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Tips for Maximizing the Disney Summer Offer

Grand Flordian

The Disney World summer promotion of up to 35% off rooms which announced earlier this week is now live on Disneyworld.com to book.  If you are looking to take advantage of this offer I broke down some of the dates, times and best options that you can use to find the best rates out of this discount.

Take a look at the discount breakdown is below, it follows the same pattern as previous promotions – the biggest discounts are on the more expensive resorts.  With this promotion you also get an additional 5% off stays of 6 nights or longer.

Offer valid for stays most nights June 15 to August 28, 2014. Book through June 6, 2014.

Resort Category Stays
1 to 5 Nights
Stays
6 or More Nights
BoardWalk Villas
Old Key West Resort
Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa
30%
35%
Animal Kingdom Villas – Kidani Village
Animal Kingdom Villas – Jambo House
Beach Club Villas
The Villas at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge
20%
25%
Animal Kingdom Lodge – Standard
BoardWalk Inn
Grand Floridian Resort & Spa
Polynesian Resort
Wilderness Lodge
Yacht Club Resort
30%
35%
Animal Kingdom Lodge – Savannah
Beach Club Resort
Contemporary Resort
20%
25%
Coronado Springs Resort
Caribbean Beach Resort
Port Orleans Resort – Riverside
Fort Wilderness Resort
20%
25%
All-Star Music Resort
All-Star Sports Resort
Pop Century Resort
15%
20%
Art of Animation Resort – Family Suites
10%
15%

How To Maximize This Deal

Disney is offering a nice discount off of most resorts for pretty much the whole summer.  They probably saw that their room capacity was going to be slightly down for the summer which is why they are extending this offer to everyone.

That means savings for us so how can we get the most out of this deal?  If you’re looking to book a trip this summer we’ll take a look at some dates to see how we can get the best deal. For sake of simplicity I’m going to use value resorts for our examples going forward but if you are looking at moderate or deluxe resorts the same strategies apply.

First off let’s take a look at what resort seasons this deal will be extending over to get a gauge on rack rates.

Summer Season
May 30th – August 2nd
Sunday through Thursday: $150/night
Friday and Saturday: $178/night

Value 2 Season
August 3rd – September 12th
Sunday through Thursday: $101/night
Friday and Saturday: $124/night

Luckily this deal will be in effect until August 28th so we have a nice overlap of the Value 2 season which is where we’ll get the best deals.

A tip that I always preach when picking your vacation dates is to avoid Friday and Saturday nights.  As you can see with the prices above you’ll be paying an extra 15% to 18% for stays on a Friday or Saturday night. I know it’s not always possible to avoid those nights but if you are flexible it will save you money on your resort rooms.

Let’s take a look at a long weekend trip in June just after the kids are out of school. We’ll leave on Thursday, June 19th and return on Monday, June 23rd.

Disney Discounted Resort Rooms

Since our trip is under 6 days our discount is 15% which is pricing correctly on the website. The prices are quite high for this time of year because you will be in full swing summer season. If we extend our trip over the weekend for a minimum of 6 nights our discount will go up to 20%.

We can lower our average room per night cost even more by avoiding the pricey weekends. Instead we’ll arrive on Sunday June 15th and leave on Thursday June 19th.

june_weekday

As you can see by eliminating the weekend nights our average nightly cost has dropped by about 10%, not bad!

Still those rates are quite high, I’m always looking for some more savings so I would want to push my summer vacation back into August when we shift to the much cheaper Value 2 season.

Here are dates for a long weekend trip in August, from Friday 22nd to Tuesday 26th

august_weekend

Prices are much, much lower than what we were looking at in June because of the different season we are now in (even though the calendar still says summer).  Average prices per night drops down to $85 which is much better than the $123-$125 we were seeing in June.

But we can do better, let’s try again without those pesky expensive weekend rates.

august_weekday

Now were are looking good, average room per night has dropped all the way down to $76 per night.  But can we do even better?  Remember if we stay 6 night or more we could up our discount to 20%.  Unfortunately because of the 6 night minimum (and I know Disney was thinking of this) we have to overlap at a minimum one weekend night.

We will again arrive on a Sunday and leave on the following Saturday which will give us exactly 6 nights.  We will only have to pay for one expensive weekend night but will also bump our discount up to 20%.

august_6nights

Bingo – we have found our winner!  The average room per night drops down to $74 on average for 6 nights in August – that’s a great deal!  Yes the dates may not be ideal for some but if you are flexible and can arrive on a Sunday, stay for 6 nights and leave the following Saturday in August you’ll find the cheapest rates with this promotion.

Save Even More with Orbitz!

If you run these bookings through Orbitz with the promo code DISCOVER you can tack on an additional 20%+ savings ON TOP of the Disney offer. I just did a sample booking of 6 nights at the All-Start sports from August 17th to the 23rd.

Disney’s final price (including tax) comes to $506.24. The same exact booking through Orbitz using the promo code has a final cost of $359.30 for an additional almost 30% off! That comes to as little as $59.83/night which includes taxes and fees.

Also don’t forget to apply for Orbitz rewards which will get you additional cash back on your booking to use for future stays.

How to Save 10% More

One of my favorite tactics to save money on food, park tickets and resorts is to use the Target coupon method to purchase Disney gift cards at a 10% discount.  To quickly recap – Target offers two stackable 5% off coupons after signing up for their REDebit card and registering for their pharmacy rewards program both of which are free to sign up for.

REDcard_iconic_Debit_4c

What’s great about the stackable coupons is they can be used to purchase Disney gift cards from Targets in-store and online for 10% off!

After you have your 10% discounted Disney gift cards in hand you can use them to pay for your resort booking online – Disney gives you the option to pay with gift cards online.  Just select pay with gift card on the payment type page.

Cheap Disney park tickets

You can pay with your Disney gift cards online

Including that discount can bring your value resort discounts up to 25%-30% total which will be substantial savings for your vacation.

Using Credit Cards to Increase Savings

Many credit card offers today offer cash back or point redemptions that can be used for travel that can help alleviate the cost of your resort room booking.  One of my favorite travel cards is the Barclay Arrival card.  The card awards you with 46,000 points after spending $3,000 within 3 months with no annual fee the first year.

Barclaycard Arrival Mastercard

Those points are worth $460 towards any type of travel expense that is charged on the card which is a really nice savings on the expensive hotels.  After the charge posts, simple log onto your card’s website – select the Disney hotel charge and watch $460 magically come off off the cost from your statement.

Another good option is to charge the room expense to a Chase Sapphire Preferred card which earns double points on travel expenses.  Chase Ultimate Rewards points are transferable to Southwest, United, Hyatt plus many others.

Wrap Up

  • Avoid Friday and Saturday nights, they are the most expensive nights of the week.
  • Wait until August 3rd for your vacation to stay during the much less cheaper Value 2 season.
  • Purchase Disney gift cards at a 10% discount from Target to tack on the additional 10% savings for your room.

The summer offer from Disney is a good one if you can make the dates work in your favor.  These discounted rooms will be capacity limited so if you are planning on taking advantage I would be sure to book sooner than later before dates start running out.

Do you have any questions about the Summer Offer? Post them to the comments and I’ll respond to each and every one!

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