Has anyone ever done this?

[donaldsgal]

We are considering purchasing more points at AKV to take advantage of the double developer points incentive. The DD points would allow us to take a second trip next year. Our travel dates would be March 23-28, 2008 (the
23rd is Easter Sunday), and October 8-13, 2008.

With the DD points, we can't book until 7 months out. This would mean that the earliest we could book for March would be August 23. We're pretty flexible about where we stay that trip. We'd love to stay in BWV, BCV, or VWL. We'd be using our DD points for this trip since, of course, they'd expire before the October trip.

For the October trip, however, we REALLY want to stay at BCV. I know - a difficult time of year given the F&WF. We couldn't start booking with our newly purchased points until March 8, 2008. If those of you wise in the ways of booking at BCV think we'd have a decent shot of booking a room (preferrably a 1 BR, but would be okay with a studio) in March for early October, then we don't need to worry about the question below.

Here's my question: could we call CRO and make a cash reservation for our resorts for either trip and then, when the points become available to us for booking, switch our cash ressies over to ressies with points? I'm not sure how that would work, but I'm wondering if anyone has done this, how it worked, and if it's even allowed. We don't want to break the rules at all, but we also want to get the most out of our regular allotment as well as the DD points. Doing this I know we'd have to at least leave a credit card if not pay a deposit (been awhile since we've booked a room for cash thanks to DVC!), but our concern would be getting the deposit back if we could do this.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

 

[global_mom]

We are staying at AKV in Oct. for 5 nights and I needed something for the weekend and I had some extra points. I called in mid-June to book BCV for Oct. 19-21 and got a 2 bedroom w/ no problem. I since had to cancel that reservation and got a cash ressie at BWV instead. The point being that I was able to get BCV inside the 7 month window (actually at only 4 months out, we are not BCV owners) for the popular time of F&W. Could have been a fluke but it does mean that it could be possible to get what you want at the 7 month.

Good luck!

 

[Happy Birthday Cat]

Here's my question: could we call CRO and make a cash reservation for our resorts for either trip and then, when the points become available to us for booking, switch our cash ressies over to ressies with points?

This can't be done because cash rooms and point rooms come from different inventories.

You should probably make a reservation at your home resort then start calling day by day as soon as the 7 month window opens. Go on a wait list if you need to. Good luck.

HBC