Frequent Miler on the Air - Disney® Inspire Visa® Card | Coffee Break Ep92 | 2-9-26

Episode Date: February 10, 2026

Today we're going to look at the details of the new Disney® Inspire Visa® Card, and we'll talk about whether or not it's worth considering.(00:25) - New Disney® Inspire Visa® CardLearn more about this card here(02:23) - Is this worth getting for someone planning an upcoming Disney trip?(04:07) - Is this worth getting for a regular Disney fan to keep long-term, specifically for Disney spend?(10:27) - Is this worth getting for a Disney fan to keep long-term for all spend?Visit https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe to get updated on in-depth points and miles content like this, and don’t forget to like and follow us on social media.Music Credit – Beach Walk by Unicorn HeadsMentioned in this episode:Visit FrequentMiler.com Did you know that Frequent Miller is also a website? At frequentMiller.com, you'll find all the latest deals, news about points, miles, and rewarding credit cards, the single best, Best Credit Cards page on the web, guides to all popular rewards programs, and many other terrific resources. If you'd like to get our posts sent to your email, go to frequentMiller.com/subscribe and sign up for free. https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe/

This is a Voyescape podcast. You can find all of our travel podcasts from around the world at voyscape.com. Welcome to Freakimilers Coffee Break, where we focus on a single topic related to miles and points. And each coffee break is limited to 20 minutes or less or your money back. Chases out with a new Disney card, the Disney Inspire. And it's kind of interesting. We're going to get into the details of what this card offers. and then we're going to debate, is this a good card to have and to hold?

So let's start at looking at the basic details of the card. It's got an annual fee of $149. And the new card intro bonus looks pretty good. You get a $300 Disney gift card immediately upon approval. And then you can earn a $300 cash back statement credit after $1,000 spend in the first three months. So you get both the $300 Disney gift card and the $300 back in total, $600 sort of. You can look at it depending on how you value the gift card. The earning rate, you get 10x at Disney Plus, Hulu or ESPN, 3X gas stations in most Disney locations,

2x grocery stores and restaurants, 1X everywhere else. So a couple of bonus categories there, though not a lot going on. The rewards, of course, are as Disney dollars, which you can redeem towards a statement credit for air travel, book any airline, any destination, and redeem rewards dollars at a minimum of $50 and rewards dollars. And then you got some perks, like $100 back after spending $200 per anniversary of on U.S. Disney theme park tickets. They do have to be U.S. Disney theme parks, but 100 back on 200 spent on tickets, 200 Disney reward dollars after spending $2,000 per anniversary year on U.S. Disney

Resort and Disney Cruise Line bookings. So you've got all the options there that come with that in the United States. It's got a $10 monthly statement credit after you spend $10 or more on subscriptions directly at Disney Plus, Hulu, or plus.espn.com. You do have to activate that benefit every year. It's not automatic. So you have to redo the activation each year. And then you get access to some other stuff that you'll get in other Disney cards like character meet and greeted a private card member area, 10% on select merchandise and select dining and most days at Disneyland Resort and Walt Disney World Resort. So that'll vary a little bit as to what's available.

But 10% back on some of that stuff and you save 10% on select merchandise purchases at DisneyStore.com. So now that we've talked a little bit about the basic details, we're going to ask ourselves, is this a great Disney card? Should you feel inspired to get it? We'll discuss that right after we get back from this break. We hope you're enjoying the Frequent Miler on the air podcast. Did you know that Frequent Miler is also a website? At Frequentmiler.com, you'll find all the latest deals, news about points, miles, and rewarding credit cards,

the single best best credit cards page on the web guides to all popular rewards programs and many other terrific resources. If you'd like to get our posts sent to your email, go to Frequentmiler.com forward slash subscribe and sign up for free. And we're back. We're going to talk about the Disney Inspire card. Is it worth getting, depending on who you are? So let's say you are considering an upcoming Disney trip and you know it's going to be a lot of money should you get this card so that you can save some money on that trip.

And we're also going to talk about some other scenarios where you might consider it. But let's answer that question first. What do you think, Nick, if you're planning that big Disney trip, trip with your family. You're starting to look at the cost of theme park tickets, the cost of lodging, and you know how much it costs to pay for food and all that other stuff in the parks. What do you think? Is it worth getting just for that? Yeah, I mean, I think the intro bonus here is low-hanging fruit. It only requires $1,000 in spend. Now, you could earn a larger cash-back intro bonus on some business cards out there, but they require a lot more spend, too. For a thousand-dollar spend,

essentially $600 towards your Disney vacation, that's a very strong return. So I think if you are planning an upcoming Disney trip and you're just looking to save some money on that Disney trip, yeah, I feel like this makes sense. It's kind of almost a no-brainer, really, given all the value you're going to get for the initial cash outlay, in my opinion. What do you think, do you agree? Yeah, no, I agree. It's a really nice bonus.

I mean, it's not like the biggest bonus we've seen, but for only $1,000 spend, it's way up there. Okay, so that answers that. That's pretty simple. And the idea is if that's all you're thinking of doing, you're not like one of those Disney fans that's going year after year, you probably want to, after the first year, downgrade to the fee-free card or maybe cancel the card altogether,

if it's not something where you're going to see value year after year after that. All right, but let's say you are a big Disney fan. You know you're going to be going to Disney every year. you're going to be spending a lot of money at Disney. Do you think does it make sense to get this card and use it for all of your Disney spend year after year? You know, I think it certainly could. I think that the benefits are, I mean,

if you're spending on theme park tickets every year anyway, and if you're paying full price, you're buying them direct and paying full price, well then, I mean, this is $100 off of that. And it does cost $150, so you need to get more value than just that $100. But that's a pretty good start at mitigating the annual fee. And if you're somebody that doesn't have a platinum card, so you're not getting

a monthly digital entertainment credit that covers the cost of Disney Plus, well, then you probably value the statement credit that comes with that. Again, I'm making the assumption that if you go to Disney every year, probably you have Disney Plus. And so if you do and you're paying for it out of pocket, then that's worth something. I wouldn't necessarily value it at the $10 a month because I would hope if that's you, you're paying for the annual subscription that costs less. And so this statement credit benefit is worth less to me than the actual face value. But between that and the $100 back on theme park tickets, I could see a lot of people feeling like they've gotten their money's worth for the $150. Then if you also spend that $2,000 or more on a Disney cruise or a Disney resort, if you're going to go to Disney World and stay there,

it's pretty easy to spend $2,000 at a Disney resort. So I would think a lot of people would be able to get that $200, which is kind of like 10% back. So I think it could make a lot of sense. I think it depends on the level of optimizer you are in that regard because you may be able to find opportunities, for instance, where you can buy discounted Disney gift cards. I know Sam's Club sells them for a couple percent off and every now and then we'll see an opportunity to get something that you could turn into a Disney gift card for a discount, or you might buy Disney gift cards somewhere where you're earning a category bonus. And depending on the value of your transferable points, maybe you would find that to be somewhat similar to the 10%ish, the 200 back on 2000.

So I think it kind of depends on where you are on all of that. If you're somebody who's going to go out looking to maximize all the gift card opportunities you can, then maybe you'd rather stick with that. If you're someone who's like, I mean, I know I'm not going to bother with getting gift cards and running around to figure that part out, then, yeah, I would think that this seems like a pretty good deal because between that $200 there, the $100 back on the $200 in theme park tickets and then the monthly Disney Plus, I feel like that's a pretty good trade for $150. a year for people who want to keep that part simple. Yeah.

So I have a I guess a little bit different take. I feel like you need to be pretty confident that you're going to be spending $2,000 a year on Disney Resort and or cruise line bookings. Because without that, yeah, you could make the argument that you're breaking even or maybe even slightly doing better than even. But some of these perks, like the 10% off select dining and merchant. and stuff, you can get for free. You can get the fee-free credit card or the fee-free debit card, I believe, to get that same perk. So I would think that if you're not sure you're also

going to get the $200 back each year in Disney reward dollars for spending $2,000, then I just don't see the value here. And even if you do think that you're likely to think about how much is that $200-ish upside worth to you versus just going fee-free and not having to think about are you getting your money's worth because fee-free is easy to justify. So to me, it's not a, it's not a no-brainer pick for someone who, even someone who spends at Disney every single year. Wow, that's an interesting take to me because, like, I mean, I'm not somebody who goes to Disney every year. So I wouldn't be holding this card year after year. But I know people who go to Disney year after year. And so, you know, if that's you and you're not already, you know, doing some sort of,

you've already in the Disney Vacation Club maybe, and I don't know whether that qualifies for this or not. Or there are some other ways you might be playing things, I suppose. But if you're just paying out of pocket, now, I can see the argument that, well, for the cost of a stay at a Disney resort, if you're going to spend two or three or four or $5,000 or whatever it is, you're going to spend on staying at a Disney resort, then you should consider opening a new card for a new welcome bonus and paying for your stay on that and you'll get far more than $200 back with most welcome bonuses. I could see that argument. But if you're going to be spending that money anyway, why don't I get the $200 back on top of everything else? I don't know. I can see it going either way. It's not great. And you should not. Greg is right. You should not get this for stuff like that character meet and greet and the 10% off because I believe most Chase checking accounts will allow. allow you to request a Disney debit card that gives you those things. So you don't need a credit card at all for the meet and grades and the 10% off merchandise, select places and that kind of thing. So this is only if you're going to buy theme park tickets and you're going to pay for Disney Plus and you're going to pay to stay at a resort every year. And I think you can maximize

and do better. There's no doubt. You can maximize and do better. But I think it's, you know, I think it could be a win for a segment of folks. Well, yeah. And I'm not saying it's not a win. It's just that $200 is like the most upside I'm seeing here. And so it's not a huge win compared to what can be done elsewhere and you might be able to simplify things. So like just for example, like let's say you also have a Capital One card and Capital One, you have the Venture X and you can earn 10X like booking, lodging and theme park tickets through Capital One. And maybe Capital One is running some kind of promo where you'd get $200 back for that. And you probably wouldn't even go for that if you had this card because you'd be like, no, I have to put the spend on this card. And then you'd be getting $200, but you'd be losing out on the 10x through Capital One plus whatever discount Capital One's offering.

So that's a good point. You know, that kind of thing. All right. Now let's say you're all in, though. You're a Disney fanatic. $2,000 a year. That's nothing compared to what you know you're going to spend every year on Disney. And you see that $200 as a big win because you're not going to be looking elsewhere, you know, where else to buy it.

You're all in on Disney. So you're going to go right to Disney.com to do your purchases and all that. Is this a card for you not just to have? I mean, obviously you should have this card. because, hey, you're all in a Disney. But should you use it for all your spend even beyond Disney? No, absolutely not. Well, let's just remind people, it has some bonus categories.

Like you'll earn 3X at gas stations. So this is outside of Disney, 3x gas stations, 2X grocery stores and restaurants. It is 1X everywhere else. So, you know, those aren't terrible. They aren't terrible, but they aren't great either. And you've got to keep in mind that that's limited. These are reward dollars that are, it's not like cash back. So it's not like cash in your pocket.

And you can get 3x cash in your pocket for less than $150 a year. In fact, for no annual fee, you could get the Capital One Saver card and get 3% back on grocery and dining. And so, and that's actual cash that you don't have to use on Disney. You could use on something else. And if you have a Capital One Miles card, then you could transfer that cash back to Miles at a value of one cent. and this one mile and then transfer that on to partners. So I would be using a different card for spend on even the bonus categories. And certainly you wouldn't want to be spending it one X on this. Just got a 2% cash back card if you want to keep things really simple and at least get 2% back instead of 1% that's

locked in Disney. And, you know, this is true on basically every co-branded card out there for the most part. None of them are particularly good for everyday spend or even their bonus categories. Every now and then you get one where the bonus category like the wind and murder business, 8X on gas, okay, that's pretty good and that's kind of tough to beat. Although we've even debated that on this show before. So that's not even a no-brainer at 8X on gas. So I think that it's hard to think of very many situations where a co-branded card is going to be your best bet, even in their bonus categories, never mind the everyday spend. Co-branding cards are worth getting for the benefits, not for the spending. Yeah. You know,

Nick and I discussed this a little bit before the show started, and I thought that was a really good observation Nick made because I think people tend to think of, you know, like, oh, I want the Delta card, for example, for, you know, free check bags and the elite-like perks and things like that, and then start using it for everything. And that's not our recommendation for most co-brand cards. In most cases, you could do a lot better with other cards, even just a 2% cashback card. Yeah, and there might be reasons to spend on them. For instance, if you value elite status and you're getting credit towards elite status, there might be some reasons. And also there are some big spend bonuses where you might say, okay, well, I can spend X amount and get a free night certificate. There are reasons to do the math and perhaps put spend on co-branded cards.

I'm not saying you should never spend on a co-branded card. But I am saying that most co-branded cards don't offer enough return that if you're not spending with some intention, then you're probably not getting as good value as what you could get elsewhere. Yeah, 100%. Travel Tales with me, Mike Siegel, is full of funny, inspiring, and wild adventures. Listen now at voyescape.com.

If you love travel, you'll love winging it travel podcast. Every Monday, I share stories from 75 countries, from backpacking tips, epic adventures, and plenty of travel inspiration. Alongside that, I host guest interviews every two weeks. Check it out at Voyscape. com.