Magic Key Renewals

[DLgal]

Actually I think it's Sunday. People who bought and used their keys on August 25th of last year will have keys that expire on August 25th of this year, so I would count the 40 days starting on July 17. Interestingly, I can recall a number of times in the past when Disney implemented price increases on Sundays. Also, that's Disneyland's anniversary. Wouldn't that be a fun day to start a new/revised annual pass program and increase prices? Ha ha. If there's going to be any news on this, I would expect it to drop in the next hour or so, but at this point who knows. It's been radio silence from Disney so far. I suppose they could just quietly start sending out e-mails to key holders as their renewal windows open up (or whenever Disney darn well feels like it even if it's inside the magic 40 day window), and we will find out what's up through places like these boards.

40 days from Aug 25 is July 16.

 

[longtimedisneylurker]

40 days from Aug 25 is July 16.

Yeah I know that’s how counting works but I’m just wondering what Disney is counting from/to. Technically everyone can use their pass on August 25, so I’ve never been clear if they start the clock based on that or from the first day the pass is not usable.

I guess I should add that I'm not convinced Disney has the same sense of urgency as the key holders do about getting the word out about what's next. They still seem fairly confident they will have us all lining up to hand over our money regardless of what product and price and rules they end up making up. So I have been skeptical they were even going to have anything ready to announce the moment the supposed renewal window opens.

 

[evilmommie]

I guess I should add that I'm not convinced Disney has the same sense of urgency as the key holders do about getting the word out about what's next. They still seem fairly confident they will have us all lining up to hand over our money regardless of what product and price and rules they end up making up. So I have been skeptical they were even going to have anything ready to announce the moment the supposed renewal window opens.

Bahahahah! That’s what I came in here to say. Look at the comments here, other Disney boards/FB and social media. People are complaining up a storm, just to throw money at DLR when they announce the new strategy. I’ll be lining up with my as well.

 

[DLgal]

Yeah I know that’s how counting works but I’m just wondering what Disney is counting from/to. Technically everyone can use their pass on August 25, so I’ve never been clear if they start the clock based on that or from the first day the pass is not usable.

I guess I should add that I'm not convinced Disney has the same sense of urgency as the key holders do about getting the word out about what's next. They still seem fairly confident they will have us all lining up to hand over our money regardless of what product and price and rules they end up making up. So I have been skeptical they were even going to have anything ready to announce the moment the supposed renewal window opens.

I don't know. I will admit when the fake screenshot was posted, before I looked closely at it, I did a "oh HECK no" and I meant it. I will not pay $2000 (or $1999) for a Dream Key. Actually, I need to buy 4, so I will NOT spend $8000 on annual passes. That's a hard no. And I would absolutely NOT pay anywhere close to $1500 for what is now the Believe key. So, there is a line I won't cross with Disney and $$$. It's $2000/pass.

I'm not really sure how much lower my ceiling is, but it does exist.

 

[AndrewC]

I don't know. I will admit when the fake screenshot was posted, before I looked closely at it, I did a "oh HECK no" and I meant it. I will not pay $2000 (or $1999) for a Dream Key. Actually, I need to buy 4, so I will NOT spend $8000 on annual passes. That's a hard no. And I would absolutely NOT pay anywhere close to $1500 for what is now the Believe key. So, there is a line I won't cross with Disney and $$$. It's $2000/pass.

I'm not really sure how much lower my ceiling is, but it does exist.

Yep. $2k would be a extremely hard sell for me. Right now I’m taking a pretty bad hit on the $1399 dream key. I’ve only used it for 8 days this year and of course I’m not happy traveling when it expires so I’m going a WEEK AFTER it expires for this October.

I had planned a three day weekend spring trip at least once if not twice (maybe an early March and then around my birthday in May). But an extremely serious cancer diagnosis with my mother literally days after I returned from my October trip last year kinda washed this year away. If it jumps up a few hundred more that’s really going to make me think twice…

 

[Kenshin21]

Yep. $2k would be a extremely hard sell for me. Right now I’m taking a pretty bad hit on the $1399 dream key. I’ve only used it for 8 days this year and of course I’m not happy traveling when it expires so I’m going a WEEK AFTER it expires for this October.

I had planned a three day weekend spring trip at least once if not twice (maybe an early March and then around my birthday in May). But an extremely serious cancer diagnosis with my mother literally days after I returned from my October trip last year kinda washed this year away. If it jumps up a few hundred more that’s really going to make me think twice…

I feel like $2k really alienates the people that have to travel in. Basically anybody not living in SoCal. I know multiple family’s that go close to once a week because they are local. And they’ve basically all told me for the amount they go it’s worth it.

Also the rumor of only being able to upgrade in your current tier has fomo all over it and will probably force people to upgrade instead of skipping a year or waiting until they go again

 

[DLgal]

Yep. $2k would be a extremely hard sell for me. Right now I’m taking a pretty bad hit on the $1399 dream key. I’ve only used it for 8 days this year and of course I’m not happy traveling when it expires so I’m going a WEEK AFTER it expires for this October.

I had planned a three day weekend spring trip at least once if not twice (maybe an early March and then around my birthday in May). But an extremely serious cancer diagnosis with my mother literally days after I returned from my October trip last year kinda washed this year away. If it jumps up a few hundred more that’s really going to make me think twice…

In your situation there is NO way I would buy any Magic Keys. It's just too much of a gamble with the reservation system and traveling and needing to secure consecutive days. We only have them as locals who can go literally every week, which we practically have done. We have more than gotten our money's worth in terms of number of visits, but last year, I had an extra $5600 laying around due to the pandemic lack of spending and stimulus funds. This year, I don't have that lump sum to just throw down on passes, due to having other savings goals we are working towards. We will be using the payment plan and I am capping that at $400/month for the 4 of us. The remainder will be our "down payment" and I am NOT putting close to $3000 down and then paying another $400/month. I could lease a luxury car for that. I will draw the line somewhere, and likely downgrade the rest of my family if necessary.

 

[AndrewC]

In your situation there is NO way I would buy any Magic Keys. It's just too much of a gamble with the reservation system and traveling and needing to secure consecutive days. We only have them as locals who can go literally every week, which we practically have done. We have more than gotten our money's worth in terms of number of visits, but last year, I had an extra $5600 laying around due to the pandemic lack of spending and stimulus funds. This year, I don't have that lump sum to just throw down on passes, due to having other savings goals we are working towards. We will be using the payment plan and I am capping that at $400/month for the 4 of us. The remainder will be our "down payment" and I am NOT putting close to $3000 down and then paying another $400/month. I could lease a luxury car for that. I will draw the line somewhere, and likely downgrade the rest of my family if necessary.

Yep. FlexPass was a huge win since I went six or seven times refunded like 60% of the pass cost because they shut down.

This last year, not so great.

The reservations actually aren’t that bad for me, I wish I could carry about 8 at a time since that would cover me a full week and make travel plans a little easier. Usually it’s just one big week long (like 7 day) trip in October, then the other trips would be three or so days each and the reservation would cover easy. The booking window could be a little further out, but since I don’t *need* to go around a holiday weekend, it would work if I didn’t have other major stuff going on.

I don’t get insane value out of it, but I thought I estimated I would get each visit down to about $100/day or maybe a bit less. Since park hoping is a must for me, that still saves about $100 compared to buying normal tickets and not counting food savings. So it “made sense” to me, not a huge savings, but worth having especially if then I suddenly tossed in a Christmas visit or some other time of the year.

But that all gambles on actually going, lol

 

[GoofyGoofyGoofy]

Probably depends on how many people do end up paying in full and how many end up failing to make payments. It is a hassle to collect/expense, so if you want payment plans to stick around encourage everyone to keep making their payments on time! The expense of tracking down late payments/failure to pay is exactly the kind of cost savings Chapek seems like to go after.

Many of AP holders that paid in full are/were from surrounding states: AZ, Oregon, Nevada. We are waiting to see what happens with "Magic Keys" before we decide to purchase another Disneyland AP. We will renew our Knotts APs.

 

[GoofyGoofyGoofy]

I doubt it would ever be worth it to them to extend parking to the hotels. People who want to drive will pay the fee and it encourages other people to not drive. If you're not driving, you're more likely to spend your non-park days in Downtown Disney rather than go somewhere else which means they get your money anyway.

In 2009, parking was free for hotel guests. Wish they would give that perk back.

 

[Kender]

In 2009, parking was free for hotel guests. Wish they would give that perk back.

Yes and no. I did some digging and there was not a named, separate "parking fee", but parking was considered included in the extra resort fee that was paid per day (looks like it was $13/day in 2009 according to old Disboards threads?). Appears this specifically covered WiFi and parking. From later threads it looks like the resort fee was dropped, wifi made free, and a named parking fee added in 2011 ($15).

So in 2009, you paid that resort fee intended to cover parking whether you parked a car or not.

 

[DisneylandFan22]

My thought is they have a revenue goal for annual passes. Then they determine how many they believe they can sell at each tier and price accordingly to meet or exceed the goal. They can decide what’s included at each tier based on the price to try to make it seem like a good value.

If this is the case it is not the way I think they should do it. They should worry less about the revenue the Magic Keys can bring in and more about how they can get key holders into the parks as much as possible. I was really surprised how little I felt this happened over the last year. There were some different benefits that were offered in the parks, the welcome gift, and getting early OBB ticket access which was nice. But why not look at times they know the hotels won’t be sold out and offer key holders 50% off a room when they book for 2 or 3 nights or something like that. That’s 50% you wouldn’t have made otherwise and 2-3 days a key holder is going to be spending money at the park when they might not have. The discount makes the stay feel extra worth it. Or offer a highly desirable collectible bought in the parks only available to key holders during a certain time period. Key holders would line up down the street for it. These types of things would also help sell future keys because people will see the great deals and benefits and feel like they are missing out.

I know I have gone to other parks and they will have pay for a day get the whole year or summer free and things like that. They understand the value of getting people back into the parks to spend money over nickel and diming them on ticket and pass prices. I usually never spend more than a day at Universal Studios. But they had buy a day get the second day free. So I did it since it didn’t cost me anything. I only stayed a half day the second day (not enough to do and busy at Christmas time) but it was a half day spending money and an extra hotel night which would have never happened if I didn’t get a free day.

All that to say I would like to see them offer more benefits and lower prices for the keys and focus on offering benefits that get people into the parks as much as possible. I think it would be a win for key holders and more money for Disney through increased spending by key holders at the resort.

 

[DLgal]

My thought is they have a revenue goal for annual passes. Then they determine how many they believe they can sell at each tier and price accordingly to meet or exceed the goal. They can decide what’s included at each tier based on the price to try to make it seem like a good value.

If this is the case it is not the way I think they should do it. They should worry less about the revenue the Magic Keys can bring in and more about how they can get key holders into the parks as much as possible. I was really surprised how little I felt this happened over the last year. There were some different benefits that were offered in the parks, the welcome gift, and getting early OBB ticket access which was nice. But why not look at times they know the hotels won’t be sold out and offer key holders 50% off a room when they book for 2 or 3 nights or something like that. That’s 50% you wouldn’t have made otherwise and 2-3 days a key holder is going to be spending money at the park when they might not have. The discount makes the stay feel extra worth it. Or offer a highly desirable collectible bought in the parks only available to key holders during a certain time period. Key holders would line up down the street for it. These types of things would also help sell future keys because people will see the great deals and benefits and feel like they are missing out.

I know I have gone to other parks and they will have pay for a day get the whole year or summer free and things like that. They understand the value of getting people back into the parks to spend money over nickel and diming them on ticket and pass prices. I usually never spend more than a day at Universal Studios. But they had buy a day get the second day free. So I did it since it didn’t cost me anything. I only stayed a half day the second day (not enough to do and busy at Christmas time) but it was a half day spending money and an extra hotel night which would have never happened if I didn’t get a free day.

All that to say I would like to see them offer more benefits and lower prices for the keys and focus on offering benefits that get people into the parks as much as possible. I think it would be a win for key holders and more money for Disney through increased spending by key holders at the resort.

They actually have done several Magic Key giveaways in the parks. And they have offered pretty good hotel discounts (there is currently one for stays beginning Aug 7). I don't think they have failed at this. They also frequently change up menus and food offerings to lure in locals (much more often than WDW does, for example).

They know how often every keyholder comes and how much they spend using their discounts. They track all of that. The price of the MKs needs to never be a barrier to entry and they know that, which is why they are actually priced so low, compared to the price of multi-day hoppers.

 

[AndrewC]

They actually have done several Magic Key giveaways in the parks. And they have offered pretty good hotel discounts (there is currently one for stays beginning Aug 7). I don't think they have failed at this. They also frequently change up menus and food offerings to lure in locals (much more often than WDW does, for example).

They know how often every keyholder comes and how much they spend using their discounts. They track all of that. The price of the MKs needs to never be a barrier to entry and they know that, which is why they are actually priced so low, compared to the price of multi-day hoppers.

Do Magic Keys get more of a discount for the hotels right now? I recall last year it was an extra 5% or something compared to public discounts… (Maybe an extra $20 to $40/night discount depending on the hotel and room)

 

[DLgal]

Do Magic Keys get more of a discount for the hotels right now? I recall last year it was an extra 5% or something compared to public discounts… (Maybe an extra $20 to $40/night discount depending on the hotel and room)

It's 25% off right now.

 

[dina444444]

Do Magic Keys get more of a discount for the hotels right now? I recall last year it was an extra 5% or something compared to public discounts… (Maybe an extra $20 to $40/night discount depending on the hotel and room)

If it’s like Disney world each discount uses different room stock so having more options usually means you can get a discount.

 

[AndrewC]

It's 25% off right now.

I think that might be the same as the public discount. Here’s hoping that there is a fall room sale and that the magic key discount is higher than public, lol

 

[DizneyMommy]

Wow…. So it’s the 17th and still crickets?

 

[katyringo]

Wow…. So it’s the 17th and still crickets?

Disney doesn't usually announce anything on the weekend. Maybe tomorrow?

 

[Snap Crackle Pop]

I wouldn't be surprised if they don't announce anything until like a month before the renewals start. I'm not expecting them to announce something 40 days before the first set of Magic Keys get renewed.