Room available for 6 nights but not 5???

[LadyLuck24]

I'm trying to book a (fairly) last minute room for end of September. There's availability at many resorts when I don't use a special rate. When I enter the "enchanted" something discount (25% off rack rates) there are only a few resorts available. I understand that, because they only have so many rooms available at the special rate, and many are likely taken this close to the travel dates.

My question though is: when I enter my dates as Thursday through Tuesday (my desired dates), there is no availability at SSR (where I want to stay). When I enter my dates as Thursday through WEDNESDAY, SSR IS available. Same room, same location etc--available when you stay for 6 nights but not 5. I looked at the fine print and there's nothing about that "enchanted" special that requires you to stay 6 nights.

I even tried to modify the reservation and drop that last day, but it kicked me back to the page that said there was "no availability for the dates you selected."

Has anyone experienced this before? Can I call Disney and have them drop that last night? I just don't get why there's no availability for FEWER nights but there is for more nights!
Thanks!

 

[twoplustwins]

Same thing is happening to me. I'm looking for a Tues-Sat. No rooms for the resort I want. I put in Mon-Sat and BAM, several room options open up.

 

[writerguyfl]

This is something known as revenue management. It's a practice used in virtually all hotels on the planet and it's something that's been done for decades. Essentially, the hotel is trying to maximize both revenue and the use of their rooms. This is done though the use of rate and stay controls. Both are in evidence here.

Rate controls can be seen by the availability (or lack thereof) of the discount. Stay controls can be seen here through the use of a minimum stay requirement. At least one night (probably the Saturday night) has a minimum stay of 6 nights. If you want to stay at the resort, you'll need to stay six nights.

While stay controls certainly benefit Disney, they also help out guests. Without them, finding a multi-night reservation would be much more difficult. For example, most weekends would probably sell out with 2 or 3 night stays, mostly with Florida residents. To prevent that from happening, Disney puts on a minimum stay requirement of 4+ nights in order to "save" rooms for people wanting longer stays.

In this case, Disney is fairly confident they will get someone to book a 6 night stay for this resort at some people between today and September. So, they are "saving" that room for that guest. Not so great for you, but certainly beneficial for that guest.

You can certainly book the 6 nights and try to get Disney to remove a night. But, that isn't guaranteed and some people have reported being denied.

 

[LadyLuck24]

This is something known as revenue management. It's a practice used in virtually all hotels on the planet and it's something that's been done for decades. Essentially, the hotel is trying to maximize both revenue and the use of their rooms. This is done though the use of rate and stay controls. Both are in evidence here.

Rate controls can be seen by the availability (or lack thereof) of the discount. Stay controls can be seen here through the use of a minimum stay requirement. At least one night (probably the Saturday night) has a minimum stay of 6 nights. If you want to stay at the resort, you'll need to stay six nights.

While stay controls certainly benefit Disney, they also help out guests. Without them, finding a multi-night reservation would be much more difficult. For example, most weekends would probably sell out with 2 or 3 night stays, mostly with Florida residents. To prevent that from happening, Disney puts on a minimum stay requirement of 4+ nights in order to "save" rooms for people wanting longer stays.

In this case, Disney is fairly confident they will get someone to book a 6 night stay for this resort at some people between today and September. So, they are "saving" that room for that guest. Not so great for you, but certainly beneficial for that guest.

You can certainly book the 6 nights and try to get Disney to remove a night. But, that isn't guaranteed and some people have reported being denied.

Wow this is great info--had no idea this was a standard practice. I'll see if I can drop the extra night at some point. For now I booked it with the extra night. Thanks!

 

[Shanti]

I'm trying to book a (fairly) last minute room for end of September. There's availability at many resorts when I don't use a special rate. When I enter the "enchanted" something discount (25% off rack rates) there are only a few resorts available. I understand that, because they only have so many rooms available at the special rate, and many are likely taken this close to the travel dates.

My question though is: when I enter my dates as Thursday through Tuesday (my desired dates), there is no availability at SSR (where I want to stay). When I enter my dates as Thursday through WEDNESDAY, SSR IS available. Same room, same location etc--available when you stay for 6 nights but not 5. I looked at the fine print and there's nothing about that "enchanted" special that requires you to stay 6 nights.

I even tried to modify the reservation and drop that last day, but it kicked me back to the page that said there was "no availability for the dates you selected."

Has anyone experienced this before? Can I call Disney and have them drop that last night? I just don't get why there's no availability for FEWER nights but there is for more nights!
Thanks!

Same thing is happening to me. I'm looking for a Tues-Sat. No rooms for the resort I want. I put in Mon-Sat and BAM, several room options open up.

Disney's online reservation system can be quirky for the reason writerguyfl described. Call reservations, explain the problem & ask them to make your desired reservation for you. They can bypass the system to do this by having Guest Services help out. If the first CM you talk to says he or she can't do it, call back & get a more helpful CM. They can resolve the problem.

 

[LovesTimone]

We ran into this when a couple of times, I would book the deal, then figure out how to get out a day early, or use the room on the last day and make a late flight out, while not spending the night...we had somewhere shower, pool time, rest or nap, and keep our stuff till time to go. It worked out fine for us, just took some moving around.

Once we left after DD took her exam, around 11:00 then high tailed to WDW, we made it to WDW 7 hours, enough time to grab some dinner, a quick swim in the pool and early to bed.

When we lived out of state we once took a 5:00pm flight, landed at 6:35, luggage..got the rental car ... dinner at O'Charleys .. stopped at Walmart for supplies for the week... Checked in, headed to the room it was 9:00pm by this time, DH and DD went to swim for a bit, I got the room organized, and we were in bed by 11:00. This little feat took a lot of planning so that it went out without a hitch. But we did it, with Disney as the incentive, I had complete cooperation which made it easy.

 

[summerlvr]

Yes, the online reservation system is very quirky. I tried to book a 3 night stay at POP for September, and I kept getting the no availability message. It would, however, allow me to make 3 separate one night reservations (requiring 3 deposits of course), so I called and guest services took care of it for me so that I only had 1 reservation.

 

[SL6827]

I think that in the past Disney did not use this practice. But as others have said, many other hotels do use this, so it is not surprising.

 

[wilkeliza]

Disney use to not do this but it is standard practice for hotels and now standard at Disney. For now you might have luck dropping the night by calling but I feel like starting next year they are just going to say no and that guest relations can't over ride it either.

 

[LadyLuck24]

Disney use to not do this but it is standard practice for hotels and now standard at Disney. For now you might have luck dropping the night by calling but I feel like starting next year they are just going to say no and that guest relations can't over ride it either.

Thanks for these thoughts. Just curious...what about next year makes you think they'll stop allowing you to drop a night?

 

[wilkeliza]

Thanks for these thoughts. Just curious...what about next year makes you think they'll stop allowing you to drop a night?

Mostly just the amount of time since this has been practice vs not. If they let a year pass they can inform guests that it is a practice/policy change that has been in affect for X amount of time so will no longer be transfered to guest relations etc. It of course wouldn't be that specific but usually companies let a certain amount of time pass before they stop allowing exceptions to a policy. Plus then they have a 1 year set of financials and guest relations call/email logs to see what the impact is.

 

[DisBuckMan]

This is something known as revenue management. It's a practice used in virtually all hotels on the planet and it's something that's been done for decades. Essentially, the hotel is trying to maximize both revenue and the use of their rooms. This is done though the use of rate and stay controls. Both are in evidence here.

Rate controls can be seen by the availability (or lack thereof) of the discount. Stay controls can be seen here through the use of a minimum stay requirement. At least one night (probably the Saturday night) has a minimum stay of 6 nights. If you want to stay at the resort, you'll need to stay six nights.

While stay controls certainly benefit Disney, they also help out guests. Without them, finding a multi-night reservation would be much more difficult. For example, most weekends would probably sell out with 2 or 3 night stays, mostly with Florida residents. To prevent that from happening, Disney puts on a minimum stay requirement of 4+ nights in order to "save" rooms for people wanting longer stays.

In this case, Disney is fairly confident they will get someone to book a 6 night stay for this resort at some people between today and September. So, they are "saving" that room for that guest. Not so great for you, but certainly beneficial for that guest.

You can certainly book the 6 nights and try to get Disney to remove a night. But, that isn't guaranteed and some people have reported being denied.

Very nice, detailed answer.

In short, Disney doesn't like "orphaned" single nights. It's harder for somewhere like Disney to sell a single night rather than a block of nights.