Trade in Hopper pass for AP?

[bobbidiboo]

Just wondering about trading a 3 day hopper pass towards an Annual Pass?
We will be down to WDW in Jan 03 and I have purchased 3 day park hopper with 1 plus for $175, can this be traded in and the $175 used towards an AP?
Reason is had all plans done for our trip in January and tickets and ressies all made then we decided to purchase 200 points in DVC The closing will be in a couple weeks so now I am planning on going down again (maybe couple more times) next year and of course we will need an AP to use everytime we are there:

 

[GAIL HAYDEN]

I have been told, I did specifically ask about this 3 day with one plus, that it could be traded in for any pass upgrade.

 

[FreeTime]

Yes you can. We traded in what was left on our 5 day passes towarded an annual pass. We had purchased our 5 day passes with the DC discount and we were no longer members but they gave us the discount toward the annual pass as well.

 

[Pooh Girl 71]

Be very careful when you upgrade. I upgraded 4 day park hoppers for Ap's about 2 weeks ago. I had bought the PH back in March. The lady gave me my tickets to verify and she had put an expiration date of 3-23-02 on my AP's. I was livid! These had never been used so should have an exp date from the day I upgraded. She changed the AP's but I don't think she would have done so if I had not made a fuss.

 

[GAIL HAYDEN]

Pooh girl,
I am sure she made an honest mistake and as such, if you had not seen it it would have gone unnoticed. Mistakes do happen.

 

[Pooh Girl 71]

nope it was not an honest mistake. Kimberly at Epcot guest services specifically told me that when you go to upgrade a park hopper that it goes back to the original date you purchased them. I could understand if you had already used the park hopper but not when they had not been used at all. I got mine with the correct expiration date. Just a warning

 

[GAIL HAYDEN]

Kimberly at Epcot guest services specifically told me that when you go to upgrade a park hopper that it goes back to the original date you purchased them. I could understand if you had already used the park hopper but not when they had not been used at all. I got mine with the correct expiration date. Just a warning

Wow, thanks for the warning. If Kimberly was telling us something factual, it must be a new rule or she is one very uninformed CM. Good catch, Pooh!!!!! Even if it were used, you still are supposed to get credit for the remaining days for a FULL 365 days. If what she said was correct, there would be many people upgrading and would have already been expired..

 

[BethR]

That would mean that anyone who had leftoever hopper days older than a year, that they could not be used to upgrade to APs.
I think that there may be something wrong there...

 

[Pooh Girl 71]

That is what I was thinking too. Kimberly was quick to correct the expiration date. My husband thinks it is b/c I paid with travelers checks and had already processed them. I think it is b/c she messed up in some sort of way. I didn't have to make that big of a fuss but she was quick to tell me it was "the rules".

 

[GoldenOldie]

Originally posted by Pooh Girl 71
Kimberly at Epcot guest services specifically told me that when you go to upgrade a park hopper that it goes back to the original date you purchased them. ..

Kimberly is correct. When the passes you are trading in get scanned for the Guest Relations CM to see what's on them for credit, the date defaults to the date that pass was purchased. The CM processing the transaction is supposed to change the date to the current day's date before completing the transaction but not all of them remember to do it. That is what happened to you.

It is not uncommon. It happens to folks activating AP vouchers all the time. The date defaults to the date that the voucher was purchased when the voucher is scanned. There have been many on these boards who have had this happen. That is why we continually admonish people to always check the dates of their AP's/PAP's before leaving the window.

Glad you caught it before you left.

 

[BethR]

Any way for us to get a direct line to you for information, Golden Oldie???
Thanks once again for "setting us straight."

 

[lampy]

Freetime or anyone

When you converted your leftover days to an AP, what value did they give you for your passes?

I have 3 days with 3 plus options remaining on some 5 day PH+ passes and want to convert them to PAP's during our next trip, as we will be visiting WDW 12 days in the next year.

 

[GoldenOldie]

You will get a prorated amount of credit that is based on what you paid for the pass. In your case you would get 60% of the original purchase price for the leftover three park days. The unused plus options carry no dollar value for upgrading and will simply be ignored.

Remember too that you can only apply one old pass towards the purchase of an AP.

There's a good explanation of upgrading tickets here on Deb's website.

 

[poober25]

Just wanted to let everyone know that we had a great CM when upgraded our hoppers last week. We had purchased 6 day hoppers from Connections. When we went to find out the upgrade cost the first day we were there (before we used them) We were only going to upgrading 3 of our 4 hoppers (My mom wasn't going to upgrade hers) We were told then that it would be $375. I verified that we could do this for no additional cost within 7 days of first use.

Three days later we finally decided to take the plunge and Mom did too. We went back to the window and the CM that was there upgraded our tickets to the Disney tickets and no charge and then upgraded us to AP's so that the total for all 4 AP's was only $341!!! WOW!! We were very surprised. Also we were told by him that if you used your plus options at all you had to upgrade to PAPs (we hadn't)

So, if you get the right CM you can get a good deal. BTW, his name was John and we upgraded at the MK windows next to the bathrooms.

 

[SeaWitch]

Poober25
Okay, so I'm curious... what was the total cost per AP? (You paid X amount from connections, then $85.25 for the upgrade). Did it come out cheaper than just buying the AP from the beginning?

 

[poober25]

SeaWitch

If I figured this right, (I'm pretty sure I did). I pd. $1345.81 for 3 adult and one child APs. The gate price would have been $1506.26 and I figured this too just to see, the DC price would have been $1444.78. So I actually got these for less than the DC rate. WOW. I can't believe that myself. Anyway, here's the best break down I can give you.

Connections Price for 6 day hoppers
Adult 264.27 (?) x 3 = 792.81
Child 211.80 211.80
Upgrad for all 4 341.20 (Sorry don't know exact breakdown)

Hope this helps!

 

[SeaWitch]

Cool! It sounded like you had saved over the DC price (or new preorder price).. just wanted to be sure I understood you correctly!

 

[poober25]

SeaWitch

No prob! I'm glad you asked the question, because I had not actually taken the time to figure it out yet, though I would have eventually. I feel even better about my savings now.

 

[GAIL HAYDEN]

Hi SeaWitch,

It sounded like you had saved over the DC price (or new preorder price)..

There is no preorder price on annual passes. Just plain old with the DC discount and without and you can do this at the gate.

 

[Mic]

I had a little different experience upgrading an adult 7-day hopper I bought from Connections to an AP. My daughter used the pass for 5 days beginning on Sat.(Sat-Wed.) On Thursday morning, I checked out of the resort and stopped at Guest Services at Downtown Disney to upgrade the pass to an AP(we decided the night before we were going to try to sneak back in Dec.). The CM was an older lady that was not pleasant at all, and she proceeded to tell me that I had only $82 left to credit to the AP. I questioned her on that, because my daughter had only used the park days, no plusses, and we were within the 7-day window for the upgrade(all things I learned here). She pointed out to me that the date on the pass was Sept. 15, but I again stated we had just used it. I also showed her several other passes with a Sept. date on them that I had ordered directly from Disney, that we had just used. At this point she asked another lady to come from the back room(and just where was this lady while I waited behind 4 people to get to the counter?), who attempted to explain the pass upgrade to both of us. The gist of it was, apparently the first CM had to "convert" the Connections pass to a "Disney-issue" pass, where I would obviously lose the discount I received by purchasing the pass through Connections. The date should then reflect the first day of use as the previous Sat., and then the pass could be upgraded. Using my DC, I was finally able to apply $292 (the cost of a 7-day through Connections) to the DC AP price of $375. When I ordered the pass, the plan was to use 4 days now and 3 days later, but after spending an extra day in the parks last week, I thought 2 days for Dec. would not be enough, so an AP made more sense. Long story short, the Connections hopper price is great if you use it as a hopper, but you will not retain the discount if you upgrade. As a matter of fact, by my calculations, I paid @ $1 more for the pass(I paid $292.90 for it, and was credited $292).