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Disneyland Paris is a beautiful park with a distinctly French aesthetic (think champagne in the castle & an Alice in Wonderland hedge maze). Whether you’re visiting France specifically for Disney, or working it into a longer European tour, the magical set of two parks right outside the city are sure to delight Disney fans. Located in Chessy France, 32 km east of Paris, the parks are an approximate 30-60 minute train ride from the city of Paris.
Disneyland Paris Resorts
Every Disney park around the globe offers close-in, themed resorts, and Disneyland Paris is no exception. Book a Disneyland Paris resort and you’ll get early access into the parks 30 minutes before offsite guests. It’s essential to take advantage of early morning entry in order to skip the line on some of the busier rides.
To book one of the Disneyland Paris Resorts using points, your best bet is to use a portal through Chase, BILT or Capital One. Let’s look at all three in depth.
Chase Portal
The nice thing about the Chase portal is that if you have a Chase Sapphire Preferred card, your ultimate rewards are elevated in value and worth 1.25 on a portal booking.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Open a Chase Sapphire Preferred Card and earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. That’s $750 when you redeem through Chase Ultimate Rewards® (You’ll also earn 3x on dining, which is how Disney food should code on your credit card statement, so this is a great card to use for purchasing park food).
The downside to the Chase portal is that I’ve had a historically tough finding Disney resort availability, but YMMV. My opinion is that a Preferred card’s welcome bonus is more suited to a Hyatt stay in the city of Paris.
The BILT Mastercard is a no-brainer if you’re a renter. If I could go back in time and have a fee-free credit card on which to pay my rent, I would in a heartbeat. How else can you earn points for free just by paying your rent?
While the BILT card does not come with a signup bonus, it boasts the same redemption structure as the Sapphire Preferred (1.25 redemption in the BILT portal). It also offers 3x points on dining like the preferred, and 2x points on travel: best of all, the BILT portal had lots of Disney resort redemptions available last time I checked. The only stipulation is making five purchases on your card every month, which I recommend doing on the first day of every month when your points are doubled!
The icing on the cake is that the BILT rewards portal is the only place to purchase Disney tickets–at an elevated 1.25x value per point! Read more money-saving tips on flights, admission and ground transportation here:
Capital One Travel Portal
The place I’ve personally booked not one but two Disney resorts is through the Capital One Travel portal. Although your mile is not worth 1.25 in the portal like it is with Chase & BILT, a Capital One Venture card welcome bonus can cover one or more nights at a Disney Resort, depending on which resort you choose.
Capital One® Venture X Rewards Credit Card
Open a Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card and earn 75,000 bonus miles when you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening, equal to $750 in travel.
I’ve seen a lot of Disney resort availability in the Capital One Travel portal for both Walt Disney World and for Disneyland Paris. When you book a Disney Resort on your Venture X you’ll earn 10x miles, and you’ll also trigger your annual $300 travel credit, which should show up on your statement within a week of booking. Later, you can ‘erase’ $750 worth of the resort charge off your statement using your bonus miles. This is unique to Capital One–you EARN 10x miles booking on your credit card in the portal, trigger your $300 travel credit AND can use miles to erase more of the charge when it posts.
Success Story: We booked two nights at Disney’s Santa Fe for our upcoming Disneyland Paris trip. We used our Venture X in the portal and earned 10x miles on the ~$400 booking. Next, our $300 travel credit posted to our account. Last, we used ~40,000 Capital One miles to erase the charge off our statement!
The Venture X is a premium travel card that comes with a $395 annual fee, because it offers perks like unlimited Priority Pass lounge access. If you don’t need a premium travel card with fancy travel perks, consider the Venture X’s sister card:
Capital One® Venture® Rewards Credit Card
Open a Capital One Venture Rewards Card and earn 75,000 miles once you spend $4,000 on purchases within 3 months from account opening. This is basically the same offer as the Venture X, but with only a $95 annual fee, which makes it more accessible to many.
Portal Bottom Line
Chase doesn’t have great portal availability for resorts, but the Preferred does offers 3x dining if you want to use it to purchase food in Disney parks (and ultimate rewards are great to have in your stockpile!). If you have a Sapphire preferred card, your ultimate rewards are worth 1.25 in the portal towards Disney resorts.
BILT is perfect for renters, has lots of resort availability and 3x dining, and also offers 1.25x booking resorts in the portal.
Capital One Venture cards offer 75,000 bonus miles and seem to have more portal availability, so it’s your best bet if you want to book an on-property resort at Disneyland Paris–but your point is only worth 1x. You will EARN 10x points on your booking if you book on your Venture X in the portal.
Practically Speaking
That being said, I want to be realistic about what you’re going to get for your 75,000 miles in the Capital One portal. The nightly cost at the Disneyland Paris Resorts varies wildly–I’ve seen the Santa Fe value resort as low as $200/night, while the Hotel New York, Art of Marvel can sometimes run $900/night. Each Venture card you open will afford you $750 towards one of these resorts, which will get you multiple nights at a value resort on a good night, and will only get you one partial night at a luxury resort.
Referrals & Multiple Bonuses
That’s why it’s good to have multiple adults in your traveling party open cards, refer one another for extra miles, earn bonuses, combine points and book resort stays together. Let’s do the math:
You open a Venture Card and earn 75,000 miles.
You refer another adult and earn a 25,000 mile bonus for referring them (you will only qualify for the referral bonus if they are a brand new Capital One banking customer.)
They earn 75,000 miles the same way you did.
With Capital One, you can combine points with anyone anywhere, for free. So if you add up all the points you and you friend have earned, you now have 175,000 miles to work with, which translates into $1750 towards a Disneyland Paris Resort!
The more players, referrals and bonuses, the better.
That covers booking Disneyland Paris Resorts with points through a portal: let’s move on and discuss offsite Disneyland Paris hotels.
Offsite Disneyland Paris hotels
Marriott
Wherever there’s a Disney park, there’s likely a Marriott nearby. Sure enough, there are a couple Marriotts to consider right outside Disneyland Paris.
Moxy Paris Val d’Europe
I’m starting with this one, because it’s new, and who doesn’t love a new hotel? It opens September 2022, and also happens to be a minimalist millennial brand I’ve enjoyed before.
The Moxy offers very inexpensive cash rooms that will sleep a large group or family; however, to book a redemption stay with your Marriott points, there are only standard European double occupancy rooms available.
Accordingly, if you’re traveling as a family, this might be a situation for earning points on a Marriott card, not burning points. Here are a couple cards we recommend:
Marriott Bonvoy Boundless® Credit Card
Earn 100,000 points after you spend $3,000 on purchases in your first 3 months from your account opening. (You probably won’t want to waste these certificates at the Moxy Disneyland Paris–they’re more suited for three nights at Disneyland OR three nights at the Swan & Dolphin Disney Resort on property at Walt Disney World).
But, you’ll get 17x miles booking rooms at the Moxy on this card! If you’d rather have a chunk of miles to spend than free night certificates, consider this card:
Marriott Bonvoy Business™ American Express® Card
Earn 75,000 bonus Marriott Bonvoy points after you use your new Card to make $5,000 in eligible purchases within the first 3 months of Card Membership. Limited time offer ends 8/31/22.
This is a business card, which I opened this year since I’m a sole proprietor (and I’m 5/24 so I can only open business cards right now!). But did you know you can open business cards with any kind of side income at all? Uber driver, dog walker, Airbnb host, if you have even a teeny tiny income, you can open a business card
Use 125k bonus points to book the Moxy or the following Marriott right next to Disneyland Paris.
Village D’ile-de-France
This Marriott Vacation Club property offers everything from standard rooms to three bedroom townhouses, and in the winter the rates run between $117-$199:
IHG
There’s a brand new Holiday Inn Express within two miles of Disneyland Paris, opening December 2022:
Holiday Inn Express Marne-la-Vallée Val d’Europe
Once again, there appears to be no family rooms to book with points, but low cost cash rooms available that sleep 4.
The card to open and earn an elevated welcome bonus is the IHG Premier:
IHG® Rewards Club Premier Credit Card
Earn 175,000 bonus points + 1 Free Night after spending $3,000 on purchases within the first three months of account opening.
- Enjoy a Reward Night after each account anniversary year at eligible IHG hotels worldwide. Plus, enjoy a reward night when you redeem points for any stay of 3 or more nights
- Earn up to 26 points total per $1 spent when you stay at an IHG hotel
- Earn 5 points per $1 spent on purchases on travel, gas stations, and restaurants. Earn 3 points per $1 spent on all other purchases
- Platinum Elite status as long as you remain a Premier card member
- Global Entry, TSA PreCheck® or NEXUS Statement Credit of up to $100 every 4 years as reimbursement for the application fee charged to your card
- IHG Rewards bonus points are redeemable at hotels such as InterContinental®, Crowne Plaza®, Kimpton®, EVEN® Hotels, Indigo® Hotels & Holiday Inn®
To hear more about a trip to Disneyland Paris using Points & Miles, check out this episode of The Disney Points Podcast:
Takeaways
Now you’re well versed in all the redemption properties available on and off property as Disneyland Paris. You can burn some points in a portal for a Disneyland Paris Resort, or earn points paying cash offsite at the new Moxy or Holiday Inn Express. No matter your choice, you’re sure to enjoy the 30th anniversary at Disneyland Paris, the new Avengers land at Walt Disney Studios, and the magical European touches to classic Disney attractions.
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