Unactivated Gold/Silver Passes Are Being Recognized

[DavidNYC]

There were a number of questions as to how the system will treat unactivated Gold/Silver passes under the new system. I have an unactivated Silver pass and when I check the AP calendar the new system recognizes my pass as a Silver and is allowing me to make reservations through the end of October 2022 under the typical Silver schedule (so, for example, I can make a reservation over Thanksgiving even though it's blacked out under all but the highest level of the new tier of passes). So it seems that CMs who said that unactivated passes would be automatically converted to the new pass were incorrect. Clearly, if the new system recognizes your pass correctly and gives you a confirmed reservation, they won't be able to turn you away at the gate once you've gotten there. (Note - these were new unactivated passes and not renewals so can't promise the system will see a renewal the same way). I assume at some point they will do some sort of conversion over or just bring extensions of the Silver blackout calendar in line with the new tiers - but they cannot take a confirmed reservation away from you once you've made it.

 

[PMart]

I was able to renew my AP passes before the new APs came out. All of our passes are silver until October 2022 and it does indeed show the passes with the old silver schedule. So I am happy for now lol

 

[T-i-double-guh-er]

So it seems that CMs who said that unactivated passes would be automatically converted to the new pass were incorrect. Clearly, if the new system recognizes your pass correctly and gives you a confirmed reservation, they won't be able to turn you away at the gate once you've gotten there.

I agree with that what you’re saying should be true, but people have reported going to activate their passes this weekend and being told that the Gold/Silver passes are no longer able to be activated in the system and being switched to the new passes at the time of activation. I’ve seen mixed results on getting comp tickets to cover blockout dates.

 

[DavidNYC]

I agree with that what you’re saying should be true, but people have reported going to activate their passes this weekend and being told that the Gold/Silver passes are no longer able to be activated in the system and being switched to the new passes at the time of activation. I’ve seen mixed results on getting comp tickets to cover blockout dates.

First - we don't have any real reports yet as we haven't hit any of the dates where there's a discrepancy between the old and new blackout calendar so all we have are reports of what people have been told about the future which we know is often wrong. And even those mixed results about the future means that Disney knows they legally have to offer the comp passes for days that their system gave people reservations for and there are a number of cast members who don't understand this. If anyone ever had a confirmed reservation from their website based on the calendar on their website and was turned away, I would unleash hell until you got someone who understood this. As a lawyer, I don't recall in 20 years of being on this board my ever hearing something where I thought Disney clearly opened themselves up to a legitimate lawsuit but this one would be it. There's a lot of stuff Disney can do - but when they unambiguously tell you one thing, you spend money to get there in reliance on that, they can't go back. This is no different than if you purchased a one-day pass from Disney for a certain date and when you got there they told you they changed their mind and you now have to pay another $50 to use the ticket.

Now - whether you get someone on the phone in advance of your trip who gets this and does it - that wouldn't surprise me that a lot of the phone support gets this wrong - they've gotten far less complicated things wrong time after time. Remember price bridging? There was no dispute over the proper method and yet many got it wrong. But if you had a reservation and showed up at guest services - no way they turn you away. We'll see in October if anyone reports this actually happening to them. I highly doubt it (and if so - I'd challenge any charge with the credit card company to get in - they'd likely win).

 

[T-i-double-guh-er]

First - we don't have any real reports yet as we haven't hit any of the dates where there's a discrepancy between the old and new blackout calendar so all we have are reports of what people have been told about the future which we know is often wrong.

What we do have reports of is people arriving at the ticket booth to activate a Silver/Gold certificate and being given a Pirate/Sorcerer pass with the photo pass add-on included. They were told there is no option in the system for them to activate as the Silver/Gold pass, only the new passes. Once this happens, the dates they are able to book park passes changes. I haven't heard what happened to any existing park passes, but the new pass isn't "valid admission" for those dates.

I have an unactivated Gold renewal certificate. I also checked after 9/8 and was happy to see it hadn't changed to something else like some people had been told it would. Until I saw the in-person reports from this weekend, I felt pretty certain that this was all a big misunderstanding among cast members, and that when I go to activate my Gold certificate in 2 weeks I would still have a Gold pass. I'm no longer so certain, but I did (eventually) get someone on the phone who understood and provided a solution for me - but they made it sound like they were doing me a huge favor and I really need to do a better job of planning, as if I was supposed to know when I renewed my Gold pass in July that this would happen before my next trip.

 

[T-i-double-guh-er]

Here are screenshots of the reports I have seen on Facebook:

 

[fla4fun]

I would think that Disney always has the option to offer a refund of your total purchase price for an inactivated pass if you don’t agree with the options available when you go to activate it. I am not saying they will or won’t honor a Silver or Gold as originally purchased, but that IF you have a Silver certificate and all they can issue due to IT issues is a Pirate for the same price (which is probably a lower price than a new Pirate purchase), if you refuse the Pirate, they could simply offer a full refund to relieve themselves of their obligation to the guest.

The ability to make reservations based on an unissued pass may be the next perk to go, if this causes them a lot of headaches.

 

[DavidNYC]

Here are screenshots of the reports I have seen on Facebook:

View attachment 604498 View attachment 604499

Yes - but as I suspected - neither report involves someone getting turned away who had a reservation and in fact the first report shows them affirmatively ensuring they would make good on the booked reservations. The fact that we've seen they CAN do this means they always should. Now - once they renew the pass into a sorcerer pass, the system will correctly give them the proper blackout dates and as long as they didn't have any existing reservations on a conflicting date Disney is fine. They can change blackout dates for future reservations whenever they want - I may not like some of the changes but they're on firm ground being able to do that. It's changing blackout dates with no notice after someone made a reservation based on Disney's statements that they run into trouble.

 

[DavidNYC]

I would think that Disney always has the option to offer a refund of your total purchase price for an inactivated pass if you don’t agree with the options available when you go to activate it. I am not saying they will or won’t honor a Silver or Gold as originally purchased, but that IF you have a Silver certificate and all they can issue due to IT issues is a Pirate for the same price (which is probably a lower price than a new Pirate purchase), if you refuse the Pirate, they could simply offer a full refund to relieve themselves of their obligation to the guest.

The ability to make reservations based on an unissued pass may be the next perk to go, if this causes them a lot of headaches.

That would be fine in some cases such as someone who doesn't have plans yet and doesn't like the new restrictions. But once Disney entices you to go to the park based on them telling you that you can use your ticket on that day, that's a whole different matter legally. Once someone has spent money in reasonable reliance on what you've told them - they'll have a hard time not fulfilling their promise. Just think what the news stories would be (and I'm certain that this would be picked up by news) if a family flew to Florida, had hotel reservations, had park reservations made on the Disney website which told them they could go that day, and then they get to the gate and they're told their system made a mistake and they shouldn't have been given reservations. You think Disney's going to risk that? Now - they may try to do everything they can in advance to try to get people to NOT make reservations for those days - but once they've given the reservation - thats an affirmative statement by Disney that you can enter the park that day.

 

[fla4fun]

That would be fine in some cases such as someone who doesn't have plans yet and doesn't like the new restrictions. But once Disney entices you to go to the park based on them telling you that you can use your ticket on that day, that's a whole different matter legally. Once someone has spent money in reasonable reliance on what you've told them - they'll have a hard time not fulfilling their promise. Just think what the news stories would be (and I'm certain that this would be picked up by news) if a family flew to Florida, had hotel reservations, had park reservations made on the Disney website which told them they could go that day, and then they get to the gate and they're told their system made a mistake and they shouldn't have been given reservations. You think Disney's going to risk that? Now - they may try to do everything they can in advance to try to get people to NOT make reservations for those days - but once they've given the reservation - thats an affirmative statement by Disney that you can enter the park that day.

If Disney had decent IT, they should know exactly who has inactivated new and renewal passes so they could notify them specifically right now if there are any conflicts. I don’t have enough faith in their computer systems to believe they are capable of handling that. We kind of got a preview during 2020 of what happens when Disney can’t deliver on what they promised. It wasn’t pretty.

 

[DavidNYC]

If Disney had decent IT, they should know exactly who has inactivated new and renewal passes so they could notify them specifically right now if there are any conflicts. I don’t have enough faith in their computer systems to believe they are capable of handling that. We kind of got a preview during 2020 of what happens when Disney can’t deliver on what they promised. It wasn’t pretty.

Agreed - they have the capability through several methods to ensure this doesn't happen. They could have made the gold blackouts the same as the sorcerer blackouts, they could put something on the website so that instead of confirming you have a gold pass it tells you that you will have the sorcerer blackouts . . . there are lots of things they could do - and chose not to. Which is why I have no doubt they will ensure anyone with a valid reservation is able to enter the park. The risk for them is too great otherwise. The computer systems won't be able to handle it - they will end up just giving hoppers to anyone affected for the days they are there.

 

[randumb0]

Are they really giving photo pass to those with a silver certificate?