Refused information by Cast Member? What the heck?

[Spankadoodle]

This is a bit of a cross post from trip planning, but I was looking for some feedback:

I just finished an infuriating chat on the vacation booking page. I'm basically trying to get my budget set for my trip, so I asked a CM named BonnieJo what the rate was on a 7 day dining plan for my stay at Pop Century for Jan6-13, 2014.

I explained that i know the prices have not been released yet, so if she could provide me with today's prices, I'd be happy to budget an extra 12-17% for a price increase.

She responded by stating prices for next year were not yet available. I responded that I understood that, I'd like to know the plan prices for todays dates. Again she responded by stating that it would not be advisable to go by todays prices.

I then requested the prices for 7 days DDP at peak season and stated I understand that prices will change. I'm simply trying to ballpark my prices. She then told me to contact them again in August!

Is this normal? Do they usually refuse to tell people prices in the chat system? Or did I simply get a crappy cast member?

 

[TDC Nala]

Depends. At the booking stage they don't break down or itemize packages into components, so they can't tell you the exact price of just the dining plan unless they want to figure it or they know how to find the information where it has already been figured. You have to get a CM who is willing to go the extra mile. And I don't know what kind of information they have access to on the chat.

At any rate there are plenty of Disney planning sites out there (including this one) that have already done the work and broken down the prices.

 

[Tropical Wilds]

I've never had anybody quote a price to me via chat, for obvious liability reasons. For dates that have already passed, they're probably unable to give you a quote. Having worked for a travel agency, we couldn't back-date reservations to come up with a speculative answer.

I know for certain they're not allowed to speculate or even imply what prices could be to a customer before the dates are posted for booking, which would include giving past dates for a customer to guesstimate what their cost will be.

For the DDP, which is very much a moving quantity in terms of what's being offered, there's no real way she could give you an estimate, or that you could ball park with even a reasonable percentage what it would be, based off of previous years. I remember there was one year where the cost jumped like 30% for the low and mid DDP, then another year it went up only a few dollars, but a ton was cut out of it.

In short, I don't see where the CM did anything wrong. It's just not information they can give out.

 

[Spankadoodle]

OK thanks for the info. I was really confused as to why they could not give me todays rates.

 

[TDC Nala]

If you want to see today's rates you can do a dummy booking online, but even that won't separate out the cost of the dining plan from the cost of the other package components. It just gives one price for everything.

 

[Spankadoodle]

That's kind of my problem. I'm trying to organize my budget into lodging, tickets, food and souvenirs. I've got general ideas for 3 of the 4, but dining is throwing me off.

 

[Viking Princess]

Just make a dummy booking and make sure the dining plan is the last thing you add. Subtract the price of that number from the amount you had before the dining plan.

 

[TDC Nala]

There's a sticky thread right here on this forum with the 2013 prices for all three dining plans.

 

[PrincessJo]

I'm not surprised CMs do not guess-ti-mate for 2014. There will always be someone who comes back and says, "well she said THIS" and "well he said THAT" next year when the prices go up more than estimated.

They are just trying to avoid an angry deluge of customers who call to chew them out later. I don't blame them. Been there... done that...

 

[Spankadoodle]

Ok. Thanks everybody. This answers all my questions that I had.