Sunday, April 16, 2017

Do you know which ticket you're really using on your Magic Band?

Magic Band
It may seem pretty straightforward - you purchase your tickets, get your Magic Band and off you go to enjoy the parks!  However if you happen to have multiple sets of tickets, you may inadvertently use the wrong set of tickets at the wrong time.

This happened to me recently.  I had purchased a set of 8-day park hopper tickets for an upcoming trip in June.  This happened back in February.  As soon as they came in, I linked these tickets to the MyDisneyExperience account and attached them to each family member so that we would be ready when our FastPass+ window opened up.

In March, one of my kids was heading to WDW with his high school band.  As part of this trip, he had a 2-day, one park ticket.  Again, I linked his ticket to the MyDisneyExperience account and attached it to this child, so he could make FastPass+ reservations.

As he is leaving, he gets his Magic Band for his school trip and he's all set to go, having no idea that he's got the wrong tickets on this Magic Band.

Fast forward to April.  I'm getting ready to start making FastPass+ reservations for that June trip and, surprise, no ticket listed for that child who went on the band trip.  What?!?!  I try to re-link his ticket and no go.  That ticket has been used.  Used?  How?

It turns out that when I linked his band ticket to is MyDisneyExperience account, the Magic Band that was generated for the band trip pulled the first tickets that were linked to him - the 8-day passes, instead of the 2-day tickets.  So when he went in March, he actually activated the 8-day pass.  As you may recall, tickets automatically expire 14 days from first activation, so those 8-day tickets were burned up.

Fortunately, Disney has outstanding customer service.  With a tremendous amount of help from a particular cast member who shall remain nameless at his request (R - many thanks!!!) I was able to get a group of replacement comp tickets that equal the 8-day park-hopper ticket that was accidentally linked.  Unfortunately, that means some FastPass reservation options aren't available, but we can work around that.

So what's the lesson here?  Again, my thanks to the nameless cast member, who explained that when someone has multiple tickets, the first ticket purchased has the top priority and, thus, is the ticket that gets applied to the Magic Band.  If you have multiple tickets in hand, you may want to call Disney at (407) 939-5277 and let them know which ticket is the priority and is the one you want to go on the Magic Band first.

Sometimes people purchase multiple packs of tickets, especially when there's word of an impending price increase.  Or, you might to use up a 2-day ticket before using a larger ticket option.  Again, it's best to call ahead to set the priority order for ticket use.  Otherwise, you could be in for an expensive and unwelcome surprise.

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