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Update at 1:55 PM ET: The Sea World and Busch Garden tickets are completely sold out. I wasn’t at my computer at 1 ET, so I don’t know how quickly they went, but I’m glad some commenters snagged some of the tickets.
Daily Getaways takes the weekends off. The next deal is Monday and is MGM’s answer to Caesars’ deals on Thursday. I am most looking forward to the Club Carlson points for 0.3 cents on Wednesday. Check back here next week (or sign up for the email list on the top left of this page) for full coverage of all the deals. End of Update.
Today is the fifth day of five weeks of discounted travel packages sponsored by the US Travel Association and American Express called Daily Getaways.
Every weekday at 1 PM ET, a discounted travel package or packages will go on sale and will sell out in a few minutes. Some of the offers will be awesome; some will be duds.
Today’s deal is discounted admission passes to all SeaWorld and Busch Gardens parks.
How can you get the deal?
All Daily Getaways packages are discounted. And you get an additional 10% off each sale price by paying with an American Express, so that’s a no-brainer, and I’ll always quote prices after the American Express discount.
Prices are $44.10 for single-day admission to any SeaWorld park and $40.50 for one single-day admission ticket to any Busch Gardens park. There are 1100 tickets available for SeaWorld and 1050 tickets available for Busch Gardens, with a maximum purchase of six each per person.
Online, SeaWorld San Diego charges $64 per admission, regardless if it is for a child or an adult. Busch Gardens charges $79 for an adult ticket and $71 for a child.
These are both fairly straight-forward deals, with each ticket granting you one single day admission for either an adult or a child to either any SeaWorld park (there are locations in San Diego and San Antonio) or any Busch Gardens (locations in Florida and Virginia), depending on which deal you select. The admission must be used by May 15, 2014 and there are no blackout dates.
The tickets you purchase will be mailed to the address provided during checkout in 7-10 days.
Purchasing the Packages
To maximize your chances of getting in on the deal, I recommend using a site like whattimeisit.com to figure out the official time. This week’s sales have all started on time to the second. Keep refreshing for the best chance.
This is what happens if you try to purchase something where all quantities are already in someone’s cart.
This doesn’t mean the deal is sold out. If someone doesn’t complete his purchase, that quantity will immediately become available for someone else. Keep checking until the dreaded “Sold Out” appears.
I will be by my computer at 1 PM EST / 10 AM PST / 7 AM HST / (2 PM in Buenos Aires) to check out how these two deals are selling. Do you plan to buy them? Post your successful or failed attempt in the comments, so we can gauge how quick you had to be to snag a card.
Busch Gardens Ticket Terms:
- One (1) single-day admission for an adult or child to your choice of either Busch Gardens, Florida or Busch Gardens, Virginia.
- Expires on May 15, 2014.
- Valid only during regular operating hours.
- Not valid for separate-ticketed events, such as Howl-O-Scream or Chiristmas Town.
- Parking is not included.
- Not valid for discounts on food or merchandise.
- No blackout dates.
- Tickets will be mailed via US Mail within 7 to 10 business days from the date of purchase to the shipping address provided at time of purchase. No exceptions.
Just getting started in the world of points and miles? The Chase Sapphire Preferred is the best card for you to start with.
With a bonus of 60,000 points after $4,000 spend in the first 3 months, 5x points on travel booked through the Chase Travel℠ and 3x points on restaurants, streaming services, and online groceries (excluding Target, Walmart, and wholesale clubs), this card truly cannot be beat for getting started!
Editorial Disclaimer: The editorial content is not provided or commissioned by the credit card issuers. Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of the credit card issuers, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the credit card issuers.
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I never heard of this until I got your email. I had the site up all morning and then almost forgot. My 1PM notifier on my computer rang and I brought it up ….just in time, I guess. Got 4! Thanks!
Confirmation
Congratulations, JDK! Your purchase is complete.
Your confirmation number is XXXXXXXXXXX, and an email from Daily Getaways containing a summary of your purchase has been sent to you. Enjoy your getaway!
Visit Any Busch Gardens® Park for Only $45
How to Redeem Your Purchase:
Tickets will be mailed via US Mail within 7 to 10 business days from the date of purchase to the shipping address provided at time of purchase. No exceptions.
Ticket(s) must be redeemed at the park on the day of admission.
If you do not receive your purchased tickets via the mailing address you provided at purchase, please contact Johanna Hxxxx at 407-586-XXXX or johanna.hxxxx@seaworld.com.
For all other customer service inquiries related to ticket redemption or park information, please contact the SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment Contact Center at 1-888-800-5447.
Awesome!
I got 2 tickets to Sea World. We want to see the Antarctic exhibit. Thanks for the reminder about whattimeisit.com!
That’s been my secret weapon. That sounds like a cool exhibit.
Antarctica
Why would you be interested paying 0.395 c for Carlson???
You can churn for 0.1 c all day long with a 5x card…
I did some math in my case and found it quite interesting to purchase 100K Club Carlson’s points. Considering the fact that my US Bank’s plastic gives me only 3 points per dollar, I would have to spend $33,333 which would be some 66 VRs. Each of them costing me $3.95 and I get a total of $260.7, not to mention a bottle of water or soda that sometimes I have to purchase in order to distinguish expenses’ amount per transaction.
An $86.8 difference would certainly make it up for gasoline and time spent to run back and forth. Unfortunately, my credit card lets me get 6-9 VRs per week. 3 bought at the time and then wait until BlueBirds pays is back.
So even if the final numbers/costs are the same I am still saving time, i.e. 1 day vs. 10 weeks. And I’ll definitely need a lot of points for Brasil 2014. By the way, which hotels whose CCs we use may be found in Rio de Janeiro? There’s neither Hitlon nor Club Carlson. Only in Sao Paolo.
Kind of. That’s not exactly limitless, and I would rather generate more valuable points that way and buy these for .3465 cents each (100k package with AMEX). Your approach may be right for you.
I’ll be just making a long way short, thus can use another card to spend thousands of dollars on VR to get 3x points or so and at the same time get closer to our nights in Brasil next year.
There might always be some better ways we’d wish to get but are not available. How about 100K of United Miles 🙂 Once again, which hotels may I find in Rio by using points/miles, etc.?
I don’t know off the top of my head. I did a quick search on hotels.com and saw Marriott, Sheraton, and Best Western on the front page.
I can see it’s way too limited. A night at Marriot = 160K points. Neither Sheraton nor Best Western are available, quite surprisingly until August 2014. The only one available for a reasonable number of points turns out to be Quality Inn from ChoiceHotels.com
On the other hand, there’s no such problems in Sao Paolo!
Week 3 is posted:
https://dailygetaways.ustravel.org/Calendar.aspx?week=2
Thanks for letting me know!