Rumor Pre-Arrival Survey - AP Discounts, Lightning Lane Pre-Booking Discounts, Hotel Upgrades

[monothingie]

Delta makes billions from their co-branded credit card deal. If only Disney had a co-branded credit card… oh wait…

I doubt Disney makes as much as Delta. Mainly because they don’t have a points system, their card is just not good. I own Delta, Hilton, and Chase cards because they offer good rewards values for me.

Here's how airlines make money with co-branded credit cards -

Banks or credit card issuers (like American Express, Chase, Citi, or Barclays) partner with airlines on co-branded credit cards, they typically purchase miles from the airline's loyalty program at a wholesale or discounted bulk rate—often significantly lower than the retail price consumers pay when buying miles directly.

This is a core part of how these programs generate revenue for airlines. The bank buys large volumes of miles in advance (or on an ongoing basis) to award them as sign-up bonuses, ongoing earn rates (e.g., 2x miles per dollar spent), and other rewards. Airlines sell these miles at a profit because the marginal cost to the airline (mostly the future cost of redeeming for a seat) is low—often estimated around 0.5–1 cent per mile internally—while partners pay more but still at a negotiated discount.

Two reasons why you don't see this at Disney:
1. Disney does not have an adequate rewards or incentive system to leverage with their co-branded card.
2. Disney has no interest in selling access to their parks or hotels preemptively at a bulk discount or wholesale rate. (Yes they sell hotels rooms to travel site aggregators at wholesale rates, but that is done when capacity dictates)

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

If that doesn’t work it may be time to open a loyalty program for resorts (ie like Bonvoy, HHonors, etc) and start awarding points that can be used to book nights along with redesigning the credit cards to earn those points. I know they’ve resisted in the past due to DVC, but most hotel chains have these programs and timeshares so it seems doable.

They wanted everyone to buy dvc…and since 1/3 of the rooms are dvc…its worked pretty well. They won’t reverse course and try to lean into the rack now. It’s been literally 30 years.

Rack rooms make zero sense anymore…even with huge discounts…it’s a bad deal. BECAUSE they’re crushing everyone with ticket and line fees. Not to mention every bite.

They’ve always been overpriced (well 30 years at least)…but the reason that worked is you got good ticket deals to offset them. They’re a joke.

It’s not just Disney…Comcast just fell off the map too…but they’re running into major problems in a changing economic landscape. This math ain’t gonna math.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Delta makes billions from their co-branded credit card deal. If only Disney had a co-branded credit card… oh wait…

Disney couldn’t handle this at all. They’re notoriously behind the market and tech inept.

The major airlines - all 3 of them left - have been working on these programs for at least 40-50 years at this point

 

[monothingie]

The whole argument some folks (not you) are making of "Florida is seeing record numbers of tourism" I don't think holds much water when you're seeing that actual experiences in Florida, be it theme parks or other tourism attractions, are seeing dips in attendance, affordable prices or not. The leisure not seeing big hits are cruises.

Cruise ship capacity and port capacity (slips at ports) has not substantially changed since pre-2020. Yes there are larger ships that have come online in the past 2 years, but those do not significantly alter the number of passengers leaving on cruises.

What has changed is the major capacity increase through development on the coasts. Up and down both Atlantic and Gulf, larger residential developments have come online. They are in heavy demand. Add into the mix that the majority of visitors are using services like Air BNB to book and you have a massive growth of visitors not taking traditional accommodations.

People simply being in the city (and they could be there for various reasons that have nothing to do with vactioning, but will still be treated as a tourist visitor in data) does not mean they're actually doing things within the city.

In 2024-5 there were an estimated 19-22 Million visitors who cruised out of Florida Ports. There were around 144M total visitors to the state. This number has only increased based on past historical context. (excluding pandemic). The underlying conditions still remain the same, but your assertion that this is something brand new and impactful is wrong.

I also think there's too much celebration over a bump in travel for one quarter, especially when recent events in the country are likely to make any international visitors who were going to brave it reconsider and cancel. I would imagine Disney and Universal alike internally are seeing this happen in real time.

The average hotel occupancy average since 2023 has only increased, so the narrative that this is an abnormality is wrong.

People are still visiting Florida in large numbers, they're just going other places and doing other things in addition to (or replacement of) theme parks.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Florida has still been strong…for a variety of reasons

The I-4 corridor is in trouble. Not “losing money” trouble…to this point…not the crisis Vegas is in…but serious nonetheless.

The only thing keeping them afloat is a very duct taped together “nobody ever loses…we’re all rich!” Economy. Perception has held off reality…for now.

Why do I always say bob has been an AWFUL ceo? Well he’s an idiot - for one - but a huge mistake he’s made with parks is destroyed all the safeguards that parks had in place to ride out rough waters. The damn is cracked and if the water ever pushed on it again….they’re gonna get soaked. You can only lie about everyone being able to buy your product for so long.

 

[HauntedPirate]

I doubt Disney makes as much as Delta. Mainly because they don’t have a points system, their card is just not good. I own Delta, Hilton, and Chase cards because they offer good rewards values for me.

They don't. It doesn't even show up on their quarterly earnings report, or is ever mentioned, from what I was(n't) able to find.

Delta was really smart with their branding deal with AmEx. Probably because it came under Richard and not the current oil stain of a CEO (I'm a former DAL employee).

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

Delta makes billions from their co-branded credit card deal. If only Disney had a co-branded credit card… oh wait…

The Disney card is terrible. The American Express Hilton is quite good. 1 free room per year. $50 Hilton credit per quarter. Plus 12 points per dollar spent at Hilton on the card.

If Disney offered that? My goodness!

not the crisis Vegas is in…but serious nonetheless.

Vegas, in my experience, lost almost all concept of customer service. Disney makes minor mistakes here and there but Vegas just stopped caring altogether.

 

[HauntedPirate]

The Disney card is terrible. The American Express Hilton is quite good. 1 free room per year. $50 Hilton credit per quarter. Plus 12 points per dollar spent at Hilton on the card.

If Disney offered that? My goodness!


Vegas, in my experience, lost almost all concept of customer service. Disney makes minor mistakes here and there but Vegas just stopped caring altogether.

A penny for every dollar you spend (it scales up to like 2 cents per dollar on gas and 3 cents per dollar on restaurants, plus "6 months free financing on Disney vacations!!!"). Money you can only spend at a Disney location that accepts their redemption card.

Vegas lost the script when a couple of large property owners decided gamblers weren't worth it and thought visitors would happily fork over $12 for a bottle of water with their $20 slice of pizza. "Let them go to McDonald's on their way home" - I think that was the Caesar's CEO a few years back.

 

[Touchdown]

My Hilton Amex has a $150 AF but offers a $50 quartly credit towards any Hilton stay. I stay at least one Hilton a quarter, so Amex already pays me $50 to own the card. I get a free night certificate for spending 15k annually, and I earn 12x on Hilton charges, 6x on dining, gas, groceries, 4x for online retail, 3x on everything else. It’s hard to tease out the specific savings from the credit card from the points I just earn from Hilton for staying there but this year I’m getting over $5000 in free hotel stays (6 night stay at Hilton Marco Island, 6 night stay at Embassy Suites Williamsburg.) I only use this card to charge bonus categories, and I don’t usually use it for restaurants. I’ll have points left over so that next year I’ll probably have 3 weeks of free hotel stays.

 

[bmr1591]

But just to be clear, this appears to be a survey question to somebody who does not have an AP, but has a trip planned with a regular ticket, asking whether they’d be interested in upgrading to an AP if it were cheaper. This does not seem to be suggesting a discount for all new APs and APs renewals, but only as an incentive to upgrade from a regular ticket.

And that's fine. I'll let my AP lapse, buy tickets for 10% off, then upgrade them to Incredipass for the cheaper price upon my next visit.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Vegas, in my experience, lost almost all concept of customer service. Disney makes minor mistakes here and there but Vegas just stopped caring altogether.

Vegas overpriced itself…see where I’m going here?

And when did some tell you Disney provides “excellent customer service”?

There actually never been the case. They just managed to attract a better than expected employee pool and had great construction to present an appearance of higher overall quality

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

And when did some tell you Disney provides “excellent customer service”?

Compared to Vegas they definitely do.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

My Hilton Amex has a $150 AF but offers a $50 quartly credit towards any Hilton stay. I stay at least one Hilton a quarter, so Amex already pays me $50 to own the card. I get a free night certificate for spending 15k annually, and I earn 12x on Hilton charges, 6x on dining, gas, groceries, 4x for online retail, 3x on everything else. It’s hard to tease out the specific savings from the credit card from the points I just earn from Hilton for staying there but this year I’m getting over $5000 in free hotel stays (6 night stay at Hilton Marco Island, 6 night stay at Embassy Suites Williamsburg.) I only use this card to charge bonus categories, and I don’t usually use it for restaurants. I’ll have points left over so that next year I’ll probably have 3 weeks of free hotel stays.

Hilton is a hotel operator

Disney is NOT…they never wanted to to be and only ever really did it begrudgingly. That’s the difference here. They’d dump it today If there was a taker.

Only one guy truly embraced it…evil Michael.

In fact I hope they do make a Bob announcement tomorrow…then the book is closed and we can start comping them and it will be quite obvious which one did less with more.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Compared to Vegas they definitely do.

Well that’s not a high bar to get over

 

[Laketravis]

And yet there's still no shortage of people willing to pay $9 for a pretzel.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

Well that’s not a high bar to get over

It’s 2026 - it’s not a high bar anywhere from what I’ve seen traveling across the country.

I feel like Disney still provides a better standard of customer service - with some rare exceptions. But those are still rare. Maybe less rare than in the past, but by comparison.

 

[Tha Realest]

Travel to Florida is rapidly increasing at the same time Disney’s share of said Florida travel tourism is decreasing.

This is all happening at a time international travelers or those of a certain perspective are supposedly angry at the USA and/or Florida for reasons.

The last time Disney aggressively discounted in such a way, travel all over (including Florida) was very famously down.

 

[Touchdown]

A Florida Beach vacation cost half as much as a trip to Disney. Cruises cost about the same and have an all included price. It’s not rocket science.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Travel to Florida is rapidly increasing at the same time Disney’s share of said Florida travel tourism is decreasing.

This is all happening at a time international travelers or those of a certain perspective are supposedly angry at the USA and/or Florida for reasons.

The last time Disney aggressively discounted in such a way, travel all over (including Florida) was very famously down.

Disney has always done strategic promotions

But they were usually associated with global economic shock and/or a couple notable disasters

This is a bit of new ground. It’s hard to process…

But that may be navigating “new normal”?

The majority of the theme park customer base now feels an economic squeeze that is draining the market away…

…but we can’t admit it. The powers that be shout it’s an aberration and fiction…and we “the unbiased” here bat it around like a cat with a ball of string.

Upside down is right side up

…except it’s not

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

A Florida Beach vacation cost half as much as a trip to Disney. Cruises cost about the same and have an all included price. It’s not rocket science.

…but…but…$17 BILLION!

…that they have to post a better quarterly on top of 4x a year…

Yeah…totally legit plan/goal