Very peculiar timing of PIN received

[LuzzBightyear]

Summer 2010: A group of 10 decides that they will go to WDW in fall of 2011. All adults in the group (7 of us) put our fishing poles in the water (aka register with Disney, order planning DVD) in hopes of getting a PIN.

Summer 2010 to early spring 2011: About every 8 weeks or so everyone gets PIN emails. When one person in the group gets one, the rest in the group do within the same day. Unfortunately all PINS are the same and all are no good for the dates we are going.

April 2011: Wanting to take advantage of the 180+10 ADR rule, we decide to go ahead and book three separate packages under a Grand Gathering reservation.

The day we booked in April to Aug 3, 2011: Nobody in the group gets any PINS. Also, a member of our group decides they cannot make the trip due health issues.

Aug 3, 2011: Free dining is announced. I call Disney to apply FD to our reservation. I also inform Disney of the person who cannot make the trip and she is removed from the reservation.

Aug 5, 2011: Guess who gets a 35% off PIN with no blackout dates? Yep, the person who was removed from the reservation. The rest of the group? Nada, despite the trend of everyone ALWAYS getting the same PIN on the same day. This PIN would heave meant about $1,500 more in savings for the group than FD offered

I find the timing and circumstances very odd. Maybe she would have gotten the PIN even if she wasn’t cancelled off the reservation, but I think if we ever decide to go again as a group, someone may temporarily be removed …just to see what happens!

 

[THERESA522]

Yes, I'd be very interested in the results! Glad you all got a code you can use. Hope your friend is on the mend!

 

[DaymanX]

That all makes sense, actually.

I've actually been trying to get a better PIN by saving a trip and then not re-visiting Disney's site at all (or using work WiFi when I do and deleting my cookies first).

If they know they already have your money, why send you a PIN? That's why they do these individual, targeted PIN discounts instead of a general public discount. I'm sure they have an internal algorithm/formula that when someone visits the site X amount of times within a 30-day period or calls in to the reservation center, they end up booking a trip.

Same goes with ADRs. That's a huge "head's up" that tells Disney you are serious about going there for a vacation.

I know it may not seem fair, but they probably spent a lot of money and man-hours to come up with these formulas to maximize their profits and not give out discounts to people who, statistically speaking at least, would book without one...and the best thing you may have learned from the experience is that making and cancelling a reservation may be a surefire way to get a PIN out of them.

 

[habsfan71]

This theory makes sense. I registered an account on the disney site, checked some pricing on some resorts for our planned vacation, and I received 2 pins within a 3 month period. After deciding where we preferred to stay, we decided to book a package (first pin expired, second pin not in our travel dates), and we have not received any pins since. We were receiving e-mails from Disney saying that we were looking at a specific resort (no pins attached), but ever since we booked - nothing - even though we were still looking. We have been able to get FD for most of our trip, so a pin is not such a factor for us anymore.

Very interested to hearing about other experiences regarding pins....

 

[PEANUT1]

Wow..very interesting indeed

 

[DaymanX]

I'd be curious about other people's strategies, too.

I also noticed that the PINs I did get came to an old email that I used when I went to Disney in 2001 and had a different address.

When I went again last year, I just made a new account -- now that one didn't get any PINs to it (probably because I was a recent traveler), even though I used the same strategy on both emails.

But on the old email, when I saved a trip and didn't visit the site for a few weeks before, I got 3 20% off PINs. Not the best deal anyone has received, but there's got to be a formula/strategy we can figure out.

 

[sjs314]

Certainly makes you think. I cancelled a trip last year on Oct. 18th but I think I may have rebooked for 2011 too soon afterwords since I did it on Nov 8th and Disney was probably not sending out pins for 2011 yet.
Guess I should have waited to rebook

 

[Sandisw]

It certainly does seem like things were planned out. I know they say that pins are random, but I still believe that they are not.

We never got them before we bought DVC and I did all the tricks of the trade. But, then, I always booked my yearly trips as soon as the packages were available for booking so there was no reason to give me a discount.

Here is some that one of the others gets that newest pin.

 

[pwdebbie]

DH never gets on the Disney site. Yesterday he received the PIN for newest room-only discount via snail mail, today he had it in his email. We have never reserved a room in his name, only mine. He never gets on the WDW site, I do a few times a week. He gets the PIN and I don't. Definitely sounds like they are targeting those that seem less interested.