I am a geek, with an inexplicable fondness for spreadsheets and a serious addiction to travel, especially Disney trips. I even have a list of online sweepstakes which I enter every ding-dong day, just on the off chance that I might might might be the one to win that Disney Vacation Club membership, or that boatload of Hilton Honors points!
So, when I recently logged into the Disney Movie Rewards web site (to enter my daily sweepstakes, natch) and saw that one of the currently-listed awards is a 4-night trip to Walt Disney World, I had to break out the Excel and run some rough numbers to try to find a clue.
The trip will cost you 22,000 Disney Movie Reward points. If the average DVD gets you 100 points, and you’re paying an average of $22 for your movies (think sales at Target, people), that’s about 220 movies you’re gonna have to buy, for a cost of $4,840. (You could get there a little faster with the Blu-Ray releases, since they generally carry more points, but they’re also more expensive and there aren’t as many titles to choose from.)
Is there a limit on how many copies of the same title you can redeem points on? I’m not sure there are 220 movies currently on the market which you can actually earn the points on…so I do believe you’re gonna need some duplicates to get there.
Now, you can also earn points by going to the movie theatre, but you can’t earn many points that way. For example, I earned 50 points each for WALL-E tickets, but I believe there was a limit of 4 tickets one could redeem for that feature, and that seems to be about the usual limit.
So, this probably makes sense if you just happened to need 220 Disney DVDs, both for your own collection and to share with friends, family, and random strangers on the bus who you decide to be kind to, as they look like they had a lousy day. But leaving aside the value of your newly-enhanced movie collection, would the $4,840 be a wise investment for your Disney travel needs?
Well y’know, the weird thing is it just might be, but I can’t tell for sure. Your party of four would be staying at a Deluxe Resort, enjoying a day with a VIP tour guide, with Magic Your Way Park Hoppers and various trinkets for everybody, plus a $250 dining allowance and all airfare fully paid. When I did a little search on the Disney World web site, I found that a party of 4 adults staying at the Grand Floridian for four nights in late December with those tickets would spend $4,104.68…and we all know that most parties of four are going to be spending more than $700 on their airfare to MCO these days, right? We don’t even have to calculate the cost of the VIP tour guide, or the other vaguely-described benefits (“Character Meet-and-Greet and Dining Experience, plus photos and more!”), or the ever-popular, ever-essential Mickey Ears and pin trading starter sets. (That $4,104.68 was for a garden-view room, by the way, so if the lucky recipient is staying at Concierge, that’s a whole different ballpark. On the other hand, it’s also at peak season, so if we’re talking Value season the cost would of course decline.)
But there’s no way to reliably do the math, even if my numbers were more heavily researched. Because you see, there are unspecified blackout dates and other “redemption restrictions” that will only be disclosed upon “reward redemption verification.” And how many people are racking up 22,000 Disney Movie Rewards points just in the course of their day-to-day Disney entertainment needs? I’m a pretty serious consumer here…and I still have only 1875 points (it’ll be 1925 after my recent WALL-E viewing is credited!).
So hey, is there anybody out there who’s actually redeemed for this award, or who even has 22,000 points in the first place? What’s the scoop, people? Or by any chance does anybody want to give me 20,275 points so I can test this thing out? I’d happily mail you the Mickey Ears and pin trading starter sets, I promise!
Broke Hoedown 
this makes my head hurt so badly i cannot even tell you
I tried redeeming two different codes for CARS, and it wouldn’t let me-I think they only allow one per DVD title (and by recollection, one was Full Screen and one was Widescreen and I still couldn’t do it)
Heres another interesting one…..Back in December, I printed a ticket submission form for two “Enchanted” tickets, but then I lost the ticket stubs and never sent it….but a few weeks ago, I found one of them and sent in the form with just one, but they gave me credit for two! Good luck!
Chip, hmm, that’s interesting about Cars.
There are (ballpark) 2170 movies currently listed as “eligible movies” on the Disney Movie Rewards site. Some of those, though, might run into the Cars problem you had above…does the Hi-Def version of Hannah Montana in Concert count as a different movie than the regular version? Methinks it’s likely also “the same title.”
I can verify you can indeed get points for the same title if one is on standard definition and one is the Blu-ray version. For example Cars will get you 100 pts for the SD version and 125 for the Blu-ray version.
Thanks Victor!
I seem to still have a few points to go until I hit that magic number…actually I just redeemed a bunch of points for a watch, so my current balance is 25. 🙂
I’ve been doing the math on this reward, too. Losing sleep over it, actually. I would love to go.
You can get points for both the regular version of the movie AND the bluray, but not different versions on the same format of the same title. As many copies as our families bought of Cars (each granparent+us), I thought we would be rich in Disney points lol But no go.
If you go check out that reward, it says that it is currently unavailable. So, either someone redeemed it, or they just have offline moments. I’ve gone to redeem a FamilyFun subscription, had it be available, hit submit and had it be unavailable. Who knows.
Check out the bonus points right now. For each code you redeem right now, you get an extra 50 points. WANT! lol
Also, something to make note of is that Wiki says “The program has been extended again until January 31, 2010 and point redeem through February 28, 2010.” and who knows what will happen after that. Or when that reward will be pulled all together.
LASTLY lol If you look at the rules about that prize, it says that verification of the codes MAY be necessary. I would bet that means that we need to be retaining our code sheets. Which really sucks, because I haven’t been. (Not that I’ll collect 22k anyway, but a girl can hope)
Good luck 🙂
I have a question for all of you serious Disney Movie Reward Members. I joined last month and have racked up 2,200 points. But, I had to spend hundreds of dollars to get them. I would have twice as many points, except that MORE THAN 50% OF THE DVDS ARE MISSING CODES!!! I keep contacting them by phone each time, sending in my proof of purchases & receipts, but nothing happens. They claim to be “behind” in crediting the codes. Not to mention I purchased DVDs during BONUS PERIODS, but because the codes are missing, I could not enter them during the bonus time. I spent $80 on Pirates Trilogy Blu-Ray to get the 775 points~ and the codes were missing. All of my movies are purchased from retails stores. IS THIS A CONSPIRACY? I’m about ready to throw in the towel entirely. Then, I hear people are buying, trading, reusing codes on eBay, etc…. I don’t care, that is their agenda, but is that really working? The terms and conditions threaten to prosecute such ones. Then again, I thought my job was only to buy the DVDs and enter the codes; but I was sourly wrong.
I to would love to get 22,000 points and take a trip on disney. Today when I was looking, and dreaming about that many points, it stated unavailable as well.
I have been going through all of my movies, some of which are pre-disney movie rewards, and hoping I have some points for something!
Not into the ebay trading thing, guess I am a chicken!
I’ve bought from ebay three times now of the dvds that I Really do not want to buy on dvd. its a good system if you dont wanna buy the movie and just the points.
as for buying the dvds with out codes well… i’m sorry to say but that’s just bad luck. *pats your back* I’ve only gotten two dvds that didn’t have codes in them and yea it takes awhile but they get around to it and they’ll credit you. also for the points if they see you sent them in at the time the premotion was going on they’ll give you the bonus they did that for my meet the Robinsons movie tickets if you went to see it during x week you got 200 more points and like about two months later they gave me four hundred points you just gotta be quick about thos things and send them in on time, they’ll give you the credit.
and for me I already have 6000 plus points. well on my way XDDD hopefully.
From what I understand you can get disney reward points with the use of your Chase Disney credit card too, which would explain the way you can get that many points with the amount of available movies. There are chances for extra points, for example wall-e home screen gives you 50 points if you explore it. Not every movie is worth 100 points, for example double disc and blu-ray movies. You could also do what I do. I buy the movies when they first come out at Walmart or the now defunct Circuit City etc… I’d usually price compare at customer service at Walmart and get them on average at about $14.99. You can also find them cheaper at your local flea markets, they usually still have the paper with the code inside, just check first if that is a major factor in buying it. You can not enter duplicate movies. There is a record of what you have already entered. I’ve actually seen these codes for sale on Ebay. It’s alot cheaper to buy the code then the movie itself. I do however believe these codes are supposed to be non-transferrable, but well where there’s a will there’s a way, I guess. With all that advice I still don’t have 20,000 points yet, but I also don’t have the credit card either. Hope this helped.
I’ve never heard of any Disney Visa/Disney Movie Rewards points tie-in, and I’ve been a Disney Visa holder for a couple years now. Has anybody else heard of this connection?
Where do you put the magic code at.
Michelle, if you buy DVDs that qualify for points, there’s a flier in the DVD package that gives you all the instructions.
If you think of the relativity of it all. It is not hard to get those points. Not as cost assuming as the other gentlemen pointed out. I currently own like 70 disney dvds. I have only redeemed like 20 of the dvd movie reward points. I joined the disney movie rewards program and as a member I have just been buying in bulk. Everytime it comes acrost as 60% off. I buy about $200 worth of movies. Which is way better of a savings than your average $20 movie. I might spend around $9 a movie that way. I have redeemed a few things on the web site. Also look into the movie rewards scavanger points. My wife did it and racked up a few extra points here and there. I know this is kinda iffy. But go to pawn shops. I buy movies there with active codes sometimes for about $3 a dvd. There are always ways around things with people on a budget. I don’t make alot of money and still have a mess of dvds to open for codes. But I figure, I bought them for my son. We will open them when we get around to it. But I am still watching the site for something we might wanna jump on before its too late. Thanks for reading, I hope this helps.
So far I have redeemed all my points for dvds. I am on a mission to collect every disney movie. So when I calculated how many points I had redeemed so far: and if I would have saved them ALL, I would have 13,336 points. Oh well 😦 No disney trip for us.
BTW: dvd-100 points
Bluray-150 points
3d-200 points
Theres also monthly trivia points as well as mystery points in your email every month.
Do you think they’ll ever offer this reward again? I’ve got a little over 7,000 points & I’m steadily saving up on the off chance that they offer another trip like this. Lately the only thing I’ve seen has been for Disney LAND. 😦
I kinda doubt it. But I wish they would!