Upgrading to AP strategy and 3 Bonus Months?

[BadgerGirl84]

We are planning to go to UO in about a month. We are planning on doing one night at the Pacific Royal hotel to get 2 days of Express Passes for our family of five (we are staying at a vacation home--not sure if we will actually spend the night at the hotel or not.)

Anyways, when all is said and done, we want 4 Seasonal Passes and 1 Preferred Pass.

When we've done Disney Annual Passes in the past we have purchased the tickets with the biggest discount offered on Undercover Tourist, used the ticket at least a day, then upgraded to the AP. I believe it's called price bridging, because our park ticket was credited to the AP at the gate price so we kept the UT savings.

Does this also apply to UO AP tickets? Should we get the most discounted tickets (under the actual AP price...some are actually more than the Seasonal AP) on UT and then upgrade once we are there?

The 3 Month bonus they are offering on the UO website is very appealing to us--anyone know if that bonus would apply to us if we upgrade in the park? It says it runs through end of March and we are visiting early March.

Thanks!

 

[CAPSLOCK]

Yes, it applies the same to UO tickets price bridging to APs. Just avoid the promo tickets that are actually put out by UO itself, as they are credited at the UO promo price (in other words, for the "Buy 2 days get 2 days free" promo tickets, UO credits it as a 2 day ticket for upgrade purposes). You can usually tell these promo tickets as they have specific expiration dates and say "promo" on them.

I believe last year people were saying that the 3 months free was given if you upgraded to an AP at the park during the promotional period.

Also I think it's hilarious that Disboards censors the initials UT but allows Undercover Tourist

 

[BadgerGirl84]

Yes, it applies the same to UO tickets price bridging to APs. Just avoid the promo tickets that are actually put out by UO itself, as they are credited at the UO promo price (in other words, for the "Buy 2 days get 2 days free" promo tickets, UO credits it as a 2 day ticket for upgrade purposes). You can usually tell these promo tickets as they have specific expiration dates and say "promo" on them.

I believe last year people were saying that the 3 months free was given if you upgraded to an AP at the park during the promotional period.

Also I think it's hilarious that Disboards censors the initials ** but allows Undercover Tourist

Thank you so much! I had no idea Disboards censored the initials--I had to go re-read my post to see what you were talking about.

 

[cfoxga]

Just curious what the actual savings are when going the UT route? We've done APs twice in the past. On our first trip, I didn't want to hassle with upgrading tickets, since we were new to the whole UO thing. For our second set of APs, we just bought the APs at the resort when we checked in, as it didn't seem like it would save more than 5-10%.

 

[mawuponastar]

We did just this when we were at UO last week. I crunched some numbers between the discounted tix on UT and the website prices on the UO website, and for us the biggest saving was the “Buy 2, Get 2” promotional tix. We bought those on UT and then upgraded them in person at Guest Services at CityWalk. Upgrade was $15 per person + tax, but we paid less overall than the sticker price for Seasonal AP’s due to paying discounted prices for the original tix through UT.

Interestingly, I forgot to ask about the 3 free months promotion while upgrading, and when I went back, I was told to ask Guest Services after scanning into the parks as the expiration date couldn’t be checked until AP was scanned (the TM who helped with the upgrade was on break so couldn’t ask her). We checked with Guest Services in the parks who said we had only gotten the 12 months and they thought it was because we had upgraded from promotional tix. Didn’t seem like they were willing to add the 3 months, and I remembered reading on here that people had luck with reaching out to UO via social media, so I sent a Facebook message to the UO official page and a TM added on the 3 months for us, no problem.

 

[mawuponastar]

Just curious what the actual savings are when going the ** route? We've done APs twice in the past. On our first trip, I didn't want to hassle with upgrading tickets, since we were new to the whole UO thing. For our second set of APs, we just bought the APs at the resort when we checked in, as it didn't seem like it would save more than 5-10%.

We saved about ~$28 per person via the UT method. I think it’s a much better deal when UT runs their own promotions on tix that Universal doesn’t have, and then UO bridges to the full price of those discounted tix.

 

[TreeFalls]

If you haven't already, check the AP room discount. Depending on your schedule, you may need to buy one AP up front, but you might save more money on the room than you'd save with the price bridging. (Edit: You don't even need to buy the AP up front, so ignore me.)

 

[sbarisch]

Can you buy AP's on UO website but not have them activate until you use them, BUT also then use them to book an AP rate online for June?

 

[Gr8t Fan]

Can you buy AP's on UO website but not have them activate until you use them, BUT also then use them to book an AP rate online for June?

You do not need to have your AP in hand when booking the AP room rate. You just need to show it at some point before checkout. APs are activated upon first use.

 

[DoryGirl1963]

Can you buy AP's on UO website but not have them activate until you use them, BUT also then use them to book an AP rate online for June?

Yep !

 

[shawthorne44]

I'd bought tickets from Sam's and then upgraded them to passes there. I was only credited the amount I paid. I had thought it was because they were able to figure out what I paid. But, the OP makes me wonder if I'd have gotten the full credit if we'd used them first. I was wanting free parking, so paying for parking that first day would have cut into the savings. DH had dropped me off while I got our passes.

 

[Gentry2004]

We did just this when we were at UO last week. I crunched some numbers between the discounted tix on UT and the website prices on the UO website, and for us the biggest saving was the “Buy 2, Get 2” promotional tix. We bought those on UT and then upgraded them in person at Guest Services at CityWalk. Upgrade was $15 per person + tax, but we paid less overall than the sticker price for Seasonal AP’s due to paying discounted prices for the original tix through UT.

Interestingly, I forgot to ask about the 3 free months promotion while upgrading, and when I went back, I was told to ask Guest Services after scanning into the parks as the expiration date couldn’t be checked until AP was scanned (the TM who helped with the upgrade was on break so couldn’t ask her). We checked with Guest Services in the parks who said we had only gotten the 12 months and they thought it was because we had upgraded from promotional tix. Didn’t seem like they were willing to add the 3 months, and I remembered reading on here that people had luck with reaching out to UO via social media, so I sent a Facebook message to the UO official page and a TM added on the 3 months for us, no problem.

Thanks for pointing out the issue with the extra 3 months. We will try to make sure we get this in the first place when we do the upgrade.

Does your entire group need to be present for the upgrade, like at WDW?

 

[TreeFalls]

Thanks for pointing out the issue with the extra 3 months. We will try to make sure we get this in the first place when we do the upgrade.

Does your entire group need to be present for the upgrade, like at WDW?

I took my family's 5 tickets to guest services in citywalk for the upgrade by myself while they stayed in the hotel. They did give us the extra 3 months without me asking.

 

[Gentry2004]

I took my family's 5 tickets to guest services in citywalk for the upgrade by myself while they stayed in the hotel. They did give us the extra 3 months without me asking.

awesome thanks! Did you have the 2+2 promo tickets from UT? Or a different kind of ticket? Just trying to decide what ticket to buy. Thank you!

 

[TreeFalls]

awesome thanks! Did you have the 2+2 promo tickets from UT? Or a different kind of ticket? Just trying to decide what ticket to buy. Thank you!

Mine were 4-day tickets as part of a Costco package. They were some kind of promo ticket, but nobody could tell me what kind because they were part of the package.