expires, according to the company’s website.

When Coston’s parents tried to start trying to buy their tickets, they realized there was a problem, the cards wouldn’t go through. That’s when they noticed the cards were not for Disney parks or stores, but instead Disney+ the company’s online streaming service.

They were purchased at Sam’s Club, Coston said in another video and had been scratched off so they couldn’t be returned.

Coston in her TikTok video estimated that the snafu would have paid for 70 years of streaming and that her parents didn’t know the difference between the cards since they don’t use streaming.

Coston used the power of social media, going on TikTok six days before they left for Central Florida, to explain the issue and looking for someone to contact to see if the problem could be fixed, changing the cards to ones that would work at the park, People magazine reported.

The good thing is, yes, it could.

Coston posted a follow-up that said that Disney made it right, but added, “I’m really hoping Disney takes note of this and creates a little bit better system because they are not transferrable - we tried.”

In the first video, she wrote, “Disney Plus, as a marketer, your gift cards need redesigning to be more clearly defined.” The cards she showed on the clip said Disney+ with the Disney-owned companies: the flagship plus Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars and National Geographic listed below the logo with the words “Stream all the best stories all in one place,” which several commenters on her initial video pointed out.

Still, she told People, “I received many messages and comments from people telling me that they or someone they know have had similar experiences. I hope that this story makes more people aware of the card difference so no one else experiences this.