New policy for reservations based on check IN date

[dvcdisney]

Hmmm ... very interesting point ... so we have either:

Not many people knew about DBD, making it unfair; but then DVC made changes for the minority and not overwhelming member request.

Many knew about DBD; and it was tying up DVC resources so they had to make a change to improve their bottom line.

Hmmm ... very interesting indeed.

Yes, very interesting indeed!

 

[TisBit]

it's like the old system because even you want to revert to the check-out date policy.
Once you hit the 8th day, you can cancel walk your way to whatever reservation you really want - which could be several months from then.
it is giving a distinct booking advantage to some who have enough points to book earlier than others are permitted to book.

No...it is not based on checkout for booking reservations...just have to wait till after to CHANGE the reservation (i.e. cancel days).

Everyone has and advantage in some form or another. That was not eliminated with the old system or the new system. I understand the arguments for the old system...and even agree that there was some level to that playing field. But I also understand the arguments for the new system...and agree that it levels the playing field too, just in a different way.

I can step back and see the corporate point of view. Reduce cost and increase member satisfaction. Truth is that the majority of members (especially those not on the DIS) are not diehard members that will try to "work" every angle of the system. They will have a feeling of a level playing field and be satisfied.

Edited: If you have to wait till after the checkout date to cancel reservations, you cannot "walk". At 9AM on the 8th day (if you haven't extended into the future) anyone could book the second week, not just you. Obviously if you have extended the reservation, you still cannot cancel a portion, because your reservation is still in the "future". You merely need to eliminate canceling days for reservations that are not fully in the 11 month time frame....which seems pretty fair to me.

 

[jdg345]

How is that the old system? You can still book your whole stay at check in date...but cannot cancel one day to add another...you either have to wait until the 8th day to cancel any dates. You can add whatever you want based on your points. No DBD, but no walking either. No cancellation penalties for those that have reasons to modify their reservations later.

You're still walking if you have the points to do so though ... you just need a buffer of a week's worth of points, which is pretty easy to do if you have the base week as you can borrow. You can allocated the borrowed points ultimately to the days you want, so that the current UY points are available and roll those forwards. Then you can use those for the next year's vacation and repeat.

 

[jdg345]

Yes, very interesting indeed!

Yup ... either DVC made the change for a minority of people, which would be unfair to the membership as a whole ... or the membership as a whole knew about DBD, which throws the recent debate on whether or not it was unfair due to lack of awareness out the window entirely.

 

[rantnnravin]

if you don't have those points to work with, you can simply begin reserving December 09 now, simply make a reservation for July 09, wait out the suggested "moratorium" and begin walking on day 8.

 

[pilferk]

Take it how you will. Will you at least admit that there are members who had no reasonable chance of finding out about DBD bookings? BTW, I didn't say DBD wasn't OK, only that it wasn't a level playing field for each and every member as many would like to believe. How would one find out about it if they didn't frequent such boards and MS didn't bother to mention it?

NO reasonable chance?

How do you think the concept of DBD booking evolved? Someone, somewhere, must have figured it out...right? Or it came directly from MS. One or the other.

In either case, you find a reasonable chance.....either by having the light bulb go off in your own head or via interaction with MS when using your membership. So, IMHO, there was a reasonable chance....depending on your definition of reasonable.

As for how one would find out about it if you didn't frequent the boards, or MS didn't mention it (or the light bulb didn't go off...give at least a bit of credit to the membership)...on that, we agree. DVC should have done a better job at communicating the option. AGain, the communication would have solved the issue much more efficiently, quickly, and easily than the solution they DID choose...so it's sort of a moot point. Of course, they wouldn't have the opportunity, in their percpetion, to reduce resource useage and pocket more of their 12%.

Though I daresay it was communicated ENOUGH for DVC to think it needed to be changed. If there weren't "enough" people in the know, they wouldn't need to reduce call volumes, or had "overwhelming member feedback, and a need to change the system...right? So a decent % of the membership had to know about it, or figured it out on their own....and as has been pointed out: the % of DVC members who belong to the DIS boards is relatively small.

 

[pilferk]

Certainly for those oblivious, both systems have negatives, whether you know it or not. But for one who didn't know about the DBD option, the old system was not a level playing field either as some would like you to believe. "Fairness" is an illusion with most any system. It is fact that not everyone knew of the DBD option and those that didn't, had no assured way of finding out. All know or will know (or at least have the opportunity to know) of the new system since DVC is advertising it in options that will go to every primary contact. Same cannot be said for walking as it will fall under the same variables as DBD did which is one of the reasons I expect it to be controlled in some way, we shall see.

Again, the old SYSTEM was fair. It's only prejudice was your spot in line at 9AM when the lines opened.

DVC's management of that system may not have been. That being the case, the Management Company of our timeshare didn't do it's job. If that's the contention, I'll certainly not disagree.

There is a fundamental, conceptual difference.

To an analogy near and dear to my heart:

I'm an application administrator.

I design a great new feature for the front end of the application. It will improve efficiency by 60% to 70%. Save the company MILLIONS.

I implement it. Works great...everything it's supposed to do and more. During testing, with a limited number of users, it meets our efficiency improvement goals easily.

I roll it out, which the test users know. I tell some subset of users when they call, depending on my mood, how busy I am...whatever.

After 6 months...we're really only seeing about a 10% increase in overall efficiency. Only a very small subset of the users know about the new feature....they found out either by word of mouth from the testers, their own ingenuity, or information from a random phone call to me.

Did the system fail? Or did the administrator fail?

See where I'm going?

 

[TisBit]

if you don't have those points to work with, you can simply begin reserving December 09 now, simply make a reservation for July 09, wait out the suggested "moratorium" and begin walking on day 8.

No...if you have to wait until the day after your check out, than everyone has the same chance for the following week as you do when the phone lines open. Yes, there would be the ability to make a longer reservation than needed if you have the points and cancel a portion later...but it would prevent "walking" a reservation indefinitely.

 

[keishashadow]

it's like the old system because even you want to revert to the check-out date policy.
Once you hit the 8th day, you can cancel walk your way to whatever reservation you really want - which could be several months from then.
it is giving a distinct booking advantage to some who have enough points to book earlier than others are permitted to book.

At the risk of revealing the new best-kept DVC secret, more slowly please

under new policy, i thought a member could:

1) book 8 days on say, August 1st (August 1 thru August 8)

2) on August 2nd, cancel August 1st & add on August 9th) & so on

r u saying once u book a week you r stuck with it until the 8 day period is up?

 

[rantnnravin]

At the risk of revealing the new best-kept DVC secret, more slowly please

under new policy, i thought a member could:

1) book 8 days on say, August 1st (August 1 thru August 8)

2) on August 2nd, cancel August 1st & add on August 9th) & so on

r u saying once u book a week you r stuck with it until the 8 day period is up?

no.
we are working with Tisbit's hypothetical "solution"

 

[pilferk]

At the risk of revealing the new best-kept DVC secret, more slowly please

under new policy, i thought a member could:

1) book 8 days on say, August 1st (August 1 thru August 8)

2) on August 2nd, cancel August 1st & add on August 9th) & so on

r u saying once u book a week you r stuck with it until the 8 day period is up?

No, that's what Tisbit is proposing for a solution.

Unfortunately, I don't think that proposal works...it just means you need more points to accomplish the walk.

Or, alternately, it means making a reservation MORE than 7 nights long becomes probematic.

If you simply can't cancel (but can add) til the 11 month mark..you're just requiring more points to be used to walk, not eliminating the walk altogether.

If you're saying you can't modify (add or cancel) days until exactly the 11 month mark, you make any stay more than 7 nights into another DBD affair.

Neither seems ideal to me but then, neither is the current system.

 

[jdg345]

At the risk of revealing the new best-kept DVC secret, more slowly please

under new policy, i thought a member could:

1) book 8 days on say, August 1st (August 1 thru August 8)

2) on August 2nd, cancel August 1st & add on August 9th) & so on

r u saying once u book a week you r stuck with it until the 8 day period is up?

I believe he was just trying to give an example of how someone with less points could handle the situation the PP mentioned.

As is stands as of now, it works exactly as you say. Call at book 11+7, call the next day and can either book day-8 and drop day-1 (7 net days) or add day-8 (8 net days).

 

[Wedgeh]

Whilst wading in at this point in proceedings seems dangerous at best, it strikes me that all questions of 'fairness' are less worrying to me than knowing that now I no longer have to be concerned about having a checkerboard reservation. I'd rather have a lower chance of getting all my days (as long as I've still got some reasonable chance) than a higher chance of getting half of them.

On another note, it's been a fun read all thanks

Tom

 

[jdg345]

No, that's what Tisbit is proposing for a solution.

Unfortunately, I don't think that proposal works...it just means you need more points to accomplish the walk.

Or, alternately, it means making a reservation MORE than 7 nights long becomes probematic.

If you simply can't cancel (but can add) til the 11 month mark..you're just requiring more points to be used to walk, not eliminating the walk altogether.

If you're saying you can't modify (add or cancel) days until exactly the 11 month mark, you make any stay more than 7 nights into another DBD affair.

Neither seems ideal to me but then, neither is the current system.

Shall we assume that more recent posts also means you are feeling much better?

 

[TisBit]

If you simply can't cancel (but can add) til the 11 month mark..you're just requiring more points to be used to walk, not eliminating the walk altogether.

If you called on Jan 1st to reserve an 11+7 reservation for Dec 1st-8th, but you actually wanted Dec 9th-16th this system allows you to call back on Jan 2 cancel the 1st add the 9th, until you get to the 16th. With my proposed solution, you could not cancel, but only add days. You would in essence be stuck with a full two week reservation before you could free up any points. So you could not "walk", you could merely reserve more days than you want.

Bascily in order to cancel any part of the original reservation you would have to wait until Jan 9th. At this time is it is not worth canceling a week and adding a week, because you are on a level playing field with everyone who wanted that week anyway because the room is already free to be reserved by anyone.

Your ability to reserve a room would be limited by your number of points. Some will say that is an advantage, but others will say that it is their right, because they can use their points how they want. (plus most people with large point balances actually have a lot of reservations, so they would still have a limited number of points to work with).

 

[Ragtime Gal]

I'm not too thrilled with the new wait list policy. You can only wait list the entire booking or nothing at all. So...if one or two nights come through, they will probably be gone before your whole week could come through.

I suppose you could call every day and book nights in the middle yourself, but if you are reserved for, say, a Monday through Friday, and you move Tuesday and Thursday over to your preferred resort, you cannot then waitlist the Monday and Wednesday, they have to be consecutive.

 

[TisBit]

I'm not too thrilled with the new wait list policy. You can only wait list the entire booking or nothing at all. So...if one or two nights come through, they will probably be gone before your whole week could come through.

I suppose you could call every day and book nights in the middle yourself, but if you are reserved for, say, a Monday through Friday, and you move Tuesday and Thursday over to your preferred resort, you cannot then waitlist the Monday and Wednesday, they have to be consecutive.

You can waitlist non consecutive days....they just will be different list. Consecutive days must be one (or that is my understanding).

The only good part of the new waitlist is that everyone has to wait for their entire stay to come available, so those one or two nights will be less likely to be picked up individually (or that is the theory at least).

 

[bookwormde]

Tisbit

The only problem with everyone waiting for big chunks is that anyone can call MS at any time to check on available individual days. If they do not want there “place in line” to move then they can leave it as a separate reservation, if it is a middle day they can start a new pair of waitlists of shorter more likely to be filled waitlist if they believe the waitlist is not overly long.

I think that this all or nothing waitlist system may well generate far more additional calls to MS to check on individual day availability than 8+ DBD and walking do combined.

bookwormde

 

[pilferk]

If you called on Jan 1st to reserve an 11+7 reservation for Dec 1st-8th, but you actually wanted Dec 9th-16th this system allows you to call back on Jan 2 cancel the 1st add the 9th, until you get to the 16th. With my proposed solution, you could not cancel, but only add days. You would in essence be stuck with a full two week reservation before you could free up any points. So you could not "walk", you could merely reserve more days than you want.

Admittedly, maybe I'm confused on your proposal, but....

If you could not cancel,but only add days, until the 11 month window exactly, you'd only need 2 extra days of points, right? Not an extra week?

You reserve the 1st - 8th. You want the 9th through the 16th.

You call on January 1st to make the first reservation.

You call on January 3rd to add the 9th and 10th.

Now, your room will not be "free" to anyone booking until the 11th, right?

TECHNICALLY your exact 11 month window, to cancel the rest, would be the 9th, right? Because you'd now be exactly 11 months from that date. You would be able to cancel all days prior to that. So, on the 9th, since you already have the 9th and 10th (and nobody can touch them, now, until the 11th), you call back, cancel the 1st through the 8th...and add whatever days you want to add.

Or are you proposing that EACH time you add a day, they extend the 11 month window to THAT day? So if you call to add days, your "cancel window" gets extended? I'm not sure, systematically, that would work either since, I suspect, they handle "extensions" like they did DBD booking.....

 

[pilferk]

Shall we assume that more recent posts also means you are feeling much better?

Yes. Much better. Thanks for asking!