Whenever it comes to Disney ticket policy, I find it’s best to start with a deep breath. Breathe in. Exhale. Okay.
Disney is amending their ticket policy, which will go into effect beginning August 3, 2011. This change was only confirmed in writing today.
Current policy: Magic Your Way tickets may be upgraded and days may be added within 14 days of first use of the ticket.
New Policy: Magic Your Way tickets may be upgraded and days may be added only if “entitlement value remains” on the ticket.
Example 1: Previously, Magic Your Way tickets could be upgraded any time within 14 days of first use of the ticket. For example, let’s say you bought a five-day base ticket on November 10th and used it for the first time on December 10th. You would have until December 23rd to use all five days. Let’s say you spent December 10th, 12th, 15th, 16th, and 18th at Disney World theme parks and thus used up all five days. Now let’s say you wanted to visit another theme park on December 22nd. Previously, you could take your completely used ticket to any ticket window on December 22nd and add a sixth day for only the cost of adding the sixth day to a five-day ticket, which is currently $8.32 with tax. Beginning tomorrow, you will not be able to add a sixth day to the ticket on December 22nd because it has been completely used and holds no further entitlement value.
In our previous example, we visited a theme park for the fifth time with a five-day ticket on December 18th. With the new policy, we would be able to add additional days at any point between December 10th (the date of first use) and December 18th (the day when no future entitlements exist). However, we would not be able to add a sixth day on December 19th – 23rd because no entitlement value exists.
Example 2: In this example, we will purchase a five-day base ticket with the Water Park Fun & More upgrade that costs an additional $58.58 with tax. Under the new policy, your ticket will have entitlement value until you use all of your major theme park entitlements and all of your Water Park Fun & More entitlements or December 23rd, whichever comes first. For example, let’s say you visited the major theme parks just as in example one – December 10th, 12th, 15th, 16th, and 18th but did not use any Water Park Fun & More entitlements (that is, visited no water parks, golf courses, Disney Quest, etc). Here, your ticket still holds entitlement value after December 18th. You would be able to add additional theme park days to the ticket until you used all of your theme park entitlements and Water Park and Fun entitlements. However, the ticket would still expire in its entirety on December 23rd as it did before (14 days from first use).
In other words, you must upgrade or add days to your ticket before you leave on the day that your ticket no longer has entitlement value. That is, on the day that you could no longer use the ticket to enter a major theme park, water park, DisneyQuest, ESPN Wide World of Sports, or golf course. If you could still use the ticket to enter a major theme park, water park, DisneyQuest, ESPN Wide World of Sports, or golf course, then the ticket still holds entitlement value, at least until 14 days from the first day of use. The 14-day stipulation remains intact.
Why? This policy is aimed at foiling the ticket resellers that operate on eBay, Craigslist, other online outlets, and locally around the theme parks. It is illegal to resell partially used Disney World theme park tickets. This is a common practice along US-192, the highway that I live on. In fact, there are several ticket reselling booths and outlets within a 15 minute walk of my door and at least a dozen on the drive to the theme parks. These sellers purchase used tickets from vacationers, take them to the ticket window to upgrade them (remember, it only costs about $8 a day to add the 4th to 10th day on a Disney Magic Your Way Ticket), and then resell them as a “new” ticket with whatever amount of days they say is on it. They also sell “one-day tickets” for $50 a day and then offer a bounty if the user brings the ticket back with additional days on it that they purchased. This policy is specifically aimed at making it more difficult for these sellers to operate.
Flexibility and Leniency: There is expected to be some flexibility here. Disney has no problem adding days to your ticket, provided you are the one using the ticket. You may still have success adding days to an expired ticket (as long as it’s within 14 days of first use), provided you explain your predicament, smile, and explain that you simply would like to spend another day at Disney World that you weren’t expecting to when you first purchased the tickets. It’s important to keep in mind that whoever you speak to at customer service doesn’t have to do this for you and you will be more likely to be successful if you act in a pleasant manner with a lot of pleases and thank yous.
Love the policy change! Stopping the ticket scammers is a great imitative and if this will help, and certainly it seems it will – at least a bit – so I’m all for it!
It sounds like a good idea. I never imagined people could sell their unused tickets to scalpers like that, but it’s good Disney is aware of it and can stop that from happening. Right now I have a 4 day ticket for a 7 day trip (bookend days are the travel days anyway so we’re not going anywhere, and a break day in the middle of the trip where we’re not going into any parks), so I’m sure I’d be okay if I decided mid-trip to add a fifth day to our ticket in case we turn that break day into a park day (but I’m still 99 percent sure that we won’t). Sounds like that is still possible.
I had no idea people even did this, great job explaining with your examples.
New rule makes sense, though it’s another example of honest/ethical people losing out because of less scrupulous…..
Question though, how can one re-purchase a ticket someone else has already used? I thought your “finger print marker” was associated with your icket.
I never knew you could do this. What about no expiration option? If I buy a 3 day ticket and use 2 days, can I go back anytime and add 7 more days?
Does that make sense?
Love the site, btw.
Cincy – There are a variety of ways to get around the “biometric scan,” unfortunately.
Kevin – You could add the no expiration option as long as you add it within 14 days of first use of the ticket. The cost of the no expiration upgrade is also on the full three day ticket. See this article for an explanation of No Expiration and the associated costs: http://www.easywdw.com/tickets/is-the-disney-no-expiration-ticket-upgrade-worth-the-cost/. It may need to be updated slightly with this new change.
I imagine you could have walked up to a person and handed them an empty 5 day ticket giving them $9 a day park passes. Not bad!
Ok but riddle me this… I am visiting for 5 days, only buying a two day ticket and 1 water park ticket. (three days covered and two to work out based on weather, level of energy, etc.) We are staying on propety In a deluxe. In the past we would see how things go and add another day or two on at the end, even if it’s just half a day, because at tha point it’s cheap enough to deciden on the fly. It seems like I can’t wait to play it day by day if I’ve already used my two days and want a third or fourth even if it’s within our short five day trip. ??? That just sucks. Seems like thy will be unwillingly hurting loyal customers. I guess I’ll have to be two steps ahead and anticipate our needs. Not easy.
So, we are heading to Disney in Sept. But we want to take the kids within the next 2 years can we add on 5 days to our tickets on the last day? Do we need to add a no expire? And can we still get free dining if 2 out of 5 already have tickets?
You would need to add No Expiration if you want to use the tickets after the 14-day use window. The tickets expire 14 days from the date of first use unless you add No Expiration. For Free Dining, there is usually a minimum ticket purchase required. This year, it’s a minimum of a two-day base ticket. Everyone on the reservation would need to purchase a two-day base ticket in order to qualify for Free Dining.
so we cant just add to our current tickets and get the free dining for next time
I’m not exactly sure what you’re asking. The current Free Dining promotion requires, at a minimum, the purchase of new two-day base tickets for everyone on the reservation. As far as a future promotion, Disney will still likely require the purchase of new tickets. There’s no guarantee promotions will be offered in the future, for that matter, either.
In 2009 we visited WDW and used 1 day of a 5 day pass before having to leave suddenly. We added the no expiry option to the remaining days. If I go back this year with the same tickets but a different travelling partner, will new partner be able to use one of these tickets even though it wasnt his finger scanned on the first trip? BUT I think that when we added the no expiry option, our tickets were replaced with new ones…SO, will the “finger scan” still be in effect?? Does this make sense???