Ticket Bridging to Gold Pass Math Question

[Doug Olsen]

Hi, My wife and I are heading down next week and planning to try to convert UT tickets to Gold Passes. I know there's the ticket sticky thread which I've read through, but wanted to see if anyone can clarify questions regarding how they calculate taxes to be collected.

Here are my figures:
Gold Pass: $699 ($745 w/tax)
UT 6 Day Hopper: $503 w/tax (listed $65 savings vs Gate)
Gate Price: $568 w/tax

So is it simply price w/tax minus price w/tax?
$745-$568=$177 due at time of upgrade

Or, is it list price w/o tax minus Gate w/tax and then paying additional tax on the difference?
$699-568=$131 x 6.5% tax=$139.50 due at time of upgrade

I know it's not a huge difference and I feel like I'm missing an obvious flaw in my thinking, but I believe I've seen both referenced and wanted to see if anyone knew for sure. It's my first time doing this and from everything I've seen the whole process can be hit or miss depending on CM and the advice is to approach the counter knowing exactly what the cost should be.

Thanks for anyone with experience that can help!

 

[Beezle2]

Following because we want to do the same..

 

[CanadaDisney05]

Hi, My wife and I are heading down next week and planning to try to convert UT tickets to Gold Passes. I know there's the ticket sticky thread which I've read through, but wanted to see if anyone can clarify questions regarding how they calculate taxes to be collected.

Here are my figures:
Gold Pass: $699 ($745 w/tax)
UT 6 Day Hopper: $503 w/tax (listed $65 savings vs Gate)
Gate Price: $568 w/tax

So is it simply price w/tax minus price w/tax?
$745-$568=$177 due at time of upgrade

Or, is it list price w/o tax minus Gate w/tax and then paying additional tax on the difference?
$699-568=$131 x 6.5% tax=$139.50 due at time of upgrade

I know it's not a huge difference and I feel like I'm missing an obvious flaw in my thinking, but I believe I've seen both referenced and wanted to see if anyone knew for sure. It's my first time doing this and from everything I've seen the whole process can be hit or miss depending on CM and the advice is to approach the counter knowing exactly what the cost should be.

Thanks for anyone with experience that can help!

I don't specifically know the answer... but the second option doesn't make any sense because you would be paying less tax, and governments don't like that.

 

[siren0119]

It kind of depends on what the mint date of your tickets from UT are, not what UT advertised as the gate price. If you read through the first posts of this thread, it'll explain what the ticket price should be based on when the ticket was minted.

https://www.disboards.com/threads/tickets-upgrades-prices-and-how-to.3570721/
From there, you would subtract the Disney price of your ticket from the price of the gold pass - you will pay that plus tax.

 

[poison ivy]

You're using the same gate price w/tax in both formulas. Once you change that to the actual gate price w/o tax it should balance out.

 

[Doug Olsen]

Thanks for the responses. So I guess what I expect is pre-tax price of AP minus pre-tax gate and then tax on that remaining balance.

Appreciate the feedback

 

[CanadaDisney05]

So am I to believe that if I buy some Disney park tickets through a travel agent/Expedia (using credit card points), I can upgrade my ticket to a Gold Annual Pass (using the DVC discount) at the parks? I am not a Florida resident so would not qualify for the Gold pass without DVC

 

[siren0119]

So am I to believe that if I buy some Disney park tickets through a travel agent/Expedia (using credit card points), I can upgrade my ticket to a Gold Annual Pass (using the DVC discount) at the parks? I am not a Florida resident so would not qualify for the Gold pass without DVC

Yes any ticket can be upgraded to an annual pass. It's a 1:1 situation (1 ticket can be applied to the purchase of 1 pass), and you pay whatever the difference in cost is between the Disney value of the ticket and the cost of the AP, plus tax. It's pretty common for folks to buy a multi-day ticket through a discount reseller with the intent of upgrading to AP when they get to the parks.

 

[keishashadow]

Unfortunately, bridging the tix price doesn’t work on renewals

 

[siren0119]

Unfortunately, bridging the tix price doesn’t work on renewals

Not that I am aware of no - but I believe both PP were talking about buying new Gold APs not renewing.

 

[luckyman_apd]

Ok....we've done this before, and plan to again for our next trip ....but now I'm lost on this whole when the ticket was minted price thing. In the past, we bought UT tickets, and after entering the parks and using the UT ticket, it was valued at the current gate price and then we upgraded. The math I did beforehand (don't know what it was now that was a few years ago) was exact. When I upgraded, I had to pay exactly what I calculated prior. Not sure what the "when the ticket was minted" value means.

 

[siren0119]

Ok....we've done this before, and plan to again for our next trip ....but now I'm lost on this whole when the ticket was minted price thing. In the past, we bought UT tickets, and after entering the parks and using the UT ticket, it was valued at the current gate price and then we upgraded. The math I did beforehand (don't know what it was now that was a few years ago) was exact. When I upgraded, I had to pay exactly what I calculated prior. Not sure what the "when the ticket was minted" value means.

They changed the pricing structure last year, to the current date-based ticket system. Because the discount resellers buy their tickets in advance, many had "old" tickets in stock that they were still selling even after the pricing structure change/price increase. Disney will give you whatever the value of your ticket was at the time it was purchased. If the ticket was purchased by the reseller before a price increase, it would be valued at the pre-increase price. A few posts back I linked to the thread specificially discussing ticket prices and upgrades, the first few posts have a ton of good info on the different upgrading scenarios.

 

[mustinjourney]

You can do it with or without tax and it will come out the same -- but the reason your numbers are different is b/c your second formula is wrong. You don't pay tax on the difference -- you pay tax on the final upgraded price. Think about it logically -- why would you pay tax on the difference between two pre-taxed numbers?

So it would be $699*6.5% + $131 which equals $177.

 

[luckyman_apd]

They changed the pricing structure last year, to the current date-based ticket system. Because the discount resellers buy their tickets in advance, many had "old" tickets in stock that they were still selling even after the pricing structure change/price increase. Disney will give you whatever the value of your ticket was at the time it was purchased. If the ticket was purchased by the reseller before a price increase, it would be valued at the pre-increase price. A few posts back I linked to the thread specificially discussing ticket prices and upgrades, the first few posts have a ton of good info on the different upgrading scenarios.

But the post you linked in regards to upgrading and price bridging.... The rules are still the same. Whatever price I paid or the ticket was minted.... Doesn't seem to matter once you used that ticket. That was the point of the bridging... You still keep the savings of the discount ticket and only pay the difference of gate price to the AP price. Am I wrong or reading it incorrectly? If I'm wrong I'd like to know asap as I was about to purchase UT tickets for our upcoming trip... And then a few days in... Upgrade it to the DVC Gold AP

 

[siren0119]

But the post you linked in regards to upgrading and price bridging.... The rules are still the same. Whatever price I paid or the ticket was minted.... Doesn't seem to matter once you used that ticket. That was the point of the bridging... You still keep the savings of the discount ticket and only pay the difference of gate price to the AP price. Am I wrong or reading it incorrectly? If I'm wrong I'd like to know asap as I was about to purchase UT tickets for our upcoming trip... And then a few days in... Upgrade it to the DVC Gold AP

Using the ticket doesn't change the value of it (meaning, if you purchased a ticket that was minted when the price was lower, using doesn't increase the value of it to current gate pricing). Disney's systems are now able to track the value of the ticket at the time it was created. What that means in terms of savings is that if you have older ticket media (prior to the last price increase), its face value will be lower when you bridge/upgrade than if you had a newer ticket, and you'll pay more to cover the difference in price between the ticket and an AP.

 

[han22735]

I just did this a week ago. Bought a 10 day park hopper from UT in march of this year. Paid $510.72. Upgraded at the park to a gold pass and it cost me an additional $184.99 So total paid was $695.71 when the actual price was $744.44. So roughly 50 bucks saved.

 

[luckyman_apd]

Wen I read that sticky.... The links to older tickets wasn't opening for whatever reason. Another thread in the ticketing forums cleared everything up for me.

Basically when you purchase UT tickets... You are getting a ticket cheaper than the Disney online price... But valued at that price. If a price increase happens between now and using it... It keeps the old value as where before... The ticket retained its purchased price value until you entered the park.

So I still saved @$55 per person... And when we get to the resort....I can upgrade to an AP as soon as I want to without having to enter the park. Im going to assume the resort CMs can't do this for you... You actually have to go to a ticket window or customer service center at the parks to upgrade.

 

[Madame]

I find it interesting that Disney has literally the worst IT ever (premium magic bands, disappearing plans and on & on) and YET, they’v managed to figure out how to track minted ticket value

 

[disneycruisedreams]

Is the gate price the same as the price online for Disney? I'm seeing an advertised savings of $68 on the UT site for a 5-day PH but the actual price online for the same dated PH ticket is not $68 more.
(UT price is $521.83 vs Disney $569.92--both including tax. This is not a $68 difference)

 

[disneycruisedreams]

OK so I think UT is using a gate price of $118. Otherwise Disney would have to change their posted prices everyday.