Has this happened to anyone?

[eggnmel]

Just wondering if anyone has booked a cruise with points and then could not go? If that happens I know you can use the points before the end of your use year through the concierge collection or non-DVC resorts at Disney World or Disneyland plus another $95 exchange fee. Has this happened to anyone and where did you use your points? We are contemplating making an Alaska cruise reservation with points and are weighing the risks. I know we could make the cash reservation and then convert to points later but $600 per person is a lot for a deposit.

 

[CarolAnnC]

If you can be somewhat flexible with your cruise dates and stateroom category, then I would hold off on booking with DVC points.

The Alaskan cruises are not until summer of 2011 so you have plenty of time. The bookings on them have been steady though, so you may want to check MS occasionally for availability. Also, there is no guarantee you can book with cash and then "convert" it to points later.

Booking later with points will not affect the pricing (like cash ressies do), but as I said availability will come into play.. I would not recommend going through the process if you are not sure of being able to go..

 

[eggnmel]

Thank you Carol for the response. I think I will wait on booking the reservation. I will keep checking with DVC about the availability of the cabin category we want and will try and book as late as possible. I am curious about your comment about there being no guarantee that we can convert a cash reservation to a points reservation. It was a DVC CM that suggested I do that. Is that not a normally acceptable practice? I am brand new to this and really do not know.

 

[CarolAnnC]

What the cast member may have suggested is not something that is a guarantee. There is no guarantee of turning in a cash cruise ressie and making it into a DVC points ressie..

DCL and DVC book from two separate inventories of availability. For example, when I booked my 2007 Med Cruise, there was only guaranty category 6 available, though you could see plenty of cat 6 rooms available for cash on the website.

So, you may go to turn in your cash ressie, and find you cannot rebook it on points as the DVC allotment is no longer available. You may be able to make the turnover, but find that you lose your selected stateroom and go to a guaranty category, or another different category according to what is available at that time, paying the points requirement for the category you end up with.

In short, what you see as availability in cash, is not the same availability for DVC points. There are selected staterooms, selected categories and selected dates at any given time that may or may not match what is available from DCL direct on cash. So beware of the "switch" option that the CM tried to offer you. It may or may not be an option for you down the road.

 

[eggnmel]

Ahh. I understand. Thank you for explaining. You may have just saved us a big headache and some money.

 

[eva]

All the advice you have received is really good. We booked a Baltic cruise with points for summer 2010. Then we decided to take the Med cruise instead. So we had to pay another $95 fee and ended up with a number of reservation points that have to be used in 2010. We decided to book a week at YC on the remaining points. But of course we had to pay another $95. If we had waited a bit and thought it through, we could have saved $190 and saved over 200 points for DVC stays. It sure bites to realize that 6 nights at YC in a standard view hotel room is more points than a full week's stay in a 1-bedroom at BCV! Oh well, live and learn.