Linked reservations= one big mess!

[appleorchard]

We ended up with a bit of a mess at Kidani due to our apparently complicated linked reservations. Because my dear son and DIL changed their minds several time about exactly when they were joining us, we ended up with a 1 BR for two days, then moving to a 2BR for 3 nights and the last night also in a 2 BR but booked with our points from another UY.

Because my son checked us in to the 2 BR, he didn't put charging privileges on our card. When we went down to do it, our reservation got totally screwed up. The CM finally said(after 30 minutes or so of trying to do this) that they would have to rebook the reservation to do this. Yup, I should have asked for a manager right them. I told her I doubted she could do that, this reservation was on DVC points.

She said it didn't really fool with the points at all. Ha ha. It took her another hour or so of futzing around while I went out and used the night vision goggles.

Being paranoid, I checked my points the next day. And all 159 points I had used for those days were back in my DVC account-- as holding points! And 150 points we've already used had miraculously shown up in my 2014 account too.

If I'd been smart, I wouldn't have said anything and just booked another trip in the next two months lol. But I couldn't do that--and didn't want a bill for $700 per night presented to me when we checked out-- so I told the night desk manager du jour, who said it would be taken care of.

The next day, the maid is knocking on our door wanting to know what time were leaving. Umm-- two days from now? So back to the front desk again and more time with the manager, who assures me it's all fixed now. And the points have sadly disappeared from my DVC account.

The next day, I go down to change keys because I know the last day is a separate reservation. Surprisingly, there's no goodbye mail on my door. And I get some other poor CM who gets a blank look when I give her the short version of this saga after she can't find today's reservation in the system.

So I ask for the manager. The real one, the highest up manager in the building. He tells me membership services screwed this up by linking reservations from two different UY together. He says you can't do that.

I tell him how much time this has cost me and how I saved him a lot of money by reporting that the hotel had tried to gift me back my points. He thanks me and gives us a cab to the park of our choice and one fastpass for each of us in the park. I tell him about the blood in our uncleaned refrigerator when we checked in -- there was a dripping steak the maid had apparently thrown back into the freezer without cleaning the blood up -- and he agreed we should have two fastpasses each.

I should have asked for unlimited FPs.

Moral of the story--it's probably not a good idea to link reservations from two accounts, even if they're both yours.

 

[disneynutz]

Hard lessen to learn but you are not alone, similar issues have happened to us.

You will be better off having one UY or only use one per trip.

You need to follow up with a Team Line CM at MS and review your account(s).

You need to report the problems to Member Satisfaction; dvcmembersatisfactionteam@disneyvacationclub.com

In the future don't let the Front Desk mess with your points.

Bill

 

[appleorchard]

Yup-lesson learned! We were originally going only with our grandchildren and then their parents decided to come too, first for two days, then three, then four, which resulted in multiple reservation changes. Normally we don't combine so many types of points and make so many changes.

I will contact member services and watch my points!

 

[Deb & Bill]

We ended up with a bit of a mess at Kidani due to our apparently complicated...So I ask for the manager. The real one, the highest up manager in the building. He tells me membership services screwed this up by linking reservations from two different UY together. He says you can't do that.....

He was wrong. You can link reservations made with different UYs. We did it in October and we're doing it again next Oct. We have to check out and check back in, but we stay in the same villa. We weren't changing room size.

What you can't do is link reservations with different locations or different size villas.

 

[LauraLea]

He was wrong. You can link reservations made with different UYs. We did it in October and we're doing it again next Oct. We have to check out and check back in, but we stay in the same villa. We weren't changing room size.

What you can't do is link reservations with different locations or different size villas.

I agree. I have had no problems linking my reservations between UY memberships as well as linking reservations my DB has made from his yet another UY membership.

Well I guess the only issue we had is housekeeping not being able to see the reservation as linked and not getting the days correct for T&T and full cleanings.

Laura

 

[Deb & Bill]

I agree. I have had no problems linking my reservations between UY memberships as well as linking reservations my DB has made from his yet another UY membership.

Well I guess the only issue we had is housekeeping not being able to see the reservation as linked and not getting the days correct for T&T and full cleanings.

Laura

We did have problems with housekeeping on our October trip. And I expect we'll have them again this coming October.

 

[bookwormde]

I have also not had a problem linking reservations form different years or even different members.

I do go over the reservation at check in and have then add extra notes if they are not clear on what is going on.

 

[appleorchard]

He was wrong. You can link reservations made with different UYs. We did it in October and we're doing it again next Oct. We have to check out and check back in, but we stay in the same villa. We weren't changing room size.

What you can't do is link reservations with different locations or different size villas.

Yes, we knew we couldn't link the one BR and 2 BRs together. Honestly, I don't think anyone at Kidani knew what they were talking about. I'd forgotten, but we were getting maid service every day--that was one of the tipoffs that the reservation still wasn't fixed.

We went over the reservation at check-in, because I knew it was complicated-- it didn't help one bit. They need someone at these DVC hotels who actually understands DVC.

 

[Chuck S]

Just a question...what specifically do you mean by different use years? If the points were borrowed/banked there should be no problems at all. If your reservation crossed your use year start, then there could be a problem with linking unless it is booked by Member Services...in fact the online system required me to call Member Services to book my upcoming reservation that crosses my use year. The online system wouldn't even let me try to book it.

By crossing a use year, I mean like my current reservation for the end of this month. I have a June use year, my stay starts in May and ends June 6, in the same room. Apparently the system requires some sort of manual adjustment to acknowledge the use year boundary.

And changes made on the fly by the front desk are never a good idea, they either don;t have full access to the DVC reservation system, or are not fully trained on how the point system works. Almost everyone that has made changes at the front desk has had problems with points being knocked into holding and so forth.

 

[cvjw]

Sorry to say it, but that is what I would expect with a complicated reservation at Kidani Village. We stay at the DVC resorts several times per year, and had our worst experience at KV, hands down. They told me during my horror of a stay there a couple of years ago that they have a different computer system, and that contributes to their problems. They had to cancel and rebook my reservation more than once during that stay, and absolutely nothing worked like it should have. We still stay there, as it is one of our favorite resorts, but I will only book a straight forward, non-linked reservation from now on.

 

[appleorchard]

Just a question...what specifically do you mean by different use years? If the points were borrowed/banked there should be no problems at all. If your reservation crossed your use year start, then there could be a problem with linking unless it is booked by Member Services...in fact the online system required me to call Member Services to book my upcoming reservation that crosses my use year. The online system wouldn't even let me try to book it.

By crossing a use year, I mean like my current reservation for the end of this month. I have a June use year, my stay starts in May and ends June 6, in the same room. Apparently the system requires some sort of manual adjustment to acknowledge the use year boundary.

And changes made on the fly by the front desk are never a good idea, they either don;t have full access to the DVC reservation system, or are not fully trained on how the point system works. Almost everyone that has made changes at the front desk has had problems with points being knocked into holding and so forth.

We have two DVC accounts: one with a UY of February and one with a UY of August. We used points from both accounts for this reservation; the last day was made with points from the August account, the rest came from the February account and transferred in points.

We made no changes to the reservation at the front desk. The whole problem arose when we asked to have charging privileges put on DH and my cards. The CM who tried to do this apparently screwed up the reservation in the process. What exactly she did, I have no idea.

We knew we would have to check in and out of the room on the last day because it was a separate but linked reservation. We had a 1 BR for two days only. (A separate reservation) Then we moved to a 2 BR for three days on one reservation and a 2 BR for the last day on another separate but linked reservation. That was the August UY reservation.

The problems arose when we first moved to the 2 BR and continued right through the end of our stay. We got maid service every day, had points returned to a holding account and had to deal with the front desk daily, because they never seemed to know whether we were staying or leaving that day. It was unsettling and stressful.

 

[appleorchard]

Sorry to say it, but that is what I would expect with a complicated reservation at Kidani Village. We stay at the DVC resorts several times per year, and had our worst experience at KV, hands down. They told me during my horror of a stay there a couple of years ago that they have a different computer system, and that contributes to their problems. They had to cancel and rebook my reservation more than once during that stay, and absolutely nothing worked like it should have. We still stay there, as it is one of our favorite resorts, but I will only book a straight forward, non-linked reservation from now on.

It was a nice resort, we enjoyed it, but I'm pretty surprised that even the managers don't have a clue how DVC works at a DVC hotel. Pretty scary.

 

[MdmMim]

I had a smiliar problem at the BCV in 2011. I had a few nights booked on my points, followed by a few nights on a friend's, ending with more nights on my points. All reservations were in a studio, and all were linked.

At check-in, I was told they could not add charging to my KTTW card unless they cancelled and rebooked, to which I said, "No, thanks." The dates on my KTTW card spanned all three reservations, and I was told I would not have to move or get new keys.

All was fine until the first night when I was using my friend's points. There was a knock on my door at 9:30 pm from Housekeeping. I was told, in an unpleasant manner, that I was supposed to be out of the room and had to move immediately. I went to the Front Desk and inquired about the move. They looked on their computer and said I did NOT have to move. So I stayed put.

I emailed Member Satisfaction and was told it was a computer glitch. I guess they still don't have things straightened out.

 

[appleorchard]

I had a smiliar problem at the BCV in 2011. I had a few nights booked on my points, followed by a few nights on a friend's, ending with more nights on my points. All reservations were in a studio, and all were linked.

At check-in, I was told they could not add charging to my KTTW card unless they cancelled and rebooked, to which I said, "No, thanks." The dates on my KTTW card spanned all three reservations, and I was told I would not have to move or get new keys.

All was fine until the first night when I was using my friend's points. There was a knock on my door at 9:30 pm from Housekeeping. I was told, in an unpleasant manner, that I was supposed to be out of the room and had to move immediately. I went to the Front Desk and inquired about the move. They looked on their computer and said I did NOT have to move. So I stayed put.

I emailed Member Satisfaction and was told it was a computer glitch. I guess they still don't have things straightened out.

I can't imagine what will happen when they try to put everything on the RFID bracelet lol. That should be really interesting.

 

[bumbershoot]

Because my son checked us in to the 2 BR, he didn't put charging privileges on our card. When we went down to do it, our reservation got totally screwed up. The CM finally said(after 30 minutes or so of trying to do this) that they would have to rebook the reservation to do this.

Ah, the old "having a hard time putting charging on the account" thing...I know it well.

You might recall from my TR that we didn't put charging on our SSR room, which wasn't linked to anything else.

the back story....

Checked in, stored our bags, went to the park. Got an urgent message an hour or two later saying that there was something wrong and we needed to come back and get all new cards. We did not, as we were at a park, and everything could be straightened out later. Few hours later got the text that our room was ready. When we were ready to go, we went.

The urgent message had been about how our KTTWs didn't work, and we needed them replaced. My KTTW had just scanned perfectly fine at the gate, so I was confused, but they insisted. There would be a total of 8 of us in the room so this put us at 16 cards made up.

Got our bags taken to the room, got in the room, and whammo, mildew/mold smell EVERYWHERE. DH got on the phone, got calls back from a person he met in person later, one of the managers. (the call back is the important part there...the call center actually did get in touch with someone) We were offered an immediate move, we were offered a move the next day. We were offered a Grand Villa if we moved immediately. Well I'm highly allergic and it messes with my head, so while I was lying there in a fetal position feeling incredibly sick I decided to just stay put for the night, that I didn't want more than what we paid points for, and we'd move the next day. They offered, and DH accepted, a $100 credit.

Next day he got in touch with the people he was supposed to get in touch with, we started packing (by then my cousins had arrived so there were 7 of us and one on their way, not just 3, and it was a bit crazy), housekeeping started knocking to clean our room (???, but you experienced that, too! we were on their list for DAILY housekeeping! first room and second, which was just weird, and we had to work to convince them that we did not need them nor were we entitled to their services at all), finally we got our new keys delivered (the other room had been sitting empty all night, stupid me) (and now we were at 24 keys made for our group), the housekeeping manager showed up and was bowled over by the mildew/mold stench all through the 2 bedroom.

More obviously relevant part of the story...

We moved over, 7 of us went to the pool, and DH went to the front desk to have charging put on our room so that we could access the credit.

TWO hours later he came back, a beaten man. It was the charging thing. They Could Not Do It without cancelling and rebooking. And it took them at least an hour to do it after the cancel/rebook process. DH even got some fabulous attitude by a random manager stopping by, as though this were his fault. Oh and we got new keys. 32 was our total # of keys made up for us for this 3 night stay.

By the end of it all, Robert had missed the sunshine, missed the pooltime, and got attitude for something that wasn't his fault. They had chosen to up the compensation by an extra $50, and when the keycard didn't work for charging and he had to go back, that started a new process and finally the CM started going with him to Artist's Palette to see if he could charge, and in that process the CM comped him two mugs as well.


So...I would blame the room charge issue, and not the linked reservation issue, since we didn't have anything linked.

Since our situation happened in February, I'm really bummed to hear they haven't fixed this yet. I don't know what has gone so wrong that adding room charging (which is the ONLY way they will give compensation when they offer it) causes such a problem.

 

[appleorchard]

What a saga, Molly! Adding the credit card for charging was certainly what started the ball rolling in our case. The manager is the one who decided it was all the fault of our linked reservations. We got attitude too--it's hovering just below the surface in almost all the transactions we've had recently with CMs at the hotels.

The mold-mildew issue is unbelievable. Why aren't these things getting taken care of so they don't get so out of hand? We had to call over housekeeping over the refrigerator, because none of us felt like cleaning out the bloody--literally!- thing. When the maid came up, she had no idea why she was there--housekeeping just told her to come, they didn't tell her why. And her English was about as good as our Spanish, which made communication difficult. She did a thorough cleaning on the fridge, though, while we sat there and waited with our melting groceries.

We didn't want any repercussions from the glass containing ashes and matches that we found on the patio either--I presume they flushed the cigarette butts. We didn't want that coming back on us.

Hotel management at Disney has completely lost its magical touch, as far as I can tell. Frustrating in the extreme.

 

[Deb & Bill]

Before they upgraded the computer system in June 2011, it seemed to be easier to mix reservations with different UYs. But on our trip in 2011 in early June, the KTTW were all mixed up, we had to get new cards mid-way through our trip, all sorts of problems. Since then, the KTTW and reservations continue to be a mess.

 

[csharpwv]

Isn't it so odd that something that seems SO SIMPLE on the surface turns into a gigantic complicated mess??!

Sometimes I just want to take a 4 hours tutorial on Disney's behind the desk system to learn why in the world it is SO HARD for such simple things to be done!

Is it complicated on purpose so we as members don't ask them to get TOOO creative.... or is their system just that rigid that nothing can be done without unilateral United Nations sanctions on the Magic Kingdom?! (Dole whip supply... CUT OFF!!!! TARIFF ON TURKEY LEGS!!!!)

Instead of the KISS principle they use the MINI principle (Make It Near Impossible).

UGH! What we put up with at the mercy of the "System"!