Not happy with Reservation sytem

[_auroraborealis_]

My theory, which is mine and pulled out of thin air:

The DVC point reservation system is a kludge on the cash reservation system. In the cash system, you really don't have to cancel and rebook. You can just book a second room then cancel the first when that's done, because of how deposits work and the issues trying to transfer Deposit 1 to a new reservation anyway. So there's no need to "hold and move." It's a new charge.

But with DVC, you're dealing in points, and frequently people need to cancel the first to "pay for" the second. It's likely kind of a nuisance on system logic to have a room held that is no longer paid for. But the points are being used as a cash equivalent. They are not being treated uniquely as points, just as a newly defined currency unit.

In other words: You're using a cash transaction system for non-cash transactions. Dysfunction follows.

(I saw an equivalent to this, where a hotel/airline booking system was used as the base for an organ donor registry. It was a freak show.)

 

[Dano1182]

I was thinking the same thing a patch like ticker master .That holds it while other is canceled.
Should be a simple drop down box.
When you need to borrow points a box pops up to ask if you want to borrow .
Could be the same in order to complete this reservation you will need to cancel current reservations or borrow.

 

[Dean Marino]

Deleted.

 

[crisi]

Having read the thread above.... the problem is very basic BAD coding.

A customer should NEVER have more power than a company employee. If they do? You have a broken transaction system.
Consider: a WDW Employee COULD "log in as you" on two browsers in order to defeat their own system. They should not have to do this. The Employee system should hold as much, or MORE power, than the customer facing system.

What occurred is WRONG, and a symptom of a broken data entry system, with multiple entry points that do not allow AT LEAST equal authority.

I'd disagree with that requirement. I have a lot more power with my online banking system than the tellers at the bank. And I really hope that I do.

What they have is a cart functionality that allows you to put a room in your cart without checking if you can pay for that room. That puts the room on hold until the transaction is completed, so you can then cancel the other room from another browser, and get the points to pay for the room. Plus session information that allows you to be logged in from two places at once. It really isn't more power, its a standard implementation of an eCommerce cart that hasn't been adapted for the unique requirements of a timeshare.

Cart functionality with low supply high demand items is not an easy thing, and you have to make compromises (my husband did the XBox release, and the Playstation release, and the Wii release - I've had my share of shared sleepless nights over low supply high demand cart releases.)

 

[AnnaKat]

It is your responsibility THAT the room MAY GET TAKEN!
WHY did you EVEN BUY DVC?!?!?!?

 

[keishashadow]

It is your responsibility THAT the room MAY GET TAKEN!
WHY did you EVEN BUY DVC?!?!?!?

Probably to enjoy a nice vacation @ a deluxe resort at a discounted rate. Just like the majority of us

I've done the same thing as the OP. If i don't have enough points to double book, I always ask the CM if I'm 'good' doing so before pulling the trigger. They generally lol and say no worries. It has always worked out for me. Figured they knew the dual browser trick.

Perhaps all CMs aren't trained to use the dual system of booking. That should be addressed with MS by the OP as re-training is a cheap & easy fix vs updating the system.

OP They dropped the ball, big time IMO Talk to a supervisor, good luck.

 

[crisi]

Perhaps all CMs aren't trained to use the dual system of booking. That should be addressed with MS by the OP as re-training is a cheap & easy fix vs updating the system.

I don't think they'd want the dual browser thing to work and would fix it the other direction. The problem with being able to hold rooms while you book other rooms is that it creates availability issues at the scale you are talking about for the high demand, low supply rooms. Putting things in a cart makes them unavailable for others, and a certain percentage of carts are abandoned. When talking about web services, because a session can be interrupted, the timeout on that cart can be long before it releases the room. That means that at 7am, you could have a whole bunch of people with holds on rooms that they don't follow through on. The fairest thing to do is to do a points check before you put it in your cart (that's also probably the simplest in terms of coding). You wouldn't solve the losing both rooms problem, you'd close the loophole where people would avoid that. But you would optimize your booking flow and your customer queuing.

 

[Dean Marino]

Deleted

 

[crisi]

Well - let's consider this.... If your Debit Card were breached - would you not like an Employee to have enough power to freeze it, and remove fake transactions?

Would you think that the power to alter an account balance in this fashion would be a GOOD thing to place online? Or would it be better to CALL an empowered employee, go thru identity checks, and NOT hear "we can't fix that" .

Your husband did WELL - those releases involved major coding....
I put the Dow Chemical Company on the net in 1993 - coding web servers in C, as my dear wife and I created one of the first Web-DB implementations previewed around 1995 at the SF INTEROP conference. We sort of get "carts". Web stateless, back end DB demands state. We also built Dow's first Firewalls, and ran them for many years.

Trust me, while not every CM should own the power of life and death? WDW IT DOES need a clear escalation path that will allow them to control an internal DB with more authority than a customer .

I still disagree. I also did well, running Portfolio Management for an Fortune 500 IT company before I retired and understand database design. I brought some of the first networking into Twin Cities companies in the 90s, before moving into IT Security and Audit. I've been retired for a few years now (at 45 - stock options were good).

Some employees need that power, but authorization really emphasizes separation of powers and least possible rights models. I'm not saying by the way that Disney CMs shouldn't have this power - but rather that I'm not sure anyone booking reservations should have this power, until the consequences are fully understood. How can they screw it up. My understanding is that a lot of the reservations CMs work out of their homes without a lot of support if something goes wrong and are often pretty junior people who just follow process. That's generally where Disney misses the boat with systems. What customers can do is a loophole having to do with session management and lack of an account check, and that it isn't in the CM system implies it isn't a required use case. But then, IT Security and Audit in my background, if the eSecurity idiots had their way, no one would be able to do their jobs.

 

[bumbershoot]

Putting things in a cart makes them unavailable for others, and a certain percentage of carts are abandoned. When talking about web services, because a session can be interrupted, the timeout on that cart can be long before it releases the room.

When making an initial reservation there's a 20 minute time limit. They've already thought of that.

 

[crisi]

When making an initial reservation there's a 20 minute time limit. They've already thought of that.

A twenty minute timeout is a long time when rooms are disappearing in that amount of time when the seven month window opens in the last quarter. I've run into it (and it didn't release in 20 minutes - it stayed tied up for about two hours. I had a PC bluescreen in the middle of a reservation - locking the room I wanted, which was the last of its kind) I suspect like a lot of Disney IT, its SUPPOSED to do that, and doesn't always work that way).

 

[supersnoop]

It’s a 20 minutes timeout, but a 60 minute hold. The system is not designed for multiple sessions, so a new search will (should) release a hold.

 

[crisi]

It’s a 20 minutes timeout, but a 60 minute hold. The system is not designed for multiple sessions, so a new search will (should) release a hold.

That wasn't my experience - i.e. computer bluescreened, went in with another PC, could not access room with a new search to complete reservation for two hours.

 

[TiggerBouncy]

in reality they know much more than we do, they only fix the issues that can be proven to reduce their profit. Everything they do is a study in cost versus reward.

In all fairness to Disney and DVC this is pretty much true of any successful company. Certainly we here at my company look at all of our errors (and we know about many more of them than the public does) with a "how much will it cost us to fix it and how much does it cost us (in dollars, reputation, customer satisfaction, risk to loss of life or limb) to leave it?"And before you ask - yes, there is a formula for how much a loss of life costs a company both in terms of actual payouts and reputation.

 

[disneynutz]

In all fairness to Disney and DVC this is pretty much true of any successful company. Certainly we here at my company look at all of our errors (and we know about many more of them than the public does) with a "how much will it cost us to fix it and how much does it cost us (in dollars, reputation, customer satisfaction, risk to loss of life or limb) to leave it?"And before you ask - yes, there is a formula for how much a loss of life costs a company both in terms of actual payouts and reputation.

I guess my issue is when is enough, enough? They have done such a successful job with marketing, many forget that they are a business who works very hard at separating you from your money who posts billions in profit each quarter.

Bill

 

[TiggerBouncy]

I guess my issue is when is enough, enough? They have done such a successful job with marketing, many forget that they are a business who works very hard at separating you from your money who posts billions in profit each quarter.

Well, they are a business - not a charity or a non profit organization. Don't get me wrong - I Love Disney, and I love what they do. for me, they hold a bit of magic. However at the end of the day, they are not in business to make you happy. They are in business to make money. They do that by making people happy. The happier they make people, the more people are willing to give them money, the more money they make, the more they make people happy. But it's really to make money.

It would be a poor business decision to spend 4 million dollars to make 3 million dollars. It's not even a good business decision to spend 4 million dollars to make 5 million dollars.

The bottom line is that the return on investment for something like that is horrendously small. The only way it would ever get fixed is if the ROI changes and it becomes part of their business plan (not likely) OR if some developer happens to be mucking around that part of the code and while they are there addresses it. They would never put something like that up on the list without a dev doing it while they were "passing by" so to speak because as an IT organization, Disney has a priority list that's miles and miles long and most of those have a much higher return.

 

[Dano1182]

It is your responsibility THAT the room MAY GET TAKEN!
WHY did you EVEN BUY DVC?!?!?!



I don't see how questioning a annoying glitch in a reservation system should bring into question why I joined DVC.

 

[Dano1182]

Not sure who this was directed at but if it is regards to my OP.

I bought DVC in order to have many years of enjoyable vacations at a place my family and I enjoy.

Which we have done every year since 2000. I am overall very happy with my membership and the vacations we have had.

I don't see how questioning a annoying glitch in a reservation system should bring into question why I joined DVC

 

[_auroraborealis_]

I don't think it's a glitch. I think it's not necessarily purposeful, but it's a consequence of just kludging cash into points and using a "stock" reservation system.

 

[crisi]

Well, they are a business - not a charity or a non profit organization. Don't get me wrong - I Love Disney, and I love what they do. for me, they hold a bit of magic. However at the end of the day, they are not in business to make you happy. They are in business to make money. They do that by making people happy. The happier they make people, the more people are willing to give them money, the more money they make, the more they make people happy. But it's really to make money.

It would be a poor business decision to spend 4 million dollars to make 3 million dollars. It's not even a good business decision to spend 4 million dollars to make 5 million dollars.

The bottom line is that the return on investment for something like that is horrendously small. The only way it would ever get fixed is if the ROI changes and it becomes part of their business plan (not likely) OR if some developer happens to be mucking around that part of the code and while they are there addresses it. They would never put something like that up on the list without a dev doing it while they were "passing by" so to speak because as an IT organization, Disney has a priority list that's miles and miles long and most of those have a much higher return.

I'll add that the Parks business is a limited capacity business - and they've had no issues remaining well within those capacity figures for DVC and the Orlando Parks. For every customer they lose, there are customers who are looking at their kid watching Frozen for the millionth time and booking the first trip of many.

Businesses expect attrition. Some customers will pass away. Others will become tired of the product and move on. Still others will get mad at you and move on. As long as Disney continues to grow at the rate they want (new guests - guest attrition) they don't worry too much about the guest attrition. Some of those new guests are going to be easier to please since they don't remember the old Disney. And guests that are easier to please are cheaper to serve.