Is this really true?

biolabetty

DIS Veteran
Joined
Jun 23, 2007
Messages
590
I've been calling CRO trying to get an AP discount for the beginning of February at WL. I was told by the last person I spoke to there that if someone who has a discounted room gives up their reservation, it goes back as a rack rate room, and not a discounted room. So basically he was telling me that if it's not there now, it won't be.

I'm used to staying at Disneyland hotels and at Disneyland, once a room is returned back to the inventory that was discounted, it remains discounted. Is this a true statement from the CRO employee, or have you had a different experience? I'm hesitant to give up trying to get an AP discount because of my experience at Disneyland. At Disneyland I've called every day for weeks in a row until I finally found my discount, it always has popped up.
 
I have not worked for Disney, but other hotel chain reservations that I have worked at do put discounted rooms back into the rack rate section. It's unfortunate because many people take discounted rooms only to cancel the reservation - making it harder for everyone to get a discount.

I would keep checking. I have to believe that Disney will put more discounted rooms into the system if they are not filling the rooms at rack rate.
 
I was told the same thing earlier this year when I kept calling to see if something had opened up at the Polynesian with the 40% code. The CM told me that when someone cancels a room with a discount it goes back in as rack rate not the discount.
 
On two occasions, I have found discounted rooms after they were all sold out!

This summer in August, I was able to book a 1 bedroom villa a BC about 10 days before the trip.

We went the first week in November during super soap weekend and again everything was booked up when I first tried. In fact, no room anywhere because it was also the last weekend of Food and Wine. I found both AKL and BC about 8 days out with a AP rate.

So yes, it can happen. I checked online both times and booked online as well.
 

What you have to remember is that Disney is constantly evaluating and re-evaluating their resort occupancy levels and adjusting special offer availability based on the occupancy levels. So if a discounted room reservation is cancelled, they probably do put that room availability back into their inventory at rack rates; however, as the resort re-evaluates its occupancy level for those dates they may adjust the number of rooms available with a discount. Thus, even if discounted rooms were previously sold out, a future phone call might uncover a previously unavailable discount due to the re-evaluation of occupancy.

Man...thats clear as mud, isn't it? :confused: :rotfl:
 
This gets discussed occasionally. Seems like the explanations have all come down to It Depends.
Seems like many people, myself included, are able to get a discounted room where there was none available the last time we checked.
I am sure there are a lot of factors that determine whether a room/package goes back into inventory or not.
 














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