I bought non date-specific tickets about 5 years ago (before they made the switch), which expire in 2030. They are base tickets only, 6 days. I am planning on using them during an upcoming trip in April and made park reservations. I want to upgrade them to waterpark and sports as well as add a day. When I called I was told I couldn’t do this because the tickets are too old - I’m guess it’s because they don’t expire. I could credit the cost I paid to new tickets, but that’s actually more expensive than just buying a new separate ticket since prices have gone up so much.
Does anyone know if I will be able to upgrade these tickets at the parks/resort hotel after I have used them? At that point they will expire within about 10 days, so I am thinking Disney may then be able to treat them like any other more recently purchased ticket? This would be preferable as it is much more economical to add a day than buying a new ticket, and adding water park and sports to a multi-day ticket would afford many more uses than attaching this option to a 1 day ticket.
If anyone can confirm they have upgraded an older ticket in recent years that would be great.
They actually shouldn’t credit the COST of the tickets, but the VALUE of the tickets. That is to say, what is the VALUE of a similar ticket when you want to use it? That value should be then applied to whatever the cost to upgrade would be.
Trouble is, the CMs often don’t do this correctly (or say it can’t be done). So doing it where you upgrade the tickets after you have started to use them should, in theory, avoid the problem. The system will show you have a 6 day ticket with a specific start date. If you then want to add days, and such, they should now just charge you the difference.
However, even there you have to be careful, because, again, CMs often do it wrong. They will often try to charge you the average per-day price for the upgrade, rather than the actual difference between a 6-day versus 7-day ticket. For example, (making up number here for illustration) if a 6 day ticket right now is $600, that makes the per-day average $100. If a 7 day ticket costs $650, the per-day average is ~$92. So, what happens is rather than charge you $50 for the upgrade ($600 → $650), they will try to charge you $92! You should know ahead of time, what Disney’s price differential is, and make sure they charge you the correct upgrade price…and if not, you may need to ask to speak to someone else who can handle it correctly.
Oh. One more fly in the ointment on this. If you activate the ticket, and THEN upgrade it…you still will have to worry about Advanced Park Reservation availability. They might allow you to add a day…but there is no guarantee that the day you want to add on will have any park availability.
Thank you, this is all very helpful. I can look at the price differences at the time of my trip and get a sense for what I should expect to pay. I’m leaving Epcot as the unreserved park, figuring Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios are the two most likely to sell out.