Tip for finding availability at the resort you want:

[Yarbogash]

We have a trip booked for later this month; 7 nights SSR then 2 nights AKL. Couple days ago we got the opportunity to add 3 days onto the start of the trip which is great because it covers my wife's birthday and she wants to spend it at Epcot which is also our sons favorite park. So hurray!

We wanted a boardwalk resort or POFQ for April 22-25. I started with trying to rent Dvc points but no studios or 1 br's available.
Checked the magical deal; no availability anywhere.
I went to book on Cheaptickets to use their 20% off. They showed no availabilty for any boardwalk resorts except Swan/Dolphin (note their 20% off does not apply to Swan/Dolphin) and after some discussion we decided that was not what we wanted.
Checking with Disney directly they showed no availability for our choices either. But there were differences in the resorts available between Cheaptickets and Disney. Example Disney had OKW, Cheaptickets did not.

Also Cheaptickets and Orbitz (same company, Cheaptickets usually has 20% off, Orbitz 15%) normally have the Disney price with any Disney discounts and then you use a promo code for a discount on top of that. But in this case the prices on Cheaptickets did not reflect the Disney Spring Discount as currently listed on the Disney site. So you gotta be careful there.

I next used travel meta search engines like Trip Advisor, besttravelcoupon.com and kayak to check if anyone else had what we wanted. No luck.

Then checked otel.com which sometimes lists convention offers on Disney resorts. No luck.

Then checked Hotwire. A Hotwire Hot Rates hotel in Bonnet Creek area with airport shuttle is a Disney hotel. They showed one 4 star at $455 per night before tax with airport shuttle. With no way to know which Disney 4 star it could be I decided not to gamble.

Next step was check inventory semi-regularly thru the day and see what came up. I've heard Cheaptickets updates most commonly around 7 am est (4 am for us) so at 4 am I checked Disney and Cheaptickets. Success! Disney showed nothing new but Cheaptickets had POFQ, with 20% off $615 total for 3 nights. Doing the happy dance!

Still need to link in mde and I will post if that is a problem. Lately Disney had been emailing the Disney res # but I will likely call Cheaptickets for it to speed things up.

So if you are having trouble finding what you want and have too much spare time some of these steps may help.

 

[WEDWDW]

Just to add a little-CheapTickets only offers "cash back" for airline reservations while Orbitz offers "cash back"(3%) for Hotel reservations.

But with CheapTickets' codes being 5% cheaper than Orbitz,there is still a 2% savings over Orbitz when booking a Hotel.

 

[sallytigger]

Thank you for taking the time to post this. Very helpful!

 

[minnie mum]

So basically, your tip is to keep checking if you can't find what you need at first. Because cancellations can put rooms back in inventory. Got it.

 

[Yarbogash]

So basically, your tip is to keep checking if you can't find what you need at first. Because cancellations can put rooms back in inventory. Got it.

That and check different booking venues. If I had just kept checking Disney directly I would still be outta luck. Also I think that is a pretty good summary of every way to test availability and price.

And side note I just got the Disney res # by phone and linked it.