Check my thinking on the Annual Pass

[SuperRob]

My wife and I are going on a seven night trip to WDW in September, and a seven night cruise in April 2015. We were going to get a five-day hopper this year, and no parks next year. But I realized that I could add a Sun-Thurs land portion at Animal Kingdom if I borrowed some points.

Suddenly, the idea of getting an annual pass looks attractive, but we're not ready to commit. (Namely, we'd have to sacrifice our "second honeymoon" trip in 2016 to do it, so we're still on the fence). That said, we'd be spending the money on airfare to get down there anyway, might as well maximize that expenditure.

My understanding is that I could get us five-day hoppers now, use a day when we get to WDW, and upgrade them to the annual pass afterwards. That way, we get full-credit for the tickets towards the pass, rather than the discounted price. My research says we can get the DVC price on the pass at the gate, so I think this plan is doable.

Anything I'm missing? We'd like to not have to make the decision just yet, since available vacation time may come into play as well. Being able to figure that out in a few months might help, but we do want to get our five day hoppers soon since there's still some free day promotions going around.

 

[vicki_c]

Sounds correct. If you have separately purchased tickets, make sure you do the upgrade no later than that 5th ticket day. They won't let you upgrade after using all the days unless you have tickets from Disney in a package.

Also, if by chance those tickets were purchased direct from Disney (like at a ticket window), they will only credit you the price you paid. In other words, if there was a price increase between when you purchased and your upgrade day, you wouldn't get credit for the new price. If you purchased from a 3rd party reseller, you would get credit for gate price on the day of the upgrade, provided you had used the tickets at least once.

Your AP will have a start date that will be the date you first used the 5 day ticket.

 

[SuperRob]

Excellent, thanks, Vicki!

 

[gncntry]

You may want to read this information: http://allears.net/pl/ticket.htm#credpass


Last week, we became aware of an apparent unannounced change in Disney's policy regarding tickets that were purchased from non-Disney sources. Several guests reported that when they attempted to add a day to a Magic Your Way ticket purchased from a non-Disney source, they were refused and told that they would have to spend more than $100 for a single-day ticket. Several tried at both their resort concierge and at a guest relations window and were told the same thing.
We called the Disney Ticketing office and and spoke to a supervisor. We were told that commencing with last week's price increase "third-party tickets can no longer be upgraded to passes at a pro-rated rate, have days added, or have options added at a discount." A different call to a second Disney source confirmed this, but added that this does not affect AAA.
On the basis of all that, we changed our ticket FAQ to reflect what we believed to be the new policy. We expect that we will learn of policy refinements as time passes, and will keep watching the situation and listening to our readers' comments about any problems or successes they have had in this area. - March 3, 2014
Update March 5, 2014: This apparent policy change affects tickets bought from third-party sellers by guests who may be hoping to avoid an increase in gate ticket prices. The change requires you to pay the difference between the old ticket and the new ticket first, before any upgrade. We have no information yet on how Disney will separate those ticket purchases from ones that were made prior to the latest increase or how many previous price increases may be affected.

 

[bumbershoot]

The allears stuff has been talked about a LOT on the themeparks page, and there are plenty of other people not having that experience. They put up something totally unsubstantiated and are now backtracking (and the whole thing has reduced my trust in them hugely).


OP, if you're willing to just go for it now, have you noticed the special for DVC members who want to buy a PAP? You can buy it through April 30th. According to the website, " Passes and Passports purchased on this offer must be activated by January 31, 2015."

The price is good enough that I know that I would seriously consider more of a trip in 2015 rather than a hopeful trip in 2016.

 

[SuperRob]

OP, if you're willing to just go for it now, have you noticed the special for DVC members who want to buy a PAP? You can buy it through April 30th. According to the website, " Passes and Passports purchased on this offer must be activated by January 31, 2015."

The price is good enough that I know that I would seriously consider more of a trip in 2015 rather than a hopeful trip in 2016.

The PAP is definitely out of our price range, despite our proximity to Disneyland.

Is the DVC discount only available until the end of April? That may change things significantly for us. We were hoping to just buy a five-day now, and upgrade on-site to the AP at the DVC pricing.

 

[vicki_c]

You may want to read this information: http://allears.net/pl/ticket.htm#credpass


Last week, we became aware of an apparent unannounced change in Disney's policy regarding tickets that were purchased from non-Disney sources. Several guests reported that when they attempted to add a day to a Magic Your Way ticket purchased from a non-Disney source, they were refused and told that they would have to spend more than $100 for a single-day ticket. Several tried at both their resort concierge and at a guest relations window and were told the same thing.
We called the Disney Ticketing office and and spoke to a supervisor. We were told that commencing with last week's price increase "third-party tickets can no longer be upgraded to passes at a pro-rated rate, have days added, or have options added at a discount." A different call to a second Disney source confirmed this, but added that this does not affect AAA.
On the basis of all that, we changed our ticket FAQ to reflect what we believed to be the new policy. We expect that we will learn of policy refinements as time passes, and will keep watching the situation and listening to our readers' comments about any problems or successes they have had in this area. - March 3, 2014
Update March 5, 2014: This apparent policy change affects tickets bought from third-party sellers by guests who may be hoping to avoid an increase in gate ticket prices. The change requires you to pay the difference between the old ticket and the new ticket first, before any upgrade. We have no information yet on how Disney will separate those ticket purchases from ones that were made prior to the latest increase or how many previous price increases may be affected.

As of reports through today, this seems to be pretty much untrue. It looks like there has been no change to the bridging policies at all. If I thought this was still valid, I would have mentioned it. But it sounds like it's not. As bumbershoot was mentioning.