Room availability ??

[sophielab1]

We decided to book a trip for November 25- December 2. I called MS and was told there were no rooms available friday 25. She then informed me that Saratoga Springs was available for cash for that night. Now my question is this: why if the room is available for cash is it not available to book with my points, and now I'm wondering how many of the other DVC hotels are available for "cash" have rooms available?

 

[vicki_c]

There are two separate inventories of rooms, DVC points rooms and rooms given (sold is a better term really) to Disney to book for cash. Those rooms are ones owned by DVC, or those that represent members that have traded points out of the system for non-DVC options (cruises for example).

 

[sophielab1]

So as a DVC member you're penalized if you try to make a last minute reservation.?

 

[CarolMN]

So as a DVC member you're penalized if you try to make a last minute reservation.?

No, not really. The rooms are available for cash because another member used points to cruise or for certain other non-DVC resort options. DVC has to pay for that choice. It gets the money to do so by sending rooms to CRO who rents them out to the general public. The proceeds of those rentals are used to pay for the members' non-DVC options.

DVC is first come, first served system. Unfortunately, other members reserved ahead of you. DVC really doesn't work all that well for last minute reservations. That's the price we pay for having access to the non-DVC options.

 

[Deb & Bill]

So as a DVC member you're penalized if you try to make a last minute reservation.?

Yes, you are because there is not going to be anything available. It's a timeshare and you need to plan ahead of time to use a timeshare.

 

[chalee94]

So as a DVC member you're penalized if you try to make a last minute reservation.?

timeshares like DVC sell enough pts so that everyone can book a room.

to simplify the situation, assume that DVC is one villa and 12 owners own enough pts for 1 month each. if no one books the months of january and february and 5 of the owners want to book november and december, guess what happens to the owners who wait to book?

someone will be penalized by not being able to use their pts.

in a point-based timeshare, you are better off booking as early as possible to make sure there is still availability. if not, you may be penalized if there is not much left over when you call. the DVC salespeople/"guides" might talk as if you can book whatever you want, but you would be wise to think more competitively.

if one of the owners trades his month for a disney cruise, then DVC would need to rent his month for cash in order to pay the cruise division for the trade. DVC might use his pts to book the month of june and rent that out for cash...so if you wanted the month of june, you'd be out of luck and frustrated that a cash renter could get in while you could not on pts. but in reality, you are in the same situation as if that owner had used their pts to book june himself.

cash inventory could also come from DVC using pts that they own (they hold some back to use for maintenance if needed, as well as pts they ROFR or foreclose on). but in either case, you are competing with someone else using their pts.