Inside 45 days--penalty to add a night?

[stephmarty]

I know there's a penalty for changing a reservation inside 45 days if booked online. Does that include adding a night? Also, we got free dining when it was being offered. Since its no longer offered, would we still get free dining for the extra night?

 

[minnie mum]

As far as adding the extra night, there probably wouldn't be a change charge, since you are actually spending more money. As to the free dining question, all I know is that (last Sept) as long as your vacation started while free dining was in effect, it was good for the entire vacation. So you should be ok unless the policy has been recently changed. The CM on the phone will clarify both points for you. The only problem I forsee is the possiblility of no availability at your resort for that last night- in that case you might have to move to a different resort. Good luck!

 

[stephmarty]

Thanks. There is still availability. I just don't think I could bring myself to pay a penalty fee, no matter how small, for adding a night. Booking a separate reservation for the last night would be the other option, but it complicates things and free dining would not be an option any longer. I appreciate the input.

 

[TDluvsDaisy]

There should be no penalty for adding an extra night. Payment for that night will need to be made at booking.

 

[Missytara]

The penalty for making ANY change, no matter adding or subtracting a day from your package, does not kick in until 14 days before check-in. There is a $15.00 change fee, no matter what you do.

So you are still good until then.

 

[wdw4rfam]

Unless something changed since last April, NO. We did exactly the same thing- we added a day to the beginning of the trip because we drove, and got into the area a day earlier. I called the day before, and they added it with the dining for the extra day. I didn't pay any fees.

 

[stephmarty]

I added the extra day today. There was no penalty, but when the CM first checked her reply was that there was no availability. I knew there was, but I asked her to see if other resorts had availability. That's when she realized that, because we were using an expired code (Free Dining offer, which has ended since we made the original booking), the computer was not allowing us to add a night. She put me on hold for a while so she could ask "guest services" for help. When she came back on, she had the approval/ability to do it. So we added an extra day and got the free dining for that day also. And we did not add another day to our park tickets since we'll be leaving in the morning. All of this was no problem after guest services assisted. Had we not dug a little deeper, the initial answer would have been "no availability." Thankfully, I had a very nice CM who wanted to help! I stayed on the line to provide some nice feedback via automated survey, which she said she would really appreciate.

 

[minnie mum]

I'm so glad that everything worked out for you the way you wanted! I love it when you get a really helpful CM like you did. Hope you have a really wonderful vacation.

 

[padawans]

I added the extra day today. There was no penalty, but when the CM first checked her reply was that there was no availability. I knew there was, but I asked her to see if other resorts had availability. That's when she realized that, because we were using an expired code (Free Dining offer, which has ended since we made the original booking), the computer was not allowing us to add a night. She put me on hold for a while so she could ask "guest services" for help. When she came back on, she had the approval/ability to do it. So we added an extra day and got the free dining for that day also. And we did not add another day to our park tickets since we'll be leaving in the morning. All of this was no problem after guest services assisted. Had we not dug a little deeper, the initial answer would have been "no availability." Thankfully, I had a very nice CM who wanted to help! I stayed on the line to provide some nice feedback via automated survey, which she said she would really appreciate.

Much better experience then I had trying to add a night at last minute. It was available online, but the cm could not do it because we had the dxdp and that needed to be done 3 days before. Guest services was useless as always. I know it can be done. It really depends on if you get somebody at guest services that actually knows how to do their job. I'm glad you got the right cm. I ended having to book 2 nights a Wl room only to stay the length of time I wanted. I would have rather been at BC the whole stay. It was a very frustrating experience, but just one of many when dealing with Disneys CM's.

 

[goofyredraider]

I added the extra day today. There was no penalty, but when the CM first checked her reply was that there was no availability. I knew there was, but I asked her to see if other resorts had availability. That's when she realized that, because we were using an expired code (Free Dining offer, which has ended since we made the original booking), the computer was not allowing us to add a night. She put me on hold for a while so she could ask "guest services" for help. When she came back on, she had the approval/ability to do it. So we added an extra day and got the free dining for that day also. And we did not add another day to our park tickets since we'll be leaving in the morning. All of this was no problem after guest services assisted. Had we not dug a little deeper, the initial answer would have been "no availability." Thankfully, I had a very nice CM who wanted to help! I stayed on the line to provide some nice feedback via automated survey, which she said she would really appreciate.

I had a very similar experience tonight. I had called multiple times to add a day at the beginning of our trip, using our military discount. I was shut down every single time...but I called again tonight and had a very helpful CM who got "guest services" to look into it, put me on hold, and they added the day with my military discount without a problem. I, too, left some great feedback with the survey.