New Summer deal vs. the BounceBack offer we booked - savings comparisons

[oceanmarina]

Hi all,

This past August we booked our first bounceback offer (We stay at Disney every August in a 1 bedroom villa and we always go with the deluxe dining plan since there's a few 2 point dinners we do every trip. I usually wait and wait till the summer deal comes out to book but this summer I decided to go with the Bounceback offer). I always wondered which was a better deal, so here is what we saved:

~ Bounceback deal we received - free dining (we wanted the deluxe dining so I had to pay over 1,000. to upgrade to the deluxe dining) So for 2 adults and 2 kids (ages 10 & 7) for a 6 night stay at 1 bedroom villa at wilderness lodge with deluxe dining and park hopper passes for August 20 - 26 , we paid 5977.00

We compared the recently released summer deal, I went to Disney online & priced the exact same stay / nights/ 1 bedroom villa at wilderness lodge - it came out to 6556.96

So for us the bounceback offer of free dining saved us $579.62 when compared to the 20% off we would have been given for the current summer deal.

So here are my takeways:

PROS

What was nice that I also saved over a thousand dollars by booking my summer airfare the day it was released on jetblue. Since I booked the bounceback, I had my travel dates and did not have to wait & wait for the summer deal to be released and then book my airfare. The same exact flights I booked in November are over 1,000 more if I were to book it today.

CONS

You are limited to the dates of the bounceback offer. The offer did not start till August 20th, the deal was not for the entire summer. You have a limited period of time that the deal was good for.

Now we could have also booked our airfare early and just hoped a summer deal would be out at Disney for those dates, but I personally would be a little nervous about that since its a hefty charge to change your airfare dates once booked. I wonder what everyone else's thoughts about this is.

Anyway, here are my thoughts on which offer was better. We would never stay at WDW without a deal, so we would go with whichever deal was better for us.

~ Marina

 

[MsThumper]

I also found there are pros and cons. We booked a bounce back for Nov 2015 this past December. We got 35% off of a water view at BWI. Even though it's a great deal percentage wise, they only offered the water view and the standard view/club level. We would have been quite happy with the standard view, but that was not offered for the bounceback. The pro is that, unless I want to, I don't have to spend hours online waiting for the fall discounts to come out, because like OP said, we don't go without a discount, so we know we have a room. Since we are also eligible for AP and Florida Resident discounts, I will still be looking for a better deal. If I find something, I will cancel the bounceback.

Last year when I was looking to book our December 2014 for BWI the best I could get was 20% off a standard room at BWI, so you just never know. It worked out great though, when we arrived they had upgraded us to a 2 bedroom suite.