BLT sudden availability today for Nov-Dec (but gone now)?

[JohnGypsy]

I happened to be looking at any openings for November, December, and January today and, as expected, most Studios are all booked everywhere except for a one-off here and there. I then reloaded the search and noticed that BLT had FULL availability for their Lake View Studios for all 3 of those months. Almost every date was opened. I actually booked a single night that I wanted in December. After that, I searched again and about half of the days were gone. 30 minutes later now and everything is gone except for maybe 4 random dates during those months.

Just curious if this was a bug (and my room might be cancelled) or if there was suddenly a large number of rooms that opened up today at BLT Lake View that someone knows about? Just curious what happened there.

 

[Sandisw]

Those things tend to be a glitch. If it is, you should get notified quickly.

 

[we"reofftoneverland]

I happened to be looking at any openings for November, December, and January today and, as expected, most Studios are all booked everywhere except for a one-off here and there. I then reloaded the search and noticed that BLT had FULL availability for their Lake View Studios for all 3 of those months. Almost every date was opened. I actually booked a single night that I wanted in December. After that, I searched again and about half of the days were gone. 30 minutes later now and everything is gone except for maybe 4 random dates during those months.

Just curious if this was a bug (and my room might be cancelled) or if there was suddenly a large number of rooms that opened up today at BLT Lake View that someone knows about? Just curious what happened there.

Super sketchy. Disney has taken every extra room at wdw in December out of circulation. I’ve seen them do this before on many occasions. Sometimes they release some back. I don’t think it’s a glitch because it is a pattern of sorts. I would complain. I do. I sometimes think it is complaining that gets them to release some rooms back.

 

[sndral]

Super sketchy. Disney has taken every extra room at wdw in December out of circulation. I’ve seen them do this before on many occasions. Sometimes they release some back. I don’t think it’s a glitch because it is a pattern of sorts. I would complain. I do. I sometimes think it is complaining that gets them to release some rooms back.

Do you think they were hoping to rent the villas out for cash (breakage - including anticipatory breakage) & when they couldn’t they loaded them back to membership inventory for booking on points?

 

[we"reofftoneverland]

Do you think they were hoping to rent the villas out for cash (breakage - including anticipatory breakage) & when they couldn’t they loaded them back to membership inventory for booking on points?

I really don’t know. But we are those people who always seem to be changing reservations last minute, so I notice this stuff. For example, right now I have 4 nights in a 2 bedroom OKW and 1 night in a 2 bedroom SSR mid-December. I’ve been looking (stalking) for about the last 2 months to get 5 nights in a 2bedroom anywhere to avoid the split stay. Obviously, the most likely success would be to get that 1 night at OKW. Up until a week or so ago, there has been plenty of random availability that didn’t work for us. Then all of a sudden 0 availability anywhere. This happened to us last July as well. Stalking and then zero availability about 60 days out. In that case some availability came back on a few weeks later. We did end up getting the 3rd night we needed at AKV. Happened also May 2022. In that case some availability came on again a few weeks later. HHI. We ended up getting what we needed. But in July 2022, happened again and we did not end up getting what we needed. In that case availability did not come back on and we did a three way split stay over 6 days which was honestly awful! I don’t know if this just happens on the months we’re we are looking and we are cursed or if this is a pattern. But pre-covid, we never seemed to have these problems. I would stalk and get what we needed or not get what we needed, but there was no sudden zero availability issue.

 

[Sandisw]

Do you think they were hoping to rent the villas out for cash (breakage - including anticipatory breakage) & when they couldn’t they loaded them back to membership inventory for booking on points?

That might happen some of the time, but we agree to allow any unreserved inventory during the breakage period to go to DVC….so, it makes sense if there isn’t much or anything at all during one of the busiest times for DVC bookings within 60 days.

 

[sndral]

That might happen some of the time, but we agree to allow any unreserved inventory during the breakage period to go to DVC….so, it makes sense if there isn’t much or anything at all during one of the busiest times for DVC bookings within 60 days.

Yes & I believe a certain % of the income from breakage helps offset MFs? There have been times when IT glitches have caused availability to be inaccurate, the VGC debacle of phantom availability a few years ago, or inventory not getting loaded right at 11 months on the DVC booking site, for example.
I can’t think of any advantage of putting inventory previously pulled for cash back into the DVC booking pool, because someone could still book it for cash last minute - but maybe Disney has an algorithm for cash booking trends & when it predicts the villas won’t get booked for cash, they put it back & someone grabs it w/ points & there’s some accounting reason to do so (like % occupancy numbers which does impact stock valuation) .

 

[Sandisw]

Yes & I believe a certain % of the income from breakage helps offset MFs? There have been times when IT glitches have caused availability to be inaccurate, the VGC debacle of phantom availability a few years ago, or inventory not getting loaded right at 11 months on the DVC booking site, for example.
I can’t think of any advantage of putting inventory previously pulled for cash back into the DVC booking pool, because someone could still book it for cash last minute - but maybe Disney has an algorithm for cash booking trends & when it predicts the villas won’t get booked for cash, they put it back & someone grabs it w/ points & there’s some accounting reason to do so (like % occupancy numbers which does impact stock valuation) .

Yes, we can receive up to 2.5% of our budget from the funds of breakage…every year, every resort hits that target….the resort goes to DVC.

And I agree that the chances it’s returned are slim but there have been reports of someone getting a room not on the website by calling MS within that last week.

The thing is that what is there for cash can be from different sources, which is why there is no way to know if it is from trades, which wouldn’t come back, DVDs own points, which wouldn’t come back, or breakage, which might be eligible to come back.

 

[kes601]

It could also be one room that was taken out of inventory for repairs and then returned to inventory. Available dates could have been grabbed by waitlists and other people looking randomly.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

It could also be one room that was taken out of inventory for repairs and then returned to inventory. Available dates could have been grabbed by waitlists and other people looking randomly.

1 room taken out of inventory for 3 months though?

 

[kes601]

1 room taken out of inventory for 3 months though?

It is possible. As likely as any other theories. We saw the same thing with BLT last summer and not one person reported back here that they were told the room wasn't available.

 

[Bearval]

1 room taken out of inventory for 3 months though?

Maybe it was the room I had a few months ago where the toilets kept overflowing.................