OK I ended up using the MDE App’s chat function and that led to them calling me.
Now the outcome wasn’t positive for me, but I did end up speaking with a flesh-and-blood actual CM.
So there’s that.
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There’s the risk that the room rates have gone up…have you compared?
I went to compare as you suggested and our room type is no longer available for my dates! It was available just a few hours ago! 
So then I looked in MDE and saw that my TA just booked our park tickets, so we are good to go! She must have just gotten through. Hooray! Now I feel like I’m going to Disney World!!! … in a year.
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If this can be a help to anyone… here’s what I did and the assumptions I made that led me to do this.
In April when I re-scheduled our (wife and I) May 2020 stay at the Poly for 6 nites with 7 days of Park Hopper tickets, Disney was offering a “Return Basic Package” which included free dining plan if I moved resv to Jan 2021. The gotcha was that the Jan 2021 resv could only be room but with attached free dining. CM said she would set up the resv as “Package Enabled” so that when they started offering park tickets again, I would be able to add tickets.
Fast forward to today (June 24) and I could not make any meaningful changes to the Jan 2021 resv, including to add Park Tickets. My assumption now is that this is because my resv had a free dining plan attached to it, my resv was doomed in MDE as dining plans are problematic right now. I could be wrong but that’s what I’m thinking.
So, what I did… thinking of Laura Hastings’ post (thx LH)… I went to MDE and was able to make a NEW resort resv for the Poly for the same Jan 2021 dates. Fortunately I was immediately able to add Park Tickets (Hopper tix… we’ll see how that pans out) and Park Pass revs (yea!). I would say the room rate was identical to my original resv but of course without the free dining attached. (argh)
At this point, with two resvs, I went in and cancelled my “Return Basic Pkg”. Pretty much figuring that I had very little hope of attaching free dining to any plan right now, whether an old plan or new plan.
So have room + hopper tix + park pass but lost free dining.
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Not thrilled with my 2021 outcome. I could not add tickets unless I modified my resort from POFQ. I probably could have waited. But I was so tired, I just wanted it done. No upgrades for 2021.
For December I will most likely be offered Coronado Springs instead of my POFQ. No upgrade, but I would keep my bounceback offer. If there was no availability at CS, then I would be offered Caribbean Beach.
OMG I helped someone!? You just made my day. I’m sorry about the free dining… When things die down and the lines aren’t constantly busy, I wonder if you could call and explain you had free dining and see if they can put it back on for you. (of course, this assumes Dining Plans will be offered again by 2021)
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I acted on the suggestion to contact Disney through the Chat option in MDE.
I asked them when will I be able to add park tickets to my hotel reservations for January 2021.
Here is the response I got…
- They really want you to be in a package.
- June 28th looks like the date that we should be able to add tickets without modifying/replacing your current hotel reservation.
I am being cautious right now, as I am not that trusting of a person. Here comes my conspiracy theories. These are just my thoughts…
- Disney is using “these unprecedented time” to their advantage. They are gently forcing you out of your current discounted rooms and into a rack rate room by holding your ticket purchase hostage.
Package will give you greatest flexibility and ease of refund, should that become necessary. Benefits both Disney and you in that sense.
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Have you gotten through to someone on the phone in your quest to add the tickets? I’m assuming not since you tried the chat feature. I know the phone situation is awful.
The reason I ask is, I was told tickets can only be added to a resort 2021 reservation by phone (starting June 24th). From what I understand, no one was able to add tickets to a 2021 reservation online. So yesterday my TA sat on the phone for 7 hours yesterday 
, added my tickets to my reservation, then I was able to make the Park reservations on MDE.
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You are correct. I have not had the time to sit on hold for 7 plus hours.
Congratulations on getting into the reservation system and booking your parks.
Rite, whether a conscious plan or not, the net effect was to raise the overall cost of this trip.
Good idea.
Talk to me about how, exactly. I’m not following the thread you’ve woven.
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Speaking only for myself…
Disney did not force me to do anything, I could have left my reservation (resort+free dining only) alone and waited until I could talk to a CM. Totally my choice but I decided cancel what seemed to me to be a problematic reservation and start fresh. For me, the certainty gained by booking a new resv (resort+tix+park pass minus dining) was worth giving up my old resv. But then, not sure what certainty means any more.
Others with resvs like mine may feel that the reservation system failed to handle them and become frustrated.
I haven’t given up yet on free dining… WDW and I will at least have a conversation about it (some time).
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That won’t be the first time I have not articulated myself well enough. LOL
This is just me playing in the conspiracy theory world; which I love to do. 99% of them can be explained away, but it is fun to speculate…
My whole thought was that Disney was using the imposed restrictions in place to try and elevate the amount of money than can get out of their future guests. I guess “force” was a poor choice of words. Maybe encourage would have been a better term to use.
Encourage people who already have booked rooms and have no park tickets for a future visit to move those rooms, which may already have been booked at a discounted rate, into a rack-rate package bundled with tickets. How to do this? Not let them purchase any park tickets right now unless they move to a package or make the process to add those tickets almost impossible by having them call in to Disney (busy phone lines, full phone circuits and quoted 8 hour waits on the phone). In addition, setup a system where the guests now think there is an elevated sense of urgency to secure those tickets and reserve a day in the park right now. Make them believe that the capacity will be limited, the demand is higher than it really is and there is a chance you will not get into the park you want.
In addition, try and elevate the cost of park tickets by hiding them within the packages. I did some napkin math from numbers I got directly off the Disney website for rooms during the first couple of weeks in January. I compared a room-only quote for several days against a package rate that includes base tickets for the number of nights you are staying plus one extra day. It came out to the following:
- 7 night stay at Pop from Jan 5-12: Room Only = $1,181 – Package = $1,895.98 – Difference = $714.98. That $714.98 is assumed to be the cost for park tickets for 8 days. That works out to $89.27 per day.
- 6 night stay at Pop from Jan 6-12: Room Only = $1,037 – Package = $1,700.31 – Difference = $663.31. That works out to $94.76 per day for 7 day park tickets.
- 5 night stay at Pop from Jan 7-12: Room Only = $893 – Package = $1,514.96 – Difference = $621.96. That works out to $103.66 per day for 6 day park tickets.
- 4 night stay at Pop from Jan 8-12: Room Only = $695 – Package = $1,267.53 – Difference = $572.53. That works out to $114.51 per day for 5 day park tickets.
- 3 night stay at Pop from Jan 9-12: Room Only = $497 – Package = $1,008.76 – Difference = $511.76. That works out to $127.94 per day for 4 day park tickets.
- 2 night stay at Pop from Jan 9-11: Room Only = $353 – Package = $752.99 – Difference = $399.99. That works out to $133.33 per day for 3 day park tickets.
If the math is right, the ticket costs do seem higher than expected. I used the ticket calculator on touring plans and see that an 8-day base ticket from Jan 5 - 12 works out to $565.95 from Disney. This is quite a bit lower than the math I did above showing a cost of $714.98 for 8 days when you split it out of the package.
Putting all that together can lead to a conspiracy theory where Disney is getting more money out of there guests by encouraging them to move their reservations into a rack rate room and paying more for the park tickets.
So is there any point in my continuing to try to get tickets before the 28th (as the CM told me)?
It’s got me wondering if there’s some nuance of converting a room reservation into a package that they can’t manage with rented DVC points.
It’s like trying to nail down one of those arcane distinctions like which snacks are snacks for purpose of a DDP.
I admit my knowledge of the intricacies of booking Disney vacations is lacking and I’ve never rented points before, so I’m just spitballing here.
Perhaps I just need to trust the CM I spoke to (and by extension the one she spoke to while I was hold).
I can see kind of how you would get there but honestly I think the phone/site situation is not calculated in the least. I do see where modifying can negate discounts and stuff. But I don’t feel it’s an on purpose thing.
Also Prices always go up for tickets
I’m as pissed off at Disney as anyone right now but I’m not putting on my tin hat.
In an ideal world, we would all get together and boycott Disney and the raising of the prices right now. But that ideal world is not realistic and we will continue to give them a higher percentage of our paychecks.
If they were our friends, they would at lest discount the parks and hotels by the amount of items that were taken away from us during our next visit.
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