Disney website just cancelled my free dining reservations!!!

[aaarcher86]

Having one or two overlapping might not even be a blip... But FOUR?

Glad it worked out in the long run.

 

[ArwenMarie]

This is not helpful to your ADR issue, but I usually book a bounceback which means I'm booking a year in advance, and am not 100% certain of what our dates will be. i generally just book a single trip for 14 days, so that the trip overlaps a bit on each side, and call to shave off days when my plans become more solid. You might want to try that too next time, rather than having to juggle multiple separate reservations. I have also had good luck adding days on one end or another to an existing reservation when necessary.

Good luck to you - I hope you can recover some of your ADRs!

Things have changed on this recently, there were a few threads on the Resorts board about it. You can't take days off anymore without essentially rebooking the reservation and being subject to current availability. Not sure if it applies to bouncebacks but definitely to other discounts.

 

[EJM]

This is not helpful to your ADR issue, but I usually book a bounceback which means I'm booking a year in advance, and am not 100% certain of what our dates will be. i generally just book a single trip for 14 days, so that the trip overlaps a bit on each side, and call to shave off days when my plans become more solid. You might want to try that too next time, rather than having to juggle multiple separate reservations. I have also had good luck adding days on one end or another to an existing reservation when necessary.

Good luck to you - I hope you can recover some of your ADRs!

Be careful with this in the future. My understanding is that Disney closed this ability in the past few weeks. Keeping the discount the reservation was booked under will depend on the availability at the time of adjustment.

There are some threads on the Resort board discussing the topic.

 

[wdw4rfam]

Yikes, we had 2 booked for the same dates because we already had a room only, and when FD came out we booked another, same dates because I booked online at 5:30am. I couldn't get through to cancel for a week, so I'm glad I got them cancelled before they caught it. I had no idea you weren't allowed to have overlapping reservations, but I guess I see why.

 

[ammag]

It let me book two rooms at once for the same people no issue, we got the free dining and cancelled the non FD one (same resort) five days later. I feel like if you want two rooms and you pay the deposit, they shouldn't cancel them! Or at least send an inquiry or somehitng, what if someone just wanted two rooms?

 

[itchin2go]

It let me book two rooms at once for the same people no issue, we got the free dining and cancelled the non FD one (same resort) five days later. I feel like if you want two rooms and you pay the deposit, they shouldn't cancel them! Or at least send an inquiry or somehitng, what if someone just wanted two rooms?

Hmmm. Way back when (4 for 3 promotion, anyone?), I booked 2 rooms at AKL for us. In order to take advantage of the money kick-back portion of the promotion, I booked them as 2 separate reservations. We used and paid for both rooms (connecting). Wasn't a problem then. Did I just not get flagged, or is this a more recent crackdown ... or is it because of free dining? Or are 2 reservations not as likely to get flagged as 4?

 

[Amanda999]

This is not helpful to your ADR issue, but I usually book a bounceback which means I'm booking a year in advance, and am not 100% certain of what our dates will be. i generally just book a single trip for 14 days, so that the trip overlaps a bit on each side, and call to shave off days when my plans become more solid. You might want to try that too next time, rather than having to juggle multiple separate reservations. I have also had good luck adding days on one end or another to an existing reservation when necessary.

Good luck to you - I hope you can recover some of your ADRs!

Just a word of warning- there was quite a bit of discussion over on the resort board about Disney making changes to their reservations and not allowing changes to be made like that- essentially having to cancel and re-book and only being able to if there was still availability. I'm not sure how that would affect a bounceback offer, but you might want to verify that you'd be able to make those changes and still keep the discounted rate.

Listen to cakebaker. Do not expect on being able to change bounceback dates. I always, always booked bb (as well as all other reservations) with extra days on each end, if it was far in advance and I didn't have flights yet. The cm would always say that's a good idea.

I booked free dining bounceback August 20, 2014, for POR starting August 20, 2015. Can't even buy flights that far out, right? I vividly remember the cm recommending I add extra days on, just in case. A few weeks ago I saw some people posting on the resorts board about not being permitted to change dates. I planned on canceling the August trip, but wanted to investigate. I called, and they refused to take one or more days off the end of the trip! They said I could if I upgraded to a view costing about $40 more per night. She did put me on hold when I told her the cm last year said this was a good idea, and you can't buy airfare a year out. So, they did ultimately shorten my dates but clearly something has changed, as I have never had a problem before - and have done this many times. Hth.

Oh and to op: I was warned by a cm last year that if I was lead guest on two rooms, the system will or might cancel one or both. He said you can't even be listed in two rooms - they can cancel both with out warning. It was a free dining pin. We put the second room in DH name, room only discount.

 

[cakebaker]

My rooms were booked by phone so it was the CM who puts the lead names in- had I done it online I may well have booked it all under my name. Glad I booked by phone!

 

[siskaren]

Hmmm. Way back when (4 for 3 promotion, anyone?), I booked 2 rooms at AKL for us. In order to take advantage of the money kick-back portion of the promotion, I booked them as 2 separate reservations. We used and paid for both rooms (connecting). Wasn't a problem then. Did I just not get flagged, or is this a more recent crackdown ... or is it because of free dining? Or are 2 reservations not as likely to get flagged as 4?

I would assume though that you booked for the same dates. The OP booked multiple reservations with different dates.

 

[staceyeileen]

This thread should be on the Disney Resorts board.

 

[AtlantaDisneyDreamer]

I would assume though that you booked for the same dates. The OP booked multiple reservations with different dates.

Also, don't you have to list every person who is in the room when you book? If you book two connecting rooms, you would have different people assigned to each room. That is how we had to do it when we booked 2 connecting rooms for our bounce back. So, if you had two people booked in one room and two different people booked in another room for the same dates (but under one reservation), it makes sense. But if you have the very same two people booked in two different rooms, it might set off a red flag.

 

[cakebaker]

This thread should be on the Disney Resorts board.

You can always click the report button and the moderators are pretty good at getting threads where they belong.

 

[itchin2go]

Also, don't you have to list every person who is in the room when you book? If you book two connecting rooms, you would have different people assigned to each room. That is how we had to do it when we booked 2 connecting rooms for our bounce back. So, if you had two people booked in one room and two different people booked in another room for the same dates (but under one reservation), it makes sense. But if you have the very same two people booked in two different rooms, it might set off a red flag.

I may have done that. I booked over the phone, so presumably I had some help. It's been awhile, so I don't remember the particulars.

 

[trainingupmy4princes]

Having one or two overlapping might not even be a blip... But FOUR?

Glad it worked out in the long run.

I think 4 is ridiculous. We are not going this year decided to do DL for 60th but I have seen a lot of people having problems getting availability. Tying up 4 when you only intend to keep 1 is outrageous. I might have understood 2 but really 4 is too much when so many people are trying to book and it's not entirely clear that the rooms all go back into the free dining pool. JMO But, then I never believed in holding multiple ADR's either as common courtesy dictates not taking more than you can use.

 

[azdisneymom]

As I stated earlier I had actually just wanted to modify my one reservation the morning free dining came out, but thanks to all the issues on the website and phone lines that was impossible. I started with trying to just add the free dining promo and it made me chose a preferred room, so I took it and the modification went through. I then went back on and tried switching the dates a little and was able to get a pool view room, still not what I totally wanted, but I took it and this time the modify button kept erroring, so all I could do was make a new reservation so I didn't loose the cheaper room. Then I played with the dates some more and was finally able to get a standard room, but again when I tried to modify it said, "invalid payment" on a balance I owed zero for, so I had to make another new reservation to snag it. I tried to cancel the first one and again, it said to call and there was no was I had 3 hours to wait on hold when I had to leave for work in an hour or so. After the third one I realized I could book for up to 14 nights instead of the standard 10 and again, no luck with modifying so I made the fourth reservation. (Something that other people on these boards were talking about doing because of all the problems with the website). We had planned to book flights this weekend, and by having to make 4 (and pay deposits on them all) it ended up giving me some leeway on booking flights. So I just kept them all knowing I would call and cancel the extras soon. My husband was actually online trying to delete two of them when the website errored again and when he logged back in everything was gone. If Disney's website had worked the way it was supposed to in the first place the day free dining came out I never would have had to make all 4 and would have just stuck with modifying my one reservation several times.

 

[Disneylover99]

If Disney's website had worked the way it was supposed to in the first place the day free dining came out I never would have had to make all 4 and would have just stuck with modifying my one reservation several times.

Totally agree!

 

[Madame]

Totally agree!

I agree also. I've tried to use the modify button *several* times over the last 4 days & not once has it worked. I had to call. After the BoG lunch debacle when some people ended up with 15 ADRs for the exact same time I'm not surprised.

 

[brockash]

Yup, not allowed to book multiple overlapping reservations. It stops people from booking adr's they have no intentions of keeping. I'm just surprised it would ever let you do it.

You may get Disney to work some magic, but if they do, it's as a courtesy to you and not because they made a mistake.

Here's the problem with that. It's Disneys own dumb website that allows people to book overlapping reservations. If they didn't want to allow it, it's really not that hard to fix (canceling customers reservations at a later time without contacting them is NOT an acceptable fix). Their website already doesn't allow overlapping ADR's, so obviously they already have the technology, however have been too lazy to fix it in their reservation department. It is totally inappropriate for them to take it upon themselves to cancel whatever reservation they feel like canceling when it's their own system that is flawed, not the customer. OP, if it were me and they didn't fix it to what I needed, I'd be taking my vacation dollars elsewhere, that "solution" is completely unacceptable and really shows how little they care about their customers needs.

 

[cakebaker]

Here's the problem with that.

No,here's the real problem. People should not book reservations that they are not possibly going to keep. When you book multiple reservations for the same time period with the same people, you don't have a leg to stand on when something goes wrong. Disney would be wise to stop it before it happens, but that doesn't absolve people of responsibility because they don't. It certainly isn't Disney's fault or show any kind of lack of consideration for their guests because they didn't proactively stop an abuse.

My guess is Disney allowed them to keep one because it was still available to book. It's lucky for the OP that this happened and I'm glad for her that it did, but it doesn't mean they should have done it to start with because they shouldn't have. You can't tie up multiple dates so that you can pick and choose later.

 

[triplejen]

Just a word of warning- there was quite a bit of discussion over on the resort board about Disney making changes to their reservations and not allowing changes to be made like that- essentially having to cancel and re-book and only being able to if there was still availability. I'm not sure how that would affect a bounceback offer, but you might want to verify that you'd be able to make those changes and still keep the discounted rate.

Things have changed on this recently, there were a few threads on the Resorts board about it. You can't take days off anymore without essentially rebooking the reservation and being subject to current availability. Not sure if it applies to bouncebacks but definitely to other discounts.

Be careful with this in the future. My understanding is that Disney closed this ability in the past few weeks. Keeping the discount the reservation was booked under will depend on the availability at the time of adjustment.

There are some threads on the Resort board discussing the topic.

Listen to cakebaker. Do not expect on being able to change bounceback dates. I always, always booked bb (as well as all other reservations) with extra days on each end, if it was far in advance and I didn't have flights yet. The cm would always say that's a good idea.

I booked free dining bounceback August 20, 2014, for POR starting August 20, 2015. Can't even buy flights that far out, right? I vividly remember the cm recommending I add extra days on, just in case. A few weeks ago I saw some people posting on the resorts board about not being permitted to change dates. I planned on canceling the August trip, but wanted to investigate. I called, and they refused to take one or more days off the end of the trip! They said I could if I upgraded to a view costing about $40 more per night. She did put me on hold when I told her the cm last year said this was a good idea, and you can't buy airfare a year out. So, they did ultimately shorten my dates but clearly something has changed, as I have never had a problem before - and have done this many times. Hth.

Oh and to op: I was warned by a cm last year that if I was lead guest on two rooms, the system will or might cancel one or both. He said you can't even be listed in two rooms - they can cancel both with out warning. It was a free dining pin. We put the second room in DH name, room only discount.

WOW - Thank you all! I had no idea. I just did this in March - adjusted a trip I'd booked on a bounceback last August. I needed to take off a couple of days in the beginning, and add one at the end. I must have gotten in under the wire, because they made all the changes no problem.

That's pretty frustrating, actually. Ugh.