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DVC annual pass discount is an amazing deal

rickandcindy23

rickandcindy23

TUG Review Crew: Elite
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The Centennial State
Resorts Owned
Wyndham Founder; Disney OKW & SSR; Marriott's Willow Ridge, Shadow Ridge and Grand Chateau; Val Chatelle, Pines at Meadow Ridge and Twin Rivers in CO; Hono Koa OF (3); SBR(LOTS), SDO a few); WKORV-OFC-4 and Westin Desert Willow.
Hi,
We didn't get the special last year thinking that we would not be there this year. Oh well. The DVC rate for the annual pass is still a great deal and we will be getting one next week.
 
Yes, that is tempting to renew...but the problem is that is I renew that means I will need to go to Disney alot more times next year to get my money's worth!

I already have 6 trips planned (3 already taken) and 3 more this upcoming year before they expire.

I just don't have enough vacation time to go to Disney!
 
Believe it or not, Rick and I haven't been to Disney since this past January. We didn't go in the spring, we went to Williamsburg instead. There were other trips in the meantime, including two trips to Hawaii, Maui and Kauai just last month.

Our passes expired back in March. We actually had the Premiere passes, which do not have any discounts. We decided to stop buying those. I hope we don't regret that decision because we are going to Disneyland another time in March 2014 with my sisters.

We bought the premium passes at the end of 2013 at the discounted price of $449, and we aren't using them for the first time until 11/6 of this year. What's great is they will be good for another year, and we hope to get 8 weeks out of them. That sounds nuts, I know, but we love Disney.

We used gift cards to buy the annual passes for this year, and we always use gift cards to pay MF's, which is amazing, because those gift card purchases give us discounts on gasoline at our local grocery store's gas station (King Soopers/ Kroger/ City Market), plus we get 2% back with the Capital One Venture card. When King Soopers gives the 4X fuel points, we get $1.00 off 35 gallons of gasoline. That requires a $250 gift card purchase.

So $250 gift card to Disney gets $35 off of gasoline, and we get $5.00 back from Capital One. That's $40 in savings by using gift cards, but Rick is saying we would still get the $5.00 off with Capital One, because we can pay our MF's with a credit card. Okay, I will admit that!:rofl:

If you have the Chase Ink Bold card (or one of the other Chase cards) for your business, you can get 5X points for all purchases at office supply stores, and they also carry gift cards for Disney. $250 in purchases get 1,250 points, which transfer to Southwest 1:1, so you get 1,250 points on SW. If you pay around $2,500 in MF's, you get 12,500 Southwest points pretty easily.
 
Is it a better deal to renew the annual passes even if you do not have a trip planned for a while? Or is it better just to buy a new annual pass in a few months?

The DVC annual pass discount is great, but we need to maximize the savings.

We have a trip planned to Disneyland in January and looked into the passes that work for both CA and FL. They didn't have a discount at all. We were quite disappointed and so we will probably just buy two day passes for CA and do some other things. This trip to CA will leave a gap in our WDW trips and so we were wondering what was the best deal for renewing our DVC WDW annual passes.
 
If a DVC member, the 1st year AP discount is $100 per pass. The renewals are $150 discount .... break in time, back to the $100 discount for the first year.

Now, I could be very wrong ... DVC is not the TOP of my game.:ignore:
 
Crafty527 said:
We have a trip planned to Disneyland in January and looked into the passes that work for both CA and FL. They didn't have a discount at all. We were quite disappointed and so we will probably just buy two day passes for CA and do some other things. This trip to CA will leave a gap in our WDW trips and so we were wondering what was the best deal for renewing our DVC WDW annual passes.
Click to expand...

If you are visiting both Calif and Orlando in the same year, the Premiere may still be better overall. You get discounts in for food and merchandise and free parking at all parks. I crunched the numbers a while back on a group of 5 of us and if we all were going to visit parks in both states, we were better with the Premiere.

We didn't do our trip, but it's something I'll have to crunch on again when we do go to Orlando.
 
here are the pass prices now:

ANNUAL PASS RATES WERE LAST INCREASED
Sunday, June 2nd 2013
Prices including 6.5% tax
Pass Type Guest 10+ Guest 3-9 DVC 10+ DVC 3-9
Annual Pass $648.59 $648.59 $494.16 $494.16
Annual Pass Renewal $552.74 $552.74 $419.61 $419.61
Premium Annual Pass $776.39 $776.39 $621.96 $621.96
Premium Renewal $659.24 $659.24 $526.11 $526.11
 
Premier passport

We just purchased the Premier passport for the second year. Last year we visited the parks 70 days. Parking alone at $15 equals $1,000. We buy a lot of merchandise and in California we get a twenty percent discount. We also get a 10 percent discount on food at all the restaurants in California. Some of the restaurants in Florida have the discount. We easily save $500 in discounts with the card. I think we drank triple portions of the Disney kool aid. Bottom line is Disney is a special place for our family.;)
 
We already have annual passes at WDW. Can they be folded into the premier pass or do we have to start over and lose some of our AP months?
 
There is no way to upgrade to premier from premium or the regular ones.

Disappointing for sure.

I wish I could pay the difference between the premium and premier before we use our premium pass in November. We already bought the passes and have some cards that we need to take with us to DW in November.

I am so excited to go again!
 
We won't be renewing. We'll take a bit of a break (and probably visit Disneyland for a single-week trip during our "break") before we buy new passes.

We like to get full value out of our passes and almost "overload" on it during the year we have it. Then, we don't feel the need to go for a while.

The renewal discount (an extra $50, I think) is nice, but we're perfectly happy taking every other year off. If you alternate and take a bit of time off, you can come out ahead vs. renewals.

Last time, we actually alternated from WDW APs to DL Deluxe APs, then back to WDW PAPs, so we didn't take a real break. It was nice, though, because we got the AP discount on the WDW APs, the (small) AP discount on DL APs (but before the price increase!), then the PAP promotion on our current WDW APs. So we got three years of Disney for not much more than one year of the Premier Annual Pass.

I kind of look at the Premier Annual Pass like buying dessert at an all you can eat place. You can only eat so much. And you can only spend so much time in the parks (we all only have so much time available, whether it's 2 weeks, 12 weeks or 52 weeks!), and whether it's one park or the other or both, it's still the same amount of time.

Having said that, if they do an incredible deal on the Premier Annual Pass (highly unlikely), we just might jump all over it. :)
 
The DVC annual discount helps for the AP. It also helps to get an additional discount for renewal.

I agree with MichaelColey. We don't typically renew for the next year (even with the discount) because we feel it is better to take A YEAR OFF (or two) so we don't overload on all things Disney. When we have the AP, we tend to go 4 - 6 weeks over the year and that's plenty for us. We'll take a break before we sign up again.

We did buy a 10 day, single park per day, NO expiration pass about 3 years ago. We've used 3 days so far. This gives us the flexibility to visit for a day or two, if we don't plan to visit WDW again over a 12 month period.
 
Slightly off topic...but I went to Disney in early sept and found in an old Disney folder of mine a paper 5 day non expiring park hopper. Asked and it still had 2 days on it! like finding a $20 in your pocket. I paid $204 for it in 2005. Awesome!
 
I save a few bucks by buying my Florida resident passes at AAA. We used to get one annual and one season, but now they offer all the discounts with the seasonal pass that they do with the annual pass (shopping, restaurants, etc) EXCEPT for parking.
 
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