Ticket upgrade

[illiram]

I bought four 6-day hoppers for $1,591.80 from Undercover Tourist. Looking on the Disney site, four DVC Annual Gold passes would be $2,338.76 right now if we were to upgrade during our trip.

If I went to the counter at Disney, would they simply charge me the difference of $2,338.76 minus $1,591.80 for $746.96??? How do they know how much I paid with Undercover Tourist? Are there any hidden fees to do this?

 

[CarolynFH]

Use the 6-day hoppers to enter a park at least once. Then take the tickets (as well as any ticket users who are age 18 or older) to Guest Relations. They will charge you the difference between the current Disney price for those hoppers ($1657.16 including tax per my MDE app) and the price for the Gold passes. No hidden fees. (If you don't use them at least once, they'll charge you the difference between what UT paid for them and the cost of the Gold passes.)

 

[illiram]

Oh wow! So I should wait until day 2 (after I have used them for a day) then go to guest relations? And they will consider it as if I had paid full price for the 6 day hoppers?

 

[DIS_MERI]

You can go day 1, as long as you have used them to enter already. And, they *should* charge as though you had paid full price. Know the price difference, and if they try to charge you something else either ask for someone else to check the price, or say nevermind and try it someplace else (or the same place at a later time). I tried to go from a 5 day WPFM hopper to DVC gold at DHS Guest services and the girl was *completely* clueless. I told her nevermind, I had a FP+ reservation to get to. Went back an hour later and got someone who was able to do it, no problem.

 

[ravenclawtrekkie]

The value of a "net rate" (not gate-priced) ticket is visible to ticketing CMs when we read the ticket. We don't care about it, but it's there. Price bridging to the gate price of the tickets is an incredibly easy step and you can feel free to ask the CM if they've remembered to do it.

Also, the theme park ticket windows can do this upgrade just the same as Guest Relations, and usually have shorter lines.

 

[Gracie09]

Make sure you know the price you should pay. We had a cm who forgot to bridge the price of our ticket (bring up to current value) and wanted us to pay more. When we pointed it out she apologized and corrected it

 

[Meghatron]

Hijacking this thread because it's the same topic as my question and I don't want to clog up the board with repeats. Based on what I've read from multiple, fairly current sources, I can do the following:

1. Purchase 2 adult and 2 child 4-day park hopper and water park e-tickets from UT and add them immediately to MDE.

2. Enter one of the four theme parks (NOT a water park) on Jan 6.

3. Go to Guest Relations and upgrade to Platinum (NOT Platinum Plus) Annual Pass. Since we've used them for theme park admission, the UT tickets will be bridged to the gate price of the 4-day park-hopper-water-park tickets, and since we haven't used the water park entries we won't be forced to upgrade to the platinum plus level pass.

Is my thinking accurate on this?

 

[Robo]

Hijacking this thread because it's the same topic as my question and I don't want to clog up the board with repeats. Based on what I've read from multiple, fairly current sources, I can do the following:

1. Purchase 2 adult and 2 child 4-day park hopper and water park e-tickets from UT and add them immediately to MDE.

2. Enter one of the four theme parks (NOT a water park) on Jan 6.

3. Go to Guest Relations and upgrade to Premium (NOT Platinum) Annual Pass. Since we've used them for theme park admission, the UT tickets will be bridged to the gate price of the 4-day park-hopper-water-park tickets, and since we haven't used the water park entries we won't be forced to upgrade to the platinum level pass.

Is my thinking accurate on this?

All correct.

 

[Meghatron]

All correct.

Thank you!

 

[Robo]

The types of APs are found HERE.

 

[Meghatron]

FYI that link is to just the water parks pass purchase page. All the annual passes are here: https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/passes/

 

[Meghatron]

Also, I'm still wrapping my head around the new terminology -- I DO want to get WDW Platinum Passes, but not the Platinum Plus. I edited my post to reflect the accurate pass names.

 

[Robo]

FYI that link is to just the water parks pass purchase page. All the annual passes are here: https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/passes/

Fixed. Thanks!

 

[DebbieB]

deleted - earlier post corrected.

 

[Robo]

Also, I'm still wrapping my head around the new terminology -- I want DO want to get WDW Platinum Passes, but not the Platinum Plus.

You can choose any level of AP that you like if you DON'T use a WPF&M option before upgrading.

If you DO use a WPF&M option before upgrading, you must buy an AP that includes the WPF&M options.

 

[siskaren]

Price bridging to the gate price of the tickets is an incredibly easy step and you can feel free to ask the CM if they've remembered to do it.

I'm curious then - why are there so many posts here about CMs not doing it or apparently not knowing how to do it?

 

[Accident]

I'm curious then - why are there so many posts here about CMs not doing it or apparently not knowing how to do it?

In my opinion, most of the cast members are college program and only recently trained. Anyone new to a job has some learning curve on how the systems work and when it's a constant supply of just trained help, it does impact the guest experience for things we feel should be no brainers and just happen.

 

[bumbershoot]

I'm curious then - why are there so many posts here about CMs not doing it or apparently not knowing how to do it?

If you've ever hired an employee, trained an employee, worked with other employees, or have been an employee who has gotten at least one thing wrong, you know that just b/c someone is bright and trained doesn't mean they heard everything or remembered everything that was said to them.

 

[ravenclawtrekkie]

I'm curious then - why are there so many posts here about CMs not doing it or apparently not knowing how to do it?

I think forgetting to do it or not realizing they need to do it is far more common than not knowing how to do it.

Ticketing CMs have to learn a LOT of stuff, and not all the processes are intuitive. Price bridging is a simple thing, but it uses a function called Quick Upgrade that's used for lots of other things as well. If someone walks up to a window and says "I want to upgrade my tickets" the CM's brain jumps to the Upgrade function - which is a separate screen. Plus, we really only price bridge net rate tickets, and those are generally identified by 2-letter codes that display after the ticket entitlements. Example: 2D PH is a 2-day park hopper. 2D PH IA is a 2-day park hopper purchased from an 'internet aggregator.' You don't bridge the first one before upgrading, you do the second one.

Our training is 2 weeks long - a week in a classroom and a week in the booths with a trainer behind us. We don't learn every idiosyncrasy of the ATS software in those two weeks, nor do we memorize the entire ticketing documentation. I didn't feel like I really knew what I was doing until after 3-ish months in the job. Over time, I've developed my process a little - if someone tells me they want to upgrade, first I read the ticket and note entitlements and usage, as well as whether it's net-rate or not, then I go into Quick Upgrade (if necessary) or Upgrade. Months ago when I was pretty new, I didn't do the extra steps, because I hadn't seen it demonstrated to me that it was helpful to do so.

In my opinion, most of the cast members are college program and only recently trained. Anyone new to a job has some learning curve on how the systems work and when it's a constant supply of just trained help, it does impact the guest experience for things we feel should be no brainers and just happen.

Actually, relatively few ticketing CMs are college program. The smaller parks (DHS/DAK) have maybe 5 CPs each in that role, give or take - MK and Epcot have more, but it's still a small percentage of the overall number of us. It's a hard role for the CPs to get because of how few there are, and most of them are very motivated to perform well as a result of that. They still make mistakes, obviously, but they're mostly good kids who learn quick.

 

[SUSIEQ]

I'm curious then - why are there so many posts here about CMs not doing it or apparently not knowing how to do it?

Last year, a CM at Guest Services inside the front gate of Epcot told me she couldn't give me the current gate price of my ticket towards an AP upgrade because I got such a good deal on the ticket. What she was seeing was the price that UT had paid for the ticket about 6 years ago. She knew how to do it and knew the ticket was eligible for it, but she wouldn't do the upgrade at gate price.
I still shake my head over that one!
I then went to Guest Services at the IG, and the CM was glad to do it.