Family Buys $10K Disney+ Gift Cards Thinking They Could Be Used at Theme Parks

• An Ilinois family mistakenly bought $10,000 worth of Disney+ gift cards, thinking they were for the theme park.
• In a series of TikTok videos, Andie Coston explained her family’s vacation mix-up and asked for advice.
• Thankfully, Disney has reached out and helped resolve the problem, Coston told Business Insider.

An Illinois family’s vacation nearly went wrong after they mistakenly bought $10,000 worth of Disney+ gift cards, thinking they could be used for the theme parks.

Andie Coston, a 41-year-old social worker, took to TikTok last week to explain the mix-up and ask for help getting the money “in the right form.”

In her first video — which has since amassed over 3.1 million views — Coston shared that her family had planned to go on a big trip together over Christmas.

“To save some money, my parents bought 10k of Disney gift cards to purchase our tickets and restaurant reservations,” Coston said in the text captions on the video.

However, when her parents faced issues loading the gift cards to buy the park tickets, she realized they had made a mistake, per the video.

Coston then showed a thick stack of gift cards on her table and revealed that they were for Disney+, Disney’s streaming service, and not the parks, per the video.

“That’s over 70 years of Disney Plus,” she said in overlayed video captions. A premium, ad-free Disney+ subscription costs $139.99 a year, per the Disney+ site.

She then asked TikTok to help fix the problem, adding that her “mom is distraught, dad frustrated, and the kids worried we won’t get into Disney.”

Coston’s initial video blew up quickly, and she received over 7,000 comments from fellow TikTok users. Some users gave her advice on how to solve the problem, while others were skeptical as to how the mix-up could’ve happened in the first place.

In a few follow-up TikTok videos, Coston clarified that the incident happened partially because her parents are 78 and don’t use streaming services, so they didn’t really understand what Disney+ was.

She also clarified in another follow-up video that she couldn’t return the gift cards because the numbers were already scratched off.

About a day after Coston posted her initial TikTok video, she gave an update that someone from Disney had contacted her parents and offered to turn the Disney+ gift cards into Disney Parks gift cards.

Coston confirmed to Business Insider that the gift card mix-up was resolved.

“Disney did call my parents and have rectified the situation,” Coston told BI. She also added that she has since heard from many people who have done this or knew someone in the same situation as her.

“We are so glad it got resolved and I am glad that this is raising awareness for others who may have made the same mistake,” she said.

Disney did not respond to a request for comment sent by Business Insider.

Correction: December 26, 2023: An earlier version of this story misstated the cost of a Disney+ subscription. It is $139.99 per year, not per month.