Do people book throwaway rooms to get FP at 60 + 10 days?

[VeronicaZS]

For our last trip it took me 2 days to figure out that I could have booked FP+ for all of the days of my trip that first night. For the most part I still managed to get everything I wanted at decent times. With the flurry of new openings I was wondering if FP would get more competitive to make it worthwhile to play with your reservation to take full advantage of the 60 + 10 booking window. For example, your trip is Nov 5-10 but you book your room for Nov 1-10 so that you can book your fastpasses on Sept 1 vs Sept 5. Then you change your reservation to Nov 5-10. Would this work? Is there any downside to this?
I guess technically this isn't a "throwaway" room since you are intending to use the room but for less time than the reservation.
Thoughts?

 

[mom2rtk]

Disney supposedly no longer allows you to take days off a reservation like that. You can cancel and rebook, but no changes. Not sure if they have lightened up on that, but when it came up for us a little over a year ago, we absolutely could not drop a couple days from our reservation. That was right after the change in policy though, so not sure if they have lightened up on this or not.

 

[VeronicaZS]

Disney supposedly no longer allows you to take days off a reservation like that. You can cancel and rebook, but no changes. Not sure if they have lightened up on that, but when it came up for us a little over a year ago, we absolutely could not drop a couple days from our reservation. That was right after the change in policy though, so not sure if they have lightened up on this or not.

Thanks for the clarification! I am assuming that if you cancel and rebook it doesn't affect your fastpass selections as long as you had a room only reservation. I started thinking about this in regards to ADRs, I was trying to help my Aunt book CRT and it was obvious that it was already booked solid prior to her 180 day mark. I started thinking that people must be gaming the system. Luckily I was able to snag CRT with an alert from touringplans so it all ended well.

 

[mom2rtk]

Thanks for the clarification! I am assuming that if you cancel and rebook it doesn't affect your fastpass selections as long as you had a room only reservation. I started thinking about this in regards to ADRs, I was trying to help my Aunt book CRT and it was obvious that it was already booked solid prior to her 180 day mark. I started thinking that people must be gaming the system. Luckily I was able to snag CRT with an alert from touringplans so it all ended well.

People probably are gaming the system. But a lot of people would have legitimate access before your Aunt's 180 days, simply because those days would be within their own 180+10. Some people have longer trips, so have an earlier head start.

I couldn't say with certainty if cancelling and rebooking would affect FPs. It would likely depend on whether the tickets were part of a package or freestanding, and how the rebooking took place.

 

[Shanti]

Thanks for the clarification! I am assuming that if you cancel and rebook it doesn't affect your fastpass selections as long as you had a room only reservation. I started thinking about this in regards to ADRs, I was trying to help my Aunt book CRT and it was obvious that it was already booked solid prior to her 180 day mark. I started thinking that people must be gaming the system. Luckily I was able to snag CRT with an alert from touringplans so it all ended well.

You do lose your FastPasses if you cancel before 30 days out, even if it's a room-only ressie with linked tickets. You can make changes with no problem, but an out and out cancellation loses the FPs.

 

[AntimonyER]

If you cancel and rebook within 30 days of your trip, I believe you will keep the 60+10 fps. but more than 30 days out, you will lose your fps with the cancellation. We ended up booking one night in a tent site at Ft. Wilderness for our trip even though we have a condo at WH, to get all the perks (60 day FP, EMH and free parking for two days, free magic bands). But since we almost booked at the cabins this trip anyways, we are going to use the reservation to check out the amenities at the resort, and if the weather is nice, grill out at the site that night, rather than cancelling it, even though we won't actually sleep there.

To be honest though, 60+5 should still be enough time to get the FPs you want, and if you miss a reservation at 180+5 for a meal, just use Touring Plan's free reservation finder, and have a little patience A lot easier than trying to do what you are suggesting.