How does rebooking/rescheduling work?

[Scooley01]

We have a late May honeymoon that we're going to end up rescheduling for late July. How does this work when we call? Also my husband and I each paid for portions of the trip using a few different cards over the past few months... Are they going to refund each card? Does the cm cancel the original and book a new reservation for the new dates (and just apply the money we've paid)? Or are they just going to change the dates of the original booking? I ask because we're thinking of making the trip a few days longer when we move it. We also had originally booked flights through Disney, but for the rebooking were hoping to cancel those flights and book our own flights separately. We also have several hard ticket events booked (after hours, fireworks dessert party, tours, etc.)... Do we cancel/reschedule those separately, or does everything get moved at the same time?

 

[DevonsDisneyMom]

Call the CM, most likely they will just modify the reservation to the new days. That is what we did when we had to change our trip booked in May till late June. You know you are eligible for the free dining plan since your original reservation falls in the window that the parks are closed, right? But if for some reason you do have to CXL the entire reservation, which do not think you will have to do all money paid would go back to any card a payment was made on.

 

[Scooley01]

Got it, thanks! Any idea how the flight and hard ticket events might work?

 

[DevonsDisneyMom]

Got it, thanks! Any idea how the flight and hard ticket events might work?

That I am not 100% sure. If the event is not happening, I am sure you will be refunded for those. And for flights, I assume they would let you switch flights given the current situation.

 

[DisneyWishes14]

We have a late May honeymoon that we're going to end up rescheduling for late July. How does this work when we call? Also my husband and I each paid for portions of the trip using a few different cards over the past few months... Are they going to refund each card? Does the cm cancel the original and book a new reservation for the new dates (and just apply the money we've paid)? Or are they just going to change the dates of the original booking? I ask because we're thinking of making the trip a few days longer when we move it. We also had originally booked flights through Disney, but for the rebooking were hoping to cancel those flights and book our own flights separately. We also have several hard ticket events booked (after hours, fireworks dessert party, tours, etc.)... Do we cancel/reschedule those separately, or does everything get moved at the same time?

The CM can modify your May reservation to your new July dates. You will keep the same reservation number and any monies paid will simply go toward the new dates. I would check online, first, to see if your current resort is available and also just to check pricing prior to pricing it out with the phone CM. As PP noted, you are eligible for the guest recovery free dining promo, so certainly ask that that be included in your modified reservation. If you have purchased travel insurance, also ask if that can be transferred to the new dates.

Which events, specifically, did you book? The Villains After Hours party tickets are only being refunded if Disney removes the event from the calendar. Most of May has already been removed, but if your date is still on the calendar, I would definitely ask the CM about the possibility of a refund. If the CM can't help you, you may need to call ticket services. For fireworks parties and tours, you are far enough out that they remain refundable - you will need to cancel these separately. You may be able to cancel the dessert party in your MDE account. You will probably have to call WDW tours to cancel any tours.

I actually have no idea how they will handle your flights. You can certainly ask if they can change your flights or issue you a credit, however, Disneys flight contracts are much more restrictive than if you had purchased the tickets directly through the airline.

 

[Scooley01]

The CM can modify your May reservation to your new July dates. You will keep the same reservation number and any monies paid will simply go toward the new dates. I would check online, first, to see if your current resort is available and also just to check pricing prior to pricing it out with the phone CM. As PP noted, you are eligible for the guest recovery free dining promo, so certainly ask that that be included in your modified reservation. If you have purchased travel insurance, also ask if that can be transferred to the new dates.

Which events, specifically, did you book? The Villains After Hours party tickets are only being refunded if Disney removes the event from the calendar. Most of May has already been removed, but if your date is still on the calendar, I would definitely ask the CM about the possibility of a refund. If the CM can't help you, you may need to call ticket services. For fireworks parties and tours, you are far enough out that they remain refundable - you will need to cancel these separately. You may be able to cancel the dessert party in your MDE account. You will probably have to call WDW tours to cancel any tours.

I actually have no idea how they will handle your flights. You can certainly ask if they can change your flights or issue you a credit, however, Disneys flight contracts are much more restrictive than if you had purchased the tickets directly through the airline.

We have Villains After Hours, a Magic Kingdom dessert party, Keys to the Kingdom tour, and also some reservations for things like Savi's. We did do the two insurance through Disney as well, so we'll have to look into transferring that I guess.

 

[DisneyWishes14]

We have Villains After Hours, a Magic Kingdom dessert party, Keys to the Kingdom tour, and also some reservations for things like Savi's. We did do the two insurance through Disney as well, so we'll have to look into transferring that I guess.

You should be able to cancel the dessert party and Savi's online. You will need to call WDW Tours to cancel Keys to the Kingdom. Villains After Hours will refund automatically if WDW decides they are not holding the party (which they, most likely, won't for any date in May), but you may want to call about that one.

Just make sure you proactively cancel each one of these as none of them will automatically cancel when you move your resort booking.

 

[Scubadaddy32]

We just rescheduled and it was a breeze. Called 30 days out from our original trip scheduled for May 10th. WDW had a CM on the line in less than 5 minutes and we had the entire trip re-booked in less than 10 minutes. Don't forget to ask the CM about the free dining upgrade for the reschedule, I did have to ask about it. The CM will help you book the hard ticketed events if you would like as well.
The CM will either transfer the balance you paid from the canceled reservations to the new reservations or they will send you a refund via the method in which you paid.
You may want to hold off on booking AH events and hard ticket events until the trip gets closer. We attend multiple AH and hard ticket events every trip and we never have any issues purchasing most the day before even. We never purchase hard ticket events more than a month out just in case plans change.
We can't help you with the airline issue, as we always purchase our airfare separately.

 

[Scooley01]

Just to follow up for anyone wondering, we made our calls today! First call, I was on hold for about 10 minutes. The CM was able to adjust our resort stay, and even offered the recovery free dining without me asking! He was also able to reschedule our Keys To The Kingdom tour and our dessert party. He couldn't do anything with our Villains After Hours because the way it is ticketed, and said we'd need to contact ticket services. This part of the call took maybe 15 minutes, and the CM was super enthusiastic and upbeat.

The CM then transferred me to Disney's airline services to deal with our flight. I was on hold for just over an hour before the call was answered. My interpretation was that her computer system was *very* slow, because it took several minutes to do each part of the process. This might also explain the very long hold time! She explained to me that American Airlines has waived the usual $200/ticket change fee. If the new tickets were more expensive, I would have to pay the difference, but if the new tickets were less expensive, I would NOT get refund for the difference. She changed our ticket dates and that was that. This CM wasn't rude, but I wouldn't say she was friendly either... More matter-of-fact. I'm sure having to tell people that they won't get refunds all day leads to some not-so-nice guest interactions, so I don't blame her at all! All in all, about two hours on the phone for this first call.

Second call was to ticket services, where another very polite CM was able to change our Villains After Hours tickets to the new date in just a couple minutes. Super simple!

We then went through and rebooked all our dining reservations and were able to get everything we originally had and then some! Next step is rebooking the FP+ in a couple weeks.

Thanks so much for the help, y'all! My husband and I were dreading rebooking and were dragging our feet on it, but it's nice to have it done now!