Expired tickets/reservations

[Pluto468]

We bought our tickets in January 2020. I knew I had to upgrade my 9 year old's ticket to an adult ticket, and thought I may need to pay the price difference between our current hoppers and the new cost.

What I did not realize is that the reservations I made might be lost. From what I understand reading other threads, I can go to the ticket booth when we get to Anaheim, upgrade our expired tickets but still not be able to get into the parks because it's rare to be able to make park reservations on the same day.

So...Now I'm in a bit of a panic. It seems my options are:

1. Buy new tickets (Don't want to do this because $$$)
2. Fly to CA and upgrade everything at the ticket booth and make new reservations. (Very inconvenient/expensive)
3. Is there another option....?

Does staying at the Disneyland hotel help my chances of getting a reservation once we get there? We're already booked there. I heard they have another "bucket" of reservations, but would those be available the week of our trip or is that for booking the reservations in advance?

I tried contacting Disneyland but haven't heard back yet.

Any ideas of what I can do? What have others done in the same situation?

Thanks!

 

[Jedi Luke]

Thanks for the thread. I'm in a very similar situation and wasn't as concerned but after following these threads am starting to feel a bit nervous. I'm planning to put in a call to Disney when I have time (might not be til next week though). Will follow up with their response. Thanks.

 

[Malcon10t]

We bought our tickets in January 2020. I knew I had to upgrade my 9 year old's ticket to an adult ticket, and thought I may need to pay the price difference between our current hoppers and the new cost.

What I did not realize is that the reservations I made might be lost. From what I understand reading other threads, I can go to the ticket booth when we get to Anaheim, upgrade our expired tickets but still not be able to get into the parks because it's rare to be able to make park reservations on the same day.

So...Now I'm in a bit of a panic. It seems my options are:

1. Buy new tickets (Don't want to do this because $$$)
2. Fly to CA and upgrade everything at the ticket booth and make new reservations. (Very inconvenient/expensive)
3. Is there another option....?

Does staying at the Disneyland hotel help my chances of getting a reservation once we get there? We're already booked there. I heard they have another "bucket" of reservations, but would those be available the week of our trip or is that for booking the reservations in advance?

I tried contacting Disneyland but haven't heard back yet.

Any ideas of what I can do? What have others done in the same situation?

Thanks!

Not knowing when your trip is can be hard. Looking at the calendar for the hotels bucket the next 4 weeks, only one day is restricted to DCA as a starting park.

 

[Pluto468]

Not knowing when your trip is can be hard. Looking at the calendar for the hotels bucket the next 4 weeks, only one day is restricted to DCA as a starting park.

Forgot to say our trip is the first week of May.

 

[Jedi Luke]

OK, waited on hold for 45 minutes and finally spoke to a cast member. I don't know your exact situation but I bought my tickets through a third party. The cast member indeed told me that reservations cannot be transferred from my expired tickets. She told me that I could either contact the third party site that I purchased the tickets from to see if they can upgrade my tickets (she said that different third party sites have different rules) or to upgrade them in the park. However as you know, if reservations are sold out for the day then you are SOL.

I'm planning on contacting my third party tomorrow and if they can't upgrade it looks like I'll be purchasing new tickets or seeing if I can find a kind soul to help me upgrade them at the park. I guess it's better to find out this information now than on the first day of our vacation. It's unbelievable that these are the only options. Hope that helps and good luck to you!

 

[Pluto468]

Thank you, this is very helpful! I bought mine directly through Disney. I haven't been able to stay on hold long enough to actually talk to someone but I'll try again tomorrow. I agree, it is much better to find this out now rather than on our first day. We've postponed this trip literally 10 times since 2020, and I really don't want a big problem like this on our first day. We used to live in LA so I might see if any of my friends down there ever go to Disneyland. I was wondering if they would need to see my credit card I bought it with or something, though.

I'm really shocked that Disney doesn't have some kind of system in place for people who had tickets expire due to the pandemic. Like easily refunding them or extending them for as long as needed. It sounds like many people are having this problem.

Thanks again, and I hope it works out well for you!

 

[Piglet18]

What kind of tickets did you have? We had Canadian resident tickets for April 2020 and today I moved them to use this April instead.

I had to call of course and wait on hold but once I finally spoke to someone it was very simple. I just needed my original confirmation number. She put me back on hold, then when she came back everything was done, she answered all of my questions and everything.

Definitely wait to talk to someone. Not sure if your situation will be the same but hope that helps.

 

[SOCALMouseMommy]

I'm really shocked that Disney doesn't have some kind of system in place for people who had tickets expire due to the pandemic. Like easily refunding them or extending them for as long as needed. It sounds like many people are having this problem

I am too. Disney really needs to do better on this. ☹

 

[smartlabelprint]

We bought from a 3rd party. I bought new tickets. I’ll deal with a refund/exchange when we get there.

For those that purchased direct through Disney it has been reported on this site that if you call they’ll make it right. You purchase new tickets while on the phone with them and they w refund your old tickets.

 

[gottalovepluto]

What kind of tickets did you have? We had Canadian resident tickets for April 2020 and today I moved them to use this April instead.

I had to call of course and wait on hold but once I finally spoke to someone it was very simple. I just needed my original confirmation number. She put me back on hold, then when she came back everything was done, she answered all of my questions and everything.

Definitely wait to talk to someone. Not sure if your situation will be the same but hope that helps.

Magically Disneyland can deal with Canadian tickets over the phone- but only Canadian tickets.

Schmucks. (Disney, not our neighbors to the North )

 

[gottalovepluto]

Thanks for the thread OP! I was going to head down for a big vacay in April meeting with east coast fam with our expired tickets and park reservations and it literally didn’t occur to me Disney would cancel our park reservations when updating the ticket. Not even on my radar, it would have been an absolute disaster.

 

[Pluto468]

What kind of tickets did you have? We had Canadian resident tickets for April 2020 and today I moved them to use this April instead.

I have 5 day park hoppers that I bought through Disney. Seems like my best bet is to call and plead with them to help me change the tickets. If they won't/can't I'll have to buy new hoppers. It's just not practical or affordable to travel to CA early. It would cost only a little less than buying new tickets. It's just too risky to go down and hope I can get in once they exchange my old tickets for new ones.

 

[Pluto468]

Thanks for the thread OP! I was going to head down for a big vacay in April meeting with east coast fam with our expired tickets and park reservations and it literally didn’t occur to me Disney would cancel our park reservations when updating the ticket. Not even on my radar, it would have been an absolute disaster.

Me, too! It didn't even cross my mind until I read about it on another post.

 

[Geoff_M]

Well, hopefully I'll be able to provide some insight on this soon. We have two sets of tickets in-hand and will be going to DL later this month for a trip that originally was set for April 2020. I have the original tickets I purchased from an authorized 3rd party seller that I bought in Feb 2020, and a 2nd set that I bought a few months ago because of concerns about the park reservations Catch-22. On-site, I will attempt to roll-over the 2020 tickets into new media and see if they can transfer the reservations off of the 2022 tickets. If they can do this, I can use the re-sellers "365 day refund" policy the return the 2nd set, if successful.

 

[Pluto468]

My tickets are all sorted out.

Here is what I did:
1. Called Disneyland (On hold for 2 hours!)
2. Explained that I need to upgrade my 9 year old's ticket to adult, refund my old tickets and buy new tickets.
3. Bought new tickets online while on the phone with the CM.
4. Gave my new conformation number to CM
5. CM refunded cost of my old tickets and said it will take 1-2 billing cycles to show up on my bank account.
6. My old tickets were deleted from my app within minutes, and the new ones appeared. The new ones are good until 2024.
7. Chose my new park reservation dates.

It was all SO much easier than I anticipated. The CM was super friendly and didn't even hesitate to refund the old tickets.
I am thrilled to have this sorted out, especially without having to go to CA or buy extra tickets.

Thanks for all the great advice and sharing your experience!

 

[Peachy0118]

Magically Disneyland can deal with Canadian tickets over the phone- but only Canadian tickets.

Schmucks. (Disney, not our neighbors to the North )

Ah, I didn't realize it was only a Canadian thing.

It seems a big part of that is that the border was technically closed (yes I know people still went; wasn't worth a potential fine or chance of being turned away at the airport for us) so since it was a particular type of ticket that just could not be used at all, perhaps there some easier procedure in place.

 

[Peachy0118]

My tickets are all sorted out.

Here is what I did:
1. Called Disneyland (On hold for 2 hours!)
2. Explained that I need to upgrade my 9 year old's ticket to adult, refund my old tickets and buy new tickets.
3. Bought new tickets online while on the phone with the CM.
4. Gave my new conformation number to CM
5. CM refunded cost of my old tickets and said it will take 1-2 billing cycles to show up on my bank account.
6. My old tickets were deleted from my app within minutes, and the new ones appeared. The new ones are good until 2024.
7. Chose my new park reservation dates.

It was all SO much easier than I anticipated. The CM was super friendly and didn't even hesitate to refund the old tickets.
I am thrilled to have this sorted out, especially without having to go to CA or buy extra tickets.

Thanks for all the great advice and sharing your experience!

Fantastic! What great cast members! My experience calling (when I FINALLY got through) was excellent and am so glad to hear that is the overall experience in general.

So glad your tickets are working out! That must be such a relief.

 

[Jedi Luke]

Just a follow up on this topic. I spoke to the third party today and they told me they were not able to upgrade my expired tickets. They did recommend that I call Disney back and speak to a supervisor regarding my situation - I am not able to go to a ticket booth to upgrade prior to my trip. I called back and spoke to a cast member and let them know my situation. I did let them know this time that I had called previously in December because I was worried about being able to make reservations with expired tickets. I did talk to a supervisor at that point and she had told me that I should call once I am able to make reservations and that they would manually help me make reservations and at that point I would just go to a ticket booth when I get there to upgrade the tickets and all would be fine. The cast member was able to find the notes through my ticket # and told me that as long as I don't change anything (5-day park hoppers) then the reservations will carry over.

I am relieved though am still a bit concerned that SOMETHING might happen with the upgrade and my reservations will not carry over. At this point I think I am going to follow the advice of @Geoff-M and buy a second set of tickets that I will return with the third parties 365-day refund policy if I am able to keep the existing reservations. The 5% restocking fee is worth it for me for the peace of mind. My advice for anyone that is in the same situation as me is to call and talk to a supervisor and have them make notes on your ticket. Thanks all for the help and hopefully this can help some others.

 

[AprilsZoo]

Just so you know, they cannot transfer your reservations at the ticket booth. But they CAN do that at guest relations just outside the park gates (the line at the one to the left of the DCA gates is usually shorter, because most people don’t even know it’s there, lol).

I would start at GR, but they may need to still send you on to the ticket booth. I’m not sure the exact parameters, but it seems like they’re only able to manage relatively small $ transactions at GR. Again, idk what the exact amts are, just that there’s a limit there, so there’s a chance they’ll have you also go to the ticket booths.

However, if you start at the tix booth, your reservation may get cancelled when the ticket is used as payment toward the new one. Then you could be in trouble.

To make matters worse, they do not seem to be training the ticket booth CM’s (or the phone/chat CMs, for that matter) to know that existing reservations, made with expired ticket media, can be transferred at all. So, as far as the tix CMs know, you lose your reservation when your tix get exchanged. Not the CMs fault, they can only pass on info that they know.

Have an awesome trip!

 

[Piglet18]

Just so you know, they cannot transfer your reservations at the ticket booth. But they CAN do that at guest relations just outside the park gates (the line at the one to the left of the DCA gates is usually shorter, because most people don’t even know it’s there, lol).

I would start at GR, but they may need to still send you on to the ticket booth. I’m not sure the exact parameters, but it seems like they’re only able to manage relatively small $ transactions at GR. Again, idk what the exact amts are, just that there’s a limit there, so there’s a chance they’ll have you also go to the ticket booths.

However, if you start at the tix booth, your reservation may get cancelled when the ticket is used as payment toward the new one. Then you could be in trouble.

To make matters worse, they do not seem to be training the ticket booth CM’s (or the phone/chat CMs, for that matter) to know that existing reservations, made with expired ticket media, can be transferred at all. So, as far as the tix CMs know, you lose your reservation when your tix get exchanged. Not the CMs fault, they can only pass on info that they know.

Have an awesome trip!

Phoning in advance and getting the expired tickets changed in advance would work though, correct?

Sorry, I'm just a bit confused about this now.