Super Cheap Annual Pass Idea - Another Rewards post!

[JJT]

OK, Time for an updated sheet!

This new version of my AP Pre-Purchase Model lets you select the years in which you are going to use the AP vouchers to get a more accurate estimate of how much you’d be saving buying them now at the current price and using them in later years.

I also added a new summary table that compares whether just buying one AP voucher now and using renewal pricing for subsequent years would be cheaper than buying multiple vouchers to start.

Important: that renewal comparison table is only valid if you select sequential years to use your APs.
Often people use APs that start more than 12 months apart, or perhaps alternating years.
When that is the case, renewals won’t be an apples to apples comparison.

Below a super quick summary image of how to use the sheet - followed by a video I recorded to talk people through it. Hope you find it useful and/or fun!

You can play around with the spreadsheet itself and try your own variations here.

AP Pre Purchase Sheet New

[JJT]

Whoops, realize that because I moved things around, some settings couldn’t be changed in the sheet. I fixed that now if anyone tried to play around with the model and couldn’t. Sorry!

[JJT]

Posting this here for posterity: I turned this idea into a post over on the Touring Plans blog.

https://touringplans.com/blog/2020/07/30/annual-passes-buy-now-save-later/?utm_campaign=twitter&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitter

[brklinck]

Nice TP Blog post! Great to see other Liners continuing the tradition of turning Forum posts into Blog posts.

[JJT]

Now that we know the pricing for the new Incredi-Pass replacement for the Platinum AP, I’ve massaged my pre-purchase sheet a little.

In the previous version there was a little bit of an error in calculating the averages over time - not sure why it didn’t occur to me, but in the table where I recorded the AP increases if there were more than one increase in a year I listed them both on their own line,

For example, in 2018 there were two increases: 9.0% in February and 5.3% in October, for a total of 14.3% for the year. However, my summary table just ran a simple average of all the values instead of accounting for multiple smaller values. *headslap *

When I combine them to make a more apples to apples annual tally, that juiced up the average increases.

So, right now here is what the annual pass increases look like over various amounts of time:

As I wrote up my blog post on the idea, I tried to be conservative on my guesstimate of Disney’s annual increases moving forward, as well as generous on the income that could have been earned by keeping the money in savings until later. When making the case for this idea of buying APs now to save money later, I didn’t want to oversell the possible savings amount. Boy, did I not oversell it.

I used 6% as a middle value for annual increases - you can see from that table I no longer think that was a good estimate. Even the 20 year average is more than 8%!

So, let’s see what happens when I use the new Incredi-Pass cost (adding in the $99 PhotoPass charge to make the current pass more similar to the Platinum Pass) and use a more realistic 10% annual increase moving forward.

But First, A Caveat
Now, just like the stock market, stating an average does not mean that we will see that number this year, or in fact, any year. The average is not the number you experience in a given year, but what you get as time rolls on.

In many estimates, I like to use median values - but the current median for all years is 5.4% and includes a lot of low % from long ago that I don’t think we’ll experience again for awhile (if ever) - unless this whole new Incredi-Pass-Genie-Lightning-Laneification explodes into a mass of pixie dust and churro crumbs and park attendance falls into a hole.

Back to the Programming
So, in the name of my own guesstimation I’m going with an average 10% annual increase moving forward - which is STILL less than the 10 year average. You may think differently, but even if you think it less - I can’t imagine the average will be much less than that at this point.

In my blog I used an example where I purchased 3 annual passes in 2020, the used the first AP in 2022 and the subsequent ones every other year after that. Assuming the old 6% annual increase and generous 1% savings account earnings, my sheet estimated a net savings of $887 when buying the vouchers now as compared to purchasing each AP in the year I used them.

That’s a 22.8% savings of the initial outlay, which is a nice tidy sum.

But, what happens when we purchase this year and use a 10% average annual increase?

Yowza. It estimates we’d save almost an additional $1,000 simoleans.

In fact, even if you are more optimistic and only use an 8% annual increase (which is less than the 20 year average) - the savings STILL go up by $500.

This plan is looking better to me every day. If only my kids didn’t want to go to stoopid college and I had some extra cash lying around.

[LTinNC82]

You must have had a busy day. I was expecting this post hours ago

[JJT]

Darn work messing with my Disney again.

[ryan1]

@JJT

had some extra cash lying around

This is always the problem it seems.

[JJT]

Another update: I added the new AP types & prices to my AP Bridging Estimator. That one is designed for people who already know they plan to bridge tix and want to have a screen shot of the math they might expect at GS.

Disney AP Upgrade Bridging Estimator

Anyone new to that sheet, be sure to click on the Quick Reference tab at bottom for some tips on how to use it. This all assumes bridging tix to AP continues to operate as it did before, may The Mouse allow.

[Minnie27mouse]

If you fill in the “I already purchased Memory Maker” section and amount, does that add $99 onto the AP cost to add to the pass when upgraded?

If I pre-purchase Memory Maker it is $169, but it is only $99 to add it on to an AP. Theoretically, if GS allows that into the equation it should add $70 onto the total cost when upgrading. Yes?

[JJT]

I hear what you’re saying and I should probably add some check boxes for people to select what add-ons they are going to get with the new APs.

But that “I already bought MM” section was to address the scenario when people paid for MM before their trip and were hoping they would get that pre-purchase price credited to their upgrade. Granted, I think it was a relatively uncommon thing and CMs did not necessarily offer the credit from what I heard.

But, I added it due to a couple of requests.

Thinking I might retire that now and just add the simple add-on boxes. But then I have to figure out how to make it obvious you don’t need to by PhotoPass for all the APs in a family/friend group and maybe even let people enter how many PP add-ons they want as opposed to just charging for 1 or for all in the group.

I’ll think about it for awhile

[JJT]

Sadly there are reports on another forum thread that with the new APs have come a new policy: the vouchers expire after 1 year. The value of the voucher can be used to purchase a future AP - but if that is all correct, it takes out the buy a bunch of APs now to save money later tactic.

My response over there, of course, was…

[JJT]

Talking about APs in another thread, it just occurred to me that I should take a look at how my analysis has played out on this so far.

Background
Back at the end of 2019 I bought a Platinum+ Annual Pass - all in cost was $1,298.

That Platinum+ AP included

• Memory Maker
• Water Park + More
• Plus the voucher does not expire until 2030

In a serendipity of good timing for me, about a month after I bought it the price jumped up about $81 in price (6.2%)

The next year the new AP types were announced and the IncrediPass came out with another nice bump in price - AND the Photo Pass and Water Park options were add-ons at $99 each.

So the jump was pretty significant when you take those add-ons into account:
31% vs my AP from a few years before.

As of now, the AP price is about 35% more than it was when I purchased.
Using VERY round numbers, that translates into just under 9% per year increase.

Right before they did away with the 10-year voucher expiration, I had written a TP blog post working through some mental Disney mathematics whether one might do well “investing” in 1 or more APs for the future.

If you look back in this thread, I had also created a spreadsheet where you could model the idea out - how did that play out for my 1-AP-Purchased scenario?

Well, I still have about 6 years until my AP Voucher expires, so will still have to do some guestimating for future prices.

First, let’s be conservative: Do I really think Disney will increase AP prices at that 9% per year rate?
Actually, I probably do - it sure won’t be a straight line 9%, but they’ll sneak in so big bumps eventually to average it out.

But, let’s be conservative and go with, say, a 6% per year increase. Seems conservative for Disney, right?

Well, using that rate my single 2019 AP purchase saved me about $880 vs buying an AP in the year 2030.

Note: That takes into account lost interest by keeping my money in savings. I assumed a 2% savings interest rate, since it would really have been near 0% the first couple of years and higher later.

Now for fun, let’s get back to reality and used that near 9% annual increase: In that scenario I saved about $1,692 vs a future AP purchase, which is 130% of the original price. (or 52% of the future estimated 2030 price.)

Either way - I did pretty well on that AP and kinda wish I bought at least 2 so I’d already have one for my wife in 2030!

The Aggressive Opportunity Cost Stance

So, what if I didn’t keep my initial funds in a savings account for that measly, puny, interest rate and instead dumped it all into an S&P500 stock index and white-knuckled it to the current day?

My initial investment of $1,298 would have ended up making me about about $617 richer today, taking into account a long term capital gains tax rate on the earnings.

That is only about $331 more than the savings interest I would have earned in the scenarios above - meaning I STILL would have come out ahead by hundreds of dollars, even in the conservative Disney increase scenario.

Now is the time to collectively hang our heads in memory of the 10-year expiration AP voucher.

[Gnatjo]

Hello to the smartest Disney rewards/savings person I know in the forums! I’m debating converting my July 4-day/4-park ticket (~$396) to an annual pass. Right now, we are planning a senior trip for my daughter in March 2025 with 5-day park hopper tickets (~$801). Between the two, I’m left with a remaining balance of ~$252 in order to get to the cost of the Incredi-pass. My gut tells me that making up that cost in savings from having an AP (possible AP room only deal in March, dining and shopping savings, etc) would make the AP worth it. The other part of me says, if you do this, you will just end up at Disney more than twice in the next year and spend more money. Still…I’m wondering what would JJT do? Do you think it is reasonable to make up that $252 in future savings?

[JJT]

Aw shucks.

Plugging your numbers into my Worth It to Upgrade to AP? spreadsheet and using some generic food and merch spend numbers, looks like with just those 2 trips you are within $125 of making the AP worth it already when looking at just upgrading you to AP, as opposed to multiple people in the family.

If you spend a bunch more on food and merch, or get hotel discounts that aren’t available to non-AP (not so common, really IMHO) you’d be even closer. Add any other trip and AP is easily the right answer.

Note that in your scenario, because you already have those special 4-day tix, I did not include a savings amount for bridging, which would easily put you over the top if you had reseller tix.

Also: if you were looking to upgrade more than 1 person, any length 3rd trip would also make the AP worth it, assuming you all went on all of the trips.

[PrincipalTinker]

I know you cannot add days or hopper to those tickets, can you upgrade to an AP?

[noreen99]

Those tickets are throwing me off also - family is joining us for 1 deluxe on-site stay and one offsite stay…

Because we plan on using the deluxe evening hours - I am assuming PH is necessary…if the 4 day $396 deal is capable of upgrading to AP it may change things quite a bit

[JJT]

Good point, I can’t recall any reports of people trying to upgrade those special deal magic tickets. Hmm.

[PrincipalTinker]

I read all the terms and conditions and Ithink no changes are allowed but I don’t know if an AP is an exception. I think I would try to do it now to see. I don’t expect they would bridge them.

[JJT]

Do the terms say if unused that the value of them is gone, unlike other tix?