cm said I cannot change my stay

[Happy99]

We have a stay for November for 8 nights. We finally go around to doing flights and due to cost of flights we decided to stay a couple of nights less. When I called to change my reservation to 6 nights the person I spoke to said that the room category we are in is not available for the shorter say and I cannot change my reservation. When I questioned her about it, told I have done this multiple times in the past, she said it is a new policy. I asked to be transferred to a supervisor. The supervisor said that because it has to do with my flight change she could make an exception but it is a new policy and the room category you are in has to be available even if you are removing nights Or the option is to change the room to what is available. i.e, if you have standard view but only water view is available you would have to change to that

I am in shock, 15 years going to Disney and never heard of this. They did say this is a new policy as of this week, but I can't for the life of me figure out how they can tell you it isn't there when you had the nights to begin with and just removing a day or two.

Can anyone share any information on this?

Thanks

 

[msmama]

I can kind of see Disney's point when you think of all of the people who book rooms HOPING for some kind of discount and then changing things around when the discount actually arrives.

Personally, I don't like the fact that Disney has you book ADR's 6 months in advance and then doesn't bother announcing discounts until 3-4 months in advance - I think if they want us to plan that far ahead then they should as well. But I bet that's part of what led to this new policy.

I'm obviously not saying that you were doing something wrong or bad, but I think there's plenty of ways people try to "cheat" the Disney system (I'm not saying booking rooms and then waiting for a discount is cheating, I've done it myself, but I couldn't think of a better word for it) and I think you probably got the raw end of the deal.

 

[Happy99]

I don't have any discounts and I am finalizing my plans before dining opens and before discounts are announced so that I have all my ducks in a row. I understand that there are many people that try to go around the system but to penalize everyone because of it stinks. People's plan's change, not everyone books airfare before their dining opens or can't because of the carrier they use. Time off of work changes, etc. there are "real" reasons for changes. I am just surprised that they gave me a hard time with it.

 

[thisismyusername]

That really stinks, and there really is no reason to not allow you to do that when the rooms ARE obviously available, and there's been no discount applied. Disney's reservation policy is very strange, however: There have been many times I have looked for a reservation and find nothing available, only to play around with EXTENDING the dates by a day before or a day later (or both), and then availability shows up. It would make sense if I were cutting days off, but it doesn't make sense when you extend days on.

 

[jcjen519]

that is obnoxious. A person should be able to make changes to a resort reservation at over 6 months out without penalty.

 

[yooperfan]

It's not like OP wanted a different discount plan or to totally cancel and rebook. It has always been that as long as you didn't change your arrival date, you could add or cancel days off your ressie. Disney resorts are still hotels and I find it completely unacceptable that they tell you you can't adjust a reservation. What if you decided you wanted more days, or less so you could stay longer with a split stay with another resort? Are they going to say no, sorry, you planned ahead to stay here but sorry, if you want to tweek your trip, too bad? Oh wait, that's what they are doing!

 

[Happy99]

x

 

[gwynne]

OP, was this a cash resort reservation or a DVC reservation?

If WDW has changed it's policy on modifying regular resort reservations, I would think there would be more about it on the blogs and net. Have any Dreams agents heard about this?

 

[kamik86]

Hmm this was a normal resort stay? I could see them doing this with DVC since people walk reservations (say they want to go on the 20th and stay for a week, they will book 11 months before the 16th for 10 days if they can get in and then later remove the days they don't want and add any others they need on the end. This way bypassing the 11 month window and letting them get a hard to get reservation easier.

 

[Happy99]

Hmm this was a normal resort stay? I could see them doing this with DVC since people walk reservations (say they want to go on the 20th and stay for a week, they will book 11 months before the 16th for 10 days if they can get in and then later remove the days they don't want and add any others they need on the end. This way bypassing the 11 month window and letting them get a hard to get reservation easier.

yes a regular reservation

 

[Happy99]

OP, was this a cash resort reservation or a DVC reservation?

If WDW has changed it's policy on modifying regular resort reservations, I would think there would be more about it on the blogs and net. Have any Dreams agents heard about this?

That is why I came here because I figured others would know what is going on. The supervisor I spoke with said it was a new policy as of this week so maybe others haven't run into it yet? I hope others have more information and that some travel agents on these boards chime in soon. My understanding is that if the room type (standard, water view, etc.) is available when you try to remove a night then you will be able to and you won't know anything changed. If is only if the room type you are in is NOT available, even by removing a night, is where the issues will be

 

[gwynne]

That is why I came here because I figured others would know what is going on. The supervisor I spoke with said it was a new policy as of this week so maybe others haven't run into it yet? I hope others have more information and that some travel agents on these boards chime in soon. My understanding is that if the room type (standard, water view, etc.) is available when you try to remove a night then you will be able to and you won't know anything changed. If is only if the room type you are in is NOT available, even by removing a night, is where the issues will be

It sounds like you got your reservation straight, so that's good.

This could be a new policy, or maybe there was a lot of confusion with the call and there is no change at all. If WDW has changed their policy on modifying reservations, then I would think there would be lots of chatter about it. People modify all the time.

 

[disneyag]

OP--I would call back. Sometimes a different operator tells you a different story. If it really is true, it's kinda sad. However, you can blame those folks who constantly circumvent the system. Refillable mugs, dining plan, etc.---all have been cheapened by people trying to find loopholes. So sorry!

 

[sndral]

Without knowing which days in November OP is deleting and which they are trying to keep, it's hard to hazard a guess, but Disney did not tell OP that she could not delete nights - they told her the policy was that to do so the remaining nights had to still be available in her category and in his/her case they weren't.
Simplistically it would seem that since OP had 8 nights and now wants only 6, those nights are available plus two extra. But, the business perspective is a bit more complicated - the question is can we sell those suddenly free two nights or are we more likely to sell them as part of a longer stay? If selling a longer stay is easier than selling 2 orphan nights, then it makes business sense to not allow a system that creates a lot of orphan nights.
Many tourist destinations mandate that you book 2 or 3 night stays and don't allow 1 night only bookings, for example, because demand is so high if they allow one night only booking they've blocked people from booking longer stays and thus lost revenue. Likewise, Disney charges more for weekend nights, so may chose to require a weekend stay for certain category rooms during high demand times.
At least OP got lucky and got to delete the nights despite the policy change, undoubtedly because the policy is so new - but something to consider going forward.

 

[whiporee]

It could be that the rooms in question have a 7-day requirement on them, or that the package you bought has a 7-day requirement. I know you said you didn't get any discounts, but if you got the rooms as a part of a package, that could be the problem.

It also could be that if you're booking ADRs at 180+10, that could be a problem, too. I imagine they assume there is a lot of abuse in that system and are trying to adjust their policies accordingly.

 

[Happy99]

It could be that the rooms in question have a 7-day requirement on them, or that the package you bought has a 7-day requirement. I know you said you didn't get any discounts, but if you got the rooms as a part of a package, that could be the problem.

It also could be that if you're booking ADRs at 180+10, that could be a problem, too. I imagine they assume there is a lot of abuse in that system and are trying to adjust their policies accordingly.

We have a regular package reservation with dining and tickets like we have had for the 30 times we have visited before. No discount, booked with Disney directly, nothing stating we have a minimum night stay. Etc. Our dates of travel were originally Nov 12-20, 2015. We were attempting, and did change through a supervisor, to Nov 12-18, 2015.

Thank you everyone

 

[pas130]

Sorry to the OP who encountered this issue, it is a shame that there is no announcement if that is the case. If the policy changed, it should only affect changes to reservations made once the policy is in effect. Alas, I am not a businesswoman....however, I will mention that this is the policy at the Universal Orlando Resorts. You can only shorten/change/lengthen your trip based on current availability. Which means if you need to add a day, and the discount is all booked up you could potentially lose the discount. They do read the whole policy out if you book over the telephone, so there's no surprise. I wonder if Disney is potentially following suit.....interesting. This will effect those pesky resort changers....

 

[PrincessCooper's Mom]

I had the same thing happen to me this morning. We booked a bounce back in January for September. I booked a room and my mom booked a room at FQ for 8 nights. I called today to change my mom's reservation to 4 nights and was also told new rule was just put in place. She did say that she could change it to 5 nights but that the computer would not let her change it to 4 nights. She also said that she could change reservation to POR and do only 4 nights. She said that it was due to FQ being sold out. I understand that we are booked under special offer but when you look on line there is availbility in all room categories. I told her not to make any changes that I would talk with my mom and call back.

Happy99 do you mind sharing what resort you are staying at?

I think I still have the brochure from the room that has the bounce back offer in it. But pretty sure it doesn't say anything about no modifications. I'm going to call back back and ask for supervisor.

 

[mommyrosa2]

I've never heard of this happening with a non-discounted room or package but I can tell you first hand it's not new when you've booked under some sort of a discount and then try to change your dates around. As an example, in 2012, we booked a BB for October 2013. When airfare came out, we needed to tweak our dates by a couple of days and were told there wasn't any availability under our BB offer for the entire stay. I ended up having to split our stay but did keep calling back...took me a couple of months but I did end up eventually getting all the days we needed at our original resort and cancelled the split stay. Similar thing happened when we booked another BB in 2013 for October 2014 except that time we never did get lucky and ended up having to keep our split stay.

OP I know how frustrated you must be...I would be too and like I said, it's happened with discounted stays but never heard of this with non-discounted ones.

 

[aaarcher86]

I've never heard of this happening with a non-discounted room or package but I can tell you first hand it's not new when you've booked under some sort of a discount and then try to change your dates around. As an example, in 2012, we booked a BB for October 2013. When airfare came out, we needed to tweak our dates by a couple of days and were told there wasn't any availability under our BB offer for the entire stay. I ended up having to split our stay but did keep calling back...took me a couple of months but I did end up eventually getting all the days we needed at our original resort and cancelled the split stay. Similar thing happened when we booked another BB in 2013 for October 2014 except that time we never did get lucky and ended up having to keep our split stay.

OP I know how frustrated you must be...I would be too and like I said, it's happened with discounted stays but never heard of this with non-discounted ones.

It's still unusual when you're just removing days, not changing them around. If you've got the room for 7 days you would logically be able to just remove two nights and stay 5.