New policy for reservations based on check IN date

[Lesley]

If they simply wanted to cut back on day by day calling, I think they've made the situation worse. "Walking" will create an even more complex situation as far as moving points around and recordkeeping on their end (and for members...I can see where walking a reservation could put you at risk for all kinds of mistakes made by MS...).

I think if they desire to reduce calls maybe they should just eliminate the 800 number. It doesn't do a darned bit of good for me (and probably others) because I don't have a land line phone... on my cell phone minutes are minutes regardless of who I'm calling. They'd at least cut back on costs that way. Maybe they could afford a few more CM's to take calls then?

From what I'm seeing, I do think I prefer the old system. The new one seems to not eliminate the problem they were trying to solve, makes getting your reservation at 11 months a less secure situation, and it gives members who have large numbers of points an advantage over those will smaller amounts if they choose to "walk" a reservation, as well as making peak times more difficult to book. I know with our current number of points walking isn't even an option if I wanted to do it.

 

[Deb & Bill]

My suggestion, athough it doesn't seem quite feasible since there would be so many complaints, is that if someone found it necessary to call DBD, they will only be allowed to do it for one vacation.

That means, if you are staying for 3 weeks on that same vacation (I suppose I should have mentioned - continous vacation), then you can call DBD for each of the days for 3 weeks (if you want). ...

I think it actually means that you'll need to call DBD for every day after you get your first week because otherwise, there is a better chance that the rest of your days might be booked up when you try to get them. So you might have to move from your first villa (made the first 7 days stay) to your second villa (made 8 days later) to your third villa (made 15 days later). You could get locked out of your room type and location by others calling on those other days.

 

[dvcdisney]

IMO, I think this would be very difficult to track. How are they going to know that you used your one DBD call for the UY? What about someone extending a day or two because they just found out they have a few extra days off? What if you need more than one room because you're booking an extended trip? What changes would need to be made to the booking system to track and account for this? And at what costs?

I maintain: Instead of throwing all this good money after bad, just throw money into implementing online booking. It's been requested, overwhelmingly, hasn't it? And it would certainly cut down on call volume.

Does anyone else find it strange that SSR Booking Categories seem to be an 'overwhelming request' as does 'online booking' ... yet we suddenly have this new reservation policy?

Yes, I realized that there were too many variables. This would cause more problems and complaints.....which is similar to the new system...more problems and complaints!

Online booking would be great! It should cut down on a lot of calls. (Hopefully, they will do a better job at refining the system as to not have system problems.)

 

[jdg345]

I've been following this thread off and on and I've seen references to a a "walking reservation", but I can't seem to find the definition!

Is it where an owner has enough points in one use year, no banking or borrowing, to make a reservation, say, Friday to Friday, call back two days later and make a reservation Monday to Friday, and then cancel the first Friday to Friday reservation?

I assume you can't make a Friday to Friday reservation and then call back two days later and cancel Friday and Saturday night?

Thanks in advance.

Margaret in CT

Kind of ... there are two things at play. One is as you suggest, though 'walking', imo, is a little different.

Scenario-1: You want Sun-Thu, so you book Fri-Thur at 11+7. 2 Days later, you cancel the Fri/Sat. Here you're just booking days you dont want, but you're not really walking.

Scenario-2: You want Sun-Thu, so you book the week before, Sun-Sun, so that the last day is really the first day you really wanted. Then tomorrow, you call and add the Monday that you really want, and drop the first Sunday you didn't. Repeat. There are variations here as you can start 7, 8, 9, or 20 days before you wanted and just repeat this process. So if you felt Friday gives you a better shot, you could call and book Fri-Fri (9 days before) and then Add the Sat, drop the Fri, then add the Sun, drop the Sat, etc. Of course, you're tying up rooms you have absolutely no plan on occupying, but ... such is the nature of walking.

 

[jdg345]

Ahh, now I get it. Thanks.

If I wanted Sunday through Thursday, 5 nights, check-out on Friday:

Call #1: Book Friday through Tuesday.
Call #2: Next day, cancel Friday, add Wednesday.
Call #3: Next day, cancel Saturday, add Thursday, check out on Friday.

Hopefully I won't need to do this since I've only done day be day booking twice since 1993, but I just wanted to understand it.

If you're not limited by points, you might as well book Friday through Thursday. You can then wait until Sunday and then drop the Fri/Sat. But, otherwise, yes, it sounds like you've got it down pat.

 

[jdg345]

I'd say Friday and Saturday, if the current pattern carried over to the "new" system....but probably MOSTLY Friday if your intention is "walking".

Here's what I posted over there by way of explanation:


If the most popular day to check in is Sunday, that FRIDAY is actually going to be the "easiest" day to call and get what you want. The reason I suspect that is that I'm assuming (and I have NO data to back it up) that most people stay 6 or 7 nights. That means those checking in on Sunday are likely checking out on Friday or Saturday. Given the weekend night "premium" on points, my wholly unfounded suspicion is they're checking out on Friday. So if you're checking IN on a Friday, all that inventory opens up. Likewise, because Friday is a "light" check in day (also due to the 'weekend premium'), Saturday looks like it will probably give you a decent shot.

Likewise, if you're checking in Monday - Thursday, you're likely going to have a more difficult time. Less inventory is probably opening up (again, based on my wholly unfounded assumption on length of stay) and more of it is "spoken for" by the Sunday crowd.

Sunday stays...you're going to be competing JUST like in DBD with a large pool of the membership all trying to get at inventory.

That's my hypothesis right now....we'll see how this poll, and the other polls, eventually play out.

Or worse, as someone waiting for Sunday arrival to book might already have rooms taken by those taking the Fri/Sat stay to cancel and get a jump on booking.

 

[Laurabearz]

I've put up the typical length of stay poll:

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1880407

How about doing a What Day do you Normally Check OUT poll??


Then that would tell everyone the best day to check in?

 

[jdg345]

My suggestion, athough it doesn't seem quite feasible since there would be so many complaints, is that if someone found it necessary to call DBD, they will only be allowed to do it for one vacation.

That means, if you are staying for 3 weeks on that same vacation (I suppose I should have mentioned - continous vacation), then you can call DBD for each of the days for 3 weeks (if you want).

And that's my point, it's your option, it doesn't mean you have to. And that's what's a little annoying about what the website states. It insinuates that everyone was REQUIRED to call DBD and thus have to piece their reservations together. I don't believe anyone was required to do anything. You can book when you want to book. Just because they had the 11/7 months priority doesn't mean that everyone had to book then.

I never did DBD until I was told by MS that I should. I had always booked BCV for October every year since we joined and never had a problem calling at 11 months and even 10 months. Because of the increasing popularity of the F&W festival, I called two years ago and did not get my BCV at 11 months, That was quite surprising to mean. So MS had explained that it has been increasing busy and so I would have to call DBD since there are few 1 bedrooms (which by the way, I didn't think was in high demand). Anyways, last year I decided to call DBD for it and got it. So, did I think it was unnecessary? NO, because I was not able to get it previous and now I think I have to call DBD to get this particular reservation. And last year when AKV had opened, I was told that it's best to call DBD to get the 1 bedroom Standard room since there were very few at the time, so I did. I don't think I did it unnecessarily since MS had suggested it and of course, I would be more inclined to believe them with their experience.

Sorry, off topic. Anyways, I think if you had a 3 week vacation at the time you think is peak time and you will not be able to get the rooms any other way, I think you should be able to call DBD for all the days. And it doesn't take that long, the first call took at most 5-10 minutes and the rest of my DBD calls were almost instant. I told them I want to add a day, they looked at the reservation and said, it's done! No long delays, no need to get names etc, just add a day and link.

Although, I would prefer online reservations, I can see so many complaints with that also. I think those who want it should and those who want to call MS, they should have that option as well, thereby decreasing the number of calls. I, as with many others, could book our own rooms without bothering MS. I think they should be there for us in case there are problems, and I'm sure they'll be problems with the system. But at least it gives others like myself the opportunity to do it ourselves and not waste anyone else's time.

Agree! The first part of DBD took the most time. After that, adding the day was easy and took almost no time at all.

I also agree with your points regarding Online Reservations. Most issues with it could be resolved by opening inventory at the same time the phones open.

 

[jdg345]

Yes, I realized that there were too many variables. This would cause more problems and complaints.....which is similar to the new system...more problems and complaints!

Online booking would be great! It should cut down on a lot of calls. (Hopefully, they will do a better job at refining the system as to not have system problems.)

Exactly!

 

[jdg345]

How about doing a What Day do you Normally Check OUT poll??


Then that would tell everyone the best day to check in?

I was thinking the *exact* same thing!

 

[Luigi's Girl]

Can those of you who have experienced terrible wait times please clarify what that means?

What time of day did you call?
What dates were you trying to book?
How long was your hold time?

I have to say in the 5+ years I've been a member, I've waited at most 15 minutes. Now I admit, I don't go during Easter/Thanksgiving/Christmas week/President's Week or the Spring Break times that seem most popular for the east coast members, so maybe that's why.

I've seen sporadic reports of longer waits and vaguely recall one posting about 1 hour waits, but I want to say that was for the DVC cruise. I fully admit to not being the waiting-on-hold police so maybe I've missed those threads. But they certainly haven't been as huge as this one nor stayed long enough on the front page to garner much notice.

In the past 7 years that I have called in December (in more recent years DBD) for my reservation during "Jersey Week" and F&W, I have never had any extreme length of wait times (more than a few minutes) and that is the absolute truth. Yes , I call at 9:00 A.M. maybe that's why. This past reservation I called in January for a first time stay during the first week of December at my Home Resort VWL, again no wait time, honest! I have also called DBD to switch resorts to BCV at 7 months during F&W and been successful in doing that for the past three years. I'm sure those days are over though!

 

[dvcdisney]

I think it actually means that you'll need to call DBD for every day after you get your first week because otherwise, there is a better chance that the rest of your days might be booked up when you try to get them. So you might have to move from your first villa (made the first 7 days stay) to your second villa (made 8 days later) to your third villa (made 15 days later). You could get locked out of your room type and location by others calling on those other days.

Yes, that would be what this member would need to do with the NEW system.

On an earlier post, I had a suggestion about a restriction of 1 DBD call for an entire vacation per membership per use year and I thought this would cut down on calls and maybe a transition to the new system. But it will be more of a problem than a solution. So my response to this member was in reference to the OLD system with this restriction.

 

[dvcdisney]

I also agree with your points regarding Online Reservations. Most issues with it could be resolved by opening inventory at the same time the phones open.

Sounds great and (dare I say the word) FAIR!

What are we waiting for?!

 

[waltfan1957]

Yes, that would be what this member would need to do with the NEW system.

On an earlier post, I had a suggestion about a restriction of 1 DBD call for an entire vacation per membership per use year and I thought this would cut down on calls and maybe a transition to the new system. But it will be more of a problem than a solution. So my response to this member was in reference to the OLD system with this restriction.

that member wants xmas day till 15 jan, think ill get it i dont

 

[toyboy]

Under the current rules, you can indeed cancel Fri & Sat night with no penalty. Many cancelled nigths under the old booking policy if they found that, for example, flights were cheaper if they arrived on Sunday.

I, for one, think that many who booked DBD will do some walking of their reservation. Say, you want to go sometime after Thanksgiving but before Christmas and stay 11 nights. I think many people will start at least for the earliest night that works for them, just in case that night is not available. Once they are successful in getting any reservation, they may walk the reservation forward to the days that work the best for them.

For example, you call to book the Sun after Thanksgiving and the next 7 nights. No availability. So you call the next day for Mondy. No go. Then for Tue. Again, no go. Finally, when you call for Wed, you can book the next 7 nights. While you could live with that as the arrival date, you would rather arrive on a Sun. So you walk forward, cancelling Wed-Sat nights as you go, until your arrival day is the following Sun.

It is not a great leap from that scenario to think that you might start with trying to reserve 7 nights with only the 7th night being a day that works for you and then walking forward from there. In my example, you call for the Mon before Thanksgiving in order to make sure you secure the Sun after Thanksgiving.

-- Suzanne

Suzanne - this is spot on!

This is exactly the way I had envisioned it working if I had trouble getting my choice time. I typically like to go the first two weeks of December so I will most likely try during for the very first week next year in case I need to drift it into the following week.

 

[bookwormde]

Just opened the email, looks like DVC is notifying the membership of the change by email. Anyone else get it. WOW what a novel idea, notifying the membership by email.
Better late than never.

I guess we should get ready for a rush of new questions and posters.

bookwormde

 

[jdg345]

Just opened the email, looks like DVC is notifying the membership of the change by email. Anyone else get it. WOW what a novel idea, notifying the membership by email.
Better late than never.

I guess we should get ready for a rush of new questions and posters.

bookwormde

Nope, nothing yet ... around what time did it go out ... ?

 

[Kathi OD]

Just opened the email, looks like DVC is notifying the membership of the change by email. Anyone else get it. WOW what a novel idea, notifying the membership by email.
Better late than never.

I guess we should get ready for a rush of new questions and posters.

bookwormde

didn't get notified either

 

[Wilson.dvc]

I received the email this morning at 11:00am

 

[jarestel]

Nope, nothing yet ... around what time did it go out ... ?

Mine came this morning.