Book a room now and get a lower rate later?

[Mousetopia]

I disagree with this..the rate and offer can differ per night..and if there are any issues they are great. I call late or really early and have good luck not waiting long. If you do online you make a whole new reservation..way more hassle. This can apply offer to existing.

 

[Mle8308]

I think $350-ish for BWV is somewhat legit.
Even according to dvcrequest.com, a Preferred View at BWV over my dates is $4140 (11 days). That's 180 points at $23/pt. If I find a owner willing to rent on here, it will likely be less.

I hope so! It’s in the price range, but getting 10 nights in one resort in December is going to be, at the least, challenging. Split stay, yes. BW for all 10 nights, fingers crossed for you! This is renting DVC points, not a cash stay. What are your dates? You still haven’t said. Likelihood of success or discounts in December is hugely dependent on travel dates. It’s a great month to visit!

 

[Wells Larsen]

I hope so! It’s in the price range, but getting 10 nights in one resort in December is going to be, at the least, challenging. Split stay, yes. BW for all 10 nights, fingers crossed for you! This is renting DVC points, not a cash stay. What are your dates? You still haven’t said. Likelihood of success or discounts in December is hugely dependent on travel dates. It’s a great month to visit!

Dec 6 - Dec 17.
re: Challenging.
I figure there is plenty of options. If I don't get Boardwalk, I'll try Beach Club, then Animal Kingdom, then split stay. If I can't get DVC, then I'll have the backup of Port Orleans. I'm not so rigid that I can't adapt.

The last time I went to Disney at Christmas, it was 2011 and it was a solo trip just before Christmas until New Years Day. It was the best trip to Disney I had ever had. At that time, I just stayed at Pop Century.

Since then I've stayed at Animal Kingdom twice, and Beach Club once.

 

[wdhinn89]

So basically, the way it works is when a deal drops, you can go into your MDE and see if you can apply the deal to your room. This isn't really applying the discount to your room, but seeing if a room in the same category you already booked is available under a discounted rate. Disney essentially sets aside specific rooms for the discount, so you cancelling your non-discounted rate would be unlikely to send that room to the discount rate pool. Here's a few examples of how this could work out.

1. You go into MDE, click the change offer option on your reservation and it says a lower rate is available, and you're able to change it then and there. Yay! You're all set with the discount.
2. You go into MDE, click change offer option and it says no availability. This only means it's not available for all dates. This is where you might need to do some sleuthing on your own and play around with dates to see what comes up. So, for example, if your dates are 12/5 - 12/12, you might start searching around and find that you can get a discounted rate 12/5-12/9 in a standard room, but 12/9-12/12 in a water view room, or maybe not at all. In this case, you can change your dates on your reservation to match what's available, then make another booking for the remainder of the dates (make sure you search for those remaining dates to make sure something is available!). You will end up with separate reservation numbers and if there's a difference in room category, I would expect to have to move rooms. If there's no difference in room category (if say first half of your dates came up as available on the discount and the other half did not), Disney will do their best to keep you in the same room.

If I click on the Change Reservation button, is there a chance I may cancel my reservation or are you able to play around with room types without any risk of a cancellation happening?

 

[GADisneyDad14]

If I click on the Change Reservation button, is there a chance I may cancel my reservation or are you able to play around with room types without any risk of a cancellation happening?

Unless you just get slap happy with clicking all over the place without care or have limited experience with navigating a website, there’s effectively no risk. I play around with modifying/changing all the time, FWIW, often just canceling out of the modification page. You have to go through several confirmation pages to do most anything, so it’d be pretty hard to do anything that puts your reservation at risk.

 

[wdhinn89]

Unless you just get slap happy with clicking all over the place without care or have limited experience with navigating a website, there’s effectively no risk. I play around with modifying/changing all the time, FWIW, often just canceling out of the modification page. You have to go through several confirmation pages to do most anything, so it’d be pretty hard to do anything that puts your reservation at risk.

Thank you! Puts my mind at ease to check things out.

 

[saraheliz]

I'm with you. Right now, I'm projecting a (retail) booking at Port Orleans - French Quarter (or maybe Riviera if I can find rates in that $300 - $350/night range). That will be my backup.
Then I'm actually going to try and reserve/rent a DVC Reservation for Boardwalk. We'll see how this plays out.

For me the strategy is half the fun.
My wife thinks I should be a travel agent, but I don't like doing it for anyone other than myself.

This is similar to what I did for our trip.
Initially I booked a suite at AoA because that's what I was willing to pay and we wanted two rooms/two bathrooms, and nothing was available yet for DVC at Kidani (my other option and preference).
Then when Kidani 1 bedrooms opened up, I booked a second reservation. It was more than I was hoping to pay but probably could have justified it.
Then when the discount was released, I was able to modify my Kidani reservation (online) to the new discounted rate, but a different room type. I was still hoping for my original room type so I've stalked every day since but nothing...c'est la vie. When the different was $800something for a Savannah view and $700something for standard, I could kind of justify the more expensive room. But now that the standard is $500something and Savannah is not discounted, nope.
I also modified my AoA reservation to a 1 bedroom at BLT and then later a 2 bedroom at OKW both with the discount as we were toying with those options. I've since cancelled that reservation but there was a lot of back and forth with two simultaneous reservations for awhile. I was never stressed about the discounts, though, since I had that AoA room that I knew we could afford and would have been happy in.
Never did I have to call Disney, but I lucked out and saw the discount as soon as it came out.

 

[saraheliz]

Unless you just get slap happy with clicking all over the place without care or have limited experience with navigating a website, there’s effectively no risk. I play around with modifying/changing all the time, FWIW, often just canceling out of the modification page. You have to go through several confirmation pages to do most anything, so it’d be pretty hard to do anything that puts your reservation at risk.

Yes! You can mess around pretty far without finalizing anything.

 

[LuvOrlando]

Can always split the room only into more than one reservation so you have more flexibility with keeping a price, adding or dropping a day on one side or another, I usually do this especially since we used to like to go to Uni for a few days in the middle. With this I end up paying for 1 night deposit for each reservation, but since I'm paying anyway it doesn't bother me.

I've had issues where there is a date for a promo missing in the middle so say you can get original reservation one Sat-Tuesday and then maybe a second reservation Wed-Sunday for this purpose. Having 2 would give me the option of preserving a segment of the original dates so I can detach the second reservation to chase discount dates, or close the second one and recreate. I might end up with 3 reservations, the first Sat-Tues changed to new discount, the second reservation Wed & Thurs original pricing, and a third reservation newly created with the discount Fri-Sunday. As I said, the two halves offer me more flexibility even if I pay more upfront & I'm totally ok with that.