[bethishooked]

Can I confirm I'm thinking this straight? If I were to buy a 5 day park hopper at the Disney store for one person of my family, and after I paid that off, continued purchasing with the next family member, when I activate the park hopper, all 5 days would have to be used by the 14th day? Do I have to put the ticket in a family members name at time of purchase, or does it get assigned to a family member at time of activation.

[mickeysgirlz]

Originally Posted by cinderbella

As long as you don't use them they won't activate so you don't need the no expiration option...I do this when I am getting a good room discount or renting points. I save up enough to buy one ticket, buy it, then save for the other etc. That way that expense is already take care of.
If you plan on buying say..a 10 day PH..using 3 days this year and adding the no expiration I don't think it would offset the cost of adding the no exp. to the ticket as apposed to buying them next year..but I'm not sure it'd depend on the days you were going etc..

You can add the non expiration at the END of your trip too! BUT, you have to pay for all the days on the ticket.

One July we went with my parents, they had 5 day park hoppers. It was too hot for Mom 2 days, so she didn't go to the park. I inquired and they let me add the non expiration then and there . . . $5/day . . . $25! BUT, when we came back for a trip that November, she was able to add 5 days to the ticket at the 10 day price. (so is was like we got the 10 day discount!)

Not sure of the EXACT math, but I think it worked out to our favor.

[mickeysgirlz]

Originally Posted by bethishooked

Can I confirm I'm thinking this straight? If I were to buy a 5 day park hopper at the Disney store for one person of my family, and after I paid that off, continued purchasing with the next family member, when I activate the park hopper, all 5 days would have to be used by the 14th day? Do I have to put the ticket in a family members name at time of purchase, or does it get assigned to a family member at time of activation.

It activates the first time you run it through the turnstile at the gate. The fingerprint is what "attaches" that ticket to that person.

And YES, with out the no expiration option it would have to be used by the 14th day. But like I said in my previous post, I was allowed to add this feature on the last day, during check out.

[Mickey Mom]

Originally Posted by DereksMom713

Actually, you can purchase a 1-day base ticket for each member of your party and still have Free Dining added to your entire package. Last spring, we did the FREE premium ticket/discount room package and had way more ticket than we needed. I added no expiration before leaving and was able to take advantage of FREE Dining this upcoming August by just adding 1-day base tickets to my reservation. Since all members of the party have to have the same ticket when making a reservation and two members of my party this year did not come last year, I will be adding days to their tickets once we arrive.

We too did something similar this year. We did the 4nights for the price of 3 deal but we did two separate reservations because we wanted to stay for two weeks. It was much more economical for me to put a 10 day ticket on the first reservation, then just buy a one day ticket for the second reservation just so I could purchase the dining plan. It would have been more expensive to have two-5day passes because, as Disney promotes, the longer you stay, the cheaper the tickets per day.

Although...in this case, I don't think the savings of purchasing tickets in advance would outweight the cost of having to buy an extra one-day ticket (the first day of a pass is by far the most expensive). I think if you need to purchase a day in order to aquire the dining plan, you may want to crunch the numbers to make sure that your savings covers the cost of an additional first day. Otherwise you get caught paying for two "1st Days". Confused Yet?

[DereksMom713]

Originally Posted by Mickey Mom

Confused Yet?

A little.

[Mickey Mom]

Originally Posted by DereksMom713

A little.

Okay, lets see if I can write this more clearly....a great idea to buy tickets in advance, but, if you want to add a dining package to your trip, you may want to consider this.....
The money that you save buying the tickets early, may be a wash if you have to purchase a 1-day ticket on your vacation package in order to purchase the dining plan.
More clear?

[G32]

Originally Posted by bethishooked

Can I confirm I'm thinking this straight? If I were to buy a 5 day park hopper at the Disney store for one person of my family, and after I paid that off, continued purchasing with the next family member, when I activate the park hopper, all 5 days would have to be used by the 14th day? Do I have to put the ticket in a family members name at time of purchase, or does it get assigned to a family member at time of activation.

YES yes yes buy them

[G32]

Originally Posted by markypooh

It looks as though Ill be p[lanning a trip for July 2010. I was wondering if it would be wise to purchase park passes this far in advance given you have to pay extra for the non expiration privelege? Has anyone done this before?

buy them i posted the wrong quete

[SandrA9810]

Well if you were to buy your tickets today per adult would be 222.00 for a five day base ticket.
Next year you get your hotel w/ dining plan and add a 1 day ticket, that would be an addition 85$ (prices have a tendency to jump 10$ a year). So in total you would spend 307.00 for 6 days.
Or you could buy a 4 day base ticket at 219.00 plus 85$ would equal 304.00 for five days.

Unfortunately I don't know of any sites that list previous prices of the base tickets. So I can't tell you if spending 304$ is worth it or not.

But if you think about.... you could purchase your 5 day tickets today, and then you can hang on to your 1-day ticket for the following visit (as long as you don't use it, the clock doesn't tick). And since your base 1 day ticket is paid for, you pay for the additional days to upgrade it. So your 85$ would be credited to the price of another 5 day ticket (or however long you stay).

I'm sure if your ticket is attached to your room key guest relations can print you off a regular ticket to store for the next trip.

[Mickey Mom]

Originally Posted by SandrA9810

But if you think about.... you could purchase your 5 day tickets today, and then you can hang on to your 1-day ticket for the following visit (as long as you don't use it, the clock doesn't tick). And since your base 1 day ticket is paid for, you pay for the additional days to upgrade it. So your 85$ would be credited to the price of another 5 day ticket (or however long you stay)..

That's a great point that I had never thought of. We have a one day pass that we have never used, for this exact reason, so we could just upgrade that ticket rather than buying a whole new pass and having to start at the Day 1 price.

Great tip...thanks!!

[CleveRocks]

Originally Posted by Mickey Mom

That's a great point that I had never thought of. We have a one day pass that we have never used, for this exact reason, so we could just upgrade that ticket rather than buying a whole new pass and having to start at the Day 1 price.

Great tip...thanks!!

Just keep in mind ... this will only work if you stay off-site, or stay on-site and make a room-only reservation instead of a package reservation.

If you book a package, that means you buy tickets as part of that package. Therefore, the 1-day pass you already have won't be useful for that trip.

[CleveRocks]

Originally Posted by mickeysgirlz

You can add the non expiration at the END of your trip too! BUT, you have to pay for all the days on the ticket.

One July we went with my parents, they had 5 day park hoppers. It was too hot for Mom 2 days, so she didn't go to the park. I inquired and they let me add the non expiration then and there . . . $5/day . . . $25! BUT, when we came back for a trip that November, she was able to add 5 days to the ticket at the 10 day price. (so is was like we got the 10 day discount!)

Not sure of the EXACT math, but I think it worked out to our favor.

There's something wrong with this story. I'd hate for others to thik they can do it just like you guys did. There are 3 possibilities: a) your details are off; b) you went prior to 2005; c) the CM you dealt with made a few HUGE mistakes. Please, please allow me to explain:

COST OF NO EXPIRATION:
The No Expiration option doesn't cost $5 per day. It works on a graduated scale ... the bigger the ticket, the more the feature costs. Currently, to buy the No Expiration option on a 5-day ticket is $70. For comparison, the No Expiration option on a 10-day ticket costs $200.

ADDING DAYS TO TICKETS:
Magic Your Way tickets can ONLY be added to or upgraded within 14 days of the first use of the ticket. This rule applies whether or not the ticket is a No Expiration ticket. Even the No Expiration tickets can't be upgraded after that 14 days has passed. So if she used part of a ticket in July and then added to it in November, the cast member who completed that transaction was dead wrong, and you guys were very very lucky financially as a result of that huge mistake. Days 5 through 10 of a 10-day ticket cost only three dollars ($3) per day. You are saying that she got to add 5 days to her old ticket for a total of just $15 (fifteen dollars). You got very very lucky on the cast member's innocent mistake.

The only exception to the above would be if they were Florida resident tickets. There are different rules for those tickets.

[Mickey Mom]

Originally Posted by CleveRocks

Just keep in mind ... this will only work if you stay off-site, or stay on-site and make a room-only reservation instead of a package reservation.

If you book a package, that means you buy tickets as part of that package. Therefore, the 1-day pass you already have won't be useful for that trip.

Yes, I made the same comment in a previous post. It does not work to buy tickets early if you need to purchase a package for dining etc. You need to outweigh the cost savings of buying tickets early vs the extra cost of a one-day ticket needed to add to your vacation package to purchase a dining option.
However, we have a one-day ticket left over from a previous trip, and I never thought to just increase the days on it. If we go one year w/o the dining plan, it is a great idea to just increase the days.