AP renewal question

[PSC]

My APs come up for renewal in February. My first 2008 trip isn't until May. I think I recall seeing some sort of break even analysis in the past, but don't remember where it was. Does it make sense to renew for February even though I can't use the AP until May, or would it make more sense to let the lower renewal price lapse, and just purchase new APs in May?

Thanks in advance

 

[brianm27]

When would the NEXT trip be? Our AP's expire January 30 but we are not renewing this time. We will buy new AP's in April 2008 so they will be good at the beginning of April 2009 for that trip.

 

[Donald is #1]

When are your upcoming trips planned? i.e. will you get another trip or two in if you wait until May to get your AP?

If you won't get any more trips in, then in my mind, you might as well renew and same a few $. However, if you can get at least 1 more tirp in, then wait until May.

My AP expired in Oct. But my '08 trips are planned for May, November & December. So for me, it definitely made more sense not to renew and just buy a new AP before my May trip. With a new AP for May, I will get at least all 3 '08 trips on the same AP.

 

[dvcdisney]

Our AP's expired in October and since our next trip isn't until March, we decided to wait until March to purchase new ones. I don't think it makes a big difference when you renew if you think you will continue to renew each year because it's just continuous.

We decided to wait and purchase it when we are there because I prefer to go to the gate and purchase it then. And I would prefer to renew the same way, while I'm there. Since we changed our vacations and we are no longer going in October, we decided to wait until the time we plan on going for our future trips.

But if you plan it correctly, you may be able to get a few extra days on the AP. We usually go twice a year and on our last AP's we were able to squeeze in another trip...our AP's anniversary date is Oct 15th, so we were able to get two weeks of October 2006, then 12 days in May and then 10 days in Sep/Oct of 2007 before it expired. So that was great.

 

[dismorgh]

Please remember that the new renewal rules state that the new AP starts the day after the old one expires. If you don't think you are going to use enough days before Feb of next year, you might want to consider waiting and just buying a new AP in May, then that one would be good until next May.

 

[tfc3rid]

If you purchase and activate before March 1, you actually will get 366 days out of our AP this year!

 

[PSC]

Sorry - I didn't give more details in my original post. I am planning 3 trips in 2008 (each one 6 days/5 nights).

I thought I remembered somebody doing an analysis that gave a break even on the number of days between one AP expiring and when your next trip was scheduled. Somehow it assigned a dollar value to each day that would be unused between the expiration and the next trip and that dollar value was compared against the discount on the price of renewing an AP. Of course I read it last year just after getting an AP and didn't really have any need to understand the analysis at the time.

I will probably let me AP expire in February and then buy a new one to activate in May. That way I could potentially take a trip or two in early 2009 before the May AP expires.