AP rates booked online however have a different cancellation policy than regular room only rates. They have a 45 day cancellation policy as compared to the 6 day cancellation policy of a rack rate room only.
Kingdom Konsultants is 100% correct.
Full priced Room-Only Reservations booked online (
www.disneyworld.com) have a 6 day cancellation penalty. Discounted Room-Only Reservations booked online have a 45 day cancellation penalty.
Room-Only Reservations (with or without a discount) booked by phone (1-407-W-DISNEY) have a 5 day cancellation penalty.
Although some travel agencies (and most wholesalers) do apply additional penalties to Guest cancellations, as a means to protect their commission, any well respected travel agency (such as Kingdom Konsultants) will not. It is always a best practice to ask your Travel Agent their policy before you book.
As far as the AP discounts, these are NOT guaranteed by Disney as part of the perks of being an AP holder Just ask the people who were looking forward to a discount for June!!!! Also booking a room at the regular rate and hoping for a discounted rate isn't the best idea. Disney is a business just like any other. They have no way of knowing that you are booking a room and hoping to apply the discount later ( More on this idea in a bit) so they think they are selling well at full price, so hence discounts may be reduced or eliminated all together for that period!!!!
As far as applying a discount to an existing room reservation, this concept doesn't exist at all!!!! I know many people think it does but in reality all you are doing is exchanging your reservation for a discounted reservation at the same resort. In some cases, discounted rooms are not available at a given resort but full price rooms are!!! So for example if you make a reservation at a given hotel, and the DAY the discounts come out you call to "apply" the discount to your reservation. You may be told that that particular resort does not have any availability at the AP rate. Does that mean that you didn't call early enough?? No most likely not. Not every room in every resort is put on a discount. So the bottom line is that reserving a room at full price will not help you get an AP discounted rate and in fact may hinder you!!!!!
As far as Kingdom Konsultant's cancellation policy, I don't know who you got your info from Col but that is just not true!!!! For all of our bookings through Disney they are the exact same as Disney's own cancellation policy which is 45 days prior to the date of arrival for all packages ( room and ticket combinations) and either 45 days or 6 days for a room only reservation depending on how it was booked. In addition the last time that I booked a room only reservation online it said that the cancellation policy had gone down to 6 days prior to the date of arrival as well. Please feel free to post any questions on here for me or PM Me, Pam or Evan (Disneyinsider) with any issues we can help with!!! Belle
Also Belle is 100% correct. Per your Passholder benefits booklet:
"Periodically, a limited number of rooms may be made available at select Walt Disney World Resort hotels and select Disney Vacation Club Resorts at discounted rates for Passholders. Visit disneyworld.com/passholder or see your Mickey Monitor newsletter for special offers."
When Disney Marketing determines the number of discounted rooms available in an offer, it is based on a set percentage of the available rooms in the offer, each day during the offer period on the morning of the date the offer is to be released.
For example, marketing may create an offer for travel dates 1/1/06 - 2/1/06 to include 10% of the available rooms, and release it on 12/5/05. If prior to opening on the morning of 12/5/05 there are 100 available Preferred Rooms at All Star Music for 1/15/06, then the offer will include 10 discount Preferred Rooms (10% off 100) at this resort for arrivals on 1/15/06. If there are 14 Preferred Rooms at All Star Music for 1/16/06, then the offer will include 1 discounted Preferred Room (10% of 14 rounded down) at this resort for arrivals on 1/16/06.
If you have booked a room at full price, you are reducing then number of available rooms on the morning the offer is released, therefore reducing the number of discounted rooms offered.
If you plan on staying regardless of whether a discount is released or not, please book your room to ensure availability, then check back to see if an offer is released. If you have no intentions of staying if your room is not discounted you are only reducing the chances of a discount by holding the room.
Also remember, individual Guest Cancellations do not increase the number of discounted rooms available. When a discounted is booked, (even if booked on a courtesy hold with the deposit not due for 14 days) and the reservation is cancelled (or auto-cancelled due to the deposit requirement not being met on time), that room will NOT return to the discounted pool of rooms.
Once all the discounted rooms are sold out, they are gone. The only way addition rooms are added to an offer is if the Resort Management feels there are still too may rooms available for a particular date. This is a very rare occurrence and normally only happens if a group, convention, or wholesalers returns a large number of unused rooms back to Disney.
Hope this helps! :sohappy:
