Is "Walking a reservation" unethical?

[KAT4DISNEY]

I'm a walker now, or at least trying to be...

Then perhaps I'll get my waitlist.

 

[beer dave]

Check availability before you make the phone call to walk-- it the availability is there you can just cancel and re book. Do it in the evening because there is less chance of bookings being sucked up in the moments between.....

 

[maburke]

Okay, I've now read the whole thread, and though there are some well-argued points, my opinion is the same as before I read it: I think walking is unethical. And it's not because, as some are arguing, two people are competing for the same item, and one used walking and got it, but the other didn't. That's fair competition. My problem is that a walker is reserving days that s/he does not want, and that I might want, so is competing with me for no good reason. People seem to struggle with how people might suffer from someone walking. Here's an example:

I wanted to book Aulani for early summer, 2016. There has just been a reallocation for Aulani, so there's no good data on how booking will go. I got online at 8am on my 11-month day, and the lowest point view (standard) was already booked for my dates. There are four view options at Aulani, and the next-higher point option, island view, was available. If I knew that someone was walking, I could have waited to see if standard became available, or waitlist it. But if everything was just booking up quickly, I needed to grab that island view before it was gone, too. But I needed to borrow points to get the island view, which is not reversible. So, if someone beat me to the standard view and is going to use it, fair enough, I lost the speedy-typing competition. But if someone was walking it, and released it later, I have borrowed points unnecessarily.

I was confused by the marker analogy, but I liked the buffet table analogy. Taking more food than you need, and throwing it out while leaving the possibility that others will not get what they need is rude, and, I'd say, unethical.

I realize that my opinion won't change what others do, but the question was asked.

 

[drusba]

... I wanted to book Aulani for early summer, 2016. There has just been a reallocation for Aulani, so there's no good data on how booking will go. I got online at 8am on my 11-month day, and the lowest point view (standard) was already booked for my dates. ...

I do have a solution that's simpler than charging for cancellations, or reallocating points: allow booking for 14 days at a time. FAR fewer people have enough points to book out far enough to walk, then. Is it elitist? Yup. But only a degree more than the current system. It would also make it easier for people coming from long distances or who for other reasons book really long trips.

Not commenting here on the ethics issue but instead on the power of Disney to substantially change demand by point reallocations, which is being borne out at Aulani which had the major changes effective 2016. June, which in the past was a high Aulani demand time particualarly after first week, became even worse in 2016 and at 7 months out it was difficult to find anything at all. Problems continued into early July. But today December 5, everything except hotel room and standard view was open at 9:30 eastern for July 5 and forward throughout July. In 2015, when July was magic rather than premier season, getting something for July 5 and after was hit or miss with ocean view often open but island garden or pool view, or both, having some days per week booked at 7 months out.

As to your solution to allow 14 day reservations, I do not think that actually would do much to discourage walking. The concept of walking is for one to find an open date, reserve as many nights as you can, and start walking. Once you find that open date and reserve some days, you block out that room time from anyone else. For example, If one reserves 7 nights, Nov 5-12 2016, today, that room time (and thus a room) and all nights thereafter cannot be reserved by anyone reserving before December 12, no matter how many nights they could book. In other words, if someone else called tomorrow to get a room for 14 nights, they still could not get the blocked out room for any of those 14 nights. Someone who has only enough points today for five nights could reserve Nov 5-10, and still block out everyone from that room until reservations made on December 10. My sense is that many who are walking now are not those who can actually reserve up to 7 nights but instead many who can reserve fewer than 7 nights, and changing to a 14 night period is not likely to have a major impact on walking.

As to reallocating points, I perceive that as something that should rarely be done, that it is not something designed to just address a walking issue, and is going to make as many members unhappy as it would happy. since many lose the ability to take the full trips they did before because of an increase in points and others gain because of the resulting decrease in points elsewhere. Also, the concept that Disney is required to make adjustments because of skewed demand is subject to serious question. Nowhere in the official documents does it say Disney has to make any point adjustments due to excess demand for any particular season or rooms. All it says is that Disney may, in its "sole discretion," make such adjustments. It does have a legal obligaiton to act in the best interests of the members but that amorphous, general obligation is not one that can easily be relied upon to insist that changes be made, e.g., what is the argument if Disney simply responds that changes would make other times worse (always true) or cannot easily be made without disadvantaging many members, and thus doing nothing when you have the discretion to do so does not not violate the best interests of the members as a whole rule. Moreover, the Disney solution would probably make the masses very unhappy because it would choose the one that directly addresses the problem, and for walking that is essentially a studio problem (2BR lock-offs are affected because of the studio demand), so Disney's solution could be not to adjust seasons but instead raise the points needed per night for studios, particularly in those high demand standard view or value studios, and for all of VGF studios, while lowering them for rooms other than studios not in the standard or value booking categories.

The suggested solution to charge a fee for making any change to reservations is not one many would favor since everybody has a risk of having to change a reservation at some time. Also, it is subject to serious dispute as to whether Disney can charge a fee. The official documents do not permit fees for making or changing DVC reservations. Things like RCI or other non-DVC reservations can have fees because any rules applicable to them can be changed. But for DVC reservations, the system is set up so that the MS reservation operations have three sources of funding, none of which result in higher (or lower) dues to members depending on how much they are used or how many reservations are made or changed. The sources of funding are (a) the DVC Reservation Component charge in the budget which is $1 per member per year and it cannot be raised or lowered, (b) the breakage income (rentals of rooms 60 days or less out) that is greater than the amount that goes to offset dues (beakage income goes first to offset dues up to a maximum offset of 2.5% of the budget), and (c) the Management Fee in the budget which equals 12% of the the rest of the budget (minus real estate taxes and a few other items); though that total amount changes annually, the percentage cannot be changed. There are no other allowed charges for creating or operating the reservation systems. Moreover, whether there are many or few walkers constantly changing reservations does nothing to raise or lower dues charged to members.

Another suggested penalty is requiring every change to a reservation to be treated as a cancellation of the entire reservation and a rebooking. That undoubtedly is not supported by many because everyone has a risk of having to change a reservation, e.g., at times in the past 19 years I have had to drop one to two nights from a reservation about two months out because of a change in scheduling at work. If I would have had to cancel the entire reservation before rebooking I would have gotten nothing and been stuck with flight tickets, Cirque tickets, some unusable banked points in the reservation because I could not do another reservation before the end of the use year, and a family that would consider divorcing me.

Another suggestion is to just prohibit changes for some period of time after making a reservation 11 months out, but I do not hear anyone claiming a lack of ethics for someone who reserves 7 nights out from their date of arrival and then daily adds nights because their total trip time is going to be more than 7 nights.

I cannot say there is a major problem that needs resolution or that ethics is even a useful inquiry (which I doubt), but if there is a solution needed, you need one that does the very minimum of damage to members that do not walk while greatly discouraging walking. It is difficult to perceive anything that actually fits that bill if you want to keep the current 11 months from date of arrival booking rule that allows one to book up to 7 nights. One I thought of that would (a) do little damage to those who are not walking, (b) allow adding nights for longer vacation times than 7 nights, (c) likely greatly reduce any walking that is occurring, and (d) be easy for MS to enforce without getting into the issue of proving whether you are actually walking, would be to require at least 5 nights to be reserved if reserving a studio more than 10 months out from date of arrival and prohibiting a member from dropping any nights from a reservation until 10 months out from the date of arrival. Assuming the likelihood that most walkers do not have a huge cache of points and usually need to drop nights to be able to add nights when walking, such a rule could possibly eliminate most walking. Note the five night rule would likely damage some but the official documents allow Disney to require a minimum reservation of up to five nights even though there is currently no minimum number of nights. And requiring 5 nights if booking 11 months out would likely not harm anyone who actually bought the minimum number of points required of a new purchaser, i.e., it was for years 160 or more, although now it is 100. Those that might be impacted are resale purchasers who bought only low point add-ons and thus have only eough points for less than 5 nights in a studio.

 

[skier_pete]

@drusba - I agree with everything you say. Which is likely why unless it really and truly becomes an issue - and has anyone heard someone at Disney say that it has - they likely will do little about it.

I think the demand of studios is a problem that Disney is well aware of, and that is part of the reason they built what they did at the Poly. I think going forward you will see any new DVC facilities open with a larger percent of Studios than previously standard. (I suspect they are going to do something similar at WLV with their second DVC facility, convert more rooms to studios. )

 

[Disneyhappy]

As a person who prides herself in always doing the righ thing, I do not see this an ethical issue. DVC allows it with several member services CMs recommending it when discussing my concerns recently for a group reservation during a very busy time period. It is a DVC rule and until they change it, I would do it again for a hard to get reservation. It was my only way to compete with others who were also obviously walking based on availability. When they change the rules, I will follow them as well.

 

[beer dave]

I've always thought the point skew between studios and one bedrooms was too large-- being the same or actually lower one bed occupancy--- It seems to be based on square footage, which is reasonable-- but it would be nice to have a little more occupancy for the double point cost. I wouldn't mind seeing this adjusted, but maybe I should just be happy with the good availability of the one bedroom.

 

[BobH]

I understand the concept of walking is probably accomplished by making an online reservation (8am ET) for a time period that includes the last of your intended reservation then calling day by day (9am ET) to drop a day & extend a day. However, today Sunday July 6 at 4:40am ET I saw availability for July 6 at Hilton Head 2BR, but at 8am only July 6th had disappeared everything beyond is available. #1- Is Disney not updating its availability tool until 8am of the first day of the 7 month window? Member services doesn't open for calls until 9am so I have to assume that availability for the one day of July 6th was gone yesterday as a result of someone adding a day but the availability tool didn't reflect that until this morning. I can understand people beating other people to the reservation online, but they all didn't just go for one day? So the availability tool is not up to date until the day the 7 month window opens???
Before I give up trying to get a reservation entirely I am trying to understand if the availability tool is just plain useless where walking is going on. It seems like it shows availability the day before a 7 month window opens that just isn't there.
Also the availability tool shows no unavailable dates beyond July 6th for studios or 1 Br, but it shows Grand Villas being booked out to the end of July. #2 is it possible that there are so few bookings of rooms other than Grand Villas? Or is this availability tool not accurate at all beyond the week at each 7 month window? If anyone can shed any light on this I'd greatly appreciate it. I am not passing judgment on walkers, but the practice of trying to understand it on top of how Disney operates is driving me nuts. I don't want to give up on reservations til I understand I have done everything I can, but folks it is getting decidedly less "magical." Reservations seems to be getting to be a sprint to the finish line. I'm an older grandpa trying to take kids and grand kids on vacation that's getting too old to sprint. Thanks in advance to anyone that reply.

 

[beer dave]

I understand the concept of walking is probably accomplished by making an online reservation (8am ET) for a time period that includes the last of your intended reservation then calling day by day (9am ET) to drop a day & extend a day. However, today Sunday July 6 at 4:40am ET I saw availability for July 6 at Hilton Head 2BR, but at 8am only July 6th had disappeared everything beyond is available. #1- Is Disney not updating its availability tool until 8am of the first day of the 7 month window? Member services doesn't open for calls until 9am so I have to assume that availability for the one day of July 6th was gone yesterday as a result of someone adding a day but the availability tool didn't reflect that until this morning. I can understand people beating other people to the reservation online, but they all didn't just go for one day? So the availability tool is not up to date until the day the 7 month window opens???
Before I give up trying to get a reservation entirely I am trying to understand if the availability tool is just plain useless where walking is going on. It seems like it shows availability the day before a 7 month window opens that just isn't there.
Also the availability tool shows no unavailable dates beyond July 6th for studios or 1 Br, but it shows Grand Villas being booked out to the end of July. #2 is it possible that there are so few bookings of rooms other than Grand Villas? Or is this availability tool not accurate at all beyond the week at each 7 month window? If anyone can shed any light on this I'd greatly appreciate it. I am not passing judgment on walkers, but the practice of trying to understand it on top of how Disney operates is driving me nuts. I don't want to give up on reservations til I understand I have done everything I can, but folks it is getting decidedly less "magical." Reservations seems to be getting to be a sprint to the finish line. I'm an older grandpa trying to take kids and grand kids on vacation that's getting too old to sprint. Thanks in advance to anyone that reply.

Walking doesn't have to have any of your dates when you start-- and the res just has to be adjusted prior to the check out date. If you have 7 nights booked, you need to call every 6 days.

1. sometimes the availability tool is messed up. (it seems)

2. Showing availability may only be one room-- there is no way to tell-- so if one person books at 8 am, the availability is gone.

3. At the 7 month window, you could be dealing with owners who are booking before the window opens. They could be booking at 7:30.(or any time between 4:40 am when you checked)

 

[Dean]

I've always thought the point skew between studios and one bedrooms was too large-- being the same or actually lower one bed occupancy--- It seems to be based on square footage, which is reasonable-- but it would be nice to have a little more occupancy for the double point cost. I wouldn't mind seeing this adjusted, but maybe I should just be happy with the good availability of the one bedroom.

I'm not aware of another timeshare that has such a large spread. A couple of examples from Marriott would be Grande Vista (most comparable in Orlando) which is 1800 points for a studio, 2400 points for a 1 BR, 3500 for a 2 BR and 4775 for a 3 BR in a higher season and to be honest, nicer better equipped villas than DVC esp in the studio. The numbers from the purpose built Marriott on Maui are 4175/5900/9050/12375 for Ocean Front. Some companies have gone to Deluxe 1 BR and standard 1 BR for the lockoff and the difference there tends to be fairly small, maybe 10-20% from the ones that come to mind.

While I don't think owning a bunch of extra points is a good idea overall, it is a way to improve one's changes in a number of situations including owing multiple home resorts and/or having enough points to book double canceling along the way then rebooking.

 

[drusba]

It is actually very common at both the 11 and 7 month window for only the day exactly 11 or 7 months out to disappear immediately after 8 a.m. and not days after when availability is low. Are members all reserving only one night? No. On any given day you will have members arriving and those leaving and you need only one extra person booking that single day, like adding a night to the end of a trip, to tip the balance for that day and not those after.

 

[supersnoop]

I understand the concept of walking is probably accomplished by making an online reservation (8am ET) for a time period that includes the last of your intended reservation then calling day by day (9am ET) to drop a day & extend a day. However, today Sunday July 6 at 4:40am ET I saw availability for July 6 at Hilton Head 2BR, but at 8am only July 6th had disappeared everything beyond is available. #1- Is Disney not updating its availability tool until 8am of the first day of the 7 month window? Member services doesn't open for calls until 9am so I have to assume that availability for the one day of July 6th was gone yesterday as a result of someone adding a day but the availability tool didn't reflect that until this morning. I can understand people beating other people to the reservation online, but they all didn't just go for one day? So the availability tool is not up to date until the day the 7 month window opens???
Before I give up trying to get a reservation entirely I am trying to understand if the availability tool is just plain useless where walking is going on. It seems like it shows availability the day before a 7 month window opens that just isn't there.
Also the availability tool shows no unavailable dates beyond July 6th for studios or 1 Br, but it shows Grand Villas being booked out to the end of July. #2 is it possible that there are so few bookings of rooms other than Grand Villas? Or is this availability tool not accurate at all beyond the week at each 7 month window? If anyone can shed any light on this I'd greatly appreciate it. I am not passing judgment on walkers, but the practice of trying to understand it on top of how Disney operates is driving me nuts. I don't want to give up on reservations til I understand I have done everything I can, but folks it is getting decidedly less "magical." Reservations seems to be getting to be a sprint to the finish line. I'm an older grandpa trying to take kids and grand kids on vacation that's getting too old to sprint. Thanks in advance to anyone that reply.

1. The tool is real time. There are lots of people competing for rooms at 7 months and all available rooms can be snatch d up in half a second at 8:00 am. If anyone is checking out on that day, then there could be availability beyond the 7 month date.
2. The tool is accurate.

 

[BobH]

Thanks for the replies. I guess I can understand the timing issue at 8am if I assume that I am running up against both the walker that booked the first day sometime before yesterday and extended a day, and the walker that is booking a day just before me at 8am, plus the person trying to make a regular week reservation at the first day of the 7 month window. I hadn't thought about rooms potentially open later in month due to people scheduled to check out adding to the availability. I guess the reservation system has to account for that. What struck me was that everything looked open after today (July 6th) for all room sizes except Grand Villas which were 90% booked for most of July. There are only 5 Grand Villas at HH so that may be the reason and HH owners at 11 month window may have grabbed them and the availability tool can show them accurately. But it led me to wonder why I wasn't seeing any unavailability in July after today (July 6th) for studios, 1br or 2Br units. And it also led me to wonder whether everybody was" walking" because for the last two days room availability disappears only one day at a time for all room sizes except Grand Villas. Weren't there enough HH owners and people that beat me to a regular reservation thus filling up the later dates in July as seems to be the case with Grand Villas? That's why I questioned how up to date the availability tool really is. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key..... This is getting as tough to figure out as getting a fastpass for my granddaughter to see the frozen sisters a couple years ago. I was able to get her a single pass even though she was 5 years old and according to Disney rules should have had an adult to accompany her on her fastpass... then we much later were allowed to add an adult on a fastpass...probably because the error had become apparent. I guess nothing is perfect. I do appreciate the people here that help untangle how the system works. Disney just sits there like a Sphinx saying little but collecting plenty.

 

[rfc0001]

Nope -- it's allowed by DVC policy.

 

[BobH]

I finally made some reservations at 7 months for a 2 bedroom at Hilton Head by telephone last Monday at 9am after trying to get an online reservation for an hour at 8am when the system kept booting me out while I was in the 20 minute holding period trying to complete it. At first I couldn't get a2 BR reservation online, but during my conversation the Disney rep said - "oh it just opened up." Then I waitlisted an additional studio for my son's family that never came through. The next day I was able to get different dates for the studio so I changed my original 2 bedroom reservation by one day to coincide with the studio reservation so our whole family will have rooms on the same dates - so I guess I am technically a1 day "walker." It just shows how the availability of rooms is constantly in flux, and the comments posted here were great to allow me tobetter understand what was probably taking place.
I feel fortunate to get both accomodations during the busy July period at HH. Looking online each day watching the first day disappear before 8am it "seemed" that there must be at least some people doing walking and that's OK with me. The previous poster is correct "its allowed." I walked one reservation by 1 day by accident. Some people are doing it intentionally which is equally permissible, but it seems like a real headache to me unless you are booking only one room. When you have a resort like Hilton Head with 102 rooms, and a peak season of only two months walking is bound to happen. Thanks again for all the great information posted on these boards.

 

[skier_pete]

The next day I was able to get different dates for the studio so I changed my original 2 bedroom reservation by one day to coincide with the studio reservation so our whole family will have rooms on the same dates - so I guess I am technically a1 day "walker." It just shows how the availability of rooms is constantly in flux, and the comments posted here were great to allow me to better understand what was probably taking place.

To me, that's not walking...you adjusted your reservation based on the circumstances. Walking - or at least the "unethical" portion of it - is to intentionally book dates you never intended to use.

This is part of the point to me why walking probably isn't even seen as a problem. There are likely as many people doing what you did with their reservations - modifying them for reasons other than "walking", so that you can't even really attribute rooms appearing and disappearing solely to "walkers".

 

[JessLCH]

I learned the hard way to walk when I was a new member a couple years ago trying for two 2 bedroom standard view for Thanksgiving week. I did NOT walk and had difficulty securing my needed, non flexible dates at 11 months at 8 am. As a result I am in the midst of walking the same type of reservation for Thanksgiving 2016. There is something to be said for the "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" logic. If others are walking and I don't then I lose out. It is not prohibited so I am breaking no rules.

Edited to add: This is at BLT. I do have what I want now, but only because I walked.

 

[suebeelin]

2bd Std rooms for BLT seem to be gone. However, 2bd std bwv rooms are available.

But I hazard to guess the rooms will be even harder come December 3-10.,,,,

 

[Mazz519]

Funny you said these we walked a resize once and I too felt bad, like one poster said its really not needed for 90% of the reservations that you are going to make

 

[suebeelin]

Funny you said these we walked a resize once and I too felt bad, like one poster said its really not needed for 90% of the reservations that you are going to make

So... I posted on another thread about this- but I just called for my reservation walking for our dec 3-11 trip (bwv and BLT std). The cm said it wasn't allowed and is unethical and they monitor our memberships for this sort of behavior.

She was pretty pissed.

However, from what I understand, a few ppl have reported cm's recommending the walking. Plus, no where is there a ban or discouragement of walking on the official papers that we received.

I only have 2 more phone calls and this is the only time we plan on walking (we generally do 1bds) but i was completely taken aback at the utter anger....