Howdy Touring Plans Family! I know in the past there was a spreadsheet that told you which ticket to buy from which company if you wanted to the best deal to bridge to an annual pass. With the new ticket structure, do we know if that resource is still accurate? I would like to purchase an annual pass next year. My first trip begins February 7 and I would look at purchasing a 3 day park-hopper ticket that I would then bridge to an annual pass. What is the most affordable way to do this? Try to book a room/ticket package through Disney and then bridge? Book a room only and get tickets from another vendor? MVT does not offer an agency exclusive during my dates (February 7-10) so I’m at a loss as to the best approach. I know there are some Touring Plan pros out there with the answer! Thank you for your help!!!
Howdy!
My Worth it to Upgrade? spreadsheet is in a bit of a stasis mode right now, since I haven’t had time to assess the reseller discounts vs Disney direct ticket purchase.
Plus, I haven’t seen any reports yet on how CMs are handling bridging with new tiered tickets.
But, without throwing numbers out there, in the past if you knew you were upgrading to an AP, the way to save the most money was to buy the reseller tickets with the largest discount, then bridge those. Before the pricing change they were often 10 day PH+ and would save about $79 per person. (That takes into account the fact that most times CMs would bridge using Disney gate price if you showed them your expected numbers.)
If they still bridge reseller tickets the same (I think they will?) then I believe buying them would likely still be the best course of action, but the savings $ will just be different.
Buying a package or tix directly from Disney will not save you any money at all - you just pay the difference between the price you paid and the AP cost. The same goes for some TA and convention tickets - you’ll want to check with your TA if you are thinking about upgrading any tix you get from them.
In any case, if you are up for some alternative methods of saving, for our last family trip I went the credit card rewards route last year and really piled up some savings.
My plan for next summer if we decide we can pull it off is to try using multiple rewards card bonuses to get some APs super cheap and parlay them into 2 annual trips 11 months apart.
Thank you so much! I am going to read through your articles to see if I can make use of these strategies as well. I appreciate all that you do for the Touring Plans community!
Hey folks! I wanted to thank you all again for your help in processing through whether or not I should renew my annual pass. I opted to go for it and renewed today using Disney gift cards I purchased from target which saved me another $40 bringing my renewal rate under $800 for the platinum pass. I feel pretty good about his decision! Thanks to all of you for your thoughts and help!