7 for 4 Can Be Good Deal for APs!

[rt2dz]

Do they give you the value of a one day pass at the time you received it or what they are running when you get the upgrade to AP? Also, can I upgrade the 1 day to an AP voucher or will I have to wait until the next time we are ready to use an AP to purchase/upgrade? How much do AP's go up in price per year approximately? Are the Planet Hollywood food vouchers good lunch and dinner and can you make ressies there?

If you do not use the ticket first, you get the amount that was paid for the ticket from Disney. So, if you buy from a discount broker, you only get what the discount broker paid for the ticket. If you use the ticket, you get current gate value of the ticket when you upgrade/first used the ticket (there is a possibility that a ticket price increase will occur over certain people's trips). You only have 14 days from first use to upgrade the ticket.

Ticket price history can be found HERE

The parks sell activated APs generally. I do believe you can ask for a voucher at guest relations though. I'm not sure if they'll let you upgrade to a voucher. I would assume that it must be an activated pass, but you can always ask. The worst they would say is no. On second thought, go to the Theme park board and ask there. Cheshire Figment is very active over there and is a CM in guest relations. Cheshire Figment would know and answer you.

No ressies for Planet Hollywood, I believe. Someone will correct me if I am wrong. I *think* it's good for both lunch and dinner. Again, someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[rt2dz]

On another site they told me I can't book the offer and purchase only a 1 day ticket, then use that toward my DVC AP, because it is only good when booking a non discounted room and ticket package. I would be booking a non discounted room and ticket package, just using the 1 day ticket toward an upgrade of DVC AP, would that work??? and since I would be going during my birthday, could I also use that toward my DVC AP? And the $200 gift card?

Also, I was looking at the Poly, and even if a 40% off discount comes out, I think this is a better deal. For my dates, rack rate was $3800+, with 40% off it would be $2300, with no ticket included. This offer with a 1 day ticket is $2344 (for 2 adults), plus you get a $200 gift card when traveling my dates. I don't think I'll find a better deal for the Poly, does anyone here think I could?

Also, if I cancel more thatn 46 days out, will I get the full $200 refund back?

I’ll try to answer some of these.

You may book the offer with a 1 day ticket (I think people have better luck online than via phone). I do think you can upgrade that to your DVC AP, not sure though since I am not a DVC owner. You don’t even have to stay onsite to purchase the DVC AP. Maybe I’m misunderstanding your question. Just take it to guest relations or where ever you purchase DVC APs with your proof that you are a DVC owner and upgrade. All the same rules should apply. But, again, go to the theme park planning board and ask there. A very knowledgeable, active CM in guest relations is there (Cheshire Figment) and can tell you without any doubt.

The free birthday tickets are promo tickets and promo tickets are not upgradable. But those who have tickets already, have other options than a free ticket—a $75 gift card to be used in the parks that day or a special fast pass for multiple rides for you and up to 5 other people in your party. There may be more. They have me at the gift card.

You may use the $200 gift card towards an upgraded pass once onsite. You may not use the $200 GC for payment of this package.

Up to 45 days out, you will get the $200 deposit back for cancellations. I think you get up to $100 back up to 6 days prior to arrival if cancelling. You lose $200 if you cancel 5 days or less.

 

[Reese]

We had booked the ap discount room with QSDP and when I found out about this I priced it out online. It turned out to be $300 more but I end up with a $400 credit (we have two rooms) and a one day base ticket to use later. The only problem is when I phoned to book it would't let them book only one ticket so I told him I was able to book it online with only a one day base ticket. After that he was able to book one day base tickets but he wasn't able to change the ages of my kids (we have a Sept trip booked) so we have one upgraded to an adult and one upgraded to a child. So it is a $600 difference right now but he said to phone back and change the kids ages since it wouldn't let him.

 

[melissac]

Heck yeah, but use it first. Then you will have the full current gate price of a 7 day ticket applied to your AP v. the cost of a 4 day ticket--create your own discount on the AP!

I would totally do that if I needed new APs but our current APs will get us through 2009 and then I'm sitting on other tickets that need upgrading. I'm still considering it, although I booked with 1 day base tickets, but DH is getting sick and tired of me borrowing from one vacation budget for the next. Screws with his budgeting process (always living off what was earned in the month/year prior). But by the time I'd use them it would be 2011, giving me even a bigger deal/discount on APs.

My AP expires in Dec. and we are not going until Jan. Will I have to buy a new AP or do you have time after it expires to renew? Second question how do you upgrade to an AP. For example we purchased the 8 day park hoppers for this trip(including 3 free days). Do I use it for a day or the whole time then take it to the ticket counter and ask to turn it in for a AP? Can I still use my DVC discount? Sorry so many question but I'm confused on how to upgrade to an AP.

 

[snyderla]

I’ll try to answer some of these.

You may book the offer with a 1 day ticket (I think people have better luck online than via phone). I do think you can upgrade that to your DVC AP, not sure though since I am not a DVC owner. You don’t even have to stay onsite to purchase the DVC AP. Maybe I’m misunderstanding your question. Just take it to guest relations or where ever you purchase DVC APs with your proof that you are a DVC owner and upgrade. All the same rules should apply. But, again, go to the theme park planning board and ask there. A very knowledgeable, active CM in guest relations is there (Cheshire Figment) and can tell you without any doubt.

The free birthday tickets are promo tickets and promo tickets are not upgradable. But those who have tickets already, have other options than a free ticket—a $75 gift card to be used in the parks that day or a special fast pass for multiple rides for you and up to 5 other people in your party. There may be more. They have me at the gift card.

You may use the $200 gift card towards an upgraded pass once onsite. You may not use the $200 GC for payment of this package.

Up to 45 days out, you will get the $200 deposit back for cancellations. I think you get up to $100 back up to 6 days prior to arrival if cancelling. You lose $200 if you cancel 5 days or less.

Thank you very much for helping me sort this out!

 

[rt2dz]

My AP expires in Dec. and we are not going until Jan. Will I have to buy a new AP or do you have time after it expires to renew? Second question how do you upgrade to an AP. For example we purchased the 8 day park hoppers for this trip(including 3 free days). Do I use it for a day or the whole time then take it to the ticket counter and ask to turn it in for a AP? Can I still use my DVC discount? Sorry so many question but I'm confused on how to upgrade to an AP.

Your AP renewal window is 30 days before expiration to 30 days after expiration. When you renew an AP, you are basically getting one month free—12 months for the price of 11. Therefore, if your trip will be more than 30 days after your pass renewal, it makes more sense financially to simply purchase a new AP and extend your expiration date. Your daily cost will be less. And it gives you more time to get in another trip on that AP. You do not need to renew in person if you will not be applying another pass to the upgrade/renewal.

When you are upgrading to an AP and have a ticket that you purchased for less than current gate value (or any ticket purchased from a broker), use the ticket first. This brings your ticket up to current gate value. Remember, you must do the upgrade within 14 days of first use or you can’t upgrade it. You may still upgrade a ticket that has been fully used as long as it is within 14 days. Use it once, or use it until there is nothing left. I recommend upgrading sooner rather than later so you get all the AP perks during your stay.

After use, walk over to guest relations (upgrades must take place at park guest relations; they cannot be done at the hotels) and tell them you want to upgrade to an AP, including a DVC AP. Do know what current gate value is and what the difference between that and the AP you are upgrading to (regular, PAP, FL resident, DVC) is. Make sure the CM at guest relations bridges the price to an intermediate ticket before finalizing the upgrade. Otherwise it is time consuming to have it fixed at a later date. Trust me, I know.

 

[yooperfan]

Your AP renewal window is 30 days before expiration to 30 days after expiration. When you renew an AP, you are basically getting one month free—12 months for the price of 11. Therefore, if your trip will be more than 30 days after your pass renewal, it makes more sense financially to simply purchase a new AP and extend your expiration date. Your daily cost will be less. And it gives you more time to get in another trip on that AP. You do not need to renew in person if you will not be applying another pass to the upgrade/renewal.

When you are upgrading to an AP and have a ticket that you purchased for less than current gate value (or any ticket purchased from a broker), use the ticket first. This brings your ticket up to current gate value. Remember, you must do the upgrade within 14 days of first use or you can’t upgrade it. You may still upgrade a ticket that has been fully used as long as it is within 14 days. Use it once, or use it until there is nothing left. I recommend upgrading sooner rather than later so you get all the AP perks during your stay.

After use, walk over to guest relations (upgrades must take place at park guest relations; they cannot be done at the hotels) and tell them you want to upgrade to an AP, including a DVC AP. Do know what current gate value is and what the difference between that and the AP you are upgrading to (regular, PAP, FL resident, DVC) is. Make sure the CM at guest relations bridges the price to an intermediate ticket before finalizing the upgrade. Otherwise it is time consuming to have it fixed at a later date. Trust me, I know.

How do you upgrade a ticket that is fully used? Doesn't it then have nothing left of it?

 

[rt2dz]

How do you upgrade a ticket that is fully used? Doesn't it then have nothing left of it?

It's fully used, but it's not dead until 14 days after first use. A ticket does not have to have any days on it to be dead, or upgradeable.

Disney isn't dumb. I'm guessing through research they have discovered the average traveler stays 5 days in the park. That is why after 5 days, extra days become cheap. If a traveler goes 5 days and realizes they missed something and want to go back, they aren't likely to buy another $75 ticket, but they will spend another $3. For that $3 they are much more likely to drop another $100-$200 in the park on food and merchandise. It's to their advantage to have you in the park longer. Disney doesn't profit a whole lot (or rather lose by giving extended days away) by the resorts/park entrance. The money maker is the food and merchandise.

 

[snyderla]

I thought you could only upgrade unused ticket days. I'm glad to get my info corrected. So, if I only get a 1 day ticket with my 7 for 4 nights, I need to go to a park with that 1 day ticket before I use it to upgrade? I want to get the most for my $$.

 

[Miffy]

Well, to make this thread even more complex, here's my scenario:

DH and I are going to AKL on January 20th for 7 nights. I have an AP. DH has no park admission ticket.

With AP discount, the room is $1645 and DH's PH will cost approx. $282 using a ticket broker. Total = $1927.

With the 7/4 offer, the package is $1641 including 1-day PHs. If we can use the $200 GC to upgrade DH's 1-day PH to an 8-day PH, we'll get credit for the 1-day price ($125) and the remaining $156 to upgrade to an 8-day hopper can be paid for with the $200 GC. Yes?

If the $200 GC can definitely be used to upgrade the ticket, this deal would absolutely be worth it for us, since the room + PH would cost only $1640 instead of $1927.

My other question is: Can the GC be used to pay for food? We are not souvenir-buyers, and there'd be $44 left on the GC after upgrading.

Thanks so much if you can answer these questions. I didn't calculate this correctly the day the offer came out and I didn't realize we could use the GC to pay for the ticket upgrade. If this is true, I want to re-book for this offer now, since it'll save us nearly $300.

Thanks so much for all insights and info.

 

[rt2dz]

I thought you could only upgrade unused ticket days. I'm glad to get my info corrected. So, if I only get a 1 day ticket with my 7 for 4 nights, I need to go to a park with that 1 day ticket before I use it to upgrade? I want to get the most for my $$.

Use your tickets at least once before doing the upgrade to get full gate value. If you are going to upgrade anything beyond a 7 day ticket (i.e., AP), then buy the 7 day ticket so you will get credit for the free days. Hey, $9 is $9, especially if you have several to upgrade.

 

[rt2dz]

Well, to make this thread even more complex, here's my scenario:

DH and I are going to AKL on January 20th for 7 nights. I have an AP. DH has no park admission ticket.

With AP discount, the room is $1645 and DH's PH will cost approx. $282 using a ticket broker. Total = $1927.

With the 7/4 offer, the package is $1641 including 1-day PHs. If we can use the $200 GC to upgrade DH's 1-day PH to an 8-day PH, we'll get credit for the 1-day price ($125) and the remaining $156 to upgrade to an 8-day hopper can be paid for with the $200 GC. Yes?

If the $200 GC can definitely be used to upgrade the ticket, this deal would absolutely be worth it for us, since the room + PH would cost only $1640 instead of $1927.

My other question is: Can the GC be used to pay for food? We are not souvenir-buyers, and there'd be $44 left on the GC after upgrading.

Thanks so much if you can answer these questions. I didn't calculate this correctly the day the offer came out and I didn't realize we could use the GC to pay for the ticket upgrade. If this is true, I want to re-book for this offer now, since it'll save us nearly $300.

Thanks so much for all insights and info.

I'm not paying too much attention to the GC since we don't qualify, but I do believe you can do anything with the gift card except pay for the 4/3 package.

 

[Miffy]

rt2dz:

Thanks so much for responding. Maybe you can answer another couple of questions. I've been driving myself nutty all afternoon!

1) If I book the 7/4 and get 1-Day PHs, the base value of these PHs is $125 + tax. Yes? The price that keeps being mentioned here is $75 + tax (I'm pretty sure that's what the $78.xx amount represents). If I'm going to save one of these tickets to use for a later trip and upgrade the other one to an 8-day PH, should I purchase PHs on the 7/4 package or should I just purchase base tickets? I am so confused! Or possibly there's no real difference?

2) Am I correct that when I check in to the hotel, the park admission media will be on our room keys? I saw somewhere else that you should go to the concierge to get these separated, but if you're not staying concierge, aren't you stuck with Guest Relations doing this? And is this going to take like forever? Because even though I think this package is going to save us $300, if it's also going to cost us 2 or 3 hours of our vacation time in waiting, explaining, having things go wrong, etc., then I'd just as soon stick with the AP discount!

Ack! My brain is spinning!

And thank you to whoever can answer these questions, which surely have already been asked 300 times in the last 3 days, but, even wading through various threads, I haven't been able to find the answers.

 

[RachelTori]

Miffy, I can help you with one thing. The "Concierge" being referred to is the one that's in the lobby, available to anyone. In most of the WDW resorts, it's right next to the Front Desk Check-In/Out. (That's one reason Disney has been trying to get us to refer to the booking category as "Club Level" -- "Concierge" causes too much confusion! )

 

[Miffy]

RachelTori,

Thanks a mil. I didn't know that!

Meanwhile, I realized that, even without factoring in the $200 GC or anything that I'd missed or didn't know about, booking the 7/4 package saved us a minimum of $111, so it was well worth doing...and I just got off the phone with CRO!

The details:

7 nights at AKL, SV with 1-day base tickets, check-in January 20th: $1534.48

The instant $111 we saved? Our AP reservation for the same dates, same room, totalled $1645.91

Amazing!

That doesn't even count the $200 GC, which we'll use to upgrade DH's 1-day ticket to an 8-day PH. Doing the very quick math, the upgrade should cost about $210. So instead of having to buy a $281 PH, we'll be getting it for $10! Total savings, approximately $380.

Thank you so much to everyone on this thread. Without you I wouldn't have known that this was possible.

 

[melissac]

Ok just so I have this straight please someone tell me if this is right or wrong. We have the 7 for 4 deal and with that we did the 8 day park hopper pass(normal price is about $281). What I'm understanding is that I can use it for 8 days then on the 8th day I can take it to the ticket window and upgrade to an DVC AP(about $381). Basically, leaving me to pay about $100 to upgrade. Is this what I'm hearing? Do you think Disney will be letting people use the whole 7 days or only the ones you paid for(5 days for us)? Because the room key is your tickets they can upgrade from the room key right? Thanks for the help. We are going again in Oct. for 10days and this would save us a lot.

 

[mickeymotto]

OK, here goes.....

I planned to stay 11 days at the end of June, from June 20th to July 1st.

What if I book the 4 day/3 day free promo pkg. for the first 7 days. Then another 4 day room only reservation to make for the 11 days I originally planned. Then if an AP discount comes out later, I can apply the discount to the separate 4 day booking. I can always upgrade the tickets from the first pkg to a 10 ticket and add dining if need be.....right?!

Doesn't that seem to work out better? I mean, you really only get the most bang for the buck with the current promo for a 7 day stay.

 

[TJA]

OK, here goes.....

I planned to stay 11 days at the end of June, from June 20th to July 1st.

What if I book the 4 day/3 day free promo pkg. for the first 7 days. Then another 4 day room only reservation to make for the 11 days I originally planned. Then if an AP discount comes out later, I can apply the discount to the separate 4 day booking. I can always upgrade the tickets from the first pkg to a 10 ticket and add dining if need be.....right?!

Doesn't that seem to work out better? I mean, you really only get the most bang for the buck with the current promo for a 7 day stay.

This is exactly what we're doing. I booked the 7 night deal and then a separate ressie with room only that I'm hoping to apply an AP discount to. In the meantime, I do have the 2nd part of my trip as a AAA discount room only. I figured along the same lines as you -- no sense in adding more than the 7 days when perhaps I can get a room discount on the additional days rather than pay rack rate with this current deal. Maybe someone else can shed some light on this....?

 

[tofubeast]

Stupid question, we are thinking of becoming FL AP holders. If an AP rate comes along for end of April (we currently booked the 4/3 deal package) do we have to CANCEL our ressie or do we just modify it with the new code? I am just not sure how it works with packages vs. room only ressies. Thanks!

 

[rt2dz]

rt2dz:

Thanks so much for responding. Maybe you can answer another couple of questions. I've been driving myself nutty all afternoon!

1) If I book the 7/4 and get 1-Day PHs, the base value of these PHs is $125 + tax. Yes? The price that keeps being mentioned here is $75 + tax (I'm pretty sure that's what the $78.xx amount represents). If I'm going to save one of these tickets to use for a later trip and upgrade the other one to an 8-day PH, should I purchase PHs on the 7/4 package or should I just purchase base tickets? I am so confused! Or possibly there's no real difference?

2) Am I correct that when I check in to the hotel, the park admission media will be on our room keys? I saw somewhere else that you should go to the concierge to get these separated, but if you're not staying concierge, aren't you stuck with Guest Relations doing this? And is this going to take like forever? Because even though I think this package is going to save us $300, if it's also going to cost us 2 or 3 hours of our vacation time in waiting, explaining, having things go wrong, etc., then I'd just as soon stick with the AP discount!

Ack! My brain is spinning!

And thank you to whoever can answer these questions, which surely have already been asked 300 times in the last 3 days, but, even wading through various threads, I haven't been able to find the answers.

1. If you know you will use at least 7 days and don’t mind paying out in advance, it’s best to get the 7 day ticket because 3 of those days will be credited to you to be free. I’m not doing it because (a) I’m already sitting on other tickets—a total of 6 and this would make 11. Plus, (b) I have to borrow from this year’s budget for the next trip which really wouldn’t be used for 3-4 years and I prefer a lower bottom line.

2. Yes, it will be on your resort keys. Easy enough to remove them. You don’t have to though if you aren’t upgrading them on this trip. Just have resort concierge do it—it’s a desk right next to or near the check-in desk usually. Concierge is a planning service for all guests, not club level. Club level people do have a private concierge service, to my understanding, but the concierge I am referring to use the general concierge desk. The ones that will help you make ADRs and such. How long it takes will depend on lines, but once you reach the front, it shouldn’t take but a few minutes. Resort concierge is experienced and will do it quickly.