ebay tickets

[greenman2]

I don't know if this is the right forum, but I am making my first trip to Disney in 15 years. I have been looking at the various Hopper tickets which are being sold on ebay from people who have not used them up on their visits

I know the tickets do not expire and had assumed that they were transferrable. However I saw on one ebay site that Disney are now doing a fingerprint scan to stop this practice, is this true?

Providing people do not try to gain additional days I cannot see why Disney should try to prevent this practice, anybody using one of these tickets as a "taster" would hopefuly want to revisit.

Anyway before I make a bid for any of these offers, I would appreciate any information from you experts out there.

 

[gumdrop]

WELCOME TO THE DIS BOARDS!

Disney requires a finger scan for those who purchase Annual Passes and Florida resident passes. They are not required for Park Hoppers, Ultimate Park Hoppers, and Single day tickets. For more info on finger scans, here is a link that you may find helpful: http://www.wdwig.com/fingerscan.htm Though the prices on ebay for Disney tickets may be temptine, be wary of them. There have been a few cases of people winning these tickets but have had them not come in, or they had no days on them at all. Because you never know, it may be better just to buy them so you know they are legit, working tickets. Ticketmania.com is a reputable company that offers Disney tickets at a good discount--their prices include tax and shipping. I (and other Dis board members) have used them with no problems. Hope this helps!

 

[greenman2]

Thanks for that (and the welcome!) - I've just followed the link to the "fingerprint" feature, how complicated! I know there's one person who would always have problems.

As far as the ebay tickets go, one thing I have noticed is that they always seem to go close to their proportional equivalent of their original cost. I think I will take your advice. I have looked at Ticketmania, Paramount, Undercover Tourist and one or two and they all seem to be within a couple of dollars of each other.

We go in September and before asking loads of questions which you are all probably tired of hearing I will browse and search the forums first.

Thanks again.

 

[JWimberley]

That is a great point. I have sold extra days on eBay but there are a lot of people that have lost a significant amount of money that way. Unless you are using a credit card service that offers some fraud protection I would be very wary of buying tickets on an auction site.

I know that eBay is currently investigating a seller that offered annual passes at $300 each. He sold over a dozen like that and nobody has heard from him since...

Joshua

 

[gumdrop]

Originally posted by greenman2


We go in September and before asking loads of questions which you are all probably tired of hearing I will browse and search the forums first.

Don't worry -- Ask away! Sometimes the search feature doesn't always work.

I'm glad you decided to avoid ebay for the tickets--better safe than sorry. I don't know much about the other ticket companies that you listed, but I can definetly vouch for ticketmania. I don't know how long you are going for, but they offer special 5 day park hoppers with 4 options, instead of the usual 2, for the same price

 

[alvernon90]

I always post this when people say they are worried about getting ripped off by buying partially used tickets on eBay:

If you're worried about the seller being a crook, why don't you consider being the seller? You can buy an unusued ticket and sell the remaining days. This guarantees that nobody gets hurt in the transaction, and in general the per-day cost is better for sellers than buyers. (That is, your net cost will be lower if you buy a 7-day park hopper plus and sell five remaining days than if you bought a PHP with two days left.)

 

[epcotfan]

I would not buy passes on Ebay since they are non transferable and you have no way of knowing how many actual days are left or not.

 

[jimmytammy]

Try Paramount for pricing if nothing else. They offer PHP plus tickets but the kicker is they throw in a character meal everywhere but Cindys castle and Crystal Palace, that still leaves you with a lot of choices. I was told to call their # to find out about these deals, but the meal alone is worth the price and the tickets are already offered at a discount. Might be worth checking out, and they have been given good feedback on these boards. Website is www.paramountinternationaltravel.com

Good Luck!!

 

[sha_lyn]

Originally posted by alvernon90
If you're worried about the seller being a crook, why don't you consider being the seller? You can buy an unusued ticket and sell the remaining days.

Selling particially used tickets is against the law. While we can argue all we want about whether you can give them away to family or friends, the law is very clear that selling them or giving them away as part of a business transaction (which would be selling thme out right, or giving them an an incentive) is against the law.

 

[greenman2]

Is that US law? As far as I am aware such a transaction would not be illegal under British law.

As always I am willing to be corrected!

 

[sha_lyn]

Is that US law? As far as I am aware such a transaction would not be illegal under British law.

It is against Florida law.
It would be impossible to use said ticket in GB wouldn't it?
If caught it is likely the "consumer" would play dumb (or actually not know they are taking part in an illegal action) and would only have thier tickets taken away.

Someone right here on the DIS a bad E bay/WDW ticket experience. They were under the impression that the tickets had not been used. The seller (who was in Europe) claimed to have bought the tickets through or at WDW for a friend but the friend didn't want them. After WDW said the the days were used up the Dis'er contacted the seller who then claimed to have bought them at one of those illegal road side stands that appear and dissapear over night.

WDW policy is also very clear on the matter. Tickets are non transferrable.

 

[alvernon90]

Originally posted by sha_lyn
It is against Florida law.
It would be impossible to use said ticket in GB wouldn't it?
If caught it is likely the "consumer" would play dumb (or actually not know they are taking part in an illegal action) and would only have thier tickets taken away.

Someone right here on the DIS a bad E bay/WDW ticket experience. They were under the impression that the tickets had not been used. The seller (who was in Europe) claimed to have bought the tickets through or at WDW for a friend but the friend didn't want them. After WDW said the the days were used up the Dis'er contacted the seller who then claimed to have bought them at one of those illegal road side stands that appear and dissapear over night.

WDW policy is also very clear on the matter. Tickets are non transferrable.

A few responses:

1. If neither the buyer nor seller are in Florida, no violation of the law has taken place. It is against eBay policy, and they might ask you to remove the auction, but as you can see by the number of used tickets being sold on eBay, it's not a policy that they enforce very vigorously.

2. It is definitely possible to get burned buying used tickets on eBay. That's why I suggested selling instead. As the seller, you *know* that you're not going to burn anybody, and as long as you get payment first, you can't get burned at all. Perfectly safe.

3. The non-transferable policy is a WDW policy, not a law, so doing so is not illegal. And WDW has lots of policies that they routinely ignore (free room upgrades are technically a violation of their state pricing policies). Add to that the fact that WDW has absolutely no way of knowing or proving that a tickets was transferred, and it gets hard to see the risk. The non-transferrable policy is more legal boilerplate than anything else.

WDW has proven that they will take steps to prevent sharing of admission media when it is worth it to them. The biometric scanners make it impossible for somebody to buy an annual pass and rent it out on a daily basis. Since the scanners are already there, it would be a snap to link biometrics to every multi-day pass, but they don't do it because they just don't care that much about it. Disney literally puts more effort into keeping people out of the parking lot at the Contemporary than they do into keeping people from reselling unused days on park hoppers. To me that says something . . .

 

[jcemom]

Try: http://floridaorlandotickets.net/discounted_tickets.html
At the time I bought my 7 day PHP's they had the lowest price. I'm not sure now, but it never hurts to compare. They were very good to do business with, fast delivery too.

Make sure when comparing prices that you compare all sites WITH tax. I noticed that some include it, and some don't -- making the price APPEAR lower. Also, must consider shipping charges, some are higher than others.

 

[greenman2]

Thanks for all the answers, what a great site this is! Sorry to have stirred up such a hornet's nest.

Anyway Ive decided to follow alvernon 90's (and others) advice and buy full tickets beforehand. I am undecided between 4 + 1, or 5 + 2 Hopper Plus. I am not sure about e-bay - I have never been a seller so would have no "track record", so although I know I wouldn't cheat, I would have difficulty convincing others.

I'll try Paramount first, I fancy the idea of a Character breakfast (even at 58!) - can you find out which tickets carry the vouchers and do you have to call direct rather than go through the Internet. Their web-site makes no mention of 4+1 Hoppers although other members here have said they are available.

Thanks again for all the help - how did I manage 15 years ago!!

 

[angelgirl39]

My humble opinion? Buy directly from www.disneyworld.com. That way there are no questions of authenticity, and you will have a record of the sale directly on file with Disney in the unlikely event of any problems.

Regular Park Hopper tickets have no expiration dates, so if you have any unused days, you could bring the ticket back even fifty years from now and it would still be valid.

Edited to add: This doesn't mean that the only valid tickets are the ones sold directly by WDW. There are some valid tickets available only to non-U.S guests, such as the 10-Day Park Hopper sold by the UK division of the Walt Disney Travel Company. I only meant that it's a good idea to do some homework before buying from an outside source