Legacy Passholder Benefits Extended Through Middle of August

Disneyland recently updated the expiration date to August 15, 2021 for Legacy Passholder benefits. Former Annual Passholders have been eagerly waiting for any word about when a replacement for the now retired Annual Pass Program at Disneyland can be expected. When Disneyland announced that they were ending the Annual Pass membership program in January 2021 they noted that former Annual Passholders would be termed “Legacy Passholders” moving forward and would receive applicable food and merchandise discounts (in accordance with the level of Annual Pass they held when Disneyland closed in March 2020).

Speculation Time

Disneyland has been updating and extending the Legacy Passholder benefits in one month increments since January. Each month, the benefits have been extended until the end of the month. This latest update only goes to the middle of the month, rather than to the end of the month.

Does this mean that a new program will be announced soon? Maybe yes, maybe no. Disney stated that the Legacy Passholder benefits would only be in place until a new program was announced. We know very little about what the new program will be like other than the few quotes here and there from Ken Potrock, Josh D’Amaro, and Bob Chapek.

What They Have Stated

Bob Chapek said the following during an earnings call report:

“…there’s a lot of negative impacts, of course, with Covid, but one of the things that it gave us a chance to do as we were forced to stop operations was to completely reexamine how we priced and programmed our tickets. And as you all know we ended our current annual pass program at Disneyland, and that gives us a chance to sort of create a modern version of a park loyalty program and affinity program that isn’t necessarily governed by legacy and as you know the net contribution back to the company varies tremendously and was one of the levers that we used to grow yield over the past several years depending on what type of ticketing structure that a particular guest came in. With the ability now for us to sort of completely reconsider how we go about our loyalty programs and our frequent visitor programs we have the chance to, you know, make even more advancements, not only in terms of the guest experience and make sure that guests have a tremendous experience no matter what day of the year they come whether it’s a high demand day or a relatively low demand day but also the ability to increase, you know, our per caps and our yields, and we’ve already seen tremendous growth in those as you’re seeing over the last couple of quarters. But I don’t think we’ve even scratched the surface in terms of what we can do when we finally restart with some of our programs in terms of, you know, making sure again, that not only do we improve the guest experience, but at the same time get an adequate return to our shareholders for the type of experience that we do give to our guests…”

Ken Potrock said the following on the D23 Podcast earlier this year:

“We had sunsetted the annual pass program, and we needed to do that really for two incredibly important reasons. One because of the capacity constraints, and two because we thought this was a great opportunity for us to reimagine an annual pass program that wasn’t just built on the last couple of decades, but was built on how our guests and our fans wanted to use the parks going forward.”

Potrock also said the following when the annual pass program cancellation email was sent out to former Passholders in January:

“We plan to use this time while we remain closed to develop new membership offerings that will utilize consumer insights to deliver choice, flexibility, and value for our biggest fans. Once we have more information to share about future membership offerings, our Passholders will be the first to hear from us as we embark on this next chapter.

Annual Passholders who held active Passports as of March 14, 2020 will continue to receive applicable discounts, based on their Passport type, on merchandise and food & beverages at select Downtown Disney District and Buena Vista Street locations, until new membership offerings are announced.“

Josh D’Amaro said in the LA Times:

A new membership program that “will reflect the behavior of our superfans (will be released) relatively soon.”

Waiting Game

For now, we continue to wait for the big announcement about the new membership program.