Flex Pass Superthread: Disneyland Resort Introduces New Annual Passport that Combines Value and Flexibility

[IsleofDisney]

We just paid $340 for 5-day park hoppers through Last Minute Travel Club, and had the full price of $395 applied to our Flex Passes.

We purchased 3 day PH with MP through my ds military discount but did NOT have the retail price applied when we converted to Flex passes. The full discounted amount we paid was applied including the MP but not total retail as some have posted. So far I've read discounted tickets purchased through LMT & UT will have full retail price applied when converting to a pass. Our 3 day PH had a very deep discount so maybe that has something to do with us not receiving full retail price credited toward our Flex passes? Also we weren't able to use Disney GCs if using the app to purchase the passes, another reason to go to a booth.

 

[cruisehopeful]

Wait, you have the option to purchase parking if you downgrade to the Flex? What's the price on that?

It shows me monthly pricing. After doing the math again last night, it looks like I'd have to visit 10 times to break even, which isn't going to happen for me.

FlexPass with Parking:
$70.67/month
12 Monthly Payments

FlexPass with Maxpass and Parking:
$79.00/month
12 Monthly Payments

FlexPass alone:
$49.92/month
12 Monthly Payments

 

[starry_solo]

We purchased 3 day PH with MP through my ds military discount but did NOT have the retail price applied when we converted to Flex passes. The full discounted amount we paid was applied including the MP but not total retail as some have posted. So far I've read discounted tickets purchased through LMT & UT will have full retail price applied when converting to a pass. Our 3 day PH had a very deep discount so maybe that has something to do with us not receiving full retail price credited toward our Flex passes? Also we weren't able to use Disney GCs if using the app to purchase the passes, another reason to go to a booth.

Disney knows what they sell their military tickets for, directly to the individual. Disney also knows what they sell the LMT and UT tickets for, but not how much LMT and UT sells to their consumers.

 

[AuntieKels]

Talk to me about dates when reservations have filled up. (not a holiday)

I'm a little worried because our family of 4 will be visiting over a 3 day reservation only period.

 

[sgrap]

We purchased 3 day PH with MP through my ds military discount but did NOT have the retail price applied when we converted to Flex passes. The full discounted amount we paid was applied including the MP but not total retail as some have posted. So far I've read discounted tickets purchased through LMT & UT will have full retail price applied when converting to a pass. Our 3 day PH had a very deep discount so maybe that has something to do with us not receiving full retail price credited toward our Flex passes? Also we weren't able to use Disney GCs if using the app to purchase the passes, another reason to go to a booth.

I did not know that you could upgrade military tickets at all, but it makes complete sense that they don't give the full retail price for those because they are so highly discounted, and a special program for our millitary. Thank you for your son's service, and your family's service through him! Our ds is military as well.

 

[Skyegirl1999]

Talk to me about dates when reservations have filled up. (not a holiday)

I'm a little worried because our family of 4 will be visiting over a 3 day reservation only period.

I don’t think they have, really. It definitely doesn’t seem like you’ll have a problem with booking the two days in advance, and even if day 3 is “booked” when you try, it seems likely that it will open up if you keep checking as people cancel (based on how the 4th of July worked).

 

[sgrap]

I don’t think they have, really. It definitely doesn’t seem like you’ll have a problem with booking the two days in advance, and even if day 3 is “booked” when you try, it seems likely that it will open up if you keep checking as people cancel (based on how the 4th of July worked).

Other than July 4th, the only day I've seen blocked was August 17th, but it opened up again.

 

[IsleofDisney]

Disney knows what they sell their military tickets for, directly to the individual. Disney also knows what they sell the LMT and UT tickets for, but not how much LMT and UT sells to their consumers.

That explains it, thank you! Still it's surprising that Disney doesn't track those types of tickets too. Good for the customer though!

I did not know that you could upgrade military tickets at all, but it makes complete sense that they don't give the full retail price for those because they are so highly discounted, and a special program for our millitary. Thank you for your son's service, and your family's service through him! Our ds is military as well.

Yes, I saw the option to upgrade in the Disney app. I agree, not complaining about the lack of discount because Disney does a wonderful job honoring our military and I'm so appreciative of that. We were able to take my DS to see SWGE when he was on leave since he's been a SW fan since the womb. Thank you to your son's service as well! It's a different type of service as a parent, I've come to learn.

 

[MonocularVision]

You got it. I did research before our trip and confirmed if you purchase tickets with MP, the full amount will be credited towards the Flexpass. If you just buy hopper tickets and add MP per day, you will only get the hopper tickets value towards the Flexpass.

FYI: We upgraded 3-day PHs to Deluxe APs with MaxPass added back in December of 2017 and the CM at the booth managed to get our daily MaxPass add-ons we made applied to the purchase price different. But even then, it was very YMMV. If you pre-purchase MaxPass with the tickets, it seems to be automatic.

 

[socaldisneylover]

I don’t think they have, really. It definitely doesn’t seem like you’ll have a problem with booking the two days in advance, and even if day 3 is “booked” when you try, it seems likely that it will open up if you keep checking as people cancel (based on how the 4th of July worked).

And I think it's much less likely that Both parks will be sold out, so in the worst case, someone could just plan on focusing the final day around CA Adventure.

 

[Ryan120420]

Wait, you have the option to purchase parking if you downgrade to the Flex? What's the price on that?

The parking add-on is $249.

 

[moreisgood]

We are taking our first trip to DL in October. We are planning to be in the parks some part of every day from October 23 - 28th. In addition, we are planning to go next summer in early August, for about 3 days. I'm looking at the Flex Pass, trying to decide if we should try it, or just get tickets for both trips, from UT. For the October trip, it looks like reservations are needed from the 3 weekend days, starting Friday. I could make reservations for Friday, and Saturday, and hope to get Sunday after we used Friday's reservation. Is that correct? Next summer, every day will probably need a reservation. Again, the 3rd day would be iffy,

I know that reservations have been easy to get, because the Flex Pass is still pretty new. I'm concerned about the Sunday this October, and the 3rd day next summer. Maybe I should be concerned about all 3 days next summer! Are reservations still pretty easy to get one or two days out?

We have WDW annual passes, and I don't even have to think about it. But, the DL passes are so much more $. Thoughts and advice about the Flex Pass vs Undercover Tourist tickets?

 

[Skyegirl1999]

So far, in terms of park admission, the Flex pass has essentially worked as a Signature pass with the added hassle of having to make the reservations. Other than July 4, no day has really “sold out” in advance from what I’ve seen - and it seems that once a day “sells out,” there’s still periodic availability as other people cancel their reservations.

If October is actually a busy month (unlike the summer), it will be the first decent test of the Flex Pass. And there’s really no way to know how things will be next summer - it will have been out for a full year, so a lot more people may have purchased or renewed to that level, making reservations more complicated.

My gut is that you’ll be ok in October, but there’s always a chance there will be a sudden jump. I don’t think you’ll have any trouble grabbing your first two days in advance for next summer, but your third is a gamble... so I guess it depends how much of a gambler you are!

 

[clb79]

We are debating the Flex pass too for an upcoming trip in Oct. My wife is a teacher so we can really only go when there are long weekends or during school breaks (so when it is typically busier) and since we aren't local we always plan on at least 3+ days in the park on our trips. Even after the Flex has been out a year it will be hard to compare for planning (because the number of holders will continue to increase).

It's too bad they couldn't do something where they limit it to 2 reservations at a time for locals that have more last minute flexibility, but give Flex holders from out of state 2 or 3 additional days they can reserve (they could even require them to be consecutive days or even charge a small nonrefundable amount for additional days to control/project reservation numbers more easily) knowing that they tend to spend more days in the park.

What we have decided to do is buy Park Hoppers for our trip in Oct and then decided whether or not we want upgrade those to Flex Passes while we are there. If we choose to upgrade we might just upgrade my wife and I and not the kids so we can take advantage of the AP discounts, perks and then wait to see how the Flex Pass Reservations pan out as the number of Flex holders increase. Then we can evaluate if and/when to switch the rest of the family from multi-day tickets to Flex passes at the time of a future trip (splitting the cost of APs so we aren't paying for them all at once isn't necessarily a bad thing to us). Worst case scenario for now would be needing to buy regular ticket if we can't reserve the additional days once we are there, but only having to do it for 2 of us.

 

[SeaDis]

We are debating the Flex pass too for an upcoming trip in Oct. My wife is a teacher so we can really only go when there are long weekends or during school breaks (so when it is typically busier) and since we aren't local we always plan on at least 3+ days in the park on our trips. Even after the Flex has been out a year it will be hard to compare for planning (because the number of holders will continue to increase).

It's too bad they couldn't do something where they limit it to 2 reservations at a time for locals that have more last minute flexibility, but give Flex holders from out of state 2 or 3 additional days they can reserve (they could even require them to be consecutive days or even charge a small nonrefundable amount for additional days to control/project reservation numbers more easily) knowing that they tend to spend more days in the park.

I like that idea. Flying 2-3+ hours makes it hard to justify a weekend trip if you can only "guarantee" two park days. You really only get one FULL park day on a weekend anyways. I would for sure take 2 or 3 more weekend trips, staying onsite, if we were assured a third (partial) day. It would be a nice incentive for out-of towners to upgrade.

 

[mel2014]

We are taking our first trip to DL in October. We are planning to be in the parks some part of every day from October 23 - 28th. In addition, we are planning to go next summer in early August, for about 3 days. I'm looking at the Flex Pass, trying to decide if we should try it, or just get tickets for both trips, from UT. For the October trip, it looks like reservations are needed from the 3 weekend days, starting Friday. I could make reservations for Friday, and Saturday, and hope to get Sunday after we used Friday's reservation. Is that correct? Next summer, every day will probably need a reservation. Again, the 3rd day would be iffy,

I know that reservations have been easy to get, because the Flex Pass is still pretty new. I'm concerned about the Sunday this October, and the 3rd day next summer. Maybe I should be concerned about all 3 days next summer! Are reservations still pretty easy to get one or two days out?

We have WDW annual passes, and I don't even have to think about it. But, the DL passes are so much more $. Thoughts and advice about the Flex Pass vs Undercover Tourist tickets?

If you're going to get MaxPass either way, I think your best strategy would be to buy the 5-day tickets from Undercover Tourist with MaxPass included and then upgrade to the FlexPass sometime during your October trip after looking at reservation availability -- e.g., if Friday and Saturday have reservations available, upgrade Thursday night and make your two reservations. If they don't you could wait until Saturday night to upgrade or decide not to upgrade at all if you think there won't be summer availability. That way you also get your Magic Morning as well.

A 5-day Hopper with MaxPass through UCT is $440 vs. $599 for FlexPass. If you're able to take that second trip next summer, you would be paying the equivalent of $160 for a three-day park hopper (assuming no price bridging, if you get price bridging the upgrade cost would only be $130) vs. $328 for a new 3-day hopper ticket. For me, based on what I've observed so far about availability, I would take the bet that I would be able to get 3 days next summer and save the $168 per person, not to mention the food and merchandise discounts.

 

[longtimedisneylurker]

A 5-day Hopper with MaxPass through UCT is $440 vs. $599 for FlexPass. If you're able to take that second trip next summer, you would be paying the equivalent of $160 for a three-day park hopper (assuming no price bridging, if you get price bridging the upgrade cost would only be $130) vs. $328 for a new 3-day hopper ticket. For me, based on what I've observed so far about availability, I would take the bet that I would be able to get 3 days next summer and save the $168 per person, not to mention the food and merchandise discounts.

Just a note...I wouldn't expect the MaxPass part of the ticket price to be credited toward the FlexPass unless you were also adding MaxPass to the FlexPass which is an additional $100. So I think the value of that UCT 5-day ticket without price bridging would only be $365 toward the $599 FlexPass. I do believe that if MaxPass was added to the FlexPass at the time of upgrade, then the $440 would be credited toward the $699 FlexPass with MaxPass price.

 

[mel2014]

Just a note...I wouldn't expect the MaxPass part of the ticket price to be credited toward the FlexPass unless you were also adding MaxPass to the FlexPass which is an additional $100. So I think the value of that UCT 5-day ticket without price bridging would only be $365 toward the $599 FlexPass. I do believe that if MaxPass was added to the FlexPass at the time of upgrade, then the $440 would be credited toward the $699 FlexPass with MaxPass price.

Several of the posters upthread have mentioned that the full value of their tickets with MaxPass (assuming the tickets were purchased with MaxPass and not added daily) was credited toward their upgrade. I don't see anyone that specifically stated one way or the other that they were upgrading to FlexPass with or without the MaxPass add-on, so I don't know that there's a concrete data point on whether the MaxPass amount would be ignored if the upgrade was to an AP without MaxPass, but since I can't imagine going now without Maxpass, strategically I purchased the tickets I'm planning to upgrade with MaxPass included. We aren't going until November, but I'll report back on our experience then and whether we're given the option to upgrade without MaxPass for just the $160.

Specific to this poster's situation, 8 park days of MaxPass at $15/day would be $120, so it would be a better value to do the MaxPass add-on than buy daily.

 

[Canadian Harmony]

I note there are different values applied to their AP. Last year when I got the deluxe AP, I applied my 3 day PH that I got off of AirMiles. I used the full amount of Air Miles for the purchase, but at the time there was a Canadian Resident promo going on, and that was what was applied toward the purchase of the AP.

This year, I'm using the 5 day PH I got through Air Miles towards the Flex Pass. I'm going to add in Max Pass because it's awesome, but I think I'm going to leave it as a daily purchase. Even with the exchange, I'll save $25 off the annual cost because I won't be able to go as often as I would like this year.

My question is: When I get the FlexAP, I can reserve both parks for day 1 and day 2 immediately (I think?). The next day I can reserve for day 3? And so on?

 

[IsleofDisney]

I note there are different values applied to their AP. Last year when I got the deluxe AP, I applied my 3 day PH that I got off of AirMiles. I used the full amount of Air Miles for the purchase, but at the time there was a Canadian Resident promo going on, and that was what was applied toward the purchase of the AP.

This year, I'm using the 5 day PH I got through Air Miles towards the Flex Pass. I'm going to add in Max Pass because it's awesome, but I think I'm going to leave it as a daily purchase. Even with the exchange, I'll save $25 off the annual cost because I won't be able to go as often as I would like this year.

My question is: When I get the FlexAP, I can reserve both parks for day 1 and day 2 immediately (I think?). The next day I can reserve for day 3? And so on?

Don't forget that with MaxPass you get the added bonus of free PhotoPass downloads too!