I searched for this thread. I just check the availability calendar for all WDW ticket options (all green, every day, every ticket type for the upcoming months) . Can someone please help me to understand why APs are paused? Any/all outrageous answers appreciated 
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¯_(ツ)_/¯
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To create a scarcity mentality.
That way when they go back on sale, people will be so afraid they will go away again they will buy them up like hotcakes
Chapek is looking at a big vacation in the fall and needs to line his deep pockets a little more solidly.
The “theory” floated was to manage crowd capacity and give those who already have an AP an actual chance to use them during the peak holiday season. I think that’s a load of 
and believe more in my tin foil hat theory above than anything else.
It’s the same reason i think they aren’t working harder at locking down the expo sale stuff (and similar). By allowing a scarcity mentality to form when those folks buy everything up, they can raise their prices exponentially and people won’t care and will queue up and buy stuff like mad just in case it goes out of stock because of the resellers. Certainly it doesn’t look good for them to not manage that better, but it’s not exactly hurting their bottom line either.
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Sadly, this likely the reason. 
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I will put on my tin hat: they might start selling them in a couple of weeks but they are currently locked in a room arguing about how high the prices can be raised and if there are any additional restrictions/benefits that can be taken away before they are offered.
They are also brainstorming new names to call the passes in the hopes that everyone will be grateful……
Look for a 5pm Friday announcement (eventually).
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I hope you are right. I really wanted APs for our late Jan/early Feb trip.
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The scarcity mentality thing is probably right or at least a consideration.
But if Disney is doing it to ensure AP holders have availability, they could be waiting for omicron to pass. If I was in charge at Disney, I would be monitoring the situation and having analysts calculate the odds that the parks would close and / or have to reduce capacity again. Maybe the chance is only 1 or 2%, or maybe they think it’s 10% or 30%. If capacity is going to be reduced again, it would be during omicron. After that things should stabilize and I can’t imagine another circumstance where they would have to reduce capacity absent a completely new pandemic.
If my theory is correct, you would expect AP sales to resume in February sometime after the wave has passed and they’re sure selling more APs wouldn’t have an impact on existing AP holders.
Another theory is that they are doing a revolving door situation like they did for Covid capacity at their stores last year - however many people leave, that’s how many they let in. And maybe not enough people are “leaving” (letting their APs expire) to justify issuing new ones just yet. If this is the reason they’re waiting, they may not resume selling until this August when the latest wave of APs start to expire.
One thing to keep in mind - if they keep AP sales paused too long, they will be losing money from potential AP holders. It doesn’t help to create false scarcity if they never resume sales. Every day sales are paused, they’re missing out on potential revenue. They could create false scarcity by pausing sales just a few weeks, and then not miss out on as much. The longer the pause goes on, the less likely it is just a ploy and the more likely they have a legitimate business reason for it.
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They make late Friday announcements generally when they are trying to pretend we are all stupid.
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Why would there be a limit when AP holders (and all guests) can enter any park/any day?
They are selling day tickets/group tickets/ tour groups seemed to have returned (at least according to some twitter/Facebook photos).
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That’s the way things are now, but if they opened the floodgates, who knows how quickly it would overflow? (They probably do.) Also as I said in my post, if they believe there’s some chance they would have to reduce capacity soon, then that would completely change the dynamic you’re seeing on current availability charts.
Again, this is my theory IF there is legitimate business reason.
Sorry- every time I read
I laugh…. But thanks because I needed that laugh😀
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They won’t do that again unless mandated from someone other than themselves. And it sure as heck won’t come from Ron “There’s No Covid In Florida” DeSantis, so that means we are looking at a federal mandate — which also won’t come.
Well cancelling sales is not going to encourage people to let a pass expire. I’ve heard multiple AP holders state firmly they will never NOT renew based on this situation, and others say that once they are able to get one they will never let them expire again.
No. They don’t make as much money from AP holders as you would think. And that’s why they don’t give a about them lately. AP holders come back again and again, but as such they spend less in the parks especially locals, than do those once in a lifetime folks who have to get it while they can (whatever it is)
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Locals ruin everything
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I remember I had to buy the 10 day tickets knowing full well that they wouldn’t be near enough to cover my needs.
When they FINALLY opened up new AP sales again, I bought 3 (not anticipating that DS22 would want to join us).
I had to call ticketing and ask then if the 3 10 days I had bought could be switched to the APs retroactively. She actually laughed out loud at the naïveté of people thinking AP’s would “sell out”, chided me that I should have waited until my trip Dec 1st to fly to Orlando, wait at guest services and exchange my 10 day for AP’s.
Boy am I glad I did it my way. It’s bad enough that DS22 couldn’t buy a pass for his impromptu trip to see us, but had I listened to her “experienced knowledge”, we wouldn’t have had AP’s either.
I’m facing the same thing in DLR. I did listen to her and held off on DLR passes. Those are also on hold or sold out or whatever.
Thankfully, it’s going to save me a boatload of money because we decided to shorten our originally weeks long trip to just the 4 days of the convention we have to be down there for anyway.
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I will add that during the week of Christmas, I had to shuffle some park reservations around and I had to swap between Resort Guest option to AP and back again to find what I needed.
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I think if there’s anything we’ve all learned from the last several years of crazy AP price increases and last 2 years of AP shutdowns, it is:
If you think you need an AP, the time to buy it is yesterday.
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We are supposed to be reaching our peak here in FL w/in the next week or so. So, the opportunity to reduce crowds has passed.
only one AP allows holiday park access… so I have no idea why they shut sales down. Maybe they want some time to help ppl forget what they cost before a BIG price increase?
True, we are a “Free state”, but he also said NO MASK mandates and WDW mandates them indoors and for unvaccinated CMs.
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Like, it freaks me out at first until I see the 4th park on the bottom.
Some days they won’t fill all available reservation spots and will have room to invite AP holders in. These bonus reservations do not count toward your allotment of 5 reservations held at a time. I would expect these would come up last minute-ish, and on days when crowds are expected to be lower.
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