AAA advantages over booking with Disney

[mikewdw]

what are advantages/disadvantages booking with AAA as opposed to going through Disney? any perks worth the $ time to join. trying to help friends plan first trip and they have mentioned this.
thanks,
mikedw

 

[RunningGirl]

We've done it both ways. Really the only perk I saw was the diamond parking, where you get to park right behind the handicapped section. That was really nice, I have to say! I wasn't all that impressed with our AAA agent, but we're pretty Disney savvy so perhaps if your friends need more help they may be useful.

 

[MHSweb79]

I've done it both ways. Our latest trip was booked through AAA in order to get their resort discounts, which can be significant during the value season.
If you get a good AAA travel agent, which ours is, it can save you a lot of time. If you know your Disney stuff, it's pretty easy to book your own trip too.
I would have your friends ask around and see if anyone can recommend their AAA travel agent for planning Disney trips.
Basically the biggest perk is the AAA discount, but if they're going for free dining, they'll have to pay rack rate for the room so it would be the same price either way.

 

[KimberlyE]

We just booked through AAA and besides the parking pass you get a free story time session with a Disney character and a 5X7 photo from your Fast Pass.

The story time was recommended to me by a friend who had Snow White on her last trip. She said there was just one other family there so loads of time with the character. You choose the time and day when making your reservations.

 

[snykymom]

You can get the AAA room-only discount (no packages) through Disney directly.

However, for packages not otherwise discounted (like no free dining), you can get the AAA discount on the room portion of the package, and add tickets & dining. This can only be done through AAA.

The AAA room discount can range from 15-20%, depending on resort, room choice, and season. It can be a substantial savings.

 

[lauris87]

We just booked through AAA and besides the parking pass you get a free story time session with a Disney character and a 5X7 photo from your Fast Pass.

The story time was recommended to me by a friend who had Snow White on her last trip. She said there was just one other family there so loads of time with the character. You choose the time and day when making your reservations.

Can you tell me more about the story time session with the Disney Character. My mom booked our trip through AAA, and I don't think she knows about this. Where is it at? Do you get to choose your character?

 

[Incredimom3]

I joined AAA prior to planning our WDW trip hoping to get additional money saving benefits. I discovered that you are not able pay toward your package with Disney Visa Reward Dollars; therefore, I did not use AAA but booked through Disney. I have charged everything possible on my Disney Visa and have earned almost $300 toward my trip.

 

[PurpleSurfer]

I did not see significant savings on Disney but on airfare it was well worth it. Only one family member has to sign up for $50 and I belive it saved @$500 just on airfare. I would call a AAA agent and ask them to price a package for you before you sign up. As a side note we did need a tow later that would have been $40 and got that for free so that almost nullified the yearly fee right there.

 

[momtoBrandon&Jacob]

I do not like AAA for several reasons - please remember this is just my opinion:

1. Their hours are M-F 8:30-5:00 so if you have a question or concern you have to wait till business hours resume
2. It can take them up to 24 hrs to get back to your email
3. They're not too savvy on Disney - thankfully I am, but for those who are going for the first time with minimal research can get bad/wrong info
4. Once Disney releases a new promo - the AAA discount doesn't apply anymore and you have to wait VERY patiently for AAA to update your package with the new promo (if you so choose)

And #4 is where I had a problem. When free dining came out yesterday, my AAA agent never said a word to me so I emailed her and told her to upgrade me and change my package. When she FINALLY got back to me, the quote was WRONG! It was actually $200 more than the quote I got from Disney. Well, it turns out she put in the other code (room only?) and tried to pass it off to me as free dining code. Once I brought it to her attention, she said that disney was having systems problems and she would have to cancel my current ressie and refund my deposit, and rebook again and blah blah blah... So I ended up cancelling my AAA ressie altogether - after she gave me some cokamamie story (don't feel like getting into it here), and rebooked with my prior TA and all worked out great! I ended up saving over $700 with FD.

So moral of the story - make sure you do your own research and double check all the info your TA gives you. All's well that ends well

 

[WriteDisney]

Alot of the other posters have said most of hte benefits.. we got a better deal through disney last year (a bounceback offer that we got at POFQ last september for free base tickets and dining this september).. usually the room only discounts through AAA are from 10-20 percent depending on what season you're booking in.. but the bounceback was better.. we still have AAA handling our reservation though.. they just coordinate things for us... our agent booked our ADRs and then emailed me the confirmation numbers and stuff to us.. she also made sure our magical express was coordinate with our airlines.. just little stuff.. but its nice to have someone there if something goes wrong..

AAA is great with road side assistance too.. I agree with what someone said about asking around for a good agent.. we had 2 awesome ones (first and current).. our second was not so good but we switched offices and haven't had any issues.. we're definitely going to book our trips for 2010 with AAA...

I know someone mentioned Disney Visa.. you might not be able to use the reward dollars towards your reservation but you can still charge your package to your Visa with AAA to accrue Disney Reward Dollars.. thats exactly what we did.. AAA has our card on file and I had them charge it and now were really doing great in terms of disney dollars for 2010 :

 

[WriteDisney]

I do not like AAA for several reasons - please remember this is just my opinion:

1. Their hours are M-F 8:30-5:00 so if you have a question or concern you have to wait till business hours resume
2. It can take them up to 24 hrs to get back to your email
3. They're not too savvy on Disney - thankfully I am, but for those who are going for the first time with minimal research can get bad/wrong info
4. Once Disney releases a new promo - the AAA discount doesn't apply anymore and you have to wait VERY patiently for AAA to update your package with the new promo (if you so choose)

1- Each office seems to have different hours.. ours has is open 9:30-5:30 Monday-Saturday.. both the offices near us have Saturday hours
2- Like I said in my other post.. our second AAA agent we booked through was not very good.. but our current is excellent.. we email her frequently and she replies within the next few hours...
3- I think there pretty savy about Disney.. our AAA agent did reccommend allears.net.. I'm a disney fanatic so I do think I know a bit more about it then they do.. no big deal.. she's mostly there to coordinate our package, magical express, flight, room requests, etc... and if we have a problem we can call there office abou tit
4- I'm not sure what you mean.. but AAA is offering a package too during September.. but since the DIsney one we were offered was better they kept the Disney package.. they just want us to get the best deal.. if you mean it took them forever to upgrade you to the better deal.. it sounds like you might be dealing with a bad branch.. ours has made changes to our package very quickly.. we actually just email our agent and she makes the changes and we get the invoice within the next few days in the mail..

every office is different.. I'd head to another one in your area.. ours is a bit further our but totally worth it quite a few Disney fans in the office too which I love

 

[momtoBrandon&Jacob]

1- Each office seems to have different hours.. ours has is open 9:30-5:30 Monday-Saturday.. both the offices near us have Saturday hours
2- Like I said in my other post.. our second AAA agent we booked through was not very good.. but our current is excellent.. we email her frequently and she replies within the next few hours...
3- I think there pretty savy about Disney.. our AAA agent did reccommend allears.net.. I'm a disney fanatic so I do think I know a bit more about it then they do.. no big deal.. she's mostly there to coordinate our package, magical express, flight, room requests, etc... and if we have a problem we can call there office abou tit
4- I'm not sure what you mean.. but AAA is offering a package too during September.. but since the DIsney one we were offered was better they kept the Disney package.. they just want us to get the best deal.. if you mean it took them forever to upgrade you to the better deal.. it sounds like you might be dealing with a bad branch.. ours has made changes to our package very quickly.. we actually just email our agent and she makes the changes and we get the invoice within the next few days in the mail..

every office is different.. I'd head to another one in your area.. ours is a bit further our but totally worth it quite a few Disney fans in the office too which I love

What I meant with #4 is that she quoted me the wrong price for free dining and had I not done my research I would've never known. I'm referring to the FD promo that just came out yesterday for October. It's all good now since I'm using small world vacations. They are great! But you're correct that every branch and agent is different. I was only using them because I got a nice discount off of Disney's price to begin with, but once the FD promo came out, it got all weird.

 

[Surr]

AAA service depends a lot on the office you call, and the agent that helps you. My AAA TA is very friendly, but is not as knowledgeable as I would like her to be. Also, she has made mistakes on my res before. We let her make dining reservation once. The reservations she sent us did not match what Disney said we had. We found this out the hard way. We showed up for breakfast at CRT, and found our reservation was for the prior day. Luckily I had the email confirmation, and they worked us in. While there I had them verify the remainder of our reservations. We actually had a dinner booked at Chef Mickey's that we had not asked for.

In response to the question about the AAA Storytime. It is located in the Town Square Expositon Hall in the theater. When we went FGM led the story time, followed my a meet and greet time. Certainly worth doing if you are traveling with young children. Once you receive you package you should call and make a reservation as it does book up. We were unable to go on our last trip for this reason.

The only other benefit I can recall is the AAA discount card. It gives you discounts at certain location in the parks and around Orlando. This card is in addition to any discounts you may get just for being a member of AAA.

There are other discounts in the package from AAA, but I think they are standard of all Magic Your Way packages (Free 5x7, Planet Hollywood, mini golf, etc).

 

[JackTwo]

There are several advantages of joining AAA.

Roadside assistance/towing (we have all had a dead battery at some point in time), discounts on admittance to various theme parks and attractions throughout the U.S. and free maps and trip guides to cities/states.

With respect to WDW, you get discounted rooms and are able to book some rooms that you might not be able to book directly through Disney. For example, when we tried to book at room at CSR, Disney told us the days we wanted were booked. When we tried to book through AAA, however, they told us there was availability and we got a good rate.

 

[francie57]

We have used our AAA agent for years now and have never had any trouble. We are going in Aug. and have a 2 bedroom at the BWV, hopper tickets and the dining plan. As soon as the Free Dining came out for Aug. I called and asked about changing our package. Our agent called back within and hour and we actually save more by keeping our original package since with the free dining we would have to pay full price for the 2 bedroom.

Our AAA offices are open Mon. thru Sat. and I have never had a problem getting hold of someone if necessary. We use the parking pass at AK. You also get a discount on mini-golf, any of the tours, and a discount at the big Disney store at DTD.

Our piece of mind with AAA is having the roadside assistance since we have two that are away in college and knowing they can just call AAA if they need it is a big relief.

 

[danalea10]

I joined AAA prior to planning our WDW trip hoping to get additional money saving benefits. I discovered that you are not able pay toward your package with Disney Visa Reward Dollars; therefore, I did not use AAA but booked through Disney. I have charged everything possible on my Disney Visa and have earned almost $300 toward my trip.

We had no problems using our Disney Visa Rewards Dollars with our AAA agent. When we met with her the first time, we told her we had over $1000 in rewards and if we couldn't use them with AAA, we would not be booking with them.

Our agent even called us the day the 4/3 deal was announced to let us know our trip fell within the dates so she was going to update our reservation to reflect the offer instead of using our AAA rate.

 

[MartDM]

I have AAA for a number of reasons, but related to Disney the discounts are signficant and worth the price of membership in my opinion. For example, in researching our upcoming trip, I found that I could book the same Beach Club Villa that Disney quoted me at 3,619.10 for $3,011.66...$600 savings vs. the $80 membership fee is a total no-brainer.

We have our membership for the automobile related services alone. We gladly renew our membership each year so we have them on call for car related emergencies (which seem to happen at least once a year despite having two "young" vehicles). No greater sight than that AAA tow truck when you're off the road during our very snowy winters

The Disney & other hotel/rental car discounts are a simply a bonus for us. Plus it's nice to just have their tourbooks and maps delivered to us at home whenever we are planning a trip somewhere.

In addition, I find great local discounts using them as well, which is something you may wish to consider (they offer 10% off at many local businesses and sometimes more...I saved over $200 on my new eyeglasses with the 30% discount they offer at Lenscrafters).

All in all, even though I've never had their travel agents plan or book a trip for me, we definitely get our money's worth through their discounts, travel supplies, and car services.

 

[catne]

Used to be I'd say book through AAA...however, they now charge a booking fee, and also a change fee every time you change your reservation (not just when it's less than 45 days like Disney does.) We were charged by AAA even when we did an upgrade...Disney has always waived the change fee for upgrades, even when I upgraded less than 15 days before arrival. AAA is now getting $10 a pop for the initial booking & for every change.

I do not like not having the access to my booking...can't check the AAA bookings online at Disney. Yes, our AAA office is open on Saturday morning, but Disney's reservation people are available 7 days a week for 14 hours a day.

The only advantage for us is the AAA Diamond parking...but not sure it's worth $10-30 (which is what we have paid with fees on the AAA bookings we've had in the last 18 months.) The story time...no little kids so no advantage to us. The picture redemption deal seems like too much of a hassle -- we do plenty of our own, just as good.

All that other stuff, including the mini-golf discount, Planet HOllywood coupons, etc. comes in all packets from Disneyworld, whether or not you book through AAA.

 

[gr8nurs1271]

We booked our December trip with AAA. Our office is open until 7 at night and they have Disney experts there everyday.

That being said, we got airfare, nonstop, round trip for two adults, two 17 year olds and a 6 year old for $800.

That's all I have to say.

Colleen

 

[francie57]

catne - I think I would question why you are charged a fee for changes. I have changed our AAA several times - specifically this trip we had to change the number of people going which affected our room, tickets, ddp, etc. We were never charged anything. I even asked my AAA agent if there would be a charge and she said there never is. It may be each state or agents doing. We are in CT and have, in all our years of booking with AAA been charged for a change.