October 2015 Discount Code Watch

[loveshak22]

From what I've read the discounts are limited because most of the rooms are already booked. Why should Disney offer a discount if they don't have too??

Because most people who book that far out are repeat visitors who know that discounts will eventually get released since resort prices are so inflated, yet they want to reserve a room before it's sold out.

To me, this year is a big test for Disney to see how far they can restrict discounts and people still pay full price.

 

[CJLove79]

I agree and what makes it difficult is people start reserving rooms early because a lot of the rooms go quick. Plus we have to start booking ADRs at 180 days to get decent reservations and just wait and see what discounts come out...then we are somewhat stuck once they come out and they suck! So we spend all the months planning and basically have to accept no discounts, switch resorts (which gives limited options), or cancel because we don't want to pay rack rate.

It does appear that it is true that Disney is trying to wean people from discounts and we'll see if their plan works. With resorts and restaurants booked months out it looks like demand is at an all time high so their plan may work out just fine for them. I'm seriously considering cancelling our trip but I'm going to give it a day or so to think it through.

I wouldn't go as far as cancelling my trip and I would suggest the same for you too unless finances get in the way. For me personally, cancelling the trip would make me feel as if all the time, money and energy was wasted. But at the same time, its a learning experience in that I will better plan my next trip more strategically. At the end of the day, its all about fairness, if Disney wants to wean us off the discounts, fine, but do it in a way that's fair for everyone. I'm no business savant but I know that if your business is worth a few hundred billion dollars, its not going to hurt your bottom line if you're giving the customers who made you wealthy in the first place a discount. Especially when your profits will reach even more stratospheric proportions this year when a certain Sci Fi franchise is released to the masses in December. Point blank, this instance as well as the chaos with the Free Dining promos are simply a case of Disney being greedy.

 

[loveshak22]

From what I've read the discounts are limited because most of the rooms are already booked. Why should Disney offer a discount if they don't have too??

I think this logically makes sense - resorts are booked meaning Disney doesn't need to give discounts, so people should wait. I've read this debate on numerous threads and just want to say that it's not a level playing field. Disney purposefully encourages people to book early out. I mean 6 months for ADRs (which a lot of people plan around where they are staying) and 2 months for FPs. Add to that the fact that Disney knows people reserve rooms in hope of discounts so they don't wait too long and not get a room where they want. The resort I'm staying out was showing zero availability for November about a month ago. So if I want to stay at that resort, what am I going to do? I'm going to book early and then wait to apply my discounts, since historically I can guess what the discounts are going to be. Then magically rooms open up today that haven't been available for over a month now? Does that mean Disney is holding back rooms to make people reserve a room because of concerns of not getting a room they want? It wouldn't surprise me.

Then even outside of Disney's control, people who live further away have to start looking for flights about 3-4 months out to get decent deals.

Now with all that, I firmly believe Disney is using this year to test the market. With increased stipulations for FD (adding PH or water park to your tickets), limiting dates and resorts for all offers, decreasing the amount of the RO discount, and making it harder for people to modify their reservation once they have a discount without losing the discount - - - that's a lot to throw at consumers in one year. Plus, it's not like they are weaning consumers off of discounts while prices are remaining steady. On top of all that, Disney is increasing it's prices. Ticket and resort prices have gone up this year...this isn't happening incrementally. Disney is all in this year to see what the consumer will accept. Maybe it will work out awesome for them. I mean demand is at an all time high and they are in the business to make profit. But I'm really having a hard time not cancelling my trip and leaving Disney alone for a few years and then looking back at the parks with new expectations on what I will be paying.

 

[loveshak22]

I wouldn't go as far as cancelling my trip and I would suggest the same for you too unless finances get in the way. For me personally, cancelling the trip would make me feel as if all the time, money and energy was wasted. But at the same time, its a learning experience in that I will better plan my next trip more strategically. At the end of the day, its all about fairness, if Disney wants to wean us off the discounts, fine, but do it in a way that's fair for everyone. I'm no business savant but I know that if your business is worth a few hundred billion dollars, its not going to hurt your bottom line if you're giving the customers who made you wealthy in the first place a discount. Especially when your profits will reach even more stratospheric proportions this year when a certain Sci Fi franchise is released to the masses in December. Point blank, this instance as well as the chaos with the Free Dining promos are simply a case of Disney being greedy.

I'm giving it thought. I agree totally about weaning people off discounts in a way that makes sense...but as I stated in the post above, they are testing the market this year and they are pushing it to see what consumers are willing to pay. We'll see how it pays off for them.

 

[vinotinto]

This is like the tale of the wolf. We've been saying what is the incentive for Disney to release discounts if so many rooms are booked and Disney fans will go no matter what, and it's clear this is the case now. I miss the days of booking with a 30% discount 3 weeks prior to going. I miss not needing a Disney reservation firmly in place 60 days out for FP+ and being able to walk into the parks and get any FP that I wanted. I miss the days that rates were not in the $500 - $600 per night (with taxes). But, that is not the case now.

I will say though that you do not need a Disney reservation 180 days out. You can always make ADRs without a Disney resort reservation. The only truly hard to get ADR is BOG and even at 180+10 you may not get it. *And* Disney has been holding back BOG ADRs until closer to the 60-90 day mark.

 

[loveshak22]

This is like the tale of the wolf. We've been saying what is the incentive for Disney to release discounts if so many rooms are booked and Disney fans will go no matter what, and it's clear this is the case now. I miss the days of booking with a 30% discount 3 weeks prior to going. I miss not needing a Disney reservation firmly in place 60 days out for FP+ and being able to walk into the parks and get any FP that I wanted. I miss the days that rates were not in the $500 - $600 per night (with taxes). But, that is not the case now.

I will say though that you do not need a Disney reservation 180 days out. You can always make ADRs without a Disney resort reservation. The only truly hard to get ADR is BOG and even at 180+10 you may not get it. *And* Disney has been holding back BOG ADRs until closer to the 60-90 day mark.

I agree but with the ADRs, I think many people book around where they are hoping to stay. That's what I do anyway when planning some dinners after parks or on my planned resort days.

And I'm seriously considering cancelling our resort and moving offsite this year - I'm only one person but if a lot of people make the same decision maybe things will swing back to normal. I'm just going to give it the night to think about it. Either I'll downgrade my room category to get a discount or move to the Waldorf, which is on Disney property. At the Waldorf I can get an almost 1,000 sq foot king deluxe room, with a balcony and Disney view, with a personal concierge and $100 resort credit for every 2 day stay for less than $400. The credit basically covers a 'resort' fee. And you have to pay for parking, but not an issue for us.

 

[akayek31]

I didn't see the discounts were out until about 6pm. I called when I got home and got preferred room at Pop. 15% was not as much as usual but it is better than nothing. I can't wait to go now! 82 days until Rick!!!

 

[pooh4evr]

Just finished changing for a second time. Originally at movies, then pop, now sports- for a grand total of $300 savings!

 

[CJLove79]

Just finished changing for a second time. Originally at movies, then pop, now sports- for a grand total of $300 savings!

When I called and was rejected from getting a discount, cause that's how I felt at the time, they offered to check other rooms in other resorts so I can get the discount and I said "hell no". LOL. My original reservation was and is at the Contemporary resort in the Club Level Suite. I asked the CM point blank "Why should I move to another resort for a discount when I already spent thousands of dollars on a Suite at the Contemporary?" I wasn't rude or anything to her of course but it was a valid question because Suites qualify albeit with a lesser discount. She said of course that a certain number of rooms are set aside for this promo & that if one is available, they can put you in, which is stupid in my opinion. My point is we shouldn't have to switch from one resort to the next for a discount, especially when you've already spent an x amount of dollars on your original reservation. I asked the CM politely if she can add the discount regardless cause I've read and heard through the grapevine that the CMs can simply put in a dummy UOC code to give you a discount. I don't know if its true or not but typically there's "workarounds" to every system no matter the company, she said no. Miss pooh4evr, getting $300 savings is great but I'm sure you wished you didn't have to go through all that for the savings right? They should've given you extra just having to switch multitude of times, just my feeling.

 

[loveshak22]

When I called and was rejected from getting a discount, cause that's how I felt at the time, they offered to check other rooms in other resorts so I can get the discount and I said "hell no". LOL. My original reservation was and is at the Contemporary resort in the Club Level Suite. I asked the CM point blank "Why should I move to another resort for a discount when I already spent thousands of dollars on a Suite at the Contemporary?" I wasn't rude or anything to her of course but it was a valid question because Suites qualify albeit with a lesser discount. She said of course that a certain number of rooms are set aside for this promo & that if one is available, they can put you in, which is stupid in my opinion. My point is we shouldn't have to switch from one resort to the next for a discount, especially when you've already spent an x amount of dollars on your original reservation. I asked the CM politely if she can add the discount regardless cause I've read and heard through the grapevine that the CMs can simply put in a dummy UOC code to give you a discount. I don't know if its true or not but typically there's "workarounds" to every system no matter the company, she said no. Miss pooh4evr, getting $300 savings is great but I'm sure you wished you didn't have to go through all that for the savings right? They should've given you extra just having to switch multitude of times, just my feeling.

I agree with you 100%! I understand the argument that people are making that if we book so early then Disney won't have any incentive to give good discounts. While I think that logic makes sense I think it's much more complicated in the case of Disney. I think they purposefully encourage people to book their trips earlier and earlier. I know you don't have to have a resort reservation to make ADRs 180 days out, but it helps to have an idea for where you think you'll be staying and what parks you are going to go to schedule ADRs. Several of my breakfast and dinners ADRs are planned around dinner at or near my resort for before or after park days. Then since everyone else books early it pushes your hand to book if you really want in a certain resort. The resort I booked at showed no availability for our week in November as of last month! Of course, surprisingly several room categories opened up on Monday - is Disney purposefully holding back rooms to make people book thinking availability is limited so they hurry and book 6 months out? It wouldn't surprise me at this point. Then you have to have a resort reservation for your FP 60 days, which is still 2+ months out. But...I think the kicker Disney relies on to get people to book a resort reservation is once you start your 180 day ADR planning you start getting excited about your trip. You're thinking about what parks you want to go to and where you're going to eat and it's exciting, including the fun of getting that resort room you want. And most people who book 6 months out have to be regulars and Disney knows that. So many are expecting a discount given how expensive and out of touch with the market some of the resorts have gotten.

I've said this before but I think Disney is pushing the market this year. Not only are they "weaning" people off discounts by providing lower discount amounts, limiting room options and dates, but...they also increased ticket ($100 park ticket - ouch!) and resort prices, and made it difficult to modify a reservation once you have a discount without losing the discount - this is all in one year. It's still almost 3 months out until the end of October so if a bunch of people cancel or switch to different rooms and then the empty rooms get filled up by people booking closer to their trip and paying rack rate then Disney's "test" will pay off big time! They are going to see how far they can push the market and whether it works or not will depend on how consumers accept these changes. I ended up cancelling my room category and taking a lower room category, which was very hard for me to do because I've been dreaming about staying in the room I originally booked forever and even with a discount I was going to be paying a fortune! I still check everyday to see if the discount starts applying to new room categories. My hope is that as people change their reservation to get a discount and then a large number of rooms open up, that Disney will apply the discount to more rooms. I'm not holding my breath but I'll keep checking. I'm also seriously considering staying offsite or even cancelling my trip. I'm just going to give it a few days to decide for sure. Disney got me - LOL! Now that I have my ADRs booked and some other events I feel like staying in my hotel, even in a lower room category, will be so much more convenient than renting a car or taking the shuttle/cab/uber over to dinner and the parks. We shall see!

And, I know how you feel about that UOC code. What makes this even harder to swallow is that they are giving some people 30% off for the Fall! And I've read about some people who got the UOC and were already booked and already had a discount applied and then they still got the UOC. Crazy! Even with 30% off for the room category I booked, it still a very expensive room that my DH and I were booking as a splurge for this trip. But I cannot justify paying rack rate for the room. But, back to Disney's business decision, I cancelled my room at rack rate in the morning. I went back and looked in the afternoon and the room was showing up as available in the system. By late afternoon, it was booked!

 

[nemofans]

I was one who didn't book early for Oct. I do have my flights booked though. I was waiting for the discount to be released. Now seeing it isn't much now that the prices are so high, we decided to do Sea World/Discovery Cove instead. We will consider a WDW trip this spring & will wait to see what discounts are offered then. If not much of a discount, then we won't go.
We don't need to go to WDW. In fact, there are many other places we want to visit.
I love WDW & my kids love WDW, but we also love our other vacations too. Disney has made planning a vacation a pain & as much as I used to love planning our WDW vacations, I now have no interest in jumping through all their hoops to be able to stay at the resort we want, eat at the restaurants we want, or ride the rides we want to.

 

[loveshak22]

I was one who didn't book early for Oct. I do have my flights booked though. I was waiting for the discount to be released. Now seeing it isn't much now that the prices are so high, we decided to do Sea World/Discovery Cove instead. We will consider a WDW trip this spring & will wait to see what discounts are offered then. If not much of a discount, then we won't go.
We don't need to go to WDW. In fact, there are many other places we want to visit.
I love WDW & my kids love WDW, but we also love our other vacations too. Disney has made planning a vacation a pain & as much as I used to love planning our WDW vacations, I now have no interest in jumping through all their hoops to be able to stay at the resort we want, eat at the restaurants we want, or ride the rides we want to.

I think you've summed it up nicely that there are a lot of other places to vacation and it is becoming a pain to plan Disney! I've already put in a lot of planning for our November trip and so I'm still torn on how it will end up for us...

 

[NC State]

I called this morning thinking that my dates are "black out" I will not get one. I did! I'm going Oct 13-17. I did have to give up my preferred room to get it and I saved $134.

 

[pooh4evr]

CJLove- I hear what you're saying, it was frustrating. The first time I called, PoP was the best deal, and nothing else was available. I could have switched to 1 room at POR but with 2 teenage girls we really prefer 2 bathrooms, so I said no. Anyway, I took Pop, and it was $100 less than my original at movies. I then was reading here and seeing Sports for $97 a night on expedia, so I figured why not check- and it was $200 less than what i had at pop. I'm not sure what the answer is, It would be awesome if they just applied the discounts to you when you checked in or whatever. All of this changing, and having to have a certain type of room is "bonkers"