Upgrading package tickets to annual passes

[snorkelyn]

I have an 11 day free dining (hopefully)/ resort/park ticket package booked Sept 2013. Will I be able to upgrade my tickets to annual passes? How would that work? Would it make any difference if I were there on FD?

If we return within 12 months, even just for a week- it may save us money next time if we buy annual passes while there this fall. One way this plan could *not* save us money, is if we go again within the 12 months and FD is offered again. The savings of FD would outweigh AP, right?

We would likely only be able to go again just once within the year, and it would be for just a week or less.

I would love to hear from people who know about this, or have done it. I need some advice! Thanks!

 

[hoosll]

Disney should credit you with the official price of your tickets when you convert to AP (the expiration date will be one year from the date you first used your tickets, not the date you upgrade). I recommend doing it at park guest services not at your resort which cannot as easily upgrade to AP and doesn't have the brochure to give you.

Last April I had my UT (Undercover Tourist) tickets upgraded at WL to AP on my KttK key. They worked fine but it didn't LOOK like an annual pass so I went to guest services and had it transferred to an annual pass format but the guy forgot to put my name on the AP. I had a lot of gift shop people question my pass to their supervisors ... so I ended up at Guest Services to get it corrected to my name ...

In Dec my DH upgraded his UT parkhopper to AP at MK city hall and it worked fine. No issues for him.

I personally do not do the dining plan any longer (too much food, not enough flexibility, dessert, no alcohol, no tip), so we got the Tables in Wonderland card; we may only break even but we feel like we are getting a discount at our meals ...

 

[snorkelyn]

Thank you for the reply. I just need to figure out if I would save money by buying the passes. FD really works for our family (2014 we will have 3 adults and 2 kids- since our youngest turns 10 in january 2014)). But you can't always be certain it will happen (although VERY likely in Sept when we go).

With young kids- we do many character meals- so paying OOP will really add up.

I think the real winning scenario would be if we bought the AP, then got a room discount next time, and used TIW discount card. What are the odds?

 

[Sue M]

When I've done this, after using my KTTW card once or twice I've gone to Guest Service at the front of a park to change to AP.

If free dining does come out, and I want it, you have to get the minimum park tickets incl in the package, 1 or 2 days. This is ok for us, because we always go twice a year so have APs. I don't use the tickets, and save them for AP renewal.

I haven't done the DDP in awhile, but got it again with the Jan. Stay/Play & Dine promo. We don't do character meals, but we do eat differently on DDP, and always book the more expensive TS, and eat the more expensive items on the menu.
For us, I find the DDP too much food too. So I'm glad to be off the DDP for our Aug trip. It gives us more flexibility.

Just want to add, when you convert to an AP, be sure you and husband have photo ID. I forgot to bring mine and had to do it the next day! I never bring my wallet into the park, just take out the card(s) that I need. Not sure what ID they require for young children?

 

[snorkelyn]

When I've done this, after using my KTTW card once or twice I've gone to Guest Service at the front of a park to change to AP.

If free dining does come out, and I want it, you have to get the minimum park tickets incl in the package, 1 or 2 days. This is ok for us, because we always go twice a year so have APs. I don't use the tickets, and save them for AP renewal.

Thanks for the reply. VERY helpful.

So, let me get this straight: I can upgrade to AP while there in Sept 2013. When we go back Aug/Sept 2014 (within 12 months), we can buy a package with 1 day tickets to get FD. 1 day tickets for my family costs approx $650, which is less than eating at Disney for a week. THEN....I can SAVE the 1-day tickets for another year, then use them, and upgrade to AP, and I will get FULL $650 price paid for those tickets applied to the cost of my new AP? WOW, if I am understanding this correctly, that's a great idea!

The only flaw I see with this plan: Will I be able to get an AP discount rate for my room, if I haven't upgraded the tickets to an AP yet? I obviously wouldn't want to upgrade the 1day tickets to an AP before the trip, as I would want the AP to start as late as possible. How would this work?

Last question...how does TIW work? Do I pay to get the card, then get a discount for a 1-year membership fee?

 

[outahere]

Thanks for the reply. VERY helpful.

So, let me get this straight: I can upgrade to AP while there in Sept 2013. When we go back Aug/Sept 2014 (within 12 months), we can buy a package with 1 day tickets to get FD. 1 day tickets for my family costs approx $650, which is less than eating at Disney for a week. THEN....I can SAVE the 1-day tickets for another year, then use them, and upgrade to AP, and I will get FULL $650 price paid for those tickets applied to the cost of my new AP? WOW, if I am understanding this correctly, that's a great idea!

The only flaw I see with this plan: Will I be able to get an AP discount rate for my room, if I haven't upgraded the tickets to an AP yet? I obviously wouldn't want to upgrade the 1day tickets to an AP before the trip, as I would want the AP to start as late as possible. How would this work?

Last question...how does TIW work? Do I pay to get the card, then get a discount for a 1-year membership fee?

Can't help with the ticket to AP conversion, but TIW is now $100 and you get a 20% discount at a lot of the restaurants in and out of the parks. There is a list on the TIW website. We bought a TIW card last month and used it enough to almost cover the cost. We're headed back to WDW in June for a week, so I know we'll save even more than the initial cost. The discount applies to everything on your check, including any "adult beverages".

 

[Missytara]

For future reference, there is a sticky over at the Theme Parks and Strategies board, that is maintained by a CM who works in ticketing. There is some great information over there.

 

[KittyKat1978]

Thanks for the reply. VERY helpful.

So, let me get this straight: I can upgrade to AP while there in Sept 2013. When we go back Aug/Sept 2014 (within 12 months), we can buy a package with 1 day tickets to get FD. 1 day tickets for my family costs approx $650, which is less than eating at Disney for a week. THEN....I can SAVE the 1-day tickets for another year, then use them, and upgrade to AP, and I will get FULL $650 price paid for those tickets applied to the cost of my new AP? WOW, if I am understanding this correctly, that's a great idea!

The only flaw I see with this plan: Will I be able to get an AP discount rate for my room, if I haven't upgraded the tickets to an AP yet? I obviously wouldn't want to upgrade the 1day tickets to an AP before the trip, as I would want the AP to start as late as possible. How would this work?

Last question...how does TIW work? Do I pay to get the card, then get a discount for a 1-year membership fee?

The min tickets for FD is a 2 day, and yes, you can apply the 2 day ticket price you paid to each of the new AP's you will get.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

We did a similar upgrade last September. After a few days, we figured out that we might be able to apply the cost of the park ticket portion of our package (which included Free Dining) to annual passes. We did exactly that, and got Premier Passes for less money than it would have cost for DLR passes alone back at home (since we could apply the full cost of the tickets in the WDW package we had already paid for). For the Premier pass we had to do the upgrade at a Guest Service location outside a park, but we did it outside MK and it was super easy. We had been told that we had to use up our dining credits before doing the upgrade, but the CM where we did the upgrade confirmed that it did not matter, since the park tickets are actually seperated from your KTTW card, and any benefits you had on there remain intact.

For our return trip, we chose our timing so that our passes would be good for the first half of the trip, and we bught park tickets in the package for the second part of the trip. This way we got free dining for the entire time, even the portion where we'll be using our APs. Then we may again apply the ticket portion of this year's trip to APs for next year and start the process one more time.

 

[snorkelyn]

We did a similar upgrade last September. After a few days, we figured out that we might be able to apply the cost of the park ticket portion of our package (which included Free Dining) to annual passes. We did exactly that, and got Premier Passes for less money than it would have cost for DLR passes alone back at home (since we could apply the full cost of the tickets in the WDW package we had already paid for). For the Premier pass we had to do the upgrade at a Guest Service location outside a park, but we did it outside MK and it was super easy. We had been told that we had to use up our dining credits before doing the upgrade, but the CM where we did the upgrade confirmed that it did not matter, since the park tickets are actually seperated from your KTTW card, and any benefits you had on there remain intact.

For our return trip, we chose our timing so that our passes would be good for the first half of the trip, and we bught park tickets in the package for the second part of the trip. This way we got free dining for the entire time, even the portion where we'll be using our APs. Then we may again apply the ticket portion of this year's trip to APs for next year and start the process one more time.

This is super helpful! I think I will plan on doing the same thing. Here will be my plan (anyone please feel free to comment if you see a flaw):
Buy a package for 11 days at Mod resort (with free dining, I hope!), with only 2 day basic park tickets. (I understand that I will still be able to get FD for my entire stay) On the 2nd day- I will go to Guest relations, have them remove my tickets from my KTTW card (thus keeping dining credits in place), then I will upgrade to AP with park hopper. And I will get a shiny new AP for park admission.

I will then plan my trip for 50 weeks later, so I can use AP. I would have 2 options:
1. Get a discounted AP resort promotion rate, then use TIW for meal discount (will probably stay deluxe- so it would be close to break even as FD would have been)
or
2. Book another FD package with 2 day tickets, then save those 2-day tickets for the trip I will take the NEXT year. At which time, I will upgrade them to AP. And start the cycle all over again.

 

[snorkelyn]

For future reference, there is a sticky over at the Theme Parks and Strategies board, that is maintained by a CM who works in ticketing. There is some great information over there.

Thanks. I did check out the info there. It was helpful, however, there wasn't much info on doing this while trying to take advantage of free dining.

 

[snorkelyn]

Can't help with the ticket to AP conversion, but TIW is now $100 and you get a 20% discount at a lot of the restaurants in and out of the parks. There is a list on the TIW website. We bought a TIW card last month and used it enough to almost cover the cost. We're headed back to WDW in June for a week, so I know we'll save even more than the initial cost. The discount applies to everything on your check, including any "adult beverages".

Thanks. If we can get a good AP rate for our NEXT trip, the TIW could really work for us. We would eat differently than we do on the Dining Plan- but we could probably do it cheaper than the cost of a dining plan.

 

[Sue M]

Thanks for the reply. VERY helpful.

So, let me get this straight: I can upgrade to AP while there in Sept 2013. When we go back Aug/Sept 2014 (within 12 months), we can buy a package with 1 day tickets to get FD. 1 day tickets for my family costs approx $650, which is less than eating at Disney for a week. THEN....I can SAVE the 1-day tickets for another year, then use them, and upgrade to AP, and I will get FULL $650 price paid for those tickets applied to the cost of my new AP? WOW, if I am understanding this correctly, that's a great idea!

The only flaw I see with this plan: Will I be able to get an AP discount rate for my room, if I haven't upgraded the tickets to an AP yet? I obviously wouldn't want to upgrade the 1day tickets to an AP before the trip, as I would want the AP to start as late as possible. How would this work?

Last question...how does TIW work? Do I pay to get the card, then get a discount for a 1-year membership fee?

Yes, you can get the AP room rate. But not with free dining. For APs, they have the AP + Dine package which gives you the AP room discount, but you pay for the DDP. Or you can book room only with Ap rate. You would just get your Ap that day, and when you return to the resort you show it.

We have 1 day tickets on our KTTW card we've saved from Jan. our Ap exp. about 4 days into our next trip, so I'll renew with our 1 day ticket applied.
For free dining, it's usually a minimum 2 day ticket.

For us (2 people) free dining isn't always cheaper then room discount. For a moderate resort it may be a few $ cheaper, for a deluxe free dining is never a deal. It's cheaper for us to take the room discount and buy the DDP.

Always do the Wdw math to figure which is the best deal.

We use TIW, but now with the $25 price increase, I'll have to figure out if its still worth it. By the time we get to the break even point, I don't know. I'll have to get my friend to do the math on this one

 

[GrandCalifornian]

This is super helpful! I think I will plan on doing the same thing. Here will be my plan (anyone please feel free to comment if you see a flaw):
Buy a package for 11 days at Mod resort (with free dining, I hope!), with only 2 day basic park tickets. (I understand that I will still be able to get FD for my entire stay) On the 2nd day- I will go to Guest relations, have them remove my tickets from my KTTW card (thus keeping dining credits in place), then I will upgrade to AP with park hopper. And I will get a shiny new AP for park admission.

I will then plan my trip for 50 weeks later, so I can use AP. I would have 2 options:
1. Get a discounted AP resort promotion rate, then use TIW for meal discount (will probably stay deluxe- so it would be close to break even as FD would have been)
or
2. Book another FD package with 2 day tickets, then save those 2-day tickets for the trip I will take the NEXT year. At which time, I will upgrade them to AP. And start the cycle all over again.

Sounds good. We did the same thing for our second trip comparing discounts and found the free dining to be better than the AP discount for us. You wouldn't have to just book two days of park tickets, but that will save you having to pay ahead of time. However many ticket days you have paid for you'll be able to apply to the pass. For us the first time we just considered that money to already be spent so it really felt like a nice discount on the upgrade to the passes. Also if you are going to do the upgrade, it is worth doing it ASAP so you get any AP discount on merchandise purchases. Sounds like a plan, and anything that gets you to Disney twice in a year is a fun deal.