New policy for reservations based on check IN date

[DVC Grandpa]

To the email address I posted? I'd forward your note to Cameron too. Let me know if you need that addy as well or if it is listed.

The address I sent my email to was Jim.m.lewis@disney.com ,
If you have the email address of Cameron I will use it along with any other email address of person up the chain of command.

This revision to the booking guidelines has “unintended consequences” that effect all DVC members, perhaps not intentional, but never the less it is a significant impact on the rights of the DVC members having an equal opportunity to book all dates. I think this is something all executives within the origination should be aware of.

 

[castleri]

If they are booking 11+7, Family-B cannot waitlist those two days and book the next 5. They can waitlist the first day. Call the next day, waitlist that day, and then, if the room is available on the third day, book up to the next 7 days. The limits to the 11+7 booking appear to be:

Room needs to be available Day-1 and for all days forward.
Same Room Type/Category
Same Resort

From the DVC member site

LATEST NEWS
Reservation Booking Enhancement
Thanks to a recent service enhancement, Members may now place a single phone call to request a full reservation of as many as seven-nights beginning on the first day of their booking window (11 months before check-in at your Home Resort or seven months before check-in at other Disney Vacation Club Resorts). As a result of this enhancement, waitlists are now available only for the full length of stay

How will this play in the scenario that the first two days might not be available but the last 5 are?

 

[jdg345]

From the DVC member site

LATEST NEWS
Reservation Booking Enhancement
Thanks to a recent service enhancement, Members may now place a single phone call to request a full reservation of as many as seven-nights beginning on the first day of their booking window (11 months before check-in at your Home Resort or seven months before check-in at other Disney Vacation Club Resorts). As a result of this enhancement, waitlists are now available only for the full length of stay

How will this play in the scenario that the first two days might not be available but the last 5 are?

If you are booking at 11+7, you would:

Day1: Waitlist the 1st Day only.
Day2: Waitlist the 2nd Day only. This would now be grouped as one Waitlist consisting of 2 Days.
Day3: If available, book up to 7 days forward. Otherwise, Waitlist here too. This would be added to the single Waitlist of 3 Days total.
Etc.

The difference in the Waitlist policy is that now you need *ALL* the days on your waitlist for that resort and category to be available at the same time. In the above scenario, if Day-1 becomes available ONLY, then you don't get it. Anyone with Day-1 and/or some other available day would scoop it up. You need both days to be available at the time your WL scan occurs for it to trigger. Basically, someone with the same vacation (or overlapping vacation) would need to cancel or change for you to get your WL.

The old system allowed you to WL DBD as well. This means that if Bob cancelled Day 1, you would get it. If Sally Cancelled Day-2 a month later, you'd then get that. It allowed you a higher chance as you could pick up individual cancellations from different members at different times.

 

[Laurabearz]

But wait... that room 1A could be booked for night 8 by another family the very next day when they book a studio for arriving day 2 and extending 7 nights. So technically room 1A can be unavailable on day 8 the very day after the first booking is made by next family for 7 nights.

I state room 1A because that studio will be available by night 8, since family 1 can't book the night 8 until 7 nights later.

I don't think it's based on the room a family is occupying, but more based on available studio in the resort.

confused?

No... when another family calls the next day for days 2 through 8 they will get a totally different room, otherwise they would have to move on the last day into room 1a... Room 1 A would not available to them at all, until the morning of day 8. Then once again room 1A can be booked. For family ONE they are now in a race with everyone else who wants their room STARTING on day 8....

 

[LisaS]

Part of the issue with the new system is that I believe it will lead to people booking lots of days they don't need in an effort to get what they really want. With DBD, the only people calling where the people that really wanted those days. It becomes a mess.

That is one of my concerns as well. The workarounds for the new booking rules will tie up inventory and I could end up on a waiting list until the pre-bookers roll their reservations past my travel dates. At least with DBD booking, people were booking dates they intended to use.

 

[dvcdisney]

What she told me after she put me on hold to look into it further is after the seven days on the 8th day you would call and make an entire new reservation for the next 7 days or whatever it may be and then after they will link your reservations together providing availability. I mentioned I was concerned that I may have to switch rooms half way through my trip and she just stated that it is on a first come first serve basis and they were doing it because the booking day by day was too time consuming.

This is definitely not good. We normally stay 12-14 nights, and I don't like changing rooms. I don't like the response you go after telling her that you are concerned about switching rooms. She's basically saying "too bad!"

I can see how so many may try to book dates they don't need in order to get the ones they do want. This is going to create more problems.

 

[Anal Annie]

Well if you are going during a peak time you will not be able to get a 4 or 5 night ressie, because everyone doing a 7 night ressie can book before you...

So just for an example, if I want to get 3 studios for 5 nights (Sun-Th) for August 17-22 at a resort that's not my home resort - say AKV...I really need to call & book Aug 16-23 then cancel the 16th and 23rd later on sometime? OR do I need to initially book the preceeding 7 nights (Aug 10-17) and then keep calling every day to push out one day at a time and simultaneously cancel one day off the orig. ressie each time I call and work myself down to the 5 days I really want?! And I start this whole calling procedure on exactly the first day of my 7 months out for the week before the one that I REALLY want so I am really starting this stoopid calling crap on January 10 so that I can go for 5 nights starting on Aug. 17 ?!

 

[dvcdisney]

It sounds like they'll be getting more calls each day than they anticipated.

 

[Married_Him_@_Disney]

I personally think that this new system will work great - and that we will not really notice a material difference.

I am excited to know that one call will do it all (unless more the 7 days). I cannot wait to book our next trip! I've got to wait 5 months to test out the new system!

 

[SuzanneSLO]

With the check-in 11M + 7D booking, DVC could prevent "walking" reservations with 2 rules:

1. No single reservaiton # may have more than 7 nights (although it could be eventually linked to other #s). This is essentially what MS is telling people they must do to add on more nights after the first 7 night reservation. However, becuase the computer system allows longer reservations, as a practical matter, members are calling back the next day and adding more nights to the first 7 night reservation #. Without a rule (or computer system) change, there is NO risk of not getting the additional nights after you get the first 7.

2. Prohibit cancelling and rebooking the same room category within some period of time (WorldMark has a 48 hour blockout). This stops the cancellation of days 2-7 and then re-booking 2-8 to get around rule 1. With cancellation and rebooking, there was always a slight risk as Member #2 (probably) could have waitlisted for day 2 earlier in the day, thus blocking the rebooking of all days. With rule 2, the risk of losing days 2-7 increases substantially.

So this eliminates the possibility of "walking" a reservation, but does not really help those who do not have enough points to book 7 nights. Under any scenario, those members will be shut out from prime nights such as Thanskgiving, Christmas and NYE.

Eliminating all cancellations will not help these less than 7 night bookers, because members who really want those prime dates will just see booking (and keeping) the extra nights as the de facto increase in points cost. Delaying the right to cancel only keeps those with waitlists on hold for longer, without benefiting the less than 7 night bookers.

Obviously eliminating cancellations entirely hurts many members who currently cancel as part of a normal planning process. Such a rule might actually help commerical renters as their inventory of nonrefundable reservations looks a lot more like the inventory available to DVC members.

Just to be clear, while I beleive these changes would solve the "problem" of "walking" a reservation, I really hope they are not adopted. It would really turn DVC into a standard 7 night timeshare. -- Suzanne

 

[farmergirl]

This is definitely not good. We normally stay 12-14 nights, and I don't like changing rooms. I don't like the response you go after telling her that you are concerned about switching rooms. She's basically saying "too bad!"

I can see how so many may try to book dates they don't need in order to get the ones they do want. This is going to create more problems.

Yes we usually stay 13 - 14 days like everyone you spend a lot of money on a vacation and therefore I personally would rather be out enjoying the parks then spending my time packing up my suitcases and clearing out the room to move to another location. And yes that is basically how it came across. I made a point of expressing my concerns about having to switch rooms right in the middle of our vacation. All I got was ...." Well hopefully not, But it IS on a first come first serve basis." The whole thing just seems so ridiculous to me. Then the CM who let me stress was very polite and not rude in anyway, I don't want it to sound like I got a rude response. She kept stressing how this is the feedback they got from members and this is what the MEMBERS wanted. So they did this because the day to day reservations were much to time consuming for .....you got it ....the MEMBERS! I think they have a strange way of listening to the members. Seems to me the number of members all for this change is far less than the ones that are disappointed with the new rules. I guess if our vacations were less than 7 days it may not be such a problem, but when you go past that 7 day mark you are opening a whole new can of worms.

 

[mom3sonstt]

But wait... that room 1A could be booked for night 8 by another family the very next day when they book a studio for arriving day 2 and extending 7 nights. So technically room 1A can be unavailable on day 8 the very day after the first booking is made by next family for 7 nights.

I state room 1A because that studio will be available by night 8, since family 1 can't book the night 8 until 7 nights later.

I don't think it's based on the room a family is occupying, but more based on available studio in the resort.

confused?

But if they "Jones" book on the 2nd for 7 nights - they will be put in a different room because the Smiths are in room 1A for the 2nd through the 7th - so the Jones won't be in room 1A on the 8th because they are already in room 2A. So when the 8th rolls around and the Smiths are scheduled to leave that is the first time that room can be booked. It can't be booked as part of an earlier reservation because it isn't available earlier - it is not available again until the 8th. So either the Smiths get it to continue their trip - or somebody else gets it to start a new one - but nobody gets it until the 8th (unless the Smiths are allowed to add a night - day-by-day but that's a different argument)

 

[SuzanneSLO]

Then the CM who let me stress was very polite and not rude in anyway. She kept stressing how this is the feedback they got from members and this is what the MEMBERS wanted. So they did this because the day to day reservations were much to time consuming for .....you got it ....the MEMBERS!

I think the result of the new rules will be that member satisfaction with MS goes down because I suspect that for most of us, our satisfaction with an interaction depends more on getting a successful outcome than friendliness or efficiency.

I suspect that I will need to call multiple days as each 11 month window opens becuase I want to be first in line when Joe's reservation ends. Unfortunately, I don't know Joe and and I don't know what day he is checking out. So I call and am told "Joe is not checking out yet, so we are sold out". Then the next day, I call again and am told "No, Joe is still not checking out yet. Still sold out." And so on until, may be I finally get the answer I am looking for, "Joe has checked out, you can book his room!"

Under this system, I have made numerous calls to MS and have been unhappy with most of them. Under the old system, I am also making numerous calls, but I am happy with all of them (attempted booking of AKV concierge excepted). Which system do you think results in a higher member satisfaction level? -- Suzanne

 

[Goofy4]

Well, what if a 50% (25%, whatever) point penalty were applied to cancellations with the 'out' being that you can cancel the entire ressie at no charge?

 

[dianeschlicht]

Well, what if a 50% (25%, whatever) point penalty were applied to cancellations with the 'out' being that you can cancel the entire ressie at no charge?

And what good does that do for the poor schumck who has a change of vacation time issue that is job related and must add or subtract a day from his intended vacation? Should hen then have to PAY to reduce his booking?

 

[wildernessDad]

With the US economy the way it is, some people might be considering taking one long vacation versus two shorter ones. This change hits those plans in the face.

 

[jdg345]

That is one of my concerns as well. The workarounds for the new booking rules will tie up inventory and I could end up on a waiting list until the pre-bookers roll their reservations past my travel dates. At least with DBD booking, people were booking dates they intended to use.

Exactly! And the pre-bookers might never roll past your travel dates completely and only give you a first or second day depending on when they plan to arrive. They might only end up releasing a Fri/Sat that you didn't want anyways.

So how does this lower call volumes? Sure, you can now book 7 days and then DBD for vacations longer than that. In theory, you have less DBD calls. However, if people decide to pre-book by 7, 8, or 10 days, you might end up with a factor more DBD calls with the new system than you had in the old system. Surely, that is not what was intended.

So, DVC is now stuck as they need to create more rules and regulations to accomplish keeping DBD volume low, but also keep those with large point banks from manipulating the system. In the end, we end up with a bunch of additional rules and complication that could just have been avoided had they left things alone.

At the end of the Day, DVC will decide what is better for *them* on this. If the great majority of people don't complain about the change, they'll leave it as is. The thing is, really, the great majority of people didn't DBD ... those people will continue to do so, and they may do so now more often than before.

 

[jdg345]

So just for an example, if I want to get 3 studios for 5 nights (Sun-Th) for August 17-22 at a resort that's not my home resort - say AKV...I really need to call & book Aug 16-23 then cancel the 16th and 23rd later on sometime? OR do I need to initially book the preceeding 7 nights (Aug 10-17) and then keep calling every day to push out one day at a time and simultaneously cancel one day off the orig. ressie each time I call and work myself down to the 5 days I really want?! And I start this whole calling procedure on exactly the first day of my 7 months out for the week before the one that I REALLY want so I am really starting this stoopid calling crap on January 10 so that I can go for 5 nights starting on Aug. 17 ?!

Yup, it sounds like you've got it.

Much easier now, don't you think?

 

[jdg345]

I personally think that this new system will work great - and that we will not really notice a material difference.

Depends on where and when you book, imo ... but maybe you're right overall.

I am excited to know that one call will do it all (unless more the 7 days). I cannot wait to book our next trip! I've got to wait 5 months to test out the new system!

What happens when you call and that first day is already booked? Will you still like the system then?

The way I see it is that those who did DBD did so to give them the highest probability of getting the reservation they wanted, where they wanted, when they wanted. The new system doesn't really keep those folks from doing so, it just makes it easier for them to lock up more days that they don't need which affects other members ability to get the reservations they want. It also makes it easier for the spec renters, imo, and those with larger point pools.

Basically, those that did everything they could to get what they wanted when they wanted it where they wanted it will continue to do whatever it takes to accomplish their goals.

I don't quite understand how people who never did DBD are saying the new system is better than the old one. If you never booked DBD, you only called on your Checkout day and all the days would have been available to you (or not) anyways. You never had a risk of a hole in your reservation due to someone else getting the DBD that you couldn't get DBD in the calling frenzy.

Now, for the DBD folks, I can see where they would say that's great because they can just get everything in one shot and if they win the first day, they win out for the whole period. But, frankly, I don't see many of that demographic happy about the new system.

 

[robinb]

So just for an example, if I want to get 3 studios for 5 nights (Sun-Th) for August 17-22 at a resort that's not my home resort - say AKV...I really need to call & book Aug 16-23 then cancel the 16th and 23rd later on sometime? OR do I need to initially book the preceeding 7 nights (Aug 10-17) and then keep calling every day to push out one day at a time and simultaneously cancel one day off the orig. ressie each time I call and work myself down to the 5 days I really want?! And I start this whole calling procedure on exactly the first day of my 7 months out for the week before the one that I REALLY want so I am really starting this stoopid calling crap on January 10 so that I can go for 5 nights starting on Aug. 17 ?!

Yes, if (1) they still allow you to cancel and rebook day-by-day and (2) ONLY if you have 399 points laying around to use.

Under the old system:
Day 1: 3 Sav View Studios for 1 night 8/16 = 39 points
Day 2: 3 Sav View Studios for 1 night 8/17 = 39 points
Day 3: 3 Sav View Studios for 1 night 8/18 = 39 points
Day 4: 3 Sav View Studios for 1 night 8/19 = 39 points
Day 5: 3 Sav View Studios for 1 night 8/20 = 39 points
Total: 195 points

Under the new system
Day 1: 3 Sav View Studios for 7 nights (8/10 - 8/16) = 399 points

Day 2: Cancel 3 Sav View Studios for Mon 8/10 (-45 points)
Day 2: Add 3 Sav View Studios for Mon 8/17 (+39 points)

Day 3: Cancel 3 Sav View Studios for Tue 8/11 (-45 points)
Day 3: Add 3 Sav View Studios for Tue 8/18 (+39 points)

Day 4: Cancel 3 Sav View Studios for Wed 8/12 (-45 points)
Day 4: Add 3 Sav View Studios for Wed 8/19 (+39 points)

Day 4: Cancel 3 Sav View Studios for Thu-Sun 8/13-8/15 (-225 points)
Day 4: Add 3 Sav View Studios for Thur 8/20 (+39 points)
Total Points Used = 195
Total Points Canceled and UNUSED = 243