Annual Pass Purchase Question

Our out of state passes expire in a couple of weeks and we have a trip planned in between to get one last use out of them before they go. Contemplating our next steps for renewing. I don’t plan on paying the renewal price right now since we don’t have another trip planned at the moment and likely will not be back until Christmas time.

So my plan as of now is to wait for the 30 day grace period to expire and then re-purchase so the clock on them doesn’t start ticking again until we scan in the first time again. I think I have a good handle on that (but please let me know if there is some obvious reason why this is a bad plan), but do the associated discounts start when they are purchased or after the first scan in? I’m specifically curious about the AP hotel discounts, which I would like to use for that December trip (once they are announced).