Maximum Discount for AP and Worth It To Upgrade Spreadsheets

[JJTNY]

Hello All,

I have been a lurker over here for a long while, but just thought I'd break the ice by sharing a couple of spreadsheets I created that might help Disneyphiles.

The first sheet is called My Maximum Discount AP Sheet (<--that's a link to the sheet), which will help you decide which reseller tickets to buy if you plan to upgrade to an Annual Pass. You simply enter your number of Adults/Children and select a minimum number of park days for your tickets and it will tell you the reseller tix that will give you the biggest savings.

As many folks know, I'm sure: The general idea is to use the tix to enter at least park once, then you can go to Guest Services and upgrade. In a perfect world, they should bridge the ticket price and credit you the Disney *Gate* Price of the tickets. You get to keep the reseller discount savings.

Of course, it is not a perfect world (even Walt Disney World), and there are reports that not all CMs bridge tickets the same way. So, there's a 2nd tab in the spreadsheet that is designed to be a reference sheet with all of the math. You can print the large table to bring with, or screen shot the phone-sized table to have on hand. Knowing the numbers and what you should expect to pay will help you get the transaction completed correctly.

If you'd like to hear a discussion about using the sheet, the Backside of Magic podcast talked about it in their Episode 101. (That was before I added the minimum park days selector.)

You can click the link at the top of this post to play around with it - if you are logged into a Google account, you can also hit File...Copy and make your own copy to play with. (But you'll have to keep the ticket prices up to date in your copy, of course. I try to update mine every few weeks.)

Here are some screen captures for reference -

Main page where you enter your Adults/Children and minimum number of park days:

Cheat Sheet table with all of the numbers to expect when upgrading (plus a selector to include a Memory Maker you may have already purchased for your trip):

Mobile Cheat Sheet tables to screen capturing for your phone - one example without a Memory Maker purchase selected, another example with how it looks when you have selected a MM purchase:

I'll follow up in a response with info on my "Worth It To Upgrade to AP?" spreadsheet. Hope this all helps people make decisions when upgrading!

 

[BridgetBordeaux]

Welcome to the boards


or maybe I should say.............Nice first post!!

 

[JJTNY]

Welcome to the boards


or maybe I should say.............Nice first post!!

Thanks!

 

[areno79]

This is perfect! DH and I are considering upgrading to AP's for our September trip but I hadn't done all of the detailed math. Thank you!

 

[Friendlyadvice2]

As many folks know, I'm sure: The general idea is to use the tix to enter at least park once, then you can go to Guest Services and upgrade. In a perfect world, they should bridge the ticket price and credit you the Disney *Gate* Price of the tickets. You get to keep the reseller discount savings.

Just FYI, tickets no longer need to be used "at least once" before being upgraded. You can now upgrade a completely unused ticket.

 

[JJTNY]

In addition to my "Maximum Savings" spreadsheet above, I've created another sheet that helps you decide whether it is Worth It to Upgrade to an Annual Pass. It uses info you enter for the tickets, food and merch you'll purchase (plus other stuff.) and crunches it all together into a ball of Magical DisneyMath.

You can go give it a shot in your browser over on The Google Sheets by visiting this link.

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TL;DR
If you are comfortable with spreadsheets and would like to ignore my notes, caveats and meandering descriptions below but would still like to know what in the name of the Mouse all of the stuff is, just scroll down to my screen shots below where there is simpler info on what is what.
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If you like this sheet, and want to play around with it without worrying about others changing your numbers, you can click File… Make a Copy and save a version for your very own. (You have to be logged into a Google account to do that, though.)

I have included a lot of notes in the sheet itself, and hope it is fairly self-explanatory and many people should be able to dive right in and start using it. But as an IT Pro, I know that my self-explanatory is someone else’s confusion.
So, below is a series of screen captures with some general notes on each portion of the sheet. Hope they help unconfuse things. or maybe not.

One important thing first: My sheet assumes that if you are buying tickets for multiple trips over the course of a year, that you are buying them from a discount reseller at the current best price.
So, if you enter 2 trips in the sheet for, say, 3 day Base tickets on trip 1, and 5 day Park Hoppers for trip 2, the sheet will look those up for you in my data table and use those numbers in the estimates.

But, when it comes to figuring out which are the best reseller tickets to buy to save you the most money when bridging them to upgrade to AP, the sheet will assume you buy the tickets with the BIGGEST DISCOUNT NOW for your first trip, regardless of the number of park days or ticket types you enter in the sheet. Since you would be upgrading to an AP at the start of that trip, it doesn't really matter which tickets you buy, except to cover the minimum number of days so you can book enough FastPasses.

While this sheet doesn't take into account the minimum number of park day tix to buy on that first trip, my Maximum Discount sheet does so refer to that before you buy tix.
Since this sheet relies on a lot of variables (how much money you spend on food etc) I've designed it just to get a decent idea on whether an AP upgrade might work for you. It ain't gonna be perfect, but it should be close. or moderately close.

One last thing before the screen captures: It may NOT be worth it for you to upgrade everyone in your party to an AP - but it MAY be worth it to upgrade just one person in your group to get the food and merchandise discounts, as well as free theme park parking if you stay off site. I suggest you try running the numbers with your whole party and see what your Savings/(Loss) is. Then, change the "Tickets Needed" box at top to just have 1 Adult and 0 children and see if your savings goes up or down.

In the sheet, you can enter or change info in any of the RED cells. Starting at the very top of the sheet:

Then, you can choose from each of these options.

Some notes on the above section:

• I would strongly suggest if you don’t normally buy Memory Maker on your trips don’t select it here or it will abnormally inflate your overall savings.
• If you DO normally buy MM, that makes getting an AP worth it much faster.
  
• There were recently some really good food discounts for AP holders, which may have made Tables in Wonderland less helpful in gathering discounts.
  It kinda depends on where you eat and how much you spend - but DO remember that TiW also discounts adult beverages, which ups the benefit if your party imbibes. Cheers!

Next up is to enter the percentage discounts an AP will give you.
These will influence your savings calculated lower in the spreadsheet, so you’ll want to try to get these in the right ballpark so you’ll have a decent estimate at the end…

Note: You’ll have to make an educated guess on how many of your planned restaurants will be covered by an AP discount since not all are.

Now we’re on to the meat and churros of the sheet: Enter the basic info of your planned trips. (or imaginary trips if you are just playing around.)
If you toggle between ticket types and flip Memory Maker on and off, you’ll see that people who normally buy Park Hoppers and Memory Maker will need much fewer park days and food expenses to make an AP upgrade worth it.

Note: Unless any hotel discount you would get on your trip(s) is exclusive to AP holders, I would not enter hotel costs. If you can get the same discount without an AP, the AP is not really saving you money for that part, right?

You’ll see that the sheet doesn’t let you enter ticket prices. That is because it is using my super-secret data table* to lookup up the current BEST discount for the ticket type and park days you select.
(If people already have tickets in hand, maybe I can add a spot to override those numbers later…)

*It’s not so super-secret. It is the other table in this spreadsheet.

Finally, the pièce de résistance: another automagic table showing how much you will save both with and without AP discounts - as well as on and off site!
If you get a positive number in the Savings (Loss) line, there’s a decent chance upgrading to an AP on your first trip will save you money.

Finally, I'm adding this other reference screen capture for those who are curious about what is going on with the totals at the bottom…
If you are not a formula fan and prefer to accept the DisneyMathMagic™ that has been thrown your way, just ignore this part.

 

[JJTNY]

Just FYI, tickets no longer need to be used "at least once" before being upgraded. You can now upgrade a completely unused ticket.

Thanks! I have heard that is the case as well - but at the same time I've heard others say they still did have to use the ticket once first.
As is often the case with The Land of The Mouse, so much inconsistency when it comes to procedures, personally, I'd probably just use them once and not have to worry about it.

 

[Friendlyadvice2]

Thanks! I have heard that is the case as well - but at the same time I've heard others say they still did have to use the ticket once first.
As is often the case with The Land of The Mouse, so much inconsistency when it comes to procedures, personally, I'd probably just use them once and not have to worry about it.

Those data points are well in the past and may mislead others at this point. Definitely nothing to "worry about" as tickets DO NOT have to be used at least once to upgrade. The only worry is actually getting them bridged correctly which your spreadsheet aims to help with. GL

 

[JJTNY]

I'm not sure I understand how using a ticket to avoid any issue just in case would mislead anyone - and the "data points" I have heard are not that far in the past, perhaps over the last few months.
So: costs nothing to use the ticket, better safe than sorry, and all that.

 

[WelshDH@98CPAlum]

Almost have to use the ticket - from what I experienced and what I have read. Disney Springs guest services would NOT bridge my ticket and looked at me in disgust and was downright rude when I asked. Once I realized it was about to cost more than I thought it should. So, waited approximately 45 minutes to be told no....and rudely. And seriously - I was very patient, kind, nice and simply said "Oh, ok, thank you for your time".


*Editing to add - guess you can go to the park and upgrade before using at the "outside the park" guest services too. So, yeah, guess you could upgrade without using. Very inconvenient for me, though.

 

[Marionnette]

I'm not sure I understand how using a ticket to avoid any issue just in case would mislead anyone - and the "data points" I have heard are not that far in the past, perhaps over the last few months.
So: costs nothing to use the ticket, better safe than sorry, and all that.

Because it's not necessary to use the ticket first. You can save time by heading right to guest services outside of the park to have it taken care of instead of dealing with long lines inside of the park guest services. The advice to "use the ticket before upgrading" has been refuted by ticketing CMs who post here on the disboards for more than a year.

One other thing to keep in mind: We don't know how Disney will handle upgrades using expired tickets. When Disney changed the MYW ticket to add an expiration date last year, they said that you would not lose the value of that ticket if you did not use it by the expiration date. However, there is no data regarding how those upgrades would be done since the earliest expiration date for tickets sold after 2/12/2017 is Dec. 31, 2018. Will they continue to "bridge" the actual price paid by the reseller to the value that the ticket had on the day that it purchased? Or the value it held on the day it expired? Or will it be upgraded for the price difference between what the reseller paid and what the upgraded ticket will cost? Only time will tell.

 

[Friendlyadvice2]

I'm not sure I understand how using a ticket to avoid any issue just in case would mislead anyone - and the "data points" I have heard are not that far in the past, perhaps over the last few months.
So: costs nothing to use the ticket, better safe than sorry, and all that.

I'm really just trying to help here. You've put out a wonderful spreadsheet for all to use and benefit from! Saying that the "general idea" is to use a ticket at least once before upgrading may be misleading to others because it's factually incorrect which can cause confusion, that's all. As has been stated, it's no longer necessary that a ticket be used prior to upgrading and therefore no issue to try to avoid. In the unlikely event that an uninformed CM tells a guest they need to use a ticket at least once prior to upgrading, the guest should simply ask to speak with a supervisor or wait for a different CM because it's then going to be highly likely that the CM won't understand how to bridge correctly either. In addition, once a ticket is used at least once, it is no longer transferrable which could cause additional problems if there is an issue completing the upgrade. It's a nice benefit to be able to upgrade without first using a ticket and anyone reading should be aware of it. There is a sticky thread about tickets and upgrading: https://www.disboards.com/threads/all-about-tickets-upgrades.3570721/ Again, GL!

 

[ravenclawtrekkie]

As someone who processes ticket upgrades dailyish and has for a couple of years - whether the ticket has been used once is 100% irrelevant to price bridging.

What DOES potentially affect price bridging is the date the ticket was sold to the reseller (NOT purchased by the consumer).

Ticket booths are a better bet than Guest Relations for upgrades that don’t involve things we can’t do, like a Memory Maker refund towards an AP.

 

[CouponGirl]

Is there a reason why you would or would not want to use a ticket first? If you use it first does that delay the start of the ap? Would it diminish the value put towards the ap?

 

[JJTNY]

Fair enough to your explanation about not having to use a ticket to upgrade.

I had based my info saying one should use a ticket first on information posted on other boards I follow regularly, and I have seen people reporting both sides of this method within the last several months.
Of course, as a human reading reports from other humans, it can be hard to determine what the actual case on the ground is, especially when policies and procedures in such a large organization are often a moving target.

If this particular detail has changed in a permanent way -terrific, and I will surely defer to the knowledge here.
The point of my post was not to invoke a definitive method of upgrading - but to share a tool I made that might save people some time crunching numbers to find the best tickets to buy.

Have a great weekend everyone!

 

[Texans_loyal]

Great spreadsheets! thank you for taking the time!!

 

[areno79]

@JJTNY I used the spreadsheet to see bridging differences and AP upgrade savings...awesome and thank you so much! I wouldn't have thought that buying a 10 day PH would save me more than buying a 9 day PH.

One thing I noticed that might help others...I want a Platinum AP so would only want to buy a regular park hopper ticket. However, the spreadsheet is stating I should buy a park hopper plus ticket because it has the highest discount. I wouldn't want the PH Plus though because then I'd have to buy the Platinum Plus AP instead of the regular Platinum AP. Perhaps you could add an IF statement to the formula determining which ticket to buy to indicate that if a Platinum Pass is selected as the type of AP desired, it will only pull results for regular Park Hopper tickets?

I am aware that if you have a PH Plus you have to purchase a Plus AP, but others may not. Again, thank you for putting this together and sharing it!

 

[JJTNY]

@JJTNY I used the spreadsheet to see bridging differences and AP upgrade savings...awesome and thank you so much! I wouldn't have thought that buying a 10 day PH would save me more than buying a 9 day PH.

One thing I noticed that might help others...I want a Platinum AP so would only want to buy a regular park hopper ticket. However, the spreadsheet is stating I should buy a park hopper plus ticket because it has the highest discount. I wouldn't want the PH Plus though because then I'd have to buy the Platinum Plus AP instead of the regular Platinum AP. Perhaps you could add an IF statement to the formula determining which ticket to buy to indicate that if a Platinum Pass is selected as the type of AP desired, it will only pull results for regular Park Hopper tickets?

I am aware that if you have a PH Plus you have to purchase a Plus AP, but others may not. Again, thank you for putting this together and sharing it!

You're welcome! The way I understand the process, you do not have to upgrade PH Plus tix to a Platinum Plus AP *unless* you use a water park etc day with your tickets before you upgrade, so purchasing Plus tix and then upgrading to a "regular" Platinum Pass should be fine if one avoids using them for the plus stuff.

Full disclosure: As I said earlier in the thread regarding the tap-in-before-you-upgrade info, I come by this info paying attention to the posts of others while having worked on this sheet. If there is some change or variability in that knowledge, I am unaware of it.

 

[areno79]

You're welcome! The way I understand the process, you do not have to upgrade PH Plus tix to a Platinum Plus AP *unless* you use a water park etc day with your tickets before you upgrade, so purchasing Plus tix and then upgrading to a "regular" Platinum Pass should be fine if one avoids using them for the plus stuff.

Full disclosure: As I said earlier in the thread regarding the tap-in-before-you-upgrade info, I come by this info paying attention to the posts of others while having worked on this sheet. If there is some change or variability in that knowledge, I am unaware of it.

Ahh, that could be. Having no experience in the matter myself hopefully others will chime in. I thought I read on allears that just purchasing a PH Plus would require the purchase of a Plus AP, but I may have read that incorrectly. Thanks again!