AP's

[heynowirv]

We've never bought AP's in the past but are considering them in the future when we retire and possibly spend longer trips to WDW. With that being said has anyone heard anything about paying them off monthly as Floridian's can?

 

[teawar]

Only is you live in FLORIDA. Everyone else has to pay in full. There are a lot of tips on using discounted Disney gift cards to save a little bit of money.

 

[heynowirv]

Only is you live in FLORIDA. Everyone else has to pay in full. There are a lot of tips on using discounted Disney gift cards to save a little bit of money.

I know Target used to give you 5% off if you bought with a redcard,I'm not sure if that still applies. Where else can you get discounted gift cards?

 

[DisneyStarWisher]

We just bought out first APs. I'm retiring in 56 days! What we did (and I've posted this many times here on the boards) is we bought Disney GCs at our local Kroger after clipping a 4x fuel points e-coupon. We bought $1500 in GCs (rounding up) and received 6000 fuel points. We have filled our vehicles up several times using those fuel points getting 35 gallons each time. Our local Kroger allows us to use as many points as we want each time. Some allow only up to $1 off each time. This gave us $210 worth of free gas. I took that amount out of my gas budget to pay for the GCs. Plus I used my Bank of America credit card which gives 2% cashback on groceries, so that gave me another $30 to apply toward the cost. This is a savings of 16%. (I use our Chase Freedom card to buy GCs for my DVC annual dues when 5% cashback is offered for groceries for a savings of 19%.)

Even though I think monthly payments would be nice, I would only want them if I could pay with my discounted Disney GCs.

 

[heynowirv]

We don't have Kroger's where we are but I get it. We can also use our Southwest Visa and get those 1600 points towards flights, although when we retire me in Jan and my Wife in June of 21' we'll probably drive down to Our Happy place. we'll then have more points to fly somewhere else...

 

[MICKIMINI]

Why not start now by putting away the cash equivalent to 1/12th of the AP price or buy one Disney gift card a month and you'll have a year plus already put away by the time you retire?

 

[DisneyStarWisher]

Why not start now by putting away the cash equivalent to 1/12th of the AP price or buy one Disney gift card a month and you'll have a year plus already put away by the time you retire?

Except that APs will probably go up a lot by then. You would need to add about 10% to that monthly rate to be safe.

 

[MICKIMINI]

Poster is retiring in June 2021 which is 16 months from now so that should cover (I hope) any increase...

 

[Sandisw]

Why not start now by putting away the cash equivalent to 1/12th of the AP price or buy one Disney gift card a month and you'll have a year plus already put away by the time you retire?

I have done this Since we got our first AP...so other than year 1 when I had to buy it and then the next month put away 1/12, it is like I am paying monthly.

I am always basing it on current pricing so it’s possible to be a little short, but I adjust whenever A new price cones out

 

[heynowirv]

At this point we still have about 14or 15 park hopper visits with water parks and more from when we bought 3 pairs of no expiration tickets that we bought in 2011 ,right before they were discontinuing them. So we can start putting that money away every month now.

 

[Deb & Bill]

Put them on a Chase Disney VISA and get points to use for your trip. But pay them off as soon as you can.

 

[DaveNan]

There is an entire thread focused on discounted Disney Gift Cards on the budget board.

 

[TiggerBouncy]

I see discounted Disney gift cards at costco every now and again as well.

I have a vacation bank account which sluffs off a little from every paycheck via auto-transfers. My AP budget comes from that account (as well as airfare, and DVC maintenance fees). I usually don't bother with my food and souvenir going out of there either since they are more difficult to predict. One trip it's a few pins, the next I am eyeing a $25,000 astromech unit. (some day, R2.... Some day).