AP Room Discounts- are they really worth it?

[Julie Amber]

I'm totally looking at seeing if it would be worth getting an AP after this whole mess is over; and one of the considerations is the AP Discount on rooms.

A) Is there always an AP Discount available?

B) Is the AP Discount always better than the regular discount available to everyone? And by how much?

C) How many rooms can you book on that annual pass discount? If I've got a big family reunion, can I book 5 rooms at that rate? What's the limit there?

Thanks for the help!!

 

[Mainsail Minnie]

I'm totally looking at seeing if it would be worth getting an AP after this whole mess is over; and one of the considerations is the AP Discount on rooms.

A) Is there always an AP Discount available?

B) Is the AP Discount always better than the regular discount available to everyone? And by how much?

C) How many rooms can you book on that annual pass discount? If I've got a big family reunion, can I book 5 rooms at that rate? What's the limit there?

Thanks for the help!!

I'm an out of state visitor & bought my son and myself APs for the first time last year, because I planned for us to take 3 trips in a 12-month period. Needless to say, that plan hit a bump in the road. Never again will I buy an AP. Ever. Aside from how long the park will be be out and out closed, upon reopening there will be the issue of onerous new rules, restrictions and extreme cutbacks, that were on no one's radar back when I bought the passes.

No, the discounts aren't worth the sky-high AP price. The only thing you should calculate when considering buying is how much equivalent tickets would cost, because the other perks are negligible. The AP room discount is typically 5 - 10% better than the general public room discount, but it's also less available. Right now there is a general public discount good for all of summer, and an AP discount only good for stays through July 9th. WDW will probably barely be opening on July 9th if we're even that lucky, so no, it isn't helpful.

 

[Welsh_Dragon]

But the food and merchandise discounts can add up, particularly if you use TiW. We have stayed about 30 days, so far, split over two stays and even taking into account the less expensive U.K. tickets, which would have been available to us, we have still saved money.
A gentleman called John Tierney used to prepare a spreadsheet calculator, so that people could see whether an AP purchase was worth it. I don’t think that he keeps it up to date anymore, but here is an old link.
https://forum.touringplans.com/t/spreadsheet-best-tix-to-buy-to-maximum-savings-on-ap-upgrade/33234

 

[mickeynut1]

I'm totally looking at seeing if it would be worth getting an AP after this whole mess is over; and one of the considerations is the AP Discount on rooms.

A) Is there always an AP Discount available?

B) Is the AP Discount always better than the regular discount available to everyone? And by how much?

C) How many rooms can you book on that annual pass discount? If I've got a big family reunion, can I book 5 rooms at that rate? What's the limit there?

Thanks for the help!!

A) There is usually an AP discount, but availability is just like GP discounts in that not all resorts/room types are included. Sometimes you have to be flexible with your resort/room type in order to take advantage of the discount.

B) The AP discount is usually a little better than GP discounts (maybe 5-10%), but sometimes (at least in my experience) the GP discount has more availability than the AP discount.

C) You can book up to 3 rooms under 1 AP (pending availability). If you need more than 3 rooms, you would have to look at another discount to book the other rooms or if someone else has an AP, they could book the other rooms.


Getting an AP solely for room discounts probably isn't worthwhile, but there are other perks to the AP such as 20% off purchases at most stores and 10% off dining at most restaurants. You can also buy a Tables in Wonderland dining card that will save you 20% on dining at most restaurants, but that card would be an add'l cost of $150. Everyone is different, but for us, the 10% discount with the AP is sufficient.

 

[Skippyboo]

I got 35% off AKL last summer with my AP discount. Most of the time the AP discount comes out after the GP discount but you can book the GP and usually switch to AP. But we are heading into unknown with Covid 19. There will probably be heavy discount to try to lure people back. The room discount shouldn’t be the deciding factor. Also the bigger discounts are on the more expensive rooms. So if you’re at Pop Century you are saving $30 per night versus Beach Club saving $150 but you’re still paying $350 a night versus $160 at Pop.

Depends on your touring style, how many days to you want to visit, park hoppers, table service eaters, memory maker buyers? With your AP you have park hoppers plus the photo pass system, discount on merchandise and add on events like holiday parties ticket discounts. The TIW discount card that you can buy could be useful for family reunion. The dining discount is mainly at TS restaurants and some of the 3rd Party restaurants in the parks looking at you restaurant in Mexico on the water don’t honor the discount.

But if you’re only going to the Parks for a week probably not worth the money.

 

[Lynne M]

Moving this to the Discount Codes and Rates board.

 

[cakebaker]

For us, they are absolutely worth it. I've paid for my AP several times over with the savings. I got 4 trips out of my last one. It really depends on how often you go, what resorts you stay at and your shopping and dining habits. For us, just the multiple trips (at least twice, sometimes as much as 4) with the room discount and free photopass saves us a ton of money. In the many years we have bought AP's, there has always been a discount available for our time frame. I don't recall the last time there wasn't one.

 

[vinotinto]

A) Is there always an AP Discount available?
There is always an AP discount, just like there always is a general public discount. Note that not every date is included. For example, Fridays and Saturdays had been at rack rate before the closures. And availability wasn’t great before the closures.

B) Is the AP Discount always better than the regular discount available to everyone? And by how much?
It’s usually 5% off higher. So, if the GP discount is 25%, AP is 30%. Note that in some cases, the GP discount is higher, if the weekend dates are blocked for the AP discount, but not blocked for the GP discount.

C) How many rooms can you book on that annual pass discount?
3 rooms, including yours at your same resort and with dates overlapping yours.

You do get 10% off food at select TS, and qualify to purchase a TIW card. That is a more “sure” discount than the room discount. I would find it difficult to break even on one trip with just the Platinum AP. Two trips in one year, if you are doing a lot of TS dining would be worth it.

I would suggest you read the last 6 months of the AP room discount thread. People post their experiences with the AP room discounts.

 

[Tall Todd]

It's not always the best discount even if they are all available. Once our Disney Chase Visa card had a better rate and another time we used a Bounce Back rate, both of those were room only situations.

 

[Primeval Princess]

A) Is there always an AP Discount available?

B) Is the AP Discount always better than the regular discount available to everyone? And by how much?

C) How many rooms can you book on that annual pass discount? If I've got a big family reunion, can I book 5 rooms at that rate? What's the limit there?

A. No.

B. It's usually a better discount. However, there is often less availability and with less advance notice, as well. A few months ago, I had a room discount bounceback offer booked, but ditched that when the steeper AP discount came out. Right now, there is no AP discount available for late July, so I'm stuck with the general public discount, which is not as good as the AP discount. It's typically been a 5 - 10% better deal to book with the AP discount over other discounts. It helps, but it's not a massive difference.

C. I don't know.

Every little AP discount & perk helps, but I'm not sure what you meant by "worth it" in your thread title. You should only ever buy an AP for park access, not for perks. The perks are not worth the cost of the AP. You should look at how often you plan to attend the parks, and compare the cost of buying tickets for that to the cost of buying tickets for those trips. If that makes financial sense, then you should consider an AP.

And I only said "consider". I just bought & activated our first APs at the end of last year- what terrible luck! Now I'm stuck with them and don't know if I'll ever get the value for what I paid. So remember before purchasing, that anything can happen. We had plans for multiple trips in 2020- now I don't know whether they'll even happen at all.

 

[TigerlilyAJ]

I bought an AP for the first time for our January 2020 trip and wished I had for our 2016 trip. Depending on your trip, one visit can make the AP a value.
-We did 8 park days with PHs for the rest of the family, which ate up more than half the cost of the AP (which I got in June 2019 before the increase in price).
-I always buy Memory Maker/Photo Pass, so that being included was another $170 in value.
-Even with a dining plan for the majority of our split-stay, we still had food I bought with the 10% discount, saving at least $30. It would have been used more except that the part of the stay without a dining plan was Club Level, which we used for most of our food.
-The 20% merch discount was great. No minimum to buy like my Disney Visa discount. I think I saved about $60 this way. (It would have been more than double that if Droid Depot's Droid building got a discount--but the accessories we're discounted!)
-And yeah, I also got an extra 5% off rooms. Part of our stay was at AoA, so about an extra $20/night ($100 total). The BWI CL was about an extra $40/night ($80 total).
It quickly added up, so if I make it back to the parks this year, the ticket I don't have to buy is all gravy.
So, time for a math game to see if it works out for your trip.