Thanks for the feedback, now that I'm back to the forum I can respond.
1. A precise purchase date can help in these calculations.
2. Why did you post two different expiration dates?
Disney shows the January date, but that still means *first use* by 12/31, which they don't say anywhere that I encounter frequently.
3. What you are looking for is Post #6 in the this thread.
4. If your current ticket was from tickets created BETWEEN Feb.11,2018 & Oct.16, 2018,
then yes.
5. Yes.
And yes, the date is shortly before 10/16/18, which was the reason I bought this ticket. The info in post #6 is (mostly) what I'm familiar with, but I was focusing on some text in post #2, which related explicitly to the issue of expired tickets:
Note that if the ticket was purchased from a discounter/broker the value given is what Disney sold the ticket for to the discounter/broker and NOT what YOU paid for it. (This price will be less -maybe much less- than what YOU originally paid for the ticket.)
This language *seems* to imply that expired tickets will not be bridged at all, unlike the "legacy" ticket upgrade process that we used for many years. If so, I could end up with a substantial *loss* on this ticket, rather than the original savings.
Maybe the language I quoted above applies specifically to pre-2005 tickets, as that is the context of the preceding couple of paragraphs?
So the source of my confusion may be that I misinterpreted something in the discussion on expired tickets, and that they can actually be used toward a new purchase just the same as any other ticket. (Post #6 makes no mention of any difference as a result of being expired.)
During my November trip, I spoke to a ticketing CM about this ticket, but she was apparently new, and not as familiar with the upgrade process. She looked up the ticket and quoted me a value of $440 (pre-tax), which compares to the face value at the time (based on the chart for those dates) of $500. I think I paid about $480, though as you regularly note, the only number that *should* matter is the $500. Because this particular CM seemed unsure, and because I wasn't going to make any changes at the time, I didn't continue and bring up the bridging question.
When the time comes to actually convert the ticket, my thought is that I would go to one of the Ticketing Centers, as opposed to a ticket window or guest services. My impression, right or wrong, is that because these locations specialize in ticketing issues, I may be more likely to be dealing with someone who is fully informed of less mundane matters such as these.
Lastly, I have read occasional reports that for tickets such as mine, guests sometimes walk away with a gift card for the value, and don't have to deal with the matter of upgrading at all. Maybe this will happen to me, although it's unclear which of the possible numbers for "value" are used in this case.
Thanks once again.
