Has anyone ever tried to price bridge

[dandave]

They kept saying that it was trying to use two tickets (which it's not) and trying to use two discounts (which it's not). The non DVC, non Florida AP renewal is it's own ticket with special requirements to obtain it (just as the FL AP requires you to be a FL resident).

I have never been allowed to apply a separate ticket to the purchase price of an AP renewal. The original AP purchase is being applied to the renewal in order to obtain a discount. Trying to apply a second ticket to that would be like using two 4 day hoppers towards the upgrade to an AP.

 

[DebbieB]

Disney is not doing a exchange/refund. They are allowing you to upgrade tickets if and only if it costs more than the *value* of the ticket you have, basically, add-on.

Disney does offer the discount to the general public. Disney is the one who set-up the system. Disney just chooses to just offer the discount through a third-party. If people choose not to purchase through the third party, that is their choice. No one is "under cutting" Disney. Disney sold the tickets to the *authorized* resellers at a price Disney determined to be worth their while.

Disney is choosing to make more money in the long run by bridging these tickets. Some smart, savvy people use this policy to get a discount on an AP or a bigger ticket, but MOST will just decide instead to add an option or days that they otherwise would go without. Disney is just taking extra that they would otherwise go without. Again, you must be paying more than the value of your ticket. There is no downgrading (refunds) or straight swapping (exchange). It's adding value, a smart move.

Disney doesn't typically offer a discount on annual passes. Resellers don't sell them. By buying a MYW from a reseller and the upgrading it to an AP by price bridging, you are getting a discount on an AP. I would bet a majority would have bought the AP's at full price if they did not know about price bridging.

What I don't understand is if price bridging is standard practice, why don't all cm's know how to do it? Or is it a "loophole" that only some cm's know how to do.

 

[SUSIEQ]

I have never been allowed to apply a separate ticket to the purchase price of an AP renewal. The original AP purchase is being applied to the renewal in order to obtain a discount. Trying to apply a second ticket to that would be like using two 4 day hoppers towards the upgrade to an AP.

So, you've used a MYW ticket and then tried to upgrade it to a renewal AP, and you were turned down? What did you do? Did you just upgrade to a new AP at that time? Thanks.

 

[dandave]

So, you've used a MYW ticket and then tried to upgrade it to a renewal AP, and you were turned down? What did you do? Did you just upgrade to a new AP at that time? Thanks.

With the free dining, you used to have to buy a 1 day ticket. We did that several times. I was not allowed to apply that one day ticket to an AP renewal, when I asked about it. I simply held the one day tickets until needed in the future. If we took a break without renewing, we would use one of those towards the price of another ticket. We knew we would use them eventually.

 

[vicki_c]

I have never been allowed to apply a separate ticket to the purchase price of an AP renewal. The original AP purchase is being applied to the renewal in order to obtain a discount. Trying to apply a second ticket to that would be like using two 4 day hoppers towards the upgrade to an AP.

You must be unlucky, because people do this everyday.

 

[dandave]

You must be unlucky, because people do this everyday.

Perhaps. I didn't argue the point, as I knew they would be used eventually. We've been using the Military Salute tickets for the last few years.

 

[Robo]

What I don't understand is if price bridging is standard practice, why don't all cm's know how to do it? Or is it a "loophole" that only some cm's know how to do.

It's just one of many infinitely deep procedures and rules of operation that
make up the complex world of WDW tickets.

There are a few of us here who know many of the in's and out's, but it has taken years to recognize and differentiate the different aspects.

Considering the turnover of CM's who staff (and even manage) the myriad ticket booths and Guest Relations at the theme parks (including Epcot's International Gateway,) the water parks, the TTC, both locations at DTD, plus the check-in desks and concierge desks at the resorts... not everyone CAN instantly recognize the many different aspects of ticketing.

I'm am extremely well-versed in ticket rules (one of my stronger areas of WDW knowledge) and I still make ticket gaffs on the boards.

The DIFFERENCE is that HERE, if I (or any other poster) makes an error in explanation, it will just be a matter of minutes (seconds?) before another DIS member will pop in with the important correction.

But, at a ticket booth, you are at the mercy of one or two isolated CM's.
If that person gives you wrong information, you won't be any the wiser,
and COULD be at a loss of quite a bit of money in the process.

Before heading to a ticket booth to modify a ticket, be sure to post a new thread with the word "ticket" in the title and double-check with the many experts here...
so that you will KNOW exactly what SHOULD happen
(and what it should COST, to within pennies) when you are ready to make an upgrade.

 

[CindyCan]

With the free dining, you used to have to buy a 1 day ticket. We did that several times. I was not allowed to apply that one day ticket to an AP renewal, when I asked about it. I simply held the one day tickets until needed in the future. If we took a break without renewing, we would use one of those towards the price of another ticket. We knew we would use them eventually.

But isn't the difference here that to use the ticket to upgrade at a bridged price, you have to use it first?

 

[dandave]

But isn't the difference here that to use the ticket to upgrade at a bridged price, you have to use it first?

Why couldn't you enter a park on a one day before attempting to bridge? I may have gained an extra few dollars by doing so since it was a WDTC ticket, but the premise is the same. Perhaps I'm missing something.
I'm trying to understand how using both an AP and a MYW ticket to obtain an AP Renewal is different from using two MYW's towards a single upgraded ticket.

 

[Robo]

Why couldn't you enter a park on a one day before attempting to bridge? I may have gained an extra few dollars by doing so since it was a WDTC ticket, but the premise is the same. Perhaps I'm missing something.
I'm trying to understand how using both an AP and a MYW ticket to obtain an AP Renewal is different from using two MYW's towards a single upgraded ticket.

It's just a rule of AP renewal.

Tickets can't be combined, but when you renew an AP, you are not combining two tickets, you are using one ticket to purchase another (a new AP.)

It's just that the new ticket (the AP) is being sold at a reduced price during the 60-day renewal period.

 

[dandave]

It's just a rule of AP renewal.

Tickets can't be combined, but when you renew an AP, you are not combining two tickets, you are using one ticket to purchase another (a new AP.)

It's just that the new ticket (the AP) is being sold at a reduced price during the 60-day renewal period.

Good to know. Thank you! It would be nice if there were a uniform understanding at Disney.

 

[bobcat]

1. I will automatically price bridge tickets when people come to my window, even if they don't know anything about it. Actually, I will explain to them that I need to do two steps to keep any discount they have.

2. If you go to the locked sticky Everything About WDW Tickets in this Forum, especially Post #22, you can get a lot more information about bridging. An easy way to get to the sticky is by clicking on the link in my signature. The ticket sticky is your friend!

Thank you for your sticky! We decided to add an extra day earlier this week and I pulled up your info to make sure I did everything correctly. DS added his day on Saturday at HS and DD and I added the extra day on Sunday at Epcot with no problems.

 

[Secretmagic]

My annual pass expires halfway through my September trip. I will have a 2 day ticket from my free dining package. Do I wait until my annual pass expires before using the 2 day ticket at the gate (to apply the 2 day ticket to the renewal), or can I do it at any time during my trip?

 

[Robo]

My annual pass expires halfway through my September trip. I will have a 2 day ticket from my free dining package.

1- Do I wait until my annual pass expires before using the 2 day ticket at the gate (to apply the 2 day ticket to the renewal), or

2- can I do it at any time during my trip?

1- You can do that. It will work just fine.

2- You can even choose to do it on the first day of your trip, if you'd like to get it out of the way.

Either way, since you're RENEWING an existing AP, your new AP will retain the same anniversary (end) date
as the one you're renewing (just one year later.)

 

[aubriee]

I had an epic failure of a price bridging experience (UT 7 day NE with WPFAM to an AP renewal) at animal kingdom. It ended up involving all of AK guest relations, management, an off duty police officer who happens to work in the ticket fraud decision, and 4 more attempts on 4 other days to no avail. They also basically voided out my tickets and reissued them as comps, making it impossible to upgrade them.


UT stepped up to the plate and refunded my entire purchase price.

Moral of the story- don't do it at AK

I price bridged at the AK guest services without any problem a couple of years ago. As soon as I mentioned the words 'price bridge', she knew exactly what I was talking about. I had already figured the current gate price of the ticket I had and also the AP I wanted. The final total was exactly what I had figured.

Only once have I ever had a problem and that was at MK GS several years ago. I knew the total she gave me was wrong and again mentioned price bridging to her. Another CM heard us and finally came over and showed her how to do it.

 

[bumbershoot]

We have bridged many times and we have only been denied once at Animal Kingdom.

Moral of the story- don't do it at AK

Whereas the one time I've upgraded tickets (3 of them at once) it was at Animal Kingdom, something like just one month before stargazer did it.


It's luck of the draw. Who is there, who isn't. Who reads their CM material, who doesn't. Who understands it and who doesn't. Who trained that CM? Who trained the trainer?


If only we would write down names, dates and times of the CMs who don't get it, then the names, dates, and times of the CMs that do, and followup on that.

Disney doesn't offered discount tickets purchased directly from them. However you can purchase tickets from an authorized ticket dealer, save up to $60 dollars and then come to WDW and price bridge to an AP or another type of ticket.

In a way they do. They don't bridge on tickets bought absolutely directly from them. They DO, however, bridge from tickets you get with a *package* that you buy through them. The company within a company that deals with packages is different than the company that sells tickets without the package. So if you bought your package 6 months ago, your tickets are at a discount from if you bought your package today (since there has been a price increase), and they will bridge from the price you paid when you bought that package.

Was your experience such a disaster because you were using a MYW ticket for an AP "renewal"?

I personally feel that a misunderstanding about exactly that was behind it. Look at the arguments made in this thread; is an AP renewal considered a ticket you're going from? If so, CAN you go from a ticket (the ticket you've used and are upgrading from) to another ticket (your AP that has expired) to get to a new AP renewal? Honestly BOTH make sense to me.

And always remember you get more with honey. We upgraded our KIds stay and play for free tix last feb for APs and found out the tix had zero value. Without asking she gave us 3 kids comp APs .

Can anyone discuss that? Did "kids play free" tickets have NO value whatsoever?

It is at this "wholesale to resellers" point that Disney has "lost" as much money as they ever will for those tickets. They don't lose any more money if they then upgrade those reseller tickets.

That's the explanation that makes sense to me!

Since I purchased the tickets when my son was under 10 years old, and now he is 15, I haven't tried to use the extra options.

As Cheshire explains, you can have that ticket changed to an adult ticket at no cost.

And maybe you could see if the CM can see the money trail in those tickets, and see if it was done incorrectly back then. Might be too long ago for that, though.

Disney does offer the discount to the general public. Disney is the one who set-up the system.

And, may I say, it's not "Disney", but Disney WORLD specifically. It's done differently out in Anaheim, where you lose the discount, and might even pay MORE than you would have paid to buy an AP, if you are upgrading from (specifically) a military ticket. (military charges you more than they paid, but DLR only knows what the military paid them, so you go from what the military paid, NOT what you paid...and that means if you upgrade from that ticket to an AP, you're paying more than you would have paid for that AP purchase through Disneyland).

Same big company, different procedures. WDW KNOWS what they are doing, and has continued doing it for a reason.

(FWIW, as much as I appreciate Cheshire Figment's ticket sticky and believe that it is a terrific and legit source of information, I'm skeptical that waving it in front of a CM will advance the ball much should I encounter difficulty - they're more likely to ask, "is that from an official Disney source?" When I reply, "no, it's off the Disboards", they're likely to respond, "well, you can't believe everything on the Disboards.").

Mike is a CM who works in ticketing. He has stated before that his bosses know what he posts and are OK with it. What he posts is how it's supposed to work. He obviously had a good trainer and keeps up with the communications WDW has with the CMs. He knows the procedures and how to do them. While I wouldn't wave something in front of them, that piece of paper can give you the words to help the CM figure out their jobs, and find the official info in their computers to show them that YOU know what you're talking about.

What I don't understand is if price bridging is standard practice, why don't all cm's know how to do it? Or is it a "loophole" that only some cm's know how to do.

Have you ever worked with other people? Have you ever sat in the same meeting with people, only to find that others understood the info you were given differently than you did? Have you ever gotten an email or memo from the boss about something, to find out that some other poeple in your office got the same thing, read it, and understood it differently? If so, that's why it happens. CMs don't understand things the same way as others, and one group of those CMs is wrong.

You must be unlucky, because people do this everyday.

People upgrade from a ticket to an AP *renewal* every day? I don't read those posts. The only one I can think of is stargazer's from the past, and she definitely had problems with it.

 

[SUSIEQ]

Bumbershoot, I don't recall other posts about upgrading a MYW ticket to an AP "renewal" either. Stargazertechie's is the only one that comes to mind, and it was not pretty!

 

[kim_o]

Can someone explain why to do this? I don't understand why you wouldn't just buy the days you needed first.

I only see a couple of reasons: you don't have the extra money at time of original purchase or you don't know exactly how many days until down there.

Could someone tell me other reasons they do this?

I did this because on our 6 annual passes I saved over 300$. It's a decent chunk of change that it was worth the hassle to me.
However, my hassle ended up being minimal. I went into guest services first thing at Epcot my first day. The cm didn't know about price bridging, I explained it and he had no problem doing it. Even said he was glad to learn something new.

 

[Robo]

People upgrade from a ticket to an AP *renewal* every day? I don't read those posts. The only one I can think of is stargazer's from the past, and she definitely had problems with it.

Bumbershoot, I don't recall other posts about upgrading a MYW ticket to an AP "renewal" either. Stargazertechie's is the only one that comes to mind, and it was not pretty!

Sadly, there are many more Dissers who've gotten the wrong price in ticket upgrades and posted about it here.

Stargazertechie has posted-in to help on many of those threads, too.

I'm here about every day, and getting other Disser's ticket upgrade problems straightened out is one of my main goals.

If you encounter a problem in upgrading, I can tell you that, with persistence, those situations can be resolved to the good.

 

[vicki_c]

Ok, so maybe I exaggerated with every day. But I have seen other posts about AP renewals using tickets to upgrade. I also frequent other boards than the DIS and I do know personally numerous people who have done it, including myself a few years ago.