Need some help with AAA discount and season change

[MagicKingdom05]

HI.

Ok here is the situation. I am looking at Dec 16 2006-Jan 2, 2007 at WDW and need to know if Disney would give me the AAA discount for the entire stay. I'm going from value season to holiday season during my stay and not sure how this would work. I know that since I'm checking in during value season, I would get that rate for all 17 nights, but would the discount follow the same idea as well or not.

 

[petchie]

I believe there is a 10 night limit on the AAA rate, so you would need 2 reservations

 

[MagicKingdom05]

petchie,

Thanks for letting me know, because that wouldn't work because I would then be paying the holiday rate for the majority of the trip since 16-19 is the end of value.

 

[DisneyGeek2000]

I believe there is a 10 night limit on the AAA rate, so you would need 2 reservations

There is a 10 night limit on any WDW reservation, I believe, not just AAA....

Michael

 

[MagicKingdom05]

DisneyGeek2000,

I was doing some price checking earlier and it will let you book 17 nights in a row.

 

[tmli]

I just tried to get a quote for you ( I work for CAA) just to see if it had a 10 day max but their res systems are down until Sunday/Monday. When I booked an AP rate last there was a 10 day max and i was changing seasons.

If there is a 10 day max...make 3 ressies...one from Dec 16-19...the second from dec.19 for 10 nts and the third from that day to your departure day (still at the AAA rate but higher because of season)...it won't cover the entire 17 days at the value season rate but it will cover a good chunk of them....

It is a slight inconvenience because you have to check out and in each time...but timed right it only takes a couple of minutes and the savings can be substantial...they do say they cannot guarantee room to stay the same but we have never had a problem...the one time we were assigned a different room for one ressie the cm just had it changed.

 

[tmli]

I just checked and there is a 10 day max...as soon as I put in more than the that the discount rate disappears. You could follow my suggestion above and get 13 of your nts at the value season rate.

 

[MagicKingdom05]

tmli,

Sorry I didn't post last night thanking you for checking on this for me. Tell me if I'm wrong, but it's my understanding that you can't get the AAA discount from Dec 20-Dec 31, because of the holiday season regardless of when you check in. They will give it to me for 16-19, but I would then have to do a new reservation and pay the holiday season rate from Dec 20-Dec 31 because those dates are blacked out. Doing it this way would actually cost me much more than just doing the value season rate from Dec 16-Jan 2.

 

[tmli]

There is a black out for checkins during that period...but your second ressie would start on the 19th not the 20th...therefore would bring you til the 29th...you'd have the remainder of the nights without discount...you could also make a 4th ressie for the 1st til departure giving you less nts at a non discounted rate.

I just put in the system the 19th to the 29th and it gave me the aaa/caa rate for the entire period.

You will have to do the math for each option and figure out which is the best way to go.

17 nts at value season in a moderate would be 2634.83.

making 3 ressies would total $2454.83. (maybe less with a 4th ressie for last night)

These prices are for comparison only and are not an official quote.

 

[MagicKingdom05]

Tracey,

So what your saying is that if I make the long part of the reservation from Dec 19-Dec 29 2006, Disney should give me the AAA discount regardless of the blackout date because I'm checking in on that reservation on the 19th.

 

[tmli]

exactly...when i go in and price it on the website, it prices it from the 19th with the AAA/CAA rate. As soon as I put the 20th as the check in the rate is automatically reg. rate. So the first part will be dec.16-19 the second dec 19-29 and the third Dec 29-Jan 2

 

[MagicKingdom05]

Tracy,

Here is what I came up with. If I stayed at WL or AKL in a standard room:

Dec 16-19 $194.29 a night (15% AAA discount) ($582.87) 3 nights
Dec 19-29 $194.29 a night (15% AAA discount) ($1942.9) 10 nights
Dec 29-Jan 2 $373.52 a night (holiday rate) ($1506.08) 4 nights
Total $4031.85

Dec 16-Jan 2 $228.58 a night (value season rate) $3885.86 17 nights

It looks like the value season rate for the whole time would save about $146.

 

[tmli]

I was checking a moderate which is 20% discount during value season.

As I said earlier you would have to do the math for each option and figure out what is best for you. I was just suggesting another option.