Upgrading 14 Day Tickets to AP

[mrmoo123]

Originally Posted by A&S&O

As I said before, there are lots of discussions on here about upgrading Ultimates to APs.
As a rough guide, they take the price they think you paid for your ultimate, deduct it from the price of and AP and then you pay the difference. Some people have got better deals, but that was because whoever upgraded them made a mistake.

So.

14 day Ultimate = £299 = $372
Platinum Pass = $829 - upgrade would be $457 = £366
Platinum Plus = $925 - upgrade would be $553 = £443

This gives you an idea, but factor in that they may value the Ultimates at less or more than you paid, plus they may give a different exchange rate.

It may be worth thinking of upgrading just one of your ultimates to get free parking and buying an ultimate for each of your trips for the rest of your party. You can make that decision when you try and upgrade and they give you an actual price.

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Originally Posted by Incarniac

Had I been upgrading, this is what I'd be expecting to have to pay, with anything less as a 'bonus'.

As a slight aside - the uncertainty about the upgrade pricing was one reason I decided to buy our APs outright before going instead of upgrading (along with the fact I wanted to have paid it all in full well before we travelled).


One thing to keep in mind is that we don't know what happens with the Ultimate prices after March. The current £299 offer is due to go back up to £400+, in which case it might make more sense to upgrade everyone to AP, even at 'worst case' pricing.

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Thanks again both for your detailed answers. Yes, I am kind of hoping (for selfish reasons) that the 14 day passes jump right back up to the £400+ mark then it would make the upgrade price:

14 day Ultimate = £400 = $480 (based on $1.20 to £, anything higher is a bonus)

Platinum Plus = $925 - upgrade would be $445 = £356

£356 would be less then buying a 14 day pass again. Not even factoring in the money we would save on parking for both trips.

All a bit of guess work at the moment as we don't know what will happen with the ticket prices, exchange rate and what they will offer me... So we shall see! Thanks again!

[A&S&O]

You could try ringing the AP phone line before you go (now?). They should be able to give you an idea of current upgrade price.

[mrmoo123]

I just wanted to update with how we got on with this, hopefully it will help others.

Before I went, I worked out a price I was willing to pay to upgrade. This was very simple - I took the current price of the Platinum Pass options and subtracted the current cost of the 14 day passes (which are discounted at the moment) - this gave me a rough idea of what I should be offered. As we are only planning 1 more trip before they expire again I didn't want to pay more then it would cost for me to buy another 14 day pass. However, there are other things to consider and other benefits, so I will come to that in a moment.

First, we tried to upgrade at Guest Relations in Disney Springs. That was a complete waste of time, she basically offered an upgrade price of $675 per person! My ideal price was around the $450 mark which would come in about $20 cheaper then it would be for the 14 day passes (using an exchange rate of $1.24).

So I waited until we visited the Magic Kingdom. Here, at Guest services I was offered $515 per person. This was a bit more comfortable but overall would be more expensive then buying a the 14 day passes. It also was only for the Platinum and not the Platnum Plus so no water parks included. While disappointing this wasn't a big deal for us - they wanted a further $100 per person for that option and as we were only planning 1 day at TL this trip and wouldn't have visited a water park next time being at Christmas we didn't see the value in that.

However, when we factored in the $200 we will shell out for parking on this trip alone, the free magic bands and the 20% merchandise and food discounts we still feel overall doing the maths we will save quite a bit of money so we went for it! Also the 14 day passes are currently discounted, but the time we had got back to the UK and sorted those out they could have gone up in price so at least we don't have that worry.

So there you have it... we are now WDW annual pass holders! I think I am slightly mad but I will go to bed with a smile on my face tonight!

The only issue I have is when I logged into MDE to check they were linked, it shows an expiry date of 16th December which is when the 14 day passes would have expired. I'm guessing it's either a glitch or the CM didn't change the date as they should be good for 365 days so i'll pop back to guest services tomorrow just to sort that out!

Anyway hope this helps someone

[A&S&O]

We upgraded a couple of weeks ago and were told that the trade-in price they offer you depends on where you bought the Ultimate ticket.

For example, you may have paid £400 for your Ultimate from a third party ticket seller. That seller wouldn't have paid Disney £400 for it, so Disney aren't going to give you £400 for it.

I'm not sure if Disney have a set trade in price for tickets bought from third parties, or if they can tell what third party it came from.

This all adds to the randomness of trading in Ultimates!

[Gwilspeed]

Did you get any reason why there is a price difference between magic kingdom and Disney springs? seems a little odd.

[mrmoo123]

Originally Posted by Gwilspeed

Did you get any reason why there is a price difference between magic kingdom and Disney springs? seems a little odd.

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No... to be honest I kept quiet as I didn't want mention that a few days earlier they wanted another $500 out of us!

It did take a while for them to punch a few numbers on their touchscreen monitors but I couldn't see the screen... I also went back a few times as we debated it over and it kind of felt like maybe the CMs had some felxibility in price - if your more 'pushy' then me you may have some luck trying to knock them down. I did try but I never seem to have as much luck doing it as some others I know - guess its the gift of the gab!

Yesterday we queried the expiry date at Epcot and they were super helpful... it was all amended to the correct date and she couldnt have apologised more even though we werent looking for an apology as we figured the CM just forgot to amend originally.

Also with out first day of using them we already saved $37 dollars on parking and merchandise/food we would have bought anyway!

[Lemag]

Sorry to jump in, I just wondered if you lost any fast passes you had already booked?

[mrmoo123]

Originally Posted by Lemag

Sorry to jump in, I just wondered if you lost any fast passes you had already booked?

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No... well not yet anyway! I did specifically ask (more then once) if we would keep our Fastpasses and on each occasion was told that they transfer automatically... maybe they have sorted out that particular glitch in the upgrade process. I will report back if we encounter any issues with them.

Up to $75 in savings so far (3 visits)

[CandCRock]

Interesting thread as we're think about annual passes for our 4 week trip in August. We're hoping to go again at Christmas and then again next summer. Do we buy the annual pass at first or buy a 14/21day and then upgrade. I suppose it all depends on the dollar and pass prices at the time?

[mrmoo123]

Originally Posted by CandCRock

Interesting thread as we're think about annual passes for our 4 week trip in August. We're hoping to go again at Christmas and then again next summer. Do we buy the annual pass at first or buy a 14/21day and then upgrade. I suppose it all depends on the dollar and pass prices at the time?

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I would do the maths and work out what's cheaper for you but you may find it difficult to calculate because you won't know what upgrade price they will offer you when you try to upgrade. From my experience, they put a value on your 14 day pass and as others have said that value probably depends on who you bought it from. It will have less value if you buy from a 3rd party then direct from Disney but of course you will probably pay less from a 3rd party in the first place! Very difficult to work out.

You can buy an annual pass online, you don't have to buy a 14 day pass and then upgrade.