The advice perpetuated on this board has always been to use a ticket first to lock in the value so it could be bridged.
A. You seem to be supporting the statement that using a ticket is not required in order to bridge it to the current gate price.
B. My understanding has been that Disney doesn't want to upgrade a ticket that isn't going to be immediately used,
C. and this "new" information contradicts that idea.
So, to simplify my question:
D. Can I "bridge" upgrade an unused ticket, and still save it for later?
A. I'm not supporting anything. I'm only saying that a current ticket CM will be willing to do the upgrade.
B. I think that you are making a statement about price-bridging that is not accurate.
I've never heard that Disney didn't want to upgrade a ticket that was not going to be used on
the same trip as the upgrade.
But... Based on information from the late, great Cheshire Figment (who also was a WDW ticket CM,) whose "Everything about WDW Tickets" was a benchmark on this forum for years:
The reason a third-party ticket needs to be used before it is price-bridged is...
BEFORE it is used, it is considered a 'trade-in' ticket and it is "worth" only what the third-party seller
paid Disney for the ticket (I don't see how that is fair to the guest, but that's what was said for years, and also what actually HAPPENED to a number of unfortunate guests who have tried to upgrade unused third party tickets over the years,
whose stories have become legend on this board.)
C. I don't see any "new" information.
What I do see is that
ravenclawtrekkie, a current WDW ticket CM will do the price-bridge without the third-party ticket being used first. (See the quote below.)
The procedure can be done manually by any ticket CM.
The problem is that
ravenclawtrekkie may or may not be in the booth when you are trying to do an upgrade of a third-party ticket.
And, unless
ravenclawtrekkie somehow gets to train every ticket CM at WDW, I'm not sure that I trust all of them (well, no, I surely DON'T trust all of them) to do the price-bridge.
D. You can, if you find
ravenclawtrekkie to do the upgrade.
(And, I am only a little bit kidding.)
Getting the correct pricing on an upgrade of package or discounted tickets is dependent on the CM knowing how to do their job, not on whether or not the ticket has been used. The procedure is the same either way.
I will die on this hill.