Stay Play Dine 2017 Calculation Thread

[dansdad]

We are booked for 11 days in January. Since we had to cancel our trip due to hurricane Irma we moved the paid funds to the trip in January. If they come out with play, stay, dine and it turns out to be a better deal than the discount I got, what happens to the money. If the amount is less than I paid would Disney refund the money to my credit card?

Sometimes they refund the card and sometimes they give you a resort credit for the difference. Haven't been able to figure out how they decide which.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

SouthFayetteFan, I am really not familiar with this promotion at all as in the past we have really just used room only discounts. A previous post from you said it works best with 4-5 in the room, which makes sense. We will have 2 adults going in Jan. We are staying at whichever value resort gives us the cheapest rate. We wanted the dining plan (not quick service and not deluxe). Obviously you don't yet know the details of this promotion if it's going to be offered, but if you guessed, do you think it would be something I should consider? Thanks.

So let's assume it's roughly the same discount as last year (40% off)...that would save you roughly $42 per night. You would upgrade from quick service to regular dining but there is no discount on that portion of your package.

It sounds like you already plan to buy the Dining no matter what so that takes a variable out of the equation.

So a room only discount would need to beat $42 per night. Here's how that breaks down...
- at a 15% discount your average nightly room rate would have to exceed $280 for room only to make more sense.
- at a 20% discount your average nightly room rate would have to exceed $210 for room only to make more sense.
- at a 25% discount your average nightly room rate would have to exceed $168 for room only to make sense.
(I post different options because I have no idea what % discount they will offer)

With all that said...I think Stay Play Dine could make sense for your situation if it doesn't change dramatically. The primary reason it makes sense is because you plan to get the dining plan no matter what.

 

[ThistleMae]

We are already booked and have tickets and the dinning plan. We are hoping for the Play, Stay and Dine to get something off. Anything would be nice, since we don't know how much plane tickets will be....always trying to score on that...always a gamble.

 

[Moomduck1]

So let's assume it's roughly the same discount as last year (40% off)...that would save you roughly $42 per night. You would upgrade from quick service to regular dining but there is no discount on that portion of your package.

It sounds like you already plan to buy the Dining no matter what so that takes a variable out of the equation.

So a room only discount would need to beat $42 per night. Here's how that breaks down...
- at a 15% discount your average nightly room rate would have to exceed $280 for room only to make more sense.
- at a 20% discount your average nightly room rate would have to exceed $210 for room only to make more sense.
- at a 25% discount your average nightly room rate would have to exceed $168 for room only to make sense.
(I post different options because I have no idea what % discount they will offer)

With all that said...I think Stay Play Dine could make sense for your situation if it doesn't change dramatically. The primary reason it makes sense is because you plan to get the dining plan no matter what.

Thank you!
Your way is much cleaner than what I was trying to do. Accountant or Engineer perhaps? We did decide to go with the dining plan. We've done the math, and it's very close. We are going with another adult couple that want to eat at a lot of sit down restaurants, which is not something that we normally do. We have sat down (twice) to work the OOP v dining plan and we think we will go with the dining plan. We will probably try a third time (ridiculous I know) because we do have a concern that it's too much food for us. Although we are not going to eat something just because we feel we paid for it already. Can always bring snacks home, although that's not the best way to use credits.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Thank you!
Your way is much cleaner than what I was trying to do. Accountant or Engineer perhaps? We did decide to go with the dining plan. We've done the math, and it's very close. We are going with another adult couple that want to eat at a lot of sit down restaurants, which is not something that we normally do. We have sat down (twice) to work the OOP v dining plan and we think we will go with the dining plan. We will probably try a third time (ridiculous I know) because we do have a concern that it's too much food for us. Although we are not going to eat something just because we feel we paid for it already. Can always bring snacks home, although that's not the best way to use credits.

Currently a Banker with an accounting and purchasing background when I worked in private industry haha.

I'd REALLY do the math on the OOP vs. Dining Plan. It makes it a more complex analysis but if you can compare the following:
1) Dining out of pocket + Room Only Discount (probably need to look at 15%, 20%, and 25% until we know the actual discount amount)_
2) Stay, Play Dine (assume 40% off of the QS dining for now = roughly $21 per adult or $42 savings per night) with upgrade cost to regular dining plan. When you do the dining analysis too make sure you determine if the dining plan will cover ALL your dining costs or will you still have some OOP expenses...

Good Luck - happy to give additional input if you have any questions.

 

[Moomduck1]

Yes, you are right. We will do the math again this afternoon before the Penn State game that my husband is planning on watching starts. It would be foolish to pay extra just to try the dining plan and then carting a suitcase full of snacks home. I appreciate your help! Our goal is to have everything worked out so that when the discount(s) are released, we can jump on the one that we want right away.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Yes, you are right. We will do the math again this afternoon before the Penn State game that my husband is planning on watching starts. It would be foolish to pay extra just to try the dining plan and then carting a suitcase full of snacks home. I appreciate your help! Our goal is to have everything worked out so that when the discount(s) are released, we can jump on the one that we want right away.

GO Penn State! (Big fan myself)

 

[Moomduck1]

GO Penn State! (Big fan myself)

I guess you will be watching the game too.
I have a quick question. When you say that if the Stay Play Dine comes with the quick service for value, and we have to pay the difference to upgrade to the regular dining plan, do we pay the discounted amount? Example....if it's regular 735 for quick and 1057 for regular, we'd pay 322. If it's discounted to 441, would we pay the 322 or the 616?

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

I guess you will be watching the game too.
I have a quick question. When you say that if the Stay Play Dine comes with the quick service for value, and we have to pay the difference to upgrade to the regular dining plan, do we pay the discounted amount? Example....if it's regular 735 for quick and 1057 for regular, we'd pay 322. If it's discounted to 441, would we pay the 322 or the 616?

In your example 322. You retain the initial savings amount.

 

[Moomduck1]

In your example 322. You retain the initial savings amount.

Thank you. We've done the math and if it's any less than 40%, Stay Play Dine will end up being more expensive. Although not by much, maybe $20! We are leaning towards no dining plan now. We decided we'd rather potentially pay $20 more and eat less food, then try to break even on the dining plan and end up gaining back all the weight we've both lost the past 3 months. So thank you for encouraging us to do the math again.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Thank you. We've done the math and if it's any less than 40%, Stay Play Dine will end up being more expensive. Although not by much, maybe $20! We are leaning towards no dining plan now. We decided we'd rather potentially pay $20 more and eat less food, then try to break even on the dining plan and end up gaining back all the weight we've both lost the past 3 months. So thank you for encouraging us to do the math again.

You're welcome. Good luck. At the risk of sounding like a major pessimist I'll say that I'm concerned this deal will continue to degrade this year (i.e. Be worse than 40%). It's just the recent pattern unfortunately. And since it's such a misunderstood deal to begin with it's easy for Disney to play up their "huge awesome discount" that barely saves people $300 on their week long trip.

 

[Lisa Warner]

Okay so we have already booked a room at rack rate, tickets and the middle dining plan. After reading some comments I have two questions: 1. If SPD comes out with a % off the dining plan, how would this not be saving me money?
2. If I chose the room only discount, would I still be able to add a dining plan and tickets for their regular price after the room discount?
Sorry if these are stupid questions, all the opinions have made it muddy for me.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Okay so we have already booked a room at rack rate, tickets and the middle dining plan. After reading some comments I have two questions: 1. If SPD comes out with a % off the dining plan, how would this not be saving me money?
2. If I chose the room only discount, would I still be able to add a dining plan and tickets for their regular price after the room discount?
Sorry if these are stupid questions, all the opinions have made it muddy for me.

1. SPD would save you money.
2. Yes you can do that, and you could compare the two to see which one is the better deal.

Any comments you've seen on the boards about the concern over this discount isn't because it won't "save you money." It's that many people have budgeted their trip around these discounts and the discounts continue to get smaller, carry additional restrictions, and room type availability is sparse which causes you to pay much more than you wanted to. If you've already decided to go, either of these discounts will provide you with some savings.

 

[ThistleMae]

1. SPD would save you money.
2. Yes you can do that, and you could compare the two to see which one is the better deal.

Any comments you've seen on the boards about the concern over this discount isn't because it won't "save you money." It's that many people have budgeted their trip around these discounts and the discounts continue to get smaller, carry additional restrictions, and room type availability is sparse which causes you to pay much more than you wanted to. If you've already decided to go, either of these discounts will provide you with some savings.

Exactly this. We have already booked with tickets and dining...so when the deal comes out (hoping soon) we will call to get the discount applied, whichever one gives us the best deal. It should be coming out soon according to its historical record...and as the last poster said, we never know how much of a discount it will be.

 

[JACKNAG]

Anyone check today?

 

[micandminforever]

No discount today except for a Military discount.

 

[ThistleMae]

Following this thread as well....January/February 2018 discounts, who else is in? Folks are talking about the same things there.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

To everybody who followed this thread last year...If I'm able to dissect the deal and figure out the savings this year I will start a new thread at that time (and post a link here). I'm already booked for January through a Travel Agent deal so I'm not even doing the SPD this year but as the self-proclaimed discount guru I will attempt to gather the energy to crack the deal once again, lol!

 

[Coco36]

Thank you! That would be greatly appreciated!

To everybody who followed this thread last year...If I'm able to dissect the deal and figure out the savings this year I will start a new thread at that time (and post a link here). I'm already booked for January through a Travel Agent deal so I'm not even doing the SPD this year but as the self-proclaimed discount guru I will attempt to gather the energy to crack the deal once again, lol!

preciates.

To everybody who followed this thread last year...If I'm able to dissect the deal and figure out the savings this year I will start a new thread at that time (and post a link here). I'm already booked for January through a Travel Agent deal so I'm not even doing the SPD this year but as the self-proclaimed discount guru I will attempt to gather the energy to crack the deal once again, lol!

 

[JACKNAG]

If Play Stay and Dine doesn't come out soon,


I'm going to have Work, Cry and GO Hungry in January!