Assistance booking sold out dates after joining?

[SugarSweetLee]

Kind of a wonky scenario here but figured some folks might know what to do?

●We have booked a rental from one of the rental agencies for the upcoming Marathon Weekend in January 2025.
●Now we are planning to join DVC ourselves within the next month or two.
●The agency we used has a refund policy if we cancel within a certain window.
●The resort we booked now only has partial availability in the category we wanted (AKL Jambo Savannah view studio), showing sold out for some of the dates in the middle of our stay.
●It is not what will be our home resort (RIV most likely).
●If we are spending all this money on a DVC contract, we'd prefer to use our own points instead of paying even more out to a third party for the rental.
●I don't want to cancel the rental if we are not able to secure the dates and room we want on our own points.
●I also know that Disney won't allow you to hold two reservations for the same names on the same dates.

Any tips on what to do?

 

[FFMickey]

If you buy direct and are a new member, you could see what your guide can get for you. It is sometimes referred to as the “Welcome home” stay. You can’t get it if you buy resale or have already booked anything. If you do buy direct, don’t play around with the booking tool and call your guide to try and get your stay booked on your points.

 

[Genie+]

We’ve had this happen… twice First we bought resale and wished we could’ve switched a rental to our own points. Then bought direct and same thing again. I could’ve asked our guide for help during the direct purchase, but the cost of cancelling our rental made it a wash. I paid $21pp for a Poly rental and would’ve gotten back $14pp. Keeping our rental helped us have more points available for future trips, and I actually did my own rental with the resale points that paid me back the excess cost on Poly rental.

It is common to still want/need more points after buying. So it’s possible you may be happy you kept both your rental and new points.

 

[chazas]

●I also know that Disney won't allow you to hold two reservations for the same names on the same dates.

I don't think this is true. I'm a new member and have had overlapping reservations outstanding for days while I sorted out availability. And folks often book multiple rooms for members of their party and only add the additional guests to the reservation later.

 

[SugarSweetLee]

In our case, the refund period would let us get back our full deposit $~525 and use it as a credit toward a rental in the next two years. I would much rather use that on an extra little weekend getaway than have to pay the remaining balance on the rental (another $2k) if we could just use our own points instead

 

[SugarSweetLee]

I don't think this is true. I'm a new member and have had overlapping reservations outstanding for days while I sorted out availability. And folks often book multiple rooms for members of their party and only add the additional guests to the reservation later.

Oh, that's good to know! Maybe that's just the policy for cash guests then. Thank you!

 

[Genie+]

In our case, the refund period would let us get back our full deposit $~525 and use it as a credit toward a rental in the next two years. I would much rather use that on an extra little weekend getaway than have to pay the remaining balance on the rental (another $2k) if we could just use our own points instead

That’s great! Very nice they’ll give the full credit.

It’s worth a shot. We’ve had more than one reservation same date in DH’s name on DVC site and it was fine. I think it’s only when putting both into MDE that an issue might arise.

 

[sparkhill]

I don't think this is true. I'm a new member and have had overlapping reservations outstanding for days while I sorted out availability. And folks often book multiple rooms for members of their party and only add the additional guests to the reservation later.

I have booked multiple reservations on the same dates many times without issue.

Regarding the original question, I would just keep the rental and use this as a chance to accumulate some of your own points. You can rent out your own points later if not used, but you will probably want to use your points to add an unexpected trip, tack on a day or two to your next reservation, or upgrade your room.

 

[Chili327]

Waitlist what you want with your points & if it comes through you cancel the rental... or maybe by cancelling the rental, your waitlist would come through??

 

[SugarSweetLee]

Waitlist what you want with your points & if it comes through you cancel the rental... or maybe by cancelling the rental, your waitlist would come through??

I thought about that but I don't believe the rental company actually cancels the reservation, they would probably list it as a confirmed res and just change the renter's name once someone else picked it up.

 

[FFMickey]

I thought about that but I don't believe the rental company actually cancels the reservation, they would probably list it as a confirmed res and just change the renter's name once someone else picked it up.

That’s exactly what the rental store does. We had a renter cancel and we just changed the names on the reservation.