One of the biggest questions we get asked is, “How do you afford to travel so much?”. While it would be easy to just say its a lot of careful planning and planning a Disney Budget (don’t get us wrong- it is), we have also found some tips that work to consistently save us money. Using a third party, such as Expedia or Hotels.com to book our trips to Disney is one of our favorite ways to save money when traveling!
Disney Third Party Tickets and Resort Bookings
So, you didn’t realize you could even book a Disney hotel using a third party?! That’s ok, most people don’t. Whenever we post on Instagram during trips that we were able to stay by booking a third party, we get so many questions! As a result, we decided to write this to help you understand how using a third party at Disney works and how to make it benefit you the most.
Before we get into too much detail, let me start by saying we personally have only used hotels.com and expedia (which are actually by owned by the same corporation) so this post will focus mostly on hotels.com. But this information can help you on other third-party sites like hotwire and orbitz as well! We love Hotels.com because you can earn FREE nights that can be used at Walt Disney World. Yes. That’s what I said. FREE.
Why would you book your Disney hotel through a third party?
You may be thinking, Why book through a third party? Disney is so great, and you could just wait for special offers, right? Sure! For us, we tend to look for deals. But, we also like cheaper… and knowing that we just got a room at the Dolphin for half of what everyone else paid.
- Discounts are already on the third party site, no code needed, no special offer required.
- You can get rooms that may no longer be available on the Disney website. ( This is especially true during Disney discount periods where all the resorts are booked)
- You earn points and rewards on the site you book through.
Do you still get the perks of Disney by booking through a third party?
Yes! Unlike booking some other brands of hotels, you don’t lose any of the benefits of booking a Disney hotel through a third party. You still get your Disney Resort perks, including Early Theme Park Entry, and 60 days advanced dining reservations.
After booking, you will be given a number to Disney technical support who will transfer your reservation to My Disney Experience and you can manage it from there as you normally would! Even Magic Band color customization is available once your booking is connected. Super easy!
How is it possible to book a Disney hotel on a third-party site?
Third-party sites basically work like travel agents. They get a commission for each sale of a hotel/resort they sell. In most cases, they are also free to use. Most of the time, you can snag a great deal on a hotel because that hotel needs to sell some rooms, so they offer them through a third-party site at a discounted rate.
In the case of Disney, sometimes you can find some very discounted rates when they are below a certain capacity. The rates will sometimes be the same price as Disney though and sometimes even higher than Disney. It’s important to shop around to always get the lowest price.
Where can you book a Disney hotel using a third-party site?
You might notice I keep saying Disney and not specifying which Disney. That’s because you get Walt Disney World hotels, Disneyland hotels, Disneyland Paris hotels, and even Tokyo Disneyland hotels all on third-party sites. And which specific resorts will always depend on availability. Your best bet is to figure out when and where you want to go and do your research from there.
How much can you save using a third party at Disney?
Honestly, it varies! You can save as much as a hundred dollars or as little as two or three dollars. Or, sometimes, it’s not cheaper! It really depends on when you’re looking to go, when you book, and what resort you are trying to book. To be completely transparent here, here are a few examples of savings we’ve gotten using hotels.com:
- Animal Kingdom Lodge: $225 per night for a standard view room vs. $296 for the same room category on Walt Disney World’s website
- Coronado Springs Resorts: $163 per night for a standard view room vs. $225 for the same room category on Walt Disney World’s website
- Disneyland Hotel: $340 per night vs. $494 for the same room category on Disneyland’s website
- Grand Floridian Resort and Spa: $540 per night vs. $780 for the same room category on Walt Disney World’s website
As you can see, the prices are all over the place. And these prices change all the time. And again, sometimes the better deal is actually on the Disney website!
Do you Really Save Money by Booking Disney third Party?
On top of booking through a third party, like hotels.com, we also use Ebates! If you’re not using Ebates, you need to seriously ask yourself why. I’ve mentioned Ebates before and this is because I honestly, truly think it is something everyone should be using. I personally have been using it for years and it is my go-to rebate site. Ebates allows you to earn money back on purchases you’d already be making. When you book on hotels.com(or other third-party websites), by booking through Ebates you can earn anywhere from 2%-10% back on your booking. How can you go wrong with getting money back from booking a Disney hotel?!
How can you earn FREE nights at Disney by booking through a third party?
This is exclusive to hotels.com, which is partly why I chose to focus on this website vs. others. Hotels.com has a rewards program that grants you a free night for every 10 nights you book through them. The value of the free night is determined by your average of nights already stayed so sometimes it won’t actually be “free” but rather a large discount that is applied to your booking. These free nights can be redeemed at Walt Disney World hotels! It’s a great program if you travel a lot, and occasionally they will run sales that will allow you to earn free nights faster.
Saving Even More Money on Resorts!
We’ve got the best Hotwire hacks for Disney hotels, so be sure to check out these tips and tricks we shared on Instagram!
What do you miss out on if you book your Disney room through a third party?
While we do LOVE hotels.com and the fact we save money and earn free nights towards future stays, there are some cons to consider when you go this route. There are a few things you can’t do with a third-party reservation. You can’t add a Dining Package. Or take advantage of Disney Free Dining Offers. These add-ons are reserved for reservations on the Disney website only. You also can’t add on Park Tickets directly or get the multi-day park ticket discounts you would if you booked through Disney’s website alone. And since many of the sites are given only certain rooms to offer at a discount, don’t plan on finding a princess room or pirate room in the room options on these sites. For us, none of this is big enough of an issue to deter us from saving money. So this info is just here for you to be aware of the limitations.
Thank you so much for this website! I’ve just booked the Disney’s Dolphin resort from Hotels.com (my fav place to book hotels!) and was so scare about not having the perks. I even called Hotels.com to try to cancel the reservation and try to make a new reservation on their official site. Of course they can’t cancel it once i had booked. So I searched up the web and I found you! I feel so relieved now!! Thanks so much! So I’ll just need to call them and get the confirmation number right? Since the confirmation number from hotels.com are only for their site?
Yay that’s so exciting for you! We LOVE the Dolphin and we love hotels.com! So you can get the confirmation number two ways. You can call them or you can actually chat with them thru hotels.com, where it says “message the property directly”. If you message them, they usually take a day or so to get back to you. They’ll give you a new number that you can link into My Disney Experience and then you’re good to go! Have the best time!
Two questions…
When you get to the checkout…the fees and taxes are the regular hotel fees and taxes, correct? For example, the dolphin has a $30 a day resort fee and that is calculated into the total at checkout?
Also, when you mention the confirmation and said to call them for it so you can add it to your disney experience, do you mean call the dolphin or call the third party you book through?
Thanks for the info!
Hey there Betsy! So when you go to checkout on a third party, most times everything except the resort fee is included and it will actually tell you this. It will say something like “resort fee to be collected from the resort upon check-in” or something like that so that you know what other expenses you will have when you get there. Usually the resort fee and parking fee(if you have a car) are the only other things you will have to pay when you arrive.
And you would call the resort. If you’re using hotels.com, you can actually message the resort through their system and they can give you the information the same, it can just take a little longer for them to get back to you that way. Hope that helps!