Discounts anyone?

[MyPrince&Princess]

Hi! I apologize in advance if this has been discusses ad nauseum, but does anyone know of any discounts available for Universal & IOA tickets & possibly on-site hotels? I was looking at a two or 3 day trip in July and the prices are just insane. I've looked at undercover tourist and mousesavers, but it's still pretty expensive.
TIA!

 

[macraven]

july is an expensive month for staying onsite.

go thru the UO booking site and put in a 3 date stay.
see if the SMSM discount comes up.

stay more save more is a general public discount on 3 days and more for the onsite hotel bookings.

call UO booking and ask if they have any AAA room discounts available for your dates.
if they do, and if it is a decent discount, basic AAA membership costs can be low depending on where you live.
mine is $40 a year for the membership.
join AAA and buy park tickets with them and get a small discount

if the 3 deluxe hotels are more than what you want to pay, cabana bay is the value resort on site.

 

[kelgod09]

Also going in July, booked RPR for 2 nights/3 days through Cheap Tickets using Promo Code CHEAPIE20 and got avg. nightly rate of $265 (1 wkdy + 1 wknd night). Not cheap, but we're looking forward to it. It's at the beginning of a WDW trip and will be easier to stay on site and have FOTL passes.
Will most likely get park tickets from UCT, as that's where we got our WDW tickets from and had a great experience and good savings.
Just waiting to get tickets, as it shows the ones for sale now are only good until sometime in June.

 

[lauradis]

july is an expensive month for staying onsite.

go thru the UO booking site and put in a 3 date stay.
see if the SMSM discount comes up.

stay more save more is a general public discount on 3 days and more for the onsite hotel bookings.

call UO booking and ask if they have any AAA room discounts available for your dates.
if they do, and if it is a decent discount, basic AAA membership costs can be low depending on where you live.
mine is $40 a year for the membership.
join AAA and buy park tickets with them and get a small discount

if the 3 deluxe hotels are more than what you want to pay, cabana bay is the value resort on site.

They don't do front of the line passes?????

 

[macraven]

if you stay at one of the 3 deluxe hotels on site, you get the hotel perk of the unlimited usage of the express lines.
the front of the line program is for the wish families.

any one on the reservation for the deluxe hotels, gets the ep perk for free. (and early entry)

for those staying at loews value resort, cabana bay, only receive the perk of early entry, no express pass.

express passes can be bought though.

 

[soxyes]

This October will be our third stay and we generally stay three nights (Sat - Tues). We've checked AAA, different travel sites, and I also checked to see if it might make sense to buy one annual pass for the room discount (they told us that with the Horror nights, an annual pass discount wasn't likely then). We found our best deal using our Entertainment book. There's a travel link through Hotels.com that gives an additional 10% off at the deluxe resorts. Last year and this year, it saved us about $100 each time for the full stay. It's still expensive, but the best deal that we've found.

We bought our tickets through the Mousesavers newsletter link to Undercover tourist. The link only saves a buck or two per ticket, but any savings is a savings.
Good luck!

 

[calablovedisney]

I have a 2 night stay at the end of June and I made the hotel reservations at RPH with Cheaptickets and saved 20%. It was the best I could find, including checking AAA.
We have been 1 other time and I was able to purchase park tickets at Costco with the buy 2 get day 3 free deal, but it seems they no longer have the tickets at Costco AND the buy 2 get 3 expires before our dates.
Are there any other buy 2 get a 3rd day out there for the end of June 2015? Or will they become available? I know it's not a huge difference, but any $$ saved counts!

 

[macraven]

This October will be our third stay and we generally stay three nights (Sat - Tues). We've checked AAA, different travel sites, and I also checked to see if it might make sense to buy one annual pass for the room discount (they told us that with the Horror nights, an annual pass discount wasn't likely then). We found our best deal using our Entertainment book. There's a travel link through Hotels.com that gives an additional 10% off at the deluxe resorts. Last year and this year, it saved us about $100 each time for the full stay. It's still expensive, but the best deal that we've found.

We bought our tickets through the Mousesavers newsletter link to Undercover tourist. The link only saves a buck or two per ticket, but any savings is a savings.
Good luck!

the ap rates were released about two weeks ago that covers october.
don't know if the entire month is included but ap was released to the time i leave from there. (15th)

with my stay, the SMSM was a better discount than the AP rates.

 

[calablovedisney]

How many in your party? I just bought 4 3-day park to park tickets from Daily Getaways for $700. Now I posted earlier to ask if anyone had experience with them and one poster did and said she has bought hotel points through them. After I bought them I got a confirmation number and a phone number or email to call a contact person to set my date to pick up the tickets at Guest Relations at the park. I have never used them before so cannot attest to how well and smoothly this will go, but it did save me about $100 on tickets. Combine that with my hotelreservation on Cheaptickets and its about $250 savings.

 

[Joey04]

What is SMSM?

I have now spent the better part of today looking for decent rates for hotels (pref RPR) and tickets (pref 4-day park to park), and can't find any better anywhere than what is offered on the UO website!!! (2 years ago their website was the most expensive!)

CHEAPIE20 is telling me it is giving me a 20% discount, but the end rate is the exact same as the UO website after the discount it tells me it is giving me!

And Undercover Tourist.... Which used to be my bread and butter for buying tickets... Is actually quoting a higher rate ($222.45) for 4-day Park-to-Park than what I could get through the UO's website (214.99 + 6.99 TAX = 221.98)!!!

I feel like the internet is laughing at me every time I try to shop for better....

If I am doing something wrong, please let me know or PM me.

Thanks so much in advance!!!!

 

[dmunsil]

CHEAPIE20 is telling me it is giving me a 20% discount, but the end rate is the exact same as the UO website after the discount it tells me it is giving me!

CHEAPIE20 has expired. SPRING20 works (on Cheaptickets.com), though. Note that you don't see the lower price until you click on the hotel, and then it will say "PROMO CODE APPLIED" next to the price.

And Undercover Tourist.... Which used to be my bread and butter for buying tickets... Is actually quoting a higher rate ($222.45) for 4-day Park-to-Park than what I could get through the UO's website (214.99 + 6.99 TAX = 221.98)!!!

Tax on $214.99 is $13.97, making the total $228.96, which is essentially what I see on the UO site (they have it a penny more). Is there some kind of special I'm missing?

 

[Joey04]

Dmunsil, you are correct... I divided incorrectly when I did my purchase, so yes, the UO cost is 228.96 vs. UCT at 222.45... (saving about $6.51 per person)

And thanks for the updated promo code! With it applied, CheapTickets gives me a "Total Due at Booking" of $1,248.42, verses UO's "Total Cost of Stay" of $1281.93. (A savings of $33)

I was beginning to think it somehow in the last couple years it became either impossible or completely illegal to resell at lower rates than published!

How do you stay up to date on these codes?

 

[dmunsil]

And thanks for the updated promo code! With it applied, CheapTickets gives me a "Total Due at Booking" of $1,248.42, verses UO's "Total Cost of Stay" of $1281.93. (A savings of $33)

You should be saving more than that; you really should get pretty close to 20% off, not 3%. Either the room type you're looking at isn't discounted, or something. Are you traveling with children? Cheaptickets has a bug in their booking engine that charges extra for children. What dates and what resort are you looking at?

How do you stay up to date on these codes?

It's my job. My wife and I run MouseSavers.

 

[macraven]

i love mousesavers and always use the links on the 15th of the month.
you do a fine job with your company.


back to joeys question, SMSM is stay more, save more
it is a general public code that any one can use.

at this point, it has been put in the online booking system for stays 3 nights or more.
it is also a valid code that allows you to get your credits if you are a member of the YouFirst Loews program.

SMSM varies in discounts based on the number of nights you book onsite.
my discount with it is 35% for my fall booking at rpr.

minimun of a 3 night stay for the basic discount, increases at the 5 night stay and once you book 7 nights or more, it is 35% discount.

of course, the amount of the discount you are given can be reflected on the dates
with YouFirst, 5 night stays give the member credit for 2 stays on one reservation period.

my time period is october but do not know if it the longer stays in the summer are the same.
i haven't done the bogus booking on the site to know for sure.

 

[Joey04]

It's my job. My wife and I run MouseSavers.

That's awesome! I would like to say that we have been using Small World for Disney trips (after being referred by Mouse Savers!) for almost 8 years. We took our kids out of school every September. But then when DS4 became DS11 and started middle school, we decided we didn't want to take him out of middle school, and moved our annual vacation to August (arrgh, expensive!!!!), and started doing Universal/"other Orlando" for every other year. For our Disney vacations we still use Small World. But in 2013, our agent understood that we were able to do significantly better hunting on our own and piecing the package together one item at a time. But honestly, if we are only saving $50 on a $3000 vacation on our own, we will pay the extra and give our agent the business!

Thank you for coming to this forum!

You should be saving more than that; you really should get pretty close to 20% off, not 3%. Either the room type you're looking at isn't discounted, or something. Are you traveling with children? Cheaptickets has a bug in their booking engine that charges extra for children. What dates and what resort are you looking at?

Yes, we are looking at Royal Pacific (the cheapest hotel with FOTL passes), Aug 1 through Aug 5 (4 nights.) Yes, we entered DS13 and DD10. We usually declare our kids when we go to a hotel (we aren't that cheap) but I was concerned, if we don't declare our kids and got a cheaper rate, could the hotel punish us by telling them they can't have FOTL passes?

 

[Joey04]

back to joeys question, SMSM is stay more, save more
it is a general public code that any one can use.

at this point, it has been put in the online booking system for stays 3 nights or more.
it is also a valid code that allows you to get your credits if you are a member of the YouFirst Loews program.

SMSM varies in discounts based on the number of nights you book onsite.
my discount with it is 35% for my fall booking at rpr.

Well, for my dates in August, I ran it, and got the exact same $1281.83. Maybe the code doesn't work for peak season?

 

[macraven]

Well, for my dates in August, I ran it, and got the exact same $1281.83. Maybe the code doesn't work for peak season?

maybe the smsm is date related.
are you going with a 7 night booking onsite?

my stay is for 13 days onsite and ends middle of october.
last year was the same and smsm gave me the same type of discount.

i haven't booked a room during august for years.
maybe you are correct and the general code is less of a discount in the high season time.

if you don't see the smsm listed above the room choices when you go thru the UO booking site, could mean none are available or the offer isn't there.

this is listed before you select the type of room you want to book.

 

[macraven]

joey, i went to read the seasonl rates on the UO website.
it has the dates listed by season rates.

my hotel and time period is much lower than the august dates.

 

[vatmark]

That's awesome! I would like to say that we have been using Small World for Disney trips (after being referred by Mouse Savers!) for almost 8 years. We took our kids out of school every September. But then when DS4 became DS11 and started middle school, we decided we didn't want to take him out of middle school, and moved our annual vacation to August (arrgh, expensive!!!!), and started doing Universal/"other Orlando" for every other year. For our Disney vacations we still use Small World. But in 2013, our agent understood that we were able to do significantly better hunting on our own and piecing the package together one item at a time. But honestly, if we are only saving $50 on a $3000 vacation on our own, we will pay the extra and give our agent the business!

Thank you for coming to this forum!



Yes, we are looking at Royal Pacific (the cheapest hotel with FOTL passes), Aug 1 through Aug 5 (4 nights.) Yes, we entered DS13 and DD10. We usually declare our kids when we go to a hotel (we aren't that cheap) but I was concerned, if we don't declare our kids and got a cheaper rate, could the hotel punish us by telling them they can't have FOTL passes?

Try going through cheaptickets with just 2 adults. When you check into the hotel you can add the kids. Or you can call after you book to have them added. It will not effect EP. Cheaptickets has a glitch that when you enter children they are counted as adults. I went through cheaptickets and only put in for 3 adults-me, DH and my daughter who is 19. I did not add DS who will be 17 at the time of the trip because he would be counted as an adult when he is not. I will add him when we arrive.

Ann

 

[dmunsil]

Yes, we are looking at Royal Pacific (the cheapest hotel with FOTL passes), Aug 1 through Aug 5 (4 nights.) Yes, we entered DS13 and DD10. We usually declare our kids when we go to a hotel (we aren't that cheap) but I was concerned, if we don't declare our kids and got a cheaper rate, could the hotel punish us by telling them they can't have FOTL passes?

No, there's no problem with leaving the kids off the reservation and adding them on arrival. We did exactly that last summer. As long as you aren't adding extra adults or exceeding the room capacity, they really don't care whether you have as many people on arrival as you listed on the booking. They all get room keys and FOTL passes.

It's actually the same at Disney; it's just that if you don't list all the guests, you can't book FP+ at 60 days out, get your Magical Express reservations, etc. Universal doesn't have any of that, so there's no need to give them an accurate number in advance, unless changing the number of people causes an upcharge. And even then, they'd just charge you the difference when you checked in.

i love mousesavers and always use the links on the 15th of the month.
you do a fine job with your company.

Thanks!

back to joeys question, SMSM is stay more, save more

To the best of my understanding, you don't actually need to use the code any more; if you book a stay of the appropriate number of nights with no code at all, you get the SMSM rates. And the same rates are used as the base rates on Orbitz/Cheaptickets.

Don