"Switch Out" Points in Middle of Ressie?

[tcb1]

Good morning. Tried to search for this, but no avail...hope someone can provide a quick gut check.

Here's the situation: We currently have a 10-day reservation @ BWV during F&W w/ BW view. Booked this at the 11 month window. We actually want to stay a total of 14 nights, but don't have enough BWV points (even w/ banking & borrowing). We'd prefer not to change resorts b/c we will have DD2 & D?6 months with us.

The 7 month window just opened up a few days ago. I was hoping to "switch out" points from one of our other home resorts for any of the days we already have booked (if there was even availability @ 7 months), thereby freeing up BWV points to add the extra 3 days at the end before I lose the 11 month window advantage.

I called MS this morning...there is availability for 2 of the nights we already have booked. I was able to book using BCV points. However, when I told them I wanted to link this new ressie with my existing one to free up BWV points, they said that I can not "switch out" or even link them b/c it's in the middle of my existing reservation. To do that, I would have to cancel my entire existing ressie & rebook (but not all the days are currently available for BW view...would have to wait list for more than hlaf the nights)

Does this sound right? Seems like I'm being penalized b/c I booked 10 nights straight on one ressie. MS said if I had booked separate reservations for those 10 days, I could have just canceled the one I wanted to now book w/ BCV points. Now we have to gamble to see if we can add the last 3 nights @ 7 months. Is there any way to "switch out" points at 7 months w/t having to cancel the entire reservation? Guess I could have booked the orig 10 days day-by-day & linked them to have ultimate flexibility. That just seems like a pain for me & MS. Any help is very much appreciated! Thanks

 

[DebbieB]

Since all of the nights were not available, I don't see how you could break up the current reservation in the middle. To switch the points, I would think they would have to cancel what you had and rebook it. I don't think you can cancel the middle part of a reservation and leave the rest intact.

Are the last 3 nights even available? They may already be taken by BW members.

 

[childsplay]

You, and MS, are exactly right, in order to switch any of the days of your existing reservation you would have to cancell the entire thing and then rebook. And while I agree making 10 one day reservations and having them linked seems a bit ridiculous it is the only way I can think of to kind of "switching out" points later.

 

[LisaS]

What MS is telling you sounds correct to me. They don't allow you to book at the 11-month window and then "switch out" your home resort points at the 7-month window and substitute non-home points. You can cancel all/part of your nights and rebook those with other points, subject to availability. But you can only cancel nights at the start or the end of a trip. You cannot cancel nights in the middle of the reservation.

Seems like I'm being penalized b/c I booked 10 nights straight on one ressie.

Actually, that is the way the program works. They are treating you the same as all the other members who all have only so many home resort points. If they allowed you to swap out your points, that would allow you to get around the priority booking window by using your home resort points as a place holder and then swapping in other points later on, freeing up your home resort points to book something else at the 11-month window.

 

[Chuck S]

Actually, that is the way the program works. They are treating you the same as all the other members who all have only so many home resort points. If they allowed you to swap out your points, that would allow you to get around the priority booking window by using your home resort points as a place holder and then swapping in other points later on, freeing up your home resort points to book something else at the 11-month window.

Exactly. For instance, if you have 5 nights booked during the 11 month window, if they allowed you to switch points at 7, you could then bank those points and use them for ANOTHER 11 month priority. Defeating the purpose of the 11 month window.

 

[Doctor P]

I'm sorry that the OP had this problem. I guess I hadn't thought about this problem as being a "switch out" of points since nights are being cancelled and are available with 7 month points, but I understand the problem and DVC is handling it in the correct/consistent way. Let's talk about how you can avoid this problem in the future (and this is the tactic that I have used when I am short of points). When you are making your 10 day reservation, you either make a couple of nights at the beginning or end at a different resort OR pick a couple nights in the middle of the reservation that you think will be easiest to get at the 7 month mark (this isn't as hard to do as it sounds). Then, when you cancel at the 7 month mark you CAN link your new reservation to your old one or ones. The other alternative is to make separate reservations for every night and link them. The probably is that with a single reservation number you can't cancel nights in the middle without cancelling the entire reservation.

 

[LisaS]

I guess I hadn't thought about this problem as being a "switch out" of points since nights are being cancelled and are available with 7 month points, but I understand the problem and DVC is handling it in the correct/consistent way.

I see what you're saying about the nights being available at 7 months. The OP booked the middle nights with BCV points and wanted to link them to the original reservation and then cancel the two nights in the middle but this just isn't possible and technically would amount to the same thing as swapping the points.

Rebooking nights in the middle of the trip requires splitting the original reservation in two. The nights at the start are not available, so the OP would want to keep those as part of the original reservation and then make a new reservation for the nights at the end of the trip (the part still in the 11-month window) with home resort points. But it sounded like not all of the nights at the end of the trip would be available to rebook and the OP would have to waitlist.

 

[tcb1]

Thanks to all who replied & your expertise. And hopefully you didn't get a headache trying to follow my logic

I think I understand now why you can't add nights in the middle of an existing ressie @ 7 months. Just to be clear, I wasn't trying to "beat" the system by "switching out" points. I just thought that since everything is up for grabs at 7 months, I would be able to use any home resort points to re-book BWV with a new ressie since it was available to everyone, then cancel the old one (just like others do between resorts...they hold a ressie at another resort, then cancel as they get days at the preferred). In my case, it just happened to be at the same resort.

I guess the lesson learned is that if you ever want the option to do that, you need to make several smaller ressies vs. one big one at 11 months. Then you can re-book at 7 months with any points.

Any thoughts re whether it's generally easier to book weekends vs. weeknights. I know when I called about BWV this morning...there were no weeknights available, but there were weekend nights.

Dr P, you mentioned it's not too hard to figure out what nights will be in higher demand during one continuous ressie...does it follow the weekend vs. weeknight logic?

Thanks again for all of your thorough & patient advice.

 

[Dean]

If you call back and ask to swap the points, I suspect you will be allowed to do so, it may take a couple of calls to get it done. Then once you get that and get some BWV points back, make a separate call to MS to add to your reservation. If what you want is available for some of the nights you should be able to swap out without canceling everything. It would only be abusing the system if they swapped out points for nights that were not available at 7 months out.

 

[tcb1]

Dean,
That was exactly my thought. If the rooms are available to everyone 7 months out, I should be able to fold those nights (whether beginning, middle or end) into my existing reservation & free up those original BWV points to either add on to a longer stay or save for a future one. I wouldn't be getting any preferential treatment or "abusing" the system. I'll try to call MS again tomorrow to see what they say. Thanks

 

[LisaS]

I've been mulling this over and I see Dean and DoctorP's points about the nights being available. The approach you took of booking the 2 nights with BCV points and trying to link them in wasn't workable because you can't drop the corresponding nights from your initial reservation (you can't have a reservation with a hole in the middle). You would have to split that initial reservation into two reservations, requiring you to cancel and rebook the end of the trip as a new reservation which is a problem due to some nights not being available.

So your only option is to get MS to swap the points into the existing reservation for those two nights that are available. Up until now, I was under the impression that MS would only do this if you are swapping in points from the same resort -- swapping in banked or borrowed points to free up current UY points. Based on Dean's response, it sounds like it is possible to swap in points from a different resort at 7 months out provided the nights are available. Please report back because I'm very interested to see how this all turns out.

 

[tcb1]

OK. Here's the update. Not what I expected...but ended up working out OK!

I called MS tonight to see if I could "free up" points from my initial 10-day ressie (BWV booked at the 11 month window) by "reallocating" points from a separate BWV reservation booked at the 7 month window (2 consecutive days in the middle of my original 10-day ressie) with points from a different home resort.

Side note...One thing that I hadn't mentioned is that I tried to re-book the first few days of our existing ressie at the 7 month window, but rooms weren't available until the middle of the ressie. I waitlisted with auto-confirm...hoping that a couple days would come through at some point to free up points.

When I asked MS tonight about my original reservation, she asked "which one?" I apparently now had 5 different resevations linked together in this order: 3 nts w/ BWV pts, 1 nt w/ BCV pts, 1 nt w/ BCV pts, 1 nt w/ BWV pts & 4 nts w/ BWV pts. The 2 nights w/ BCV pts were the ressies I made a couple days ago @ the 7 month window. I have to assume this is a product of the auto-confirm waitlist that was in place. They must have busted up my orig ressie & rebooked. The 1st 3 days possibly came in via waitlist, they then could have linked to the 2 BCV pt ressies, then linked to the last half. Apparently it all happened yesterday (but since it was autoconfirm, I had no idea).

This is ultimately what I wanted to happen, b/c I was able to use the "freed up" BWV pts to book additional nights at the end (& still within the 11 month window) & did that tonight.

I'm not sure if I have any key learnings from this experience b/c I still don't know if you can "reallocate" at 7 months if the same room is available to re-book with different points. I also don't know what I'd do differently next time, except book longer stays in smaller chunks of days. MS even said to book day-by-day on separate ressies if there is a chance I would ever want to "reallocate" in the future due to the fact that you can't replace days in the middle of a ressie, but you can easily cancel one day in the middle if it's a separate ressie. Then you can link a new 7 month ressie right in middle. Does this make sense? My head is spinning now just trying to type this

 

[Doctor P]

OK. Here's the update. Not what I expected...but ended up working out OK!

I called MS tonight to see if I could "free up" points from my initial 10-day ressie (BWV booked at the 11 month window) by "reallocating" points from a separate BWV reservation booked at the 7 month window (2 consecutive days in the middle of my original 10-day ressie) with points from a different home resort.

Side note...One thing that I hadn't mentioned is that I tried to re-book the first few days of our existing ressie at the 7 month window, but rooms weren't available until the middle of the ressie. I waitlisted with auto-confirm...hoping that a couple days would come through at some point to free up points.

When I asked MS tonight about my original reservation, she asked "which one?" I apparently now had 5 different resevations linked together in this order: 3 nts w/ BWV pts, 1 nt w/ BCV pts, 1 nt w/ BCV pts, 1 nt w/ BWV pts & 4 nts w/ BWV pts. The 2 nights w/ BCV pts were the ressies I made a couple days ago @ the 7 month window. I have to assume this is a product of the auto-confirm waitlist that was in place. They must have busted up my orig ressie & rebooked. The 1st 3 days possibly came in via waitlist, they then could have linked to the 2 BCV pt ressies, then linked to the last half. Apparently it all happened yesterday (but since it was autoconfirm, I had no idea).

This is ultimately what I wanted to happen, b/c I was able to use the "freed up" BWV pts to book additional nights at the end (& still within the 11 month window) & did that tonight.

I'm not sure if I have any key learnings from this experience b/c I still don't know if you can "reallocate" at 7 months if the same room is available to re-book with different points. I also don't know what I'd do differently next time, except book longer stays in smaller chunks of days. MS even said to book day-by-day on separate ressies if there is a chance I would ever want to "reallocate" in the future due to the fact that you can't replace days in the middle of a ressie, but you can easily cancel one day in the middle if it's a separate ressie. Then you can link a new 7 month ressie right in middle. Does this make sense? My head is spinning now just trying to type this

Yes, everything you have said makes sense. I'm glad that it worked out for you.

 

[LisaS]

MS even said to book day-by-day on separate ressies if there is a chance I would ever want to "reallocate" in the future due to the fact that you can't replace days in the middle of a ressie, but you can easily cancel one day in the middle if it's a separate ressie. Then you can link a new 7 month ressie right in middle. Does this make sense? My head is spinning now just trying to type this

I'm glad things worked out for you. It's interesting that MS is actually suggesting that you consider booking future trips as a series of 1-day reservations since that's a lot of work for you and for them. But since it's their suggestion, they are obviously OK with it. Thanks for reporting back and congrats on getting things sorted out the way you wanted them.

 

[Dean]

OK. Here's the update. Not what I expected...but ended up working out OK!

I called MS tonight to see if I could "free up" points from my initial 10-day ressie (BWV booked at the 11 month window) by "reallocating" points from a separate BWV reservation booked at the 7 month window (2 consecutive days in the middle of my original 10-day ressie) with points from a different home resort.

Side note...One thing that I hadn't mentioned is that I tried to re-book the first few days of our existing ressie at the 7 month window, but rooms weren't available until the middle of the ressie. I waitlisted with auto-confirm...hoping that a couple days would come through at some point to free up points.

When I asked MS tonight about my original reservation, she asked "which one?" I apparently now had 5 different resevations linked together in this order: 3 nts w/ BWV pts, 1 nt w/ BCV pts, 1 nt w/ BCV pts, 1 nt w/ BWV pts & 4 nts w/ BWV pts. The 2 nights w/ BCV pts were the ressies I made a couple days ago @ the 7 month window. I have to assume this is a product of the auto-confirm waitlist that was in place. They must have busted up my orig ressie & rebooked. The 1st 3 days possibly came in via waitlist, they then could have linked to the 2 BCV pt ressies, then linked to the last half. Apparently it all happened yesterday (but since it was autoconfirm, I had no idea).

This is ultimately what I wanted to happen, b/c I was able to use the "freed up" BWV pts to book additional nights at the end (& still within the 11 month window) & did that tonight.

I'm not sure if I have any key learnings from this experience b/c I still don't know if you can "reallocate" at 7 months if the same room is available to re-book with different points. I also don't know what I'd do differently next time, except book longer stays in smaller chunks of days. MS even said to book day-by-day on separate ressies if there is a chance I would ever want to "reallocate" in the future due to the fact that you can't replace days in the middle of a ressie, but you can easily cancel one day in the middle if it's a separate ressie. Then you can link a new 7 month ressie right in middle. Does this make sense? My head is spinning now just trying to type this

Yes they should technically be separate reservations that are linked. Glad it worked out and c/w what I expected.