Early Payment (due to Canadian Dollar) and Then Changes to Booking

[Frozen2014]

We have a trip booked for Aug 2022 (package with room + tickets) at rack rate.

DH is thinking that he'd like to pay it off due to the fact that the dollar is pretty good (or relatively compared to usual). What happens if we pay it off and then say, a room discount comes up? Or Canadian tickets? Or free dining? Or, we even decide to switch our hotel, or the room category at our hotel?

Assuming our price went down....

1. Would Disney pay us a refund of the difference for any of the above ?
2. Or would it be like a cancel and a new booking? i.e. refund of amount paid and back to $200 deposit with option of paying it off again
3. Or does it depend on what the change is (e.g. maybe different resort is a straight cancel with refund and rebook, vs room discount is a refund for the savings)
4. Or...once we pay it off, the amount is set?

Or if free dining came up, price would go up (due to upgrading to park hoppers)...

It's a long way off so am hoping for some discount
Or even if we ended up booking a late flight out on departure day, then we would add another park day....so can see our current price not being the end price. But DH wants to pay when the dollar is good. So what happens in the above cases if we paid the trip off now?

 

[tinkerone]

Why not just purchase the funds to pay it off but not pay it yet? Leave the US funds in a US bank account or purchase a 1 year GIC. Then you have the money at a good rate and you are earning a little bit of interest on it as well. No advantage to paying it off now.
Just a suggestion.

 

[SaraMc]

What about paying almost all of it off? We used to always leave like a few $ to pay when we arrived

 

[TammyLynn33]

How about Disney gift cards in US funds ? I think you can order emailed gift cards through shop Disney

 

[Average Joes]

I understand your concern about not wanting a refund. You could potentially get zinged 5% on the exchange (2.5% each exchange on a credit card). Wish I had the answer.

 

[bardays]

How about Disney gift cards in US funds ? I think you can order emailed gift cards through shop Disney

can these cards be added to the app and used for mobile orders? or do you just load to your phone and use in the parks for merchandise?

 

[Frozen2014]

Thanks for the suggestions...so I guess no one knows what happens to a booking if a discount comes along and you have already paid it off?

 

[tinkerone]

Thanks for the suggestions...so I guess no one knows what happens to a booking if a discount comes along and you have already paid it off?

Yes, you can change a booking even when paid in full. You would either get a refund, paid to where the original payment came from, or you would pay the difference if more.
Any package can be changed if a better deal comes along. You can do it yourself in your Disney Experience or call the 800 number and they will do it for you. I have found it easiest to do from My Disney Experience as your not on hold for ever.

 

[Frozen2014]

Yes, you can change a booking even when paid in full. You would either get a refund, paid to where the original payment came from, or you would pay the difference if more.
Any package can be changed if a better deal comes along. You can do it yourself in your Disney Experience or call the 800 number and they will do it for you. I have found it easiest to do from My Disney Experience as your not on hold for ever.

Great. Thanks for confirming.

 

[Benchedguy]

can these cards be added to the app and used for mobile orders? or do you just load to your phone and use in the parks for merchandise?

Not to hijack this thread but this is how we pay our yearly dues. We buy disney gift cards at Shoppers and pay online with the gift cards on our DVC contracts. If you have a Disney account you can pre load a gift card on there. We usually have a credit of a few dollars after dues are paid off. This way you save on the exchange rate with the dollar being closer now.

 

[Going to WDW]

We have a trip booked for Aug 2022 (package with room + tickets) at rack rate.

DH is thinking that he'd like to pay it off due to the fact that the dollar is pretty good (or relatively compared to usual). What happens if we pay it off and then say, a room discount comes up? Or Canadian tickets? Or free dining? Or, we even decide to switch our hotel, or the room category at our hotel?

Assuming our price went down....

1. Would Disney pay us a refund of the difference for any of the above ?
2. Or would it be like a cancel and a new booking? i.e. refund of amount paid and back to $200 deposit with option of paying it off again
3. Or does it depend on what the change is (e.g. maybe different resort is a straight cancel with refund and rebook, vs room discount is a refund for the savings)
4. Or...once we pay it off, the amount is set?

Or if free dining came up, price would go up (due to upgrading to park hoppers)...

It's a long way off so am hoping for some discount
Or even if we ended up booking a late flight out on departure day, then we would add another park day....so can see our current price not being the end price. But DH wants to pay when the dollar is good. So what happens in the above cases if we paid the trip off now?

So we've had the scenario of booking a package, paying it off, and then applying a better different discount that left us having a credit on account. In our case they left the discount on the account and we used it for purchases during the trip. (I can't remember if they asked us about a refund or not.)

The one thing that I would mention is if you are paying by credit card --- when you originally pay with a Canadian credit card the exchange rate on the refund is always worse than the exhange rate on the purchase. Plus unless you have a no forex fee cc then you will be charged the forex fee on both ends. So if you think you might need to cancel it's something to consider.

 

[Frozen2014]

So we've had the scenario of booking a package, paying it off, and then applying a better different discount that left us having a credit on account. In our case they left the discount on the account and we used it for purchases during the trip. (I can't remember if they asked us about a refund or not.)

The one thing that I would mention is if you are paying by credit card --- when you originally pay with a Canadian credit card the exchange rate on the refund is always worse than the exhange rate on the purchase. Plus unless you have a no forex fee cc then you will be charged the forex fee on both ends. So if you think you might need to cancel it's something to consider.

Thanks so much for sharing your experience and letting me know how they handled it. Since our trip is 15 months out, I wouldn't be surprised if it changes between now and then (only if a end of summer discount comes up - or it changes slightly due to our flight)