Standard Rooms and Discounts APs

[JungleCruiseFan]

What's the best way to get a standard room with a discount, specifically with APs.
The last 2 trips we tried to book our stays the same morning that the AP discounts came out and they had no standard rooms left. Pop century and Caribbean Beach resort. We had a preferred room at Pop and a water view at Caribbean. This year we would really like to save money and get a standard room.
Can I book a room only with no discount now and just get it converted to the AP when it comes out? Thanks

 

[Smittolis]

Technically yes but it is not guaranteed, the hotel needs to be included in the promotion and needs to have availability as in effect you are cancelling your existing reservation and making a new one with the AP. As you can see from this forum, there are no new AP discounts, but there are a number of 'return to summer' discounts and the like that will be comparable. My advice would be to book a room / hotel you are happy to stay at with whatever discount you can get now, but with the notion you can change it out to a cheaper rate should AP's come out with a better deal. However, there are no guarantees that the AP's will have anything so you need to be happy with you original choice.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

In general, Disney have tended to discount the upgraded rooms, not the Standards. This is as true with AP discounts as any other.

 

[Babsy]

What's the best way to get a standard room with a discount, specifically with APs.
The last 2 trips we tried to book our stays the same morning that the AP discounts came out and they had no standard rooms left. Pop century and Caribbean Beach resort. We had a preferred room at Pop and a water view at Caribbean. This year we would really like to save money and get a standard room.
Can I book a room only with no discount now and just get it converted to the AP when it comes out? Thanks

Yes, but there has to be availability for that resort and room type for you to be able to convert. AP rates are released to fill rooms not booked, so your booking actually takes a room out of inventory and slightly reduces your chance for a discount on that room. In essence, Disney considers rooms already booked as sold at full price, so why would they want to discount them? They are putting unsold rooms "on sale".

We book a room for the dates that we want that is priced in our budget even without any discount. When AP discounts are released for our dates, we call to see what is available and change our reservation to the best available room/discount to suit our needs. Discounts are never guaranteed and are becoming increasingly scarce as Disney hotels are frequently selling close to capacity.

You will likely need to be flexible with your choices.

Good luck!

 

[JungleCruiseFan]

Thanks for the responses everyone.

 

[JungleCruiseFan]

Just booked our vacation using a unique offer code that I got in an email. 10 days at all star movies and 5 days at Saratoga Springs in August.
We could only get preferred room at all star movies but we actually had the option at Saratoga. It was only $160 difference at Saratoga so we took the preferred. We stayed there 10 years ago on our honeymoon and we were almost a 10 minute walk from the lobby and food so we figured since we plan on staying at our resort a lot we would just get the preferred.
All star movies will be our park commando days so we would really rather have had a standard room as that would save us $212.
Is there any hope of checking back on the website everyday and a standard room might open up? Or is is pretty much a done deal? Thanks

 

[DisneyWishes14]

It's worth checking back, but that seems to be WDW's discount strategy lately - discount the higher-end rooms and keeping standard at rack. In many DL discounts they ONLY discount the deluxe and premium rooms. But, hey, it's always worth checking at WDW!