For those of you who have held AP’s for a while, how much of a discount did you receive on your AP Renewals vs. the cost of a new AP? Was the renewal discount significant? (I have held AP’s in the past, but never renewed an AP. I’ve only done the “Discounted tickets to AP Conversion” thing.) The reason I am asking is that as I mentioned in another thread, I am holding on to a set of AP’s that I purchased from Sam’s Club in 2019, but now have a chance to reinstate other AP’s which we canceled during the shutdown. I am weighing whether I want to take advantage of the reinstatement, or use the AP’s I already have, and just renew thereafter. Thanks!
Oh boy… I thought it was 20% off if you renewed in the 90 day window of expiration, but I googled it and this site says it’s closer to 15% off
Disney World Annual Pass Complete Review (2021) - Mouse Hacking
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So, a hedge against future AP price increases might actually be a better option than relying on a renewal discount in the future…
… I’ve read this over and over and not sure what you are thinking here… I think it would be cheaper to renew than wait and have to pay full price for a new AP. You can renew 60 days before or 30 days after your expiration. I paid $650 and change incl tax to renew my AP-FL-Gold AP. I think I paid $811 initially in 2018. I was told my renewal discount is the same discount DVC receives for APs… I can’t confirm that though.
I know I sound confused 
. What I am thinking is this… new, inactivated AP’s are good for 10 years, right? I am thinking that once the parks fully reopen, and we have the MK 50th Anniversary, followed by Epcot’s 40th Anniversary, the opening of the new Star Wars Hotel, and the opening of major attractions such as Ratatouille, Tron and GotG, ticket prices are bound to skyrocket, right? I am comparing what the cost of a reinstatement today (presumably an inactive AP good for 10 years) is compared to what a renewal might cost me a few years down the road? It’s a gamble. (And maybe not worth it if discounted ticket bridging is still possible in the future.)
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Last year I wrote a TP blog post about banking APs for the future…
Assuming Disney is going to continue juicing up prices even slightly over time over time, a banked AP at previous prices may be a better investment than many things, except maybe Tesla and GameStop stock. 
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ahhh, I see where you are going now… I need more coffee to process it all though 
Nice! TY!
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BTW, I (shocker) have a spreadsheet that truly dedicated people can play with to see how pre-buying APs might work out compared to buying them in the future
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I believe there are soooo many ppl in these threads that would love that spread sheet. 
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Yes! You get it! TY for the blog post. It is exactly what I have been trying to analyze. I’ve been afraid that people on the forum think I’m crazy for holding these Sam’s Club AP’s in reserve, and contemplating reinstating yet another set of AP’s. I am convinced that prices are going to increase drastically after the pandemic is over, if for no other reason than to recoup losses from the parks. Also, since our kids are both in college now, possibly doing internships and co-op assignments, schedules don’t always line up so I’m not sure we would be able to take advantage of renewals to go in consecutive years. This buys us some flexibility with the timing of trips. So, I am guessing you would encourage me to go ahead and do the AP reinstatement as a hedge against price increases, even though we would have multiple sets of AP’s?
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FWIW that is my exact plan. I’m waiting on the call to purchase an AP that I cancelled last summer, yet I still have an unused Sam’s AP in my account.
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I suppose I would crunch the numbers on what they are going to charge for a renewal/reinstatement vs full price, but I can’t imagine a scenario when saving the Sam’s APs and doing the reinstatement wouldn’t at least break even, but more likely save you money.
Not sure what you paid at Sam’s in 2019, but I’ll just assume you paid the Disney rate of $1,219 at that time. (Any amount less that you paid just adds to the savings below…)
Disney increased AP prices by 6% to $1,295 right after that, so let’s do a couple of test cases:
Let’s say this year they bring out APs this year at the same $1,295 price, but they offer to charge you the renewal rate this year.
(I’d bet the AP price this year would be more, but who knows? 
We’ll be conservative.)
Let’s also assume they will increase by 6% again each year after this year.
If you use the Sam’s AP this year instead of paying the ~$1,101 renewal rate (guesstimate), you’d actually be losing about $130.
Alternately, if you pay $1,101 for a renewal AP, you’d be ahead this year by $194. ($1295-$1101.)
Then, if you ignored the renewal discount in 2022 and just used the Sam’s AP, you’d have saved $135 next year - for a total of $329 over 2 APs.
Assuming Disney does continue to increase AP prices in the future (an almost given methinks), the longer you wait to use the Sam’s AP, the more it saves you. (Every year you wait to use it saves about $85 additional per AP if the annual price increase is 6%.)
If you plan to have APs over contiguous years without breaks and take advantage of renewal prices before using the Sam’s AP in the future, that will obviously save you more in total.
That all assumes, of course, you go enough to make APs worth it over multiple years. 
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I paid $865.99/pass (ETA $922.91 with tax) for (4) adult platinum passes 
ETA: Reinstement price (with tax) should be $1,272.68.
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YOWZA I forgot how good that deal was.
envy <–ME
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This is how I got mine, so paying full price (assuming Disney lets me) to get it back stings a bit.
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Yeah, I didn’t realize they were offering a price that high - thought I read they were offering renewal rates.
It makes the difference between Sam’s AP and the renewal rate much more even - and that lower original Sam’s AP price makes the overall savings even better than I estimated.
BUT, one could also think of it this way: you’d be getting an AP this year for a few $ less than last year’s price, when under normal circumstances it probably should have jumped at least $75 in price (6%) since then.
So, the current price is still kind a bit of a deal and if you know you’d buy an AP in the future anyway, using the Sam’s AP later will be an even bigger savings on that. #disneymath
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I used mine for my trips in Nov 19 and Jan 20 so they aren’t banked, but if you factor in the refund amount, the price reduces significantly. I will probably bank this one though because I’m assuming the cost will go up when they are offered for general sale again.
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That’s what I’m thinking… Although, in some ways it would make sense to use the Sam’s passes first since they will expire sooner than the new ones will. I mean once I purchase them and incur the cost, does it really matter which ones I pull out of the bucket first?
Sure, makes sense to me - don’t think it matters which you actually use first.
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