Can you change the middle part of a reservation ?

[DougEMG]

Normally when I book our trips I'll book everything at one of our home resorts at 11 months and then try to make changes at the 7 months to make a split stay. Now I've always made the change to the beginning or end of the original reservations because I've assumed that you couldn't make changes to the middle of reservation, is that assumption true.

So for example if I booked BWV Aug 01-14, I'm assuming I can change it to BWV 01-05, VGF 05-10 and BWV 10-14 without doing some kind of rebooking.

What's I've been doing to try and get around this is making separate booking like BWV 01-08 and BWV 08-14 which then give me the ability to make changes from both reservations, but is this actually necessary?

 

[supersnoop]

We've seen it published for years that MS can drop days from the beginning or end of a reservation, but they can't split a single reservation into two. I think you're plan to make multiple reservations is necessary. Just be aware that MS has been known to combine multiple continuing reservations automatically when the room type and guests are identical.

 

[Dean]

We've seen it published for years that MS can drop days from the beginning or end of a reservation, but they can't split a single reservation into two. I think you're plan to make multiple reservations is necessary. Just be aware that MS has been known to combine multiple continuing reservations automatically when the room type and guests are identical.

I've split reservations in the past but it's apparently become more difficult.

I would likely book the 7 days 1-8 August then a second reservation 6-13 August, then a third 8-15 assuming you're actually staying the night of the 14th. Once you have the second reservation in this string booked, cancel the last 2 nights of the first then once you have the third leg, cancel the last 2 nights of the second and the first 2 nights of the third. If you don't have enough points to hold those extra 4 nights, just see if it looks like you'll have an issue based on the RAT and if it seems OK, you could cancel the last 2 nights of the second portion before you book the third segment. Put different names on each. That way you'll have 3 reservations you could combine later if needed and you could wait list against without risking our entire reservation. There are in between options if you have enough points to hold part but not all extra. If it's 13 nights instead of 14, the same principles apply. I'm assuming you have a reason for moving from BWV then back again, I'd just move once if it were me but I likely would for 13 or 14 nights.

 

[LisaS]

I doubt the system is designed to handle dropping nights in the middle of a reservation. It would be a rare request and not worth the cost to implement and maintain the software to do it. That means the CM must do everything manually. Step 1: The CM changes the dates for your original reservation to the initial nights you want at Resort 1, releasing all remaining nights back into the pool. Step 2: the CM tries to grab some of those nights at Resort 1 back again to create a second reservation for the nights at the end of your vacation. Unless the CM has a way to hold those nights that you want back, there is a risk they will go to someone on the wait list or to someone who happens to be booking the same resort at that time. Step 3: the CM creates a third reservation for the nights you want in the middle of your vacation at Resort 2, subject to availability at that moment. In theory, you could end up not getting the nights back for the end of your stay and not being able to book the middle portion, ending up with just your new, shortened reservation.

Do as the other posters suggest and book three separate reservations to begin with, then modify them once you've successfully booked your middle dates.

 

[Cyberc1978]

I've had two continuing reservations which MS combined, at first I didn't care but then I needed to change part of it so I called ms.

Don't know if they are allowed to do it, but I argued that I wasn't informed and now I needed to change part of the reservation. They ended up splitting up the reservation, and helping me making my change.

Later on I booked first 1 then 2 and in the end 3 continuing reservations because of lack of availability at the same resort in the beginning. MS didn't touch any of those for weeks until I a few days ago myself called and ask for them to be combined.

So in my experience they can help you split the reservation again, if they can/will help with a reservation which doesn't consist of two or more reservations I don't know.

 

[MouseOfCards]

Normally when I book our trips I'll book everything at one of our home resorts at 11 months and then try to make changes at the 7 months to make a split stay. Now I've always made the change to the beginning or end of the original reservations because I've assumed that you couldn't make changes to the middle of reservation, is that assumption true.

So for example if I booked BWV Aug 01-14, I'm assuming I can change it to BWV 01-05, VGF 05-10 and BWV 10-14 without doing some kind of rebooking.

What's I've been doing to try and get around this is making separate booking like BWV 01-08 and BWV 08-14 which then give me the ability to make changes from both reservations, but is this actually necessary?

We also make separate bookings from the start if we know we might need to make changes later. As others have mentioned, we also use different names so that MS doesn't combine them. Then we contact them to make the final changes.

 

[jstarcze]

It seems the easiest way to accomplish this if you know you want to do it is to book three separate reservations at your home resort at 11 months for the date ranges that you want. Then at 7 months you only need to change one of the reservations to what you want or can get. If you end up not changing resorts i think you could link the reservations so that there is no need to change rooms.

 

[Dean]

It seems the easiest way to accomplish this if you know you want to do it is to book three separate reservations at your home resort at 11 months for the date ranges that you want. Then at 7 months you only need to change one of the reservations to what you want or can get. If you end up not changing resorts i think you could link the reservations so that there is no need to change rooms.

That's not foolproof either depending on how it's done. If you book the same resort, villa type under the same number they can, and often do, combine them on their own into one. There are ways to do it but one must take additional steps for this to work consistently.