Upgrading airmiles redeemed base tickets to park hopper

[rspencer38]

Looking to redeem my airmiles for 2 - 7 day base tickets for our trip next year. We are not sure yet if we will want park hopper as we tend not to use the benefit of the park hopper. However, I understand from another post I made in the theme park forum that I can upgrade to park hopper if I wish.

If i understand the process correctly, I'll need to pay the difference between the canadian resident price and the current 7 day park hopper when I upgrade. Is there a better (cheaper) way of doing this?

 

[Donald - my hero]

Looking to redeem my airmiles for 2 - 7 day base tickets for our trip next year. We are not sure yet if we will want park hopper as we tend not to use the benefit of the park hopper. However, I understand from another post I made in the theme park forum that I can upgrade to park hopper if I wish.

If i understand the process correctly, I'll need to pay the difference between the canadian resident price and the current 7 day park hopper when I upgrade. Is there a better (cheaper) way of doing this?

Both of those things are correct, you can upgrade any ticket media while on-site right up till the last day of use. Adding hopping to your ticket is the same cost if you do it on day one or day seven so there's no benefit to waiting to see if you'll want it later.

If the tickets you receive from Airmiles are still the CDN discounted exchange certificates you will only receive the face value of those tickets meaning you'll lose any discount. The stock of tickets will eventually run out and Airmiles will once again be carrying the standard tickets at what will most definitely be a significantly higher *cost*. I would be tempted to get even one if you currently have enough miles to do that --- one discounted ticket is better than none! I would even forgo the hopping to be able to secure the discount.

 

[rspencer38]

Thanks!

I have tons of AM so we might just go ahead and get two.

I guess the same applies if we decide to get 5 day passes and then extend if necessary?

 

[Donald - my hero]

Thanks!

I have tons of AM so we might just go ahead and get two.

I guess the same applies if we decide to get 5 day passes and then extend if necessary?

YUP, and if you have enough AM for the 7 day GO FOR IT! The cost to upgrade the 5 day at the gate would be stupid $$$
We tend to treat out AM as *found money* because we rarely will buy something strictly for the AMs. Do we stock up when things are one sale? UHM, yes, currently have upwards of 10 packages of toilet paper stuffed under the bed and all the vitamins we can store I carefully study the flyers and adjust my shopping trips accordingly.

If you're not following along with us on the Airmiles Alert thread you might want to pop in there for some great tips & heads up

 

[mort1331]

YUP, and if you have enough AM for the 7 day GO FOR IT! The cost to upgrade the 5 day at the gate would be stupid $$$
We tend to treat out AM as *found money* because we rarely will buy something strictly for the AMs. Do we stock up when things are one sale? UHM, yes, currently have upwards of 10 packages of toilet paper stuffed under the bed and all the vitamins we can store I carefully study the flyers and adjust my shopping trips accordingly.

If you're not following along with us on the Airmiles Alert thread you might want to pop in there for some great tips & heads up

Has anyone been onsite and confirmed this after using it one day ?
Would love to know how hard anyone has tried to bridge/

 

[ottawamom]

No more bridging. To upgrade any ticket it's the value of the ticket you want (at gate prices) less the value of the ticket you have (they have assigned values to pre Feb 2017 tickets) is the price you pay to upgrade. It's $$$ if you have a non-current (pre Feb 2017 ticket).

 

[fattymatty]

If you bought a canadian resident tickets then you would lose your deal on the tickets when upgrading to the regular park hopper price as they will only give you the value of what you paid or in this case they value if you had paid cash for them with this promotion towards the cost of the new ticket.

 

[damo]

If you bought a canadian resident tickets then you would lose your deal on the tickets when upgrading to the regular park hopper price as they will only give you the value of what you paid or in this case they value if you had paid cash for them with this promotion towards the cost of the new ticket.

Have we actually had any reports of this happening?

 

[ottawamom]

Yes. People doing upgrades to AP's in the spring experienced this. Those who upgraded to PH while the Canadian deal was still available were able to do so for a small amount ($75 I think). Everyone else will have to pay the larger increase.

 

[damo]

Yes. People doing upgrades to AP's in the spring experienced this. Those who upgraded to PH while the Canadian deal was still available were able to do so for a small amount ($75 I think). Everyone else will have to pay the larger increase.

Have we heard of anyone upgrading to a parkhopper since the Canadian deal finished?

 

[jenng1983]

I tried to add a day onto my 3 day tickets that I had gotten from Air Miles (Canadian Resident offer) and would have had to pay a TON of money.

 

[Leafsgirl36]

I would think adding days would cost more because you are changing the number of days on a discounted ticket but adding a park hopper which is a set price shouldn't cost more then the cost of the PH. I would like to know as we are going in January.

 

[momof2gr8kids]

I would think adding days would cost more because you are changing the number of days on a discounted ticket but adding a park hopper which is a set price shouldn't cost more then the cost of the PH. I would like to know as we are going in January.

I was thinking the same thing - it's a flat rate across the board for the PH so you would think they should just be able to charge the PH fee. Hopefully someone tries it before your Jan trip.

 

[ottawamom]

Trust me when I say unless Disney changes their minds it's going to cost $$$ to upgrade. You will pay the difference between gate cost of the ticket you want and the value they have assigned to the ticket you have. If you have a Canadian discounted ticket you will lose the value of the discount in doing the upgrade to more days or PH.

I have non-discounted Airmiles tickets and was thinking about adding on PH+ to them. It was going to cost in the neighbourhood of $130US per ticket to upgrade. I would suggest going over to the Theme Park Strategies Forum and checking out the All About Tickets Thread done by Robo. There's been lots of discussion about upgrading of all sorts there.

 

[MoreTravels]

Park hopping is over rated anyway... it's 30 to 60 minutes to walk out of a park, wait for monorail, or even worse bus transfer to get it done. You will easily lose 1 to 2 hours of time with each park change. There is the line up for security check... so you will end up wasting like 2 out of a 8-hour park day in the process.

So I never understand why would anyone want to pay extra to hop parks to start with. But then that's just me.

 

[jenng1983]

Park hopping is over rated anyway... it's 30 to 60 minutes to walk out of a park, wait for monorail, or even worse bus transfer to get it done. You will easily lose 1 to 2 hours of time with each park change. There is the line up for security check... so you will end up wasting like 2 out of a 8-hour park day in the process.

So I never understand why would anyone want to pay extra to hop parks to start with. But then that's just me.

In DL, it's 5 minutes to hop. In WDW, I would say it's not worth it.

 

[Donald - my hero]

Park hopping is over rated anyway... it's 30 to 60 minutes to walk out of a park, wait for monorail, or even worse bus transfer to get it done. You will easily lose 1 to 2 hours of time with each park change. There is the line up for security check... so you will end up wasting like 2 out of a 8-hour park day in the process.

So I never understand why would anyone want to pay extra to hop parks to start with. But then that's just me.

We've always enjoyed the ability to hop --- but we don't do it every single day. We have rarely been able to spend an entire day in the Studios (even before this current refurb) and AK is also generally a 1/2 day for us. We LOVE the freedom to stop in EPCOT to pick up some goodies in France to have for breakie the next day even if we were in MK for the day. For us it's never about spending an entire day in the parks ... so chopping it up into smaller times is perfect for us. We are 2 adults, no kids, hubby HATES rides, both prefer to wander rather than power walk so hopping suits us

*** we always try at least once in a trip to do a 3 park-day even if all that means is walking in the gate at the last park, getting a picture taken and going on one ride. (no way we can do 4 parks, hubby would need to be awake before 10 )

 

[damo]

We've always enjoyed the ability to hop --- but we don't do it every single day. We have rarely been able to spend an entire day in the Studios (even before this current refurb) and AK is also generally a 1/2 day for us. We LOVE the freedom to stop in EPCOT to pick up some goodies in France to have for breakie the next day even if we were in MK for the day. For us it's never about spending an entire day in the parks ... so chopping it up into smaller times is perfect for us. We are 2 adults, no kids, hubby HATES rides, both prefer to wander rather than power walk so hopping suits us

*** we always try at least once in a trip to do a 3 park-day even if all that means is walking in the gate at the last park, getting a picture taken and going on one ride. (no way we can do 4 parks, hubby would need to be awake before 10 )

Exactly. How do you spend a full day at the Studios or AK?

 

[MoreTravels]

Hollywood Studios: Pictures with characters, Beauty and Beast concert, Toy Story ride, Bugs Life playground, Sci Fi dining, and Fantasmic show... whole day.
AK: Pictures with animals, Nemo concert, Kali River ride, Boneyard playground, Rivers of Light show... whole day.

I have only included ideas in parallel comparison. In fact, there are other things that still can be done... so you can definitely stay busy for an entire day in either park.

 

[Leafsgirl36]

sent a question about upgrading to a PH directly to Disney....lets see what I get back for an answer