Question for Fixed Week Owners re: DVC Website

[J-Dog]

So, first a little background: we just bought our first contract, which we bought direct, a fixed week at Riviera.

We signed the contract a couple of days ago, and haven't closed because we still have the virtual notary coming up this Saturday.

Anyway, here's the question: Does the fact that we have a Fixed Week/Guaranteed Week typically show-up ANYWHERE on the DVC website?

I know our contract explicitly stated that we have a fixed week, but I can't find that stated anywhere on the DVC website. So I called and asked my DVC guide, who helped us with the contract, and she said that it should show a "GW" on the "My Dashboard" page. When I told her that the website did NOT show the "GW" for us, she then recommended that I call Member Services to sort it out. So I did that, and the first representative had no idea one way or the other, so she said that she got a hold of a supervisor, and he apparently said that it does show my Fixed Week on their end of the website, but that it never shows up on the member end of the website.

Since we have the contract, I don't really think that this is big deal. But it just seems odd to me that, other than on the contract, there is no mention anywhere on the website of our Fixed Week status.

Is this normal? What are other people's experience?

Thanks!

 

[pangyal]

So, first a little background: we just bought our first contract, which we bought direct, a fixed week at Riviera.

We signed the contract a couple of days ago, and haven't closed because we still have the virtual notary coming up this Saturday.

Anyway, here's the question: Does the fact that we have a Fixed Week/Guaranteed Week typically show-up ANYWHERE on the DVC website?

I know our contract explicitly stated that we have a fixed week, but I can't find that stated anywhere on the DVC website. So I called and asked my DVC guide, who helped us with the contract, and she said that it should show a "GW" on the "My Dashboard" page. When I told her that the website did NOT show the "GW" for us, she then recommended that I call Member Services to sort it out. So I did that, and the first representative had no idea one way or the other, so she said that she got a hold of a supervisor, and he apparently said that it does show my Fixed Week on their end of the website, but that it never shows up on the member end of the website.

Since we have the contract, I don't really think that this is big deal. But it just seems odd to me that, other than on the contract, there is no mention anywhere on the website of our Fixed Week status.

Is this normal? What are other people's experience?

Thanks!

We have one fixed week at VGF and one at CCV, and I’ve honestly never heard of there being a special designation for these that show up anywhere other than on the paperwork.

 

[J-Dog]

We have one fixed week at VGF and one at CCV, and I’ve honestly never heard of there being a special designation for these that show up anywhere other than on the paperwork.

Okay, thanks! That's what the member services rep said.

I was just worried that they would "forget" to book our fixed week, but that's probably because we are brand-new and it hasn't happened yet for us, so I have no frame of reference.

 

[Royal Consort]

There is no designation on the dashboard. Disney automatically book it 11-12 months out and you are emailed the confirmation annually.

 

[princesscinderella]

Same here it just looks like regular points in my account.

 

[J-Dog]

Thanks again for the help. I guess my account is normal, then!

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

It will show as a normal points contract. Approx 12 months ahead of your guaranteed week you should see the points are all used and you have a reservation for your week. If you don't want to use it you can call and cancel and this is important that you call in to cancel if it's already been booked so that they return all your points back for use. The system might actually not allow any modification without calling but I'm not certain about that. Otherwise if you already knew you didn't want to use the week and the week reservation had not been made by DVC then you can go ahead and book a reservation with them like any other contract.

 

[OPDman]

From my experience, any modifications to a fixed week reservation require member service intervention.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

From my experience, any modifications to a fixed week reservation require member service intervention.

That is what I was thinking. I don't believe it always did so they might have been getting some complaints from owners who cancelled online and didn't have all their points returned so that they put a restriction on it.

 

[RoseGold]

It will show as a normal points contract.

It doesn't show as a normal contract. It's in your sales paperwork, and you can resell it (except maybe Run Disney week?). The website has many issues including handling this.

 

[Lorana]

It doesn't show as a normal contract. It's in your sales paperwork, and you can resell it (except maybe Run Disney week?). The website has many issues including handling this.

You can resell a runDisney week, but it loses the special runDisney benefits when you do and reverts to the Fixed Week # that it is associated with. In the case of the Food & Wine runDisney week, it would revert to Week #44 (as that is the week I have).

 

[J-Dog]

From my experience, any modifications to a fixed week reservation require member service intervention.

Yes, that's what I was told. That seems kind of annoying, since a last-minute opt-out because something else suddenly became available seems pretty much impossible, given the hold times for Member Services.

 

[Sandisw]

Yes, that's what I was told. That seems kind of annoying, since a last-minute opt-out because something else suddenly became available seems pretty much impossible, given the hold times for Member Services.

That was another aspect of why the fixed week didn’t work for us. We don’t have to want to worry about making sure it was canceled if it was already booked.

Having said that, you can always book something with the points so when it comes time for them to book it they can’t cause you used the points up. But it just seemed to be one extra step.

I think many of the people here who have bought them do use it most of tue time and so are really benefiting with tue changes and will continue to benefit!!

 

[Yinn]

Yes, that's what I was told. That seems kind of annoying, since a last-minute opt-out because something else suddenly became available seems pretty much impossible, given the hold times for Member Services.

If these are your only points then this is true. If you end up with add-onitus then this disappears.

For me, my GW points don't show up any differently in the system. If we know there's no chance we're going during our GW, we just use them as normal; there's no difference from our normal points.

Sometimes the GW gets booked at 12 months, even 7 months. I freaked out about at first but it always got booked. Calls with long holds always resulted in - don't worry there's a notation and the room is held.

Otherwise, to me it's as if my better half made a reservation instead of myself. It just shows up as booked. Modifications, are irrelevant. If you need to modify, it's a cancellation and usage as normal points. If you need to cancel, they're best done in chat. Any chat. I've been able to cancel it via WDW chat as they need to contact different people as neither have direct cancellation ability. We just cancelled our Week 52 two weeks ago this way and it was very drama free.

 

[J-Dog]

If these are your only points then this is true. If you end up with add-onitus then this disappears.

For me, my GW points don't show up any differently in the system. If we know there's no chance we're going during our GW, we just use them as normal; there's no difference from our normal points.

Sometimes the GW gets booked at 12 months, even 7 months. I freaked out about at first but it always got booked. Calls with long holds always resulted in - don't worry there's a notation and the room is held.

Otherwise, to me it's as if my better half made a reservation instead of myself. It just shows up as booked. Modifications, are irrelevant. If you need to modify, it's a cancellation and usage as normal points. If you need to cancel, they're best done in chat. Any chat. I've been able to cancel it via WDW chat as they need to contact different people as neither have direct cancellation ability. We just cancelled our Week 52 two weeks ago this way and it was very drama free.

Yes but my point was that, for example, you are wanting to try to get a different resort for the year, and BCV suddenly becomes available at 7-months, and you want to jump on it before it's taken, that's not really possible if you need to call Member Services and sit on hold to cancel the GW - since something that's in-demand like BCV will likely be taken during that time that you're sitting on hold. That would be annoying. Of course, you could cancel your GW early, so you could have points available for when something comes up, but then you take the chance of getting nothing at all for the year (except maybe SSR).

 

[ziravan]

I don’t see anything special on my website for my fixed week.

I will say that to the best of my memory, the site still warns me when I borrow points from that contract that doing so is a final transaction that will void my guarantee for that year. If I borrow the points, I’m trading away the guarantee. And the website does warn me to take that into account.

Other than that, I don’t see anything.

 

[Yinn]

Yes but my point was that, for example, you are wanting to try to get a different resort for the year, and BCV suddenly becomes available at 7-months, and you want to jump on it before it's taken, that's not really possible if you need to call Member Services and sit on hold to cancel the GW - since something that's in-demand like BCV will likely be taken during that time that you're sitting on hold. That would be annoying. Of course, you could cancel your GW early, so you could have points available for when something comes up, but then you take the chance of getting nothing at all for the year (except maybe SSR).

Again if you get add onitus, it becomes irrelevant because you can hold it with the add on points. Even if you don’t, you don’t need to sit on hold. You can use the chat feature.

IF you are in a hunting mood you can always convert and book your own resort at 11 months out. I don’t think I’ve seen Riviera be 100% booked at 11 months out so you can always convert your FW to points and grab your room of choice at Riviera and keep on hunting. You only need to keep the FW if you’re confident you’re staying there.

You can insist on it if you want, but I’ve switched many times, including to a BCV studio, BWV standard, and to BLT 1BR standard. All of which are high demand, including my own Christmas/New Year guaranteed week and have never once been left with nothing.

There’s enough ways around and lots of flexibility with a GW, enough for me to wish I had bought more GW when I bought contract 2 and 3.

 

[J-Dog]

Again if you get add onitus, it becomes irrelevant because you can hold it with the add on points. Even if you don’t, you don’t need to sit on hold. You can use the chat feature.

IF you are in a hunting mood you can always convert and book your own resort at 11 months out. I don’t think I’ve seen Riviera be 100% booked at 11 months out so you can always convert your FW to points and grab your room of choice at Riviera and keep on hunting. You only need to keep the FW if you’re confident you’re staying there.

You can insist on it if you want, but I’ve switched many times, including to a BCV studio, BWV standard, and to BLT 1BR standard. All of which are high demand, including my own Christmas/New Year guaranteed week and have never once been left with nothing.

There’s enough ways around and lots of flexibility with a GW, enough for me to wish I had bought more GW when I bought contract 2 and 3.

Thanks for the advice. Like I said, I am a complete noob and have no experience when it comes to booking. I appreciate it!

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

It doesn't show as a normal contract. It's in your sales paperwork, and you can resell it (except maybe Run Disney week?). The website has many issues including handling this.

Yes I'm aware it is a fixed week and always keeps that for use and selling but on the website it looks identical to any other contract.