Adding flights to Disney booking

[Johngela13]

Whoop!

It looks like DH is finally coming around to the idea of 2 wks on site with dining plan. We plan to do this in September 2020 and so hope that free Disney dining continues for a another year - however we will stil go in any case and pay for the dining if necessary.

My question though is this. I have been pricing up various options and have decided to book direct with Disney when the time comes. So, for those who have done this... ‘the flights will not have been released whe we book and will have to be added later. Disney states it will do this but how does this actually work? Do I ring them up 5 months after booking and look at the options with them... or what.’

looking forward to responses from those that have done this

[chippyminton]

I book flights separately when I see a good deal. First time we we got I booked flights first, then booked hotel, free dining etc with Disney. Second time I booked 3 weeks at Disney, then amended my booking (£50 fee) down to the correct number of days to suit once I had booked the flights.

[Johngela13]

This was something we considered but I am thinking that if I book dierect with Disney and there are subsequent flight changes then Disney have to deal with them rather than me ... I like and easy life

[Thorpy]

The trade off for this easy life is possibly paying Disney prices for the flights. We have in the past booked the Disney part early on, with the intention of ringing them once flights were available and asking for a quote. We have also always looked for flights ourselves and always found something to our liking that we booked ourselves. We've either never seen the point in ringing for a quote or it was that much more that we immediately dismissed it. We have yet to go indirect (we always consider it, but find the budget to avoid it!) If we were indirect then the value in having somebody else worry about it might be higher. Our usual pattern is to basically wait for a Virgin sale and then book direct with them.

[Excited83]

We’ve just done something similar. We booked our accommodation through Disney to secure the room in the free dining promotion as we could see availability disappearing. We weren’t 100% on our dates at that point so didn’t want to book flights. That gave me time to track them for a while. When I called Disney, they were able to give a quote to add on the flights but they were quite expensive. When we were eventually ready to book, the new Disney quote was the same price as booking direct wth VA ( as they had both gone up!) so we just added the flights on to our package and paid the new deposit.

[Johngela13]

Thanks all. We will be taking an indirect flight as travelling from Aberdeen. One thing I have noticed is that Disney do not seem to offer any KLM flight when I do dummy quotes so I am wondering if they only provide quotes from certain operators?

[Thorpy]

Another point worth remembering that excited83's post above reminded me of, is that you can ring Disney and move your dates by a day or two with no penalty. I'm pretty certain that when you move dates, there was a small admin fee to pay if the holiday gets cheaper, but just the difference if it gets dearer. If you can be flexible and can book flights a day or so either side of your original dates, this sometimes opens up the possibility to save significantly more money than the difference.

We've locked in the dining deal during one summer, booked flights over the winter, then called Disney to move dates and went on holiday the next summer. We only moved dates by a couple of days once we had confirmed flights, but I'm sure others have moved dates further.

[Johngela13]

Thanks Thorpy - I am swaying now to booking flights ourselves although I suppose the only other downside is we would need to pay in full rather than just the deposit - however should not be a huge amount for the two of us. I just wish I could get on with it all now instead of having to wait lol! I love planning and I love Disney - the perfect combination for me