Bounceback Offers Back at Disney World for 2024
Bounceback deals are back for 2024 Walt Disney World vacations! These are the best way to book special offers a year in advance, and have been absent for the last 3 years since reopening. This post shares eligible 2024 stay dates & details, how to take advantage of these highly-coveted WDW deals, potential 2024 Free Dining implications, and much more. (Updated September 5, 2023.)
Also known as “Future Stay Offers,” bounce-back discounts are only available to travelers who are currently staying at one of Walt Disney World’s resort hotels to book during the duration of their trip. That changes slightly for the current incarnation of bouncebacks, as you can (thankfully) call up to a week after check-out from your Walt Disney World resort.
Bounceback offers were typically the best way to book popular discounts pre-closure, but they were also confusing, elusive, and deceptively complicated. Their absence for the last few years will likely only add to the mystique as bounceback offers return, since I’m sure even many longtime fans forgot about the ins and outs of booking bounceback offers in the last 3 years. We’ll cover more of the ins and outs later in the post, but let’s start with the news about the return of bounceback offers at Walt Disney World…
September 5, 2023 Update: Bounceback offers have now been live for two full months, and we now have answers to some of the below questions. We’ve done multiple stays since the future stay offer rolled out, and have been fortunate to find it in all of our resort hotel rooms and Disney Vacation Club villas.
For starters, if you’re trying to find the flier for future stay offers, it’s likely going to be tucked away in the “Your Take-Along Guide to the Magic” (pictured below) that’s usually left in the room below the television, on a bedside table or desk. All of ours have had the bounceback flier at the back of that guide.
We’ve called the number to book bouncebacks after our stays, and have had success. As of late last month, availability was still pretty wide open for all dates and resort combinations that we wanted. Of course, your mileage may vary on that.
Here’s everything else that we’ve learned about 2024 bounceback deals at Walt Disney World. Keep in mind that this is all subject to change as Disney tweaks the bounceback strategy, or occupancy projections change. For now, here are key takeaways:
- Emails are inconsistent. Some readers have reported them arriving immediately at checkout and others not at all. We have not received a single email about future stay offers following our stays. (Email being hit or miss is pretty typical for Walt Disney World communications; if you don’t receive anything, either check your spam folder or call.)
- Eligibility to book bouncebacks is NOT dependent upon receiving the email. When you call to book, the reservations center Cast Member will be able to confirm whether or not you’re eligible by looking up your past reservation. (The corollary to this is it also means that receiving a forwarded bounceback email with no accompanying completed stay won’t do anything for you!)
- Extension 8844 from in-room phones does not appear to be working (yet?). Instead, call 407-934-7639. You have 7 days from checkout to do that, so no need to bother while you’re still on vacation at Walt Disney World.
- Each adult on the original reservation can book bounceback offers. You can also book multiple future stays from one original reservation, meaning that one stay this year could become several discounted stays in 2024.
- As with all discounts, availability is limited. The “rarer” the room category (e.g. suites), more popular the resort, or busier your dates, the less likely you are to have success. Deluxe Villas always have few options because the reservations center doesn’t control much of the inventory at DVC resorts. However, the options are still far better for this than the average deal.
- Resort of your current stay or how it was booked has no bearing on your future stay offer. As discussed below, you could do a 1-night DVC point rental and book several week-long bounceback offers at Pop Century for 2024.
That’s everything we know that feels worth sharing, but it’s possible we’re overlooking details that you might find important, so feel free to ask any questions you might have in the comments–we’ll answer to the best of our knowledge and experience.
Perhaps the biggest takeaway of all is that this works pretty much identically to bounceback offers pre-closure. It’s almost like they copy and pasted the old rules (right down to the telephone extension that doesn’t work!) and updated the dates to 2024.
Here’s a better look at the bounceback offer for 2024 that has been released to resort guests at Walt Disney World:
In case you can’t read that, here are the details:
- Save up to 25% off Value Resorts
- Save up to 30% off Moderate Resorts
- Save up to 35% off Deluxe Resorts & Deluxe Villas
Available the following dates:
- January 7-10, 2024
- January 15-18, 2024
- January 21-25, 2024
- January 28 to February 1, 2024
- February 4-8, 2024
- February 11-14, 2024
- February 19-22, 2024
- February 25 to March 16, 2024
- March 31 to May 23, 2024
- May 27 to August 29, 2024
- September 2-30, 2024
- October 27-31, 2024
- November 25-27, 2024
- December 1-24, 2024
The 2024 Resort Future Stay Offer excludes 3-bedroom Grand Villas, Bungalows at Disney’s Polynesian Villas and Bungalows, Cascade Cabins at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge, and the Campsites at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort.
For reference, this is better than the last bounceback offer from Walt Disney World. Not that it really matters, but comparisons are always fun, and the bounceback offer when the parks & resorts closed was a room-only discount with savings of 20% off Value Resorts, 25% off Moderate Resorts, and 30% off both Deluxe and Deluxe Villa Resorts. This “Future Stay Offer” was bookable when the parks closed, but it was cancelled and removed from rooms when resorts reopened.
My first reaction to this is that it’s great that bounceback offers are returning. The biggest barrier to booking bounceback offers is knowledge. Once you have that–and you will after reading this–then bounceback offers are without a doubt the easiest and most hassle-free way to book popular discounts.
Honestly, I’m also a bit surprised that bounceback offers are returning. My impression even pre-closure was that bounceback offers was a relatively small initiative, and like so many ‘little things’ of that scale that have seemingly been lost forever, I figured that bounceback offers might’ve met that fate. (On the plus side, this could mean that there’s hope for Tables in Wonderland!)
My other initial reaction was that it’s great Walt Disney World is going to email bounceback offers to guests upon checkout. From a practical perspective, this is a much better approach–and one that would likely achieve a higher ‘success’ rate and greater guest visibility.
Then I continued reading the announcement, and subsequent sentences make it unclear whether the in-room collateral and television messages will replace the emails. (Frankly, I’m glad they’re going to be doing the in-room collateral. I know I’m a weirdo, but getting lucky and having the in-room flyer was always exciting–like a lower-stakes version of discovering hidden treasure!)
Frankly, the wording makes me wonder whether this is being rolled out hastily, and is yet another sign that bookings are trending downward and Walt Disney World is scrambling to buoy bookings. Why else would the emails go out first but the printed collateral and television messages not yet be ready?
Finally, this made me think about the potential implications for Free Dining, which is the definitive Walt Disney World discount. Free Dining overshadows all else, and it’s pretty much always front-of-mind whenever discounts or Disney Dining Plan news is released. This bounceback offer is the first real 2024 Walt Disney World discount that’s being released in the post pent-up demand era and following the release of the 2024 Disney Dining Plan.
We’ve been speculating for the last month-plus that the table is already being set for the potential return of Free Dining, and this bounceback offer only reaffirms that. This is pretty consistent with past bounceback offers to be released prior to Free Dining (there’s always overlap) and, as noted above, actually offers superior savings.
The one big thing to note here is the late Summer and Fall 2024 dates that are not available for the bounceback offer. While valid for almost the entire summer, and there a number of blockout dates in October and November 2024. That’s not necessarily conclusive of future discounts–or the lack thereof–for those time frames. Things can and will change as those dates draw nearer, and actual occupancy numbers are known.
Nevertheless, they’re at least somewhat instructive. If you’re already planning for a Walt Disney World vacation in the final four months of 2024, have flexibility in your travel dates, and want to be able to book the best possible discounts (hopefully Free Dining!), we’d recommend avoiding the dates that are not eligible for the bounceback offer. Those are more likely to be blocked out for future discounts, too.
With all of that said, here’s what you need to know about bounceback offers at Walt Disney World based on past precedent from pre-closure…
FAQ & How to Book ‘Future Stay Offer’ Discounts
Before we get ahead of ourselves, we should offer a ‘bounceback offer’ definition. Bouncebacks (or bounce-backs, or bounce backs…there’s really no consistent terminology) are targeted offers released to Walt Disney World hotel guests. They are not a type of discount, but they’re a method of booking a discount. (Think of them like PIN or Unique Offer Codes, except targeted differently.)
Usually, bounceback offers are very similar to deals that will be available for the general public to book at a later date. In many cases, bounceback offers might have more or better dates, more room inventory, and/or less exclusions. The most common bouncebacks are room-only discounts, while the most popular (by far) is the Free Dining Bounceback.
Bounceback offers are distributed via in-room fliers that are usually similar in size to park maps (see above). Unlike PIN/UOCs, receipt or possession of a flier is not necessary to book a bounceback. This trips up a lot of people, as most guests don’t read blogs like this one.
Short of tangible receipt of the bounceback flier or being plugged-in and reading about it online, how else are you going to know you’re eligible for “Future Stay Offers” at Walt Disney World? You could really miss out, and you’d never know! (In other words, not reading this blog is detrimental to your well-being, so never stop.)
So, who isn’t eligible? Obviously, anyone who is at home. Also, anyone who is at Walt Disney World, but is staying off-site or in third-party hotels. You need to be staying at a Disney-owned hotel in order to take advantage of the Future Stay Offers. It doesn’t matter if you will be arriving soon at Walt Disney World–you aren’t eligible to book unless you’re currently staying in a Disney-owned hotel at Walt Disney World, or are within the window following check-out.
Beyond that, it doesn’t matter in which WDW hotel you’re presently staying or which promotion you’ve booked your current stay under. Pre-closure, you could book up to three hotel rooms via the bounce back offer for multiple travel dates, but those rooms must be under the name of an adult on your current reservation. This means that during your current stay, you could book yourself bounceback room-only deals for three different trips in June, September, and December. Again, that was the case prior to the closure–we do not yet know whether this will be the policy for 2024 bouncebacks.
Among diehard Walt Disney World planners, it’s very popular to do a strategic short stay during the bounceback window to make yourself eligible for the following year’s bounceback offer. (It most frequently was done for Free Dining, but we’ve heard of some people doing it for other offers!) This is not as crazy of an idea as it might sound!
You might remember the fictional Costanza family from New York, who have booked a variety of fake vacations in past blog posts on this site. The Costanza family now has 4 “Disney adults,” as their kids have grown up (I know you’re all on the edge of your seats with curiosity, so yes, they have added more pet hamsters to their family–they now have 15!–but none of those will be joining them on this trip).
The Costanzas really like the location of the Magic Kingdom area hotels, but they are incredibly frugal. As such, the Costanzas follow the advice in our Tips for Renting Disney Vacation Club Points post, and book a 1-night stay in a Deluxe Studio at Disney’s Grand Floridian Villas in September 2023 for ~$250. After checking in, they arrive at their room to find that there is no flyer for the 2024 Resort Future Stay Offer in their room.
Cool as a cucumber and never one to get upset, Mr. Costanza picks up the in-room phone and dials x8844. A Cast Member assists them in booking for next year. Alternatively, since Mr. Costanza is on vacation and doesn’t want to deal with a call center or being on hold, he could simply contact his fee-free Authorized Disney Travel Planner, or travel agent.
In a perfect world, he’d give them a heads up about booking this bounce-back before his trip, which would make this a matter of a quick, one-line email during his trip. (We’ve done–and recommend–the latter approach.)
Since they only took a 1-night vacation this year, they go all out and book a stay at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge for December 10 through 24, 2024. Although Mr. Costanza does not celebrate Christmas, and finds tinsel distracting, he finds the ambiance of Wilderness Lodge very enjoyable during the holidays.
This will be an expensive vacation package–and as we’ve noted, the Costanzas are frugal–but after crunching the numbers, the Costanzas realized it’s worth the splurge to book the 2024 bounceback that offers 35% off the resort stay.
These somewhat extreme example should illustrate a few important points:
- How you booked your current stay does not matter–it just matters that you’re staying in a Disney resort.
- It does not matter if your current resort is excluded from the bounceback promo you want to book–you can book any eligible resort while staying at any Disney resort.
- Your current length of stay does not matter.
- The flier not being in your room makes no difference–dial x8844 and you can book the bounce-back offer.
The first three points we’ve covered above in sufficient detail (I hope) but the last point is worthy of elaboration. Mousekeeping is supposed to leaves these fliers in every single room, but sometimes, that does not happen. As you might know from our past posts, Mousekeeping is currently understaffed (and overworked) and sometimes oversights are made. It happens.
The last time it was offered (Fall 2019), we stayed in 6 different Walt Disney World resorts during the window that was eligible to book the Free Dining Bounce Back Offer. A couple of these rooms did not have the bounceback flier in them. This wasn’t because we weren’t eligible (again, anyone currently in a Disney-owned hotel is eligible) but due to simple human error. It was no big deal, because all we needed to do was pick up the in-room phone, dial x8844, and inquire about what (if any) bounceback offers were available to us.
We cannot reiterate enough that dialing x8844 is how to book the bounceback offer (if you booked your current stay with a travel agent, they can also handle it for you, making this entirely hassle-free for you). Do not call the front desk and do not call the central reservations line. While there is a chance that Cast Members at either of those lines will be able to help, there’s also a chance they won’t.
Walt Disney World is a incredibly complex organization and it is not possible for every Cast Member to know every single thing about the resort. If you’ve read the blog post to this point, you already know more about bounceback or future stay offers than ~98% of Cast Members. Any questions you could have now are unlikely to be answerable by anyone but a Cast Member whose role specifically pertains to booking bouncebacks.
The specific role of Cast Members at x8844 is booking bounceback offers, so they have specialized knowledge of the promotions, and will be much better at helping you. (Same goes for travel agents and having this specialized knowledge.) Think of it like a doctor. You might absolutely adore your proctologist (said no one ever)…but you should really go to a neurosurgeon for an operation on your brain, rather than the butt doctor.
Ultimately, booking a bounceback offer is not brain or butt surgery, even if our long-winded explanation might make it seem just as complicated. Hopefully, we’ve broken these discounts down in a way that makes sense and clarifies the who/how/when/etc. of Walt Disney World Bounceback Offers. We are huge fans of these deals, as they take a lot of the stress out of booking discounts–namely, the waiting and hoping there’s availability for your travel dates and resort. If you get the chance, we’d recommend booking the Bounceback or Future Stay Offer as a safety net when you visit Walt Disney World.
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
Your Thoughts
Have you booked any Bounceback or Future Stay Offer in the past at Walt Disney World? Do you make a point of calling x8844 to check for bouncebacks even if you don’t receive an in-room flier? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
We will be there October 21st to 28th 2024. I changed our dates already because I forgot about Columbus Day! Will this apply to us? We will only be under the dates umbrella barely.
Do they ever put bounce back offers in DVC rooms??
Never saw one in all our decades.
Can you book a bounce back offer if you’re in a DVC rental?
With the Free Dining discount, if it was offered from the 1st to the 10th of the month, as long as you arrived by the 10th, your entire start was eligible for Free Dining. Does this same strategy hold true for BounceBack offers? Like with the dates above, if you arrived on Sept 30th and were staying until Oct 6th, would the entire stay qualify for the discount?
We will staying at a resort August 21-26, 2023. Will that be likely to still be in the bounce back opportunity window?
Fort Wilderness campground is Disney owned but it doesn’t qualify. Do you know the reason behind that?
They don’t need discounts to fill the campsites–they’re in high demand. Same goes for the other categories that are excluded.
Is Bounce back offers good for Annual pass holders? Also we are new to AP and as I was booking our trip this summer the AP special 35% savings is coming up more expensive than us booking under the regular person 25% discount?? Am I doing something wrong I thought being a AP holder gave us better room rates but in my example it’s cheaper to book as non pass holder savings of about $300
What am I missing? Please and thank you!
Annual Passholders can book this bounceback offer during or within 7 days of a resort stay.
Normally, AP deals are 5-15% better than general public offers. There are times when the resort tiers are different, but pretty much everything I see for this summer and fall is significantly better via the AP rate.
So bummed about the November 2024 dates. We are planning to go the week before Thanksgiving. We were hoping for free dining or a decent room discount. It’s odd to me that the whole month is blocked out except during Thanksgiving week!
I wouldn’t put too much stock into that, given how far out those dates are at this point. Either way, including what is typically the peak of Thanksgiving week but excluded the week before is an odd move.
My guess is that the discounts actually released in 2024 have increased availability.
I reread this post a couple times trying to figure this out, so if you DID state the answer already, I apologize for not being able to figure it out, but is this only for stats booked during this summer? I have a stay booked for the last week of November. Would this offer still be good then?
It’s open-ended at this point, which is probably by design so they can pull it whenever they’ve met whatever internal occupancy targets they’ve set.
In the past, this room-only bounceback offer would be released early in the year and would end around the time Free Dining started (late summer/early fall), at which point a Free Dining bounceback for the following year would replace it.
I think it’s highly unlikely that a Free Dining bounceback replaces this, so I’d expect this offer to stick around until at least September.
You have the best advice, thank you for all the wonderful help over the years! Would this offer apply if we’re staying international? We are booked for Disneylad Paris next week and would like to take advantage for Disneyland CA next year.
Do you still have to put a deposit down on the bounce back program?
Yes, same rules applied to bounce backs as any package or room discount—$200 on the package refundable up until payment is due (60 or 30 days out?) or the first night of a room only with balance due at check in? Refundable up until like, a week out?
Does anyone remember? I think bouncebacks did have minimum day and ticket purchase requirements as well?
Fall 2019. No bounceback flyer in our room. I caled and made return plans that would later be the first week Disney closed for covid. At that time we also had the “free” dining plan. I bring this up because we are AP holders and to get the dining plan you had to purchase tickets along with the room. We did so because you can turn the money for the tickets into AP’s BUT you must do that before u enter any park. Our current AP’s would end before the next trip so it all fit together nicely. Of course now, in 2023/2024, there’s no telling if you’ll be able to buy AP’S in the future should you let them expire. PS Our AP’s were due to expire right before our return and back then we could use the ticket money to renew AND still get the 10& discount. It’s all in the planning.
Hope this helps.
All those tricks to leverage Free Dining (bounceback or otherwise) really were great if you knew how to work the system. I like the straightforward room-only discounts, but also love a good hack where it feels like I’m (almost) coming out ahead in the end!
Well the best laid plans of mice…Covid came, Disney cancelled our 2 weeks so we just renewed the AP’s. Later Disney extended them at least 6 months. They let me pick whatever weeks I wanted when they opened and offered me the Treehouse for next to nothing per night from end of Nov. for 10 days into first week of Dec. Cost me like $600! Then they gave me a super deal for Dec 23 to Jan 3rd.
We’ve really never done anything but straight forward room only discounts with our AP’s. That bounceback which we almost got to experience would have been cheaper but truth be told we don’t really need the dining plan because 1) 99% of the time we don’t eat desserts 2) I don’t drink 3) The House (or in this case Mouse) always wins.
As a DVC owner, it’s hard to look at any of these offers as good deals. For instance, our family of five does better in a two-bedroom villa (the kids just sleep better somewhat separated); looking at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Resort – Kidani House (savanna view) for five nights over spring break in 2024, it would be almost $5,500 for the stay alone! The same stay using points would be 269 points; if you rent those points at $20/point using any of several various channels, you come out ahead of paying rack rate from the House of Mouse.
Am I missing something in the math???
You answered your own question in the first four words of your comment. 😉
Most guests are not DVC owners, and DVC owners usually need not apply when it comes to special offers. That’s the whole point of DVC in the first place.
The $20pp rental will cost $5380, very close to the $5,500 cash bounceback offer but lacks flexibility to cancel/reschedule up to 5 days before the trip. Plus most rentals want payments much sooner than cash.
DVC rental prices inched their way up to $18-21pp but have softened the past few months. BB and DDP offers might hold it in the $16-19pp range for personal to person rentals.
I asked this question before but never got an answer so I’m trying again. My daughter and I are staying at AOA mermaid room Aug 19-26th. We were offered an “upgrade” to Port Orleans for $216. We didn’t take it. We love the Skyliner too much! Is there any chance that we would get another email offer or something at checkin? Also, super excited about the bounce back offer
The email offers they send out are going to try to “upgrade” you to underutilized resorts. So yes, it is possible, but if it happens, it’ll probably be for Coronado Springs or Animal Kingdom Lodge. The Skyliner resorts are already very popular, so they won’t push anyone towards those.
I’m sure this information is available somewhere, but I’m not sure how to find it. If you book using a bounceback offer, what kind of flexibility is there to later modify the reservation (dates, room type, hotel) without losing the discount? (Hoping I can use the bounceback offer at an upcoming stay to book a 2024 stay, but the 2024 stay will be an elementary school graduation gift to an indecisive child, at a hotel of her choice. I’m hoping against hope that if she changes her mind about which hotel, I might be able to make the switch while keeping the discount, but it seems unlikely.)
Off the top of my head, I do not remember. (Sorry, it’s been three years!)
I’m sure we’ve done this at some point, though, so I’ll go through my files and see if I can figure it out. (Failing that, I’ll ask some TAs.)
I’ve had luck modifying a bounceback a few times months after I booked it, BUT I also made a point to book longer than we might need and shortened the trip once we booked airfare. It’s much harder to add days. You might have to go above your original cast member who answers your call to get some help with the modification, but I’ve had luck several times! Ymmv
I have a trip booked for this coming September and have already booked for next year September (which looks like it falls within the availability for the bounce back offer), would I be able to apply the bounce back offer to my already booked trip for 2024?
Normally, you’d be able to have an existing reservation modified and have a discount applied. However, I wouldn’t draw any definitive conclusions here since bounceback offers haven’t been around for 3 years, and this will all need to be done over the phone.
Fingers crossed that Free Dining is on next years agenda. We just left WDW last week, so super disappointed that we just missed the window for a possible bounceback offer. Maybe they will offer free g+ as part of a promotion..LOL. Just kidding.
And In Other News: Disney has reportedly just fired 20 ESPN “personalities,” some very well known, in what is considered a cost-cutting move. Given that they’ve lost close to 900 million on their last eight movies, cold thus and the reinstatement of “Bounceback” indicate some mild financial panic?
1) After being a profits powerhouse for years, ESPN needs to cut-costs as cable is dying. Getting rid of some of their personalities is a good move–they could use some fresh blood in there.
2) That $900 million number is bogus, the invention of people pushing an agenda. Disney has had some notable bombs recently and the studios also need help, but the losses are not as staggering as streaming.
3) This is a return to normal (more or less), the natural progression of something we’ve been observing for months. I think there might be internal concerns about how quickly pent-up demand has fallen off, but if anything, they should be happy about how long they rode that wave. It certainly lasted longer than I expected.
Tom, I can agree with you on everything but the 900M loss being bogus. It’s everywhere on the net and on some pretty trustworthy sites. Nobody I’ve found is disputing it. Can that many sites have agendas? So maybe it’s only 800M? It’s still a boatload of cash. Lightyear lost $106 million, and Strange World lost $197 million. The new Indy Jones, a series I absolutely love, seems to have had kind of a lackluster pre- opening, and I’d watch Ford as Indy if he were having a root canal! Variety and the LA Times have written some cautionary articles about this financial problem as well.
All those sites are quoting a single Disney vblogger who has less experience than Tom does. Since Tom has also been cited by legitimate websites, there’s certainly no reason to trust him less. Any analysis that “forgets” to add in the revenue that movies earn outside theaters is ludicrous on its face; I didn’t buy it when Chapek tried to move Disney+ losses onto production departments and I don’t buy it now.
Are the Swan & Dolphin resorts eligible? They’re not disney owned but technically have Disney in the name 🙂
They are not–sorry!
Can you book a bounce back offer even if you’re a DVC member and you’re currently staying with points?
In the past, that has always been possible. Can’t imagine that changing this year, but terms are always subject to change.
I was wondering the same!
Well I am glad to see it returning. Granted we are staying at Universal this time but it just means we will see discounts next year and possible free dining. Looking forward to the deals.