Cheap Theme Park Tickets - Five Great Sources for Cheap Theme Park Tickets - 1. Discount Ticket Retailers, 2. Travel Packages

Looking for cheap theme park tickets may not be the most exciting ride, but savings can be an early thrill for any vacation. To find cheap theme park tickets, start at the website and look for a “special offers” section and see if any apply.

Below are five great ways to find discounted or even free theme park tickets that not all vacationers think to consider.

1. Discount Ticket Retailers

Discount ticket retailers operate through a variety of websites such as Ticket Mania, Great Orlando Discounts, and others. These services work out deals with one or more theme parks where they purchase tickets in bulk at a discount. They then resell the tickets at a slight mark-up, thereby profiting the park, the consumer, and the third party retailer. The catch here is that most discounted tickets are passes for three days or more.

2. Travel Packages

Airlines, hotels, agencies, and other travel-related services often offer discounted tickets as part of a larger travel package. During September 2010, for example, Atlanta dot Net offered a 35% discount for anyone purchasing their “Most Valuable Package,” or MVP. This deal included admission to Georgia Aquarium, the World of Coca-Cola, Stone Mountain Park, an Atlanta Braves Game, and an all-day pass to Six Flags Over Georgia. At $89, this deal represented a substantial discount for anyone planning an extensive Georgia Vacation.

3. Limited Time Deals

Check theme park homepages for limited time deals. These run the gamut from group packages to advance purchase deals to bulk rates to all sorts of other short-term offers. In early 2010, for example, Disneyland offered a “Give a Day, Get a Disney Day” special where they provided one million free tickets to anyone volunteering for an approved organization. Toward the end of summer, Six Flags usually throws in the rest of the year with anyone buying a year-long pass for the year following—in essence selling sixteen months for the cost of twelve.

4. Military Discounts

At the gates of most United States theme parks, a military ID translates into at least a discount and sometimes a free ticket. Anheuser Busch’s Salute To Heroes program offers free entry to Seaworld and Busch Gardens for a limited time every year. Disney World offers a yearly ticket deal as well, offering four-day packages for less than $100 to service members and their families. Military ID tends to result in other discounts as well through travel expenses and lodging.

5. Promotional Deals

Affiliations with credit card companies can sometimes provide a small discount based solely on how the ticket is purchased. Six Flags, for example, offers 5% off all online purchases made with a Discover Card. The theme park even features a special Discover Cardmember Entrance Lane where cardholders can enter the park through a shorter line for the first two hours of every day.

0. Buyer Beware: Secondhand Tickets

Secondhand retailers like Craigslist and eBay offer discounted tickets, but most of these are either secondhand retailers (described above) or scams. Many tickets are locked to a certain person as soon as they are purchased, and more than one vacationer has had a secondhand ticket rejected at the gate, forcing them to buy a new ticket in addition to their discounted one. Thus, secondhand tickets are caveat emptor in the search for cheap theme park tickets.