A couple of AP questions for a future trip.

[Tonyslady]

So to start off we are planning a 9 day Christmas 2021 trip and a 6 day summer 2022 Trip. And yes I know it's a long ways away but it is never too soon to start saving. We would typically buy military discount tickets because it saves a ton of money but for our Christmas trip we will be there during the typical blackout dates which has me considering annual passes. So here are my questions.

Being optimistic and saying they will have the DVC passes back by that point, can you buy passes with no blackout dates with the DVC discount?

If I buy park tickets through a 3rd party seller (ie undercover tourists) can I upgrade to an annual pass later?

If I purchase park tickets with the idea of upgrading, at what point do I NEED to upgrade those tickets?

Thanks for your help!

 

[NoTime42]

Assuming nothing changes from previous policy:
You can buy a DVC discounted premium or premium + (with water parks) AP without blackouts.
The DVC Gold AP is much cheaper but blacked out Christmas and Easter weeks.

It was possible to buy a discounted ticket and upgrade to any DVC AP. (Overall we usually just bought discounted Disney gift cards to buy regular tickets from Disney as it was a similar discount and the Disney tickets immediately showed up in MDE.)

You needed to upgrade those tickets before the end of the last used park day on those tickets.
It was possible to buy regular park tickets, use them for Christmas week, and after entering the last park on your last day, upgrade to the cheaper DVC gold AP.

The late AP upgrade will unlock all of your ride and photopass pictures from earlier that trip, but it means you had no AP discount(s) you could use during that trip. (A lot of DVC discounts are close)