Question on Checking Availability

[DVCAmy]

I called MS today with a question I had on transferring points. After I got my answer I asked if he could check availability for me for an upcoming vacation we are planning. He told me because I am not within 7 months he CANNOT check availability for any resort other than my home resort. Is this right? I am planning on making the reservation at my home resort this week and then possibly changing at 7 months but I had never had someone not willing to check a non home resort's availability.

Amy

 

[dianeschlicht]

I don't see anything wrong with that. If you are unable to book at that resort during the call, whatever you would find out is useless information and only takes up the time of the MS representative who could be helping folks make real reservations. A better thing to do would be to book the room at your home resort and on the 7 month window call to see what else might be available when you CAN change the ressie.

 

[DVCAmy]

I didn't see anything wrong with it either I just had never known that this was the case. I only asked because I do all the planning and work with both my sisters points and mine so sometimes I have to finagle with transferring points, etc if I want to make an easy switch at 7 months. If the resort was already fully booked then no need to go through the whole mess for nothing. Not a big deal I am used to complicated when it comes to reservations.

Amy

 

[LIFERBABE]

Yes, I had that happen recently also. It seems the computer system will not allow them to check availability if you are not in the correct booking window.

I have several UY's and the rep had to log into my AKV UY to check AKV availability.

Maybe it is a fail safe to prevent MS from booking an 11 month ressie with 7 month points.

They can check, but they have to log out of your account and log into a MS account to do it. Or they have to call a supervisor. I agree this would take time if they did it for everyone and would not be the least bit helpful with availability changing all the time.

 

[Chuck S]

Maybe it is a fail safe to prevent MS from booking an 11 month ressie with 7 month points.

It may also be that they are slowly, very slowly, changing the booking system to make it more user friendly if they do eventually go to a live online reservation system. Whether or not they do ever go online, this change to block viewing availability for non-home resorts seems to make sense, and would help to limit errors by MS.

 

[CarolAnnC]

I called MS today with a question I had on transferring points. After I got my answer I asked if he could check availability for me for an upcoming vacation we are planning. He told me because I am not within 7 months he CANNOT check availability for any resort other than my home resort. Is this right? I am planning on making the reservation at my home resort this week and then possibly changing at 7 months but I had never had someone not willing to check a non home resort's availability.

Amy

It really does not do much good to check before you are ready to reserve anyway. Since it can change either way in a moment, ie availability one minute can be gone the next, and vice versa as well.

For a general idea of availability, you can check here on the DIS to see what other folks have found for particular availability dates. Good luck!

 

[dianeschlicht]

I didn't see anything wrong with it either I just had never known that this was the case. I only asked because I do all the planning and work with both my sisters points and mine so sometimes I have to finagle with transferring points, etc if I want to make an easy switch at 7 months. If the resort was already fully booked then no need to go through the whole mess for nothing. Not a big deal I am used to complicated when it comes to reservations.

Amy

I think you misunderstood my point. I do NOT think you should be able to check or see availability when you are not yet at your 7 month window. As I said in my first post, it takes time away from people who are trying to actually book and not just seeking useless information. What is available one minute could be gone the next, so it is totally useless information.

 

[JimMIA]

It may also be that they are slowly, very slowly, changing the booking system to make it more user friendly if they do eventually go to a live online reservation system.

I don't know what they're doing, but I have every confidence they will do it slowly, very slowly. And then probably do it slowly, very slowly several more times before they get it to a minimally acceptable system.

 

[crisi]

It may also be that they are slowly, very slowly, changing the booking system to make it more user friendly if they do eventually go to a live online reservation system. Whether or not they do ever go online, this change to block viewing availability for non-home resorts seems to make sense, and would help to limit errors by MS.

They also may just be keeping the "what do you mean it isn't available, I called last week on March 28th at 3:32 pm and Rose told me there was lots of availability - she must have lied to me, I want to talk to a supervisor" complaints down. Not everyone is reasonable and a lot of companies are taking more and more steps to keep their customers from bullying them.

 

[disneyistheone]

I really believe that MS is doing the right thing. The CM's are so busy that they really don't have time to check for something that can't be confirmed at that point. Plus, it sounds like they have to input your membership number first to even be able to check.

 

[bobbiwoz]

They also may just be keeping the "what do you mean it isn't available, I called last week on March 28th at 3:32 pm and Rose told me there was lots of availability - she must have lied to me, I want to talk to a supervisor" complaints down. Not everyone is reasonable and a lot of companies are taking more and more steps to keep their customers from bullying them.

This sounds so funny, but in fact, it's probably happened. It's when things like this are mentioned that I'm so glad that I'm not a CM working DVC's phones!
Bobbi

 

[Cmbar]

I think you misunderstood my point. I do NOT think you should be able to check or see availability when you are not yet at your 7 month window. As I said in my first post, it takes time away from people who are trying to actually book and not just seeking useless information. What is available one minute could be gone the next, so it is totally useless information.

Not sure why you posted this. Doesn't sound like she disagreed with your point at all. Sounds like she was asking if this is a new condition that they aren't ABLE to do it. Not that it should or should not be a policy. For whatever reasons, it is the way it is. I understand however, not wanting to transfer points if you can't make the reservation anyways. So I would hope that if they are ALLOWED to check and this is the situation that they would allow a member to check prior to transferring points. If they choose to transfer points at that time and then miss the reservation on the 7 month day, oh well. As some have said it does sound like they could check reservations using a MS account.

If you want to reduce the amount of time MS is on the phone with people, we shouldn't have a rental board where people are calling all the time to check on rentals for tons of people, talk about useless information. That takes up MS time! JMHO

 

[DVCAmy]

I think you misunderstood my point. I do NOT think you should be able to check or see availability when you are not yet at your 7 month window. As I said in my first post, it takes time away from people who are trying to actually book and not just seeking useless information. What is available one minute could be gone the next, so it is totally useless information.

No I totally understood your post and I was replying that I agreed with you and didn't think it was wrong of MS to tell me I couldn't check I just wasn't aware of the policy. I actually wasn't complaining in my 1st post just wondering. I understand why MS has this policy I just didn't know about it beforehand. I don't agree it's totally useless information because to me it wouldn't be. It's not a guarantee of availability or not but may give me some insight on whether I may need to do a transfer of points or not with my sister's account and how I can do it and use our points fairly for all 3 of the reservations we make. It's probably not understandable to anyone but me who needs to work through several scenarios and how to execute them. If there was zero availability at a non home resort for me now then there's no need for me to work through any scenarios because the chances of getting 3 rooms on a waitlist are slim to none and not worth stressing for them to come through.

Amy

 

[Cmbar]

No I totally understood your post and I was replying that I agreed with you and didn't think it was wrong of MS to tell me I couldn't check I just wasn't aware of the policy. I actually wasn't complaining in my 1st post just wondering. I understand why MS has this policy I just didn't know about it beforehand. I don't agree it's totally useless information because to me it wouldn't be. It's not a guarantee of availability or not but may give me some insight on whether I may need to do a transfer of points or not with my sister's account and how I can do it and use our points fairly for all 3 of the reservations we make. It's probably not understandable to anyone but me who needs to work through several scenarios and how to execute them. If there was zero availability at a non home resort for me now then there's no need for me to work through any scenarios because the chances of getting 3 rooms on a waitlist are slim to none and not worth stressing for them to come through.

Amy

Totally understand that!! But that is because I am an obsessive planner and of course we didn't buy enough points to bring all the family and will have to transfer and stuff too!!

 

[Deb & Bill]

Make sure you read your Public Offering Statement about transfers. There is supposed to be no compensation for transfer from one member to another.