Walking a reservation

[paults]

Whenever I walk a 11 month reservation I never wait till the day before checkout to modify. I always modify 2 or 3 days before checkout because You never know when our Great DVC site will GO OUT. If it goes out on your day before your checkout date, you could lose your next day.

 

[KVacc]

Why walking works:

Let's assume you want Nov 20, 2023 arrival to Nov 26 departure. Today, Nov 7, 2022, we are 11 months out from Oct 7, 2023. You could go online today and, if available, book the room you want for Oct 7 to Oct 13, 2023. That results in preventing anyone else from booking the room you have for the nights of Oct 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12, 2023. That also prevents anyone from booking the room you have for any dates after Oct 12, 2023, until Nov 13,2023. Why? Because at 11-months out from any given arrival date, you cannot book any room that is already full for that arrival date, e.g., if you went online today and saw that the rooms are booked full for Oct 7, 2023, but open for all days thereafter, you could not possibly book a room for any of those open days.

Thus, if today you were to book Oct 7-13, 2023, you effectively block out everyone else from booking the room you have, not just for Oct 7 through Oct 12, but all dates thereafter, until Nov 13, 2022. Thus on Nov 12, 2022, your room will still be open for all dates after Oct 12, 2022. On Nov 12, 2022, at any time of the day, you can go online and modify the reservation for the room you already have by changing the start date to Oct 12 and departure date to Oct 18, 2023, with the same result of blocking everyone else from reserving the room you have for Oct 12 through 17, 2023 and all days thereafter. You would then modify your reservation on Nov 17, 2022 to Oct 17-23, 2023, then again on on Nov 22 to Oct 22-28, 2023, and continue that process until you have the actual dates you want.

OMG, I am trying to understand this essentially blocking out of rooms for a month after your departure date....when you say a room is already full for that arrival date....the arrival date is Oct 7...so how does that have anything to do with any date after Oct 13?

 

[crazycatlady]

OMG, I am trying to understand this essentially blocking out of rooms for a month after your departure date....when you say a room is already full for that arrival date....the arrival date is Oct 7...so how does that have anything to do with any date after Oct 13?

I don't quite understand this, either.

 

[Sandisw]

OMG, I am trying to understand this essentially blocking out of rooms for a month after your departure date....when you say a room is already full for that arrival date....the arrival date is Oct 7...so how does that have anything to do with any date after Oct 13?

I don't quite understand this, either.

When you have 7 days booked right at 11 months, it locks that room up until the check out day

In the example, once the person had the room until October 13th, no one can book that room after that date when the person is now walking it.

Without walking a room, it opens up. But when someone is walking, once grabbed, that room will be unavailable to anyone else for dates moving forward until the person ends the walk.

Obviously as they do, the dates they held will come back in play.

 

[drusba]

OMG, I am trying to understand this essentially blocking out of rooms for a month after your departure date....when you say a room is already full for that arrival date....the arrival date is Oct 7...so how does that have anything to do with any date after Oct 13?

Example of walking:

Assume it is Nov 7, 2022 and you want a room for Oct 21-28, 2023. The rule is that no one can make a reservation for a DVC room for any time that begins more than 11-months out from date of arrival. Thus, if you go online on Nov 7, 2022 and book Oct 7-14, 2023, no one else that goes online from Nov 7 through Nov 13, 2002, to book a room can possibly book the room you already have for any time from Oct 7 through 13, 2023, and since they cannot get a start date for your room from Oct 7 to 13, they also cannot get the room you already have for any time after Oct 13, 2023. They may be able to get another room in the same booking category you have if other rooms are still open but they cannot get the one taken out by your reservation. Example: AKV club level has 5 studios. If on Nov 7, 2022, you can book a club level studio for Oct 7-14, 2023, then anyone else going on line from Nov 7 through Nov 13, 2022, to reserve any time that starts from Oct 7 to 13, 2023, will at best be competing only for one of the other four studios no matter how many days they want to reserve, including any days after Oct 13, 2022.

On Nov 13, 2023, you modify your own reservation to Oct 13-20, 2023, because those dates will be open for the room you already have, and thus prevent anyone else from going online from Nov 13 to 19 from booking the room you already have for Oct 13 through Oct 19 or any days thereafter. You continue that process by modifying your reservation on Nov 19, 2022 to Oct 19-26, 2023; and on Nov 21, 2022, you can do your final modification to Oct 21 to Oct 28, 2023.

 

[crazycatlady]

Thank you both so much for your clarifications! I totally see what you mean now.

 

[KVacc]

When you have 7 days booked right at 11 months, it locks that room up until the check out day

In the example, once the person had the room until October 13th, no one can book that room after that date when the person is now walking it.

Without walking a room, it opens up. But when someone is walking, once grabbed, that room will be unavailable to anyone else for dates moving forward until the person ends the walk.

Obviously as they do, the dates they held will come back in play.

Example of walking:

Assume it is Nov 7, 2022 and you want a room for Oct 21-28, 2023. The rule is that no one can make a reservation for a DVC room for any time that begins more than 11-months out from date of arrival. Thus, if you go online on Nov 7, 2022 and book Oct 7-14, 2023, no one else that goes online from Nov 7 through Nov 13, 2002, to book a room can possibly book the room you already have for any time from Oct 7 through 13, 2023, and since they cannot get a start date for your room from Oct 7 to 13, they also cannot get the room you already have for any time after Oct 13, 2023. They may be able to get another room in the same booking category you have if other rooms are still open but they cannot get the one taken out by your reservation. Example: AKV club level has 5 studios. If on Nov 7, 2022, you can book a club level studio for Oct 7-14, 2023, then anyone else going on line from Nov 7 through Nov 13, 2022, to reserve any time that starts from Oct 7 to 13, 2023, will at best be competing only for one of the other four studios no matter how many days they want to reserve, including any days after Oct 13, 2022.

On Nov 13, 2023, you modify your own reservation to Oct 13-20, 2023, because those dates will be open for the room you already have, and thus prevent anyone else from going online from Nov 13 to 19 from booking the room you already have for Oct 13 through Oct 19 or any days thereafter. You continue that process by modifying your reservation on Nov 19, 2022 to Oct 19-26, 2023; and on Nov 21, 2022, you can do your final modification to Oct 21 to Oct 28, 2023.

OK so you are saying that all rooms get locked out for 30 days from the time a reservation ends until someone can book that particular room? So if someone books a room at 11 months out for a week and they have no intention of walking it, no one can book that particular room until 30 days after that reservation check out day, even if the new person is at 11 months from their reservation, say its two weeks after the other reservation?

 

[Sandisw]

OK so you are saying that all rooms get locked out for 30 days from the time a reservation ends until someone can book that particular room? So if someone books a room at 11 months out for a week and they have no intention of walking it, no one can book that particular room until 30 days after that reservation check out day, even if the new person is at 11 months from their reservation, say its two weeks after the other reservation?

No, we are only talking about people who are walking reservations. Once you have 7 days at 11 months, that room is yours to move forward for as along as you want to move it forward,

So, conceivable, that room could be walked as far out as one wants. If I booked November 19th today for 7 nights, and intend to move it forward to December 19th, no one else can book that room out from under me as I move it forward…it means I am guaranteed…barring DVC taking rooms out of service for rehabs, etc…to get my dates which are still 30 days away.

If someone is not walking, then the room will open up whatever date is check out for the first person who booked it.

 

[drusba]

OK so you are saying that all rooms get locked out for 30 days from the time a reservation ends until someone can book that particular room? So if someone books a room at 11 months out for a week and they have no intention of walking it, no one can book that particular room until 30 days after that reservation check out day, even if the new person is at 11 months from their reservation, say its two weeks after the other reservation?

There is no such thing as a 30-day block-out effect. If today, Dec 20, 2022, you reserved a DVC room for Nov 20-Nov 27, 2023, and did no "walk" by modifying your reservation forward before Dec 27, 2022, to get new dates, then anyone who would go online or call to make a reservation on Dec 27, 2022 for Nov 27, 2022 and after could get the room you already have. It is the act of "walking" that keeps the room blocked out from others reserving. If you make a 7-night reservation exactly 11-months out, you can keep others from reserving the room you have for days beyond those 7-nights, if, and only if, you modify your reservation forward before 11-months out from any designated departure date, and continue to make such modifications until you have the actual time you want. In other words, as long as you continue to "walk," you can block others from reserving the room you have reserved even possibly for many months, but once you stop walking, you end the block-out-of-others effect that you get with walking.

Note that there is a limit to how long you can continue a walk. You cannot walk a reservation made for dates that occur in one use year to eventually get dates in a future use year.. For example, assume one has a Dec use year. That would mean that one could not possibly begin a walk today by reserving Nov 20-27, 2023 to eventually get dates in Dec 2023 or after. That is because the "current" use year points you would need to use to reserve Nov 20-27, 2023, are the points in the Dec 2022 use year, and those Dec 2022 use year points cannot possibly be used to walk a reservation into Dec 2023 or after, because they would need to first be banked to reserve time in Dec 2023 or after, and one cannot bank points that are already in a reservation without first canceling the reservation, which act of cancellation, rather than just a modification forward, would automatically end the block-out-of-others effect to getting the room you reserved. That is why a Dec use year cannot be used to make reservations that would eventually "walk" into a reservation during the first week of Dec in any given year, which is the highest DVC demand week of the year for WDW DVC resorts, i.e., a Dec use year is the worst use year to have if you want to walk into an early Dec reservation.

 

[zavandor]

I’m so glad I asked this question! So you can login December 1 and book November 1-5 as well? For some reason I thought it was like making Disneyland park reservations where every day you can book one day ie - on December 1 I can book November 1, on December 2 I can book November 2, etc. This is mind blowing!

Yes, you can book up to 7 nights, so you could book November 1-7 (checkout on the 8th). If you need more than 7 nights, you can modify the reservation later, for example, wait until the 4th and you can add 3 more nights to book until the night of Nov 10th included.

In he early DVC days, people could only book 11 months in advance of checkout night. So for hard to get reservations, people would call daily to add one day at a time. It was also before online booking, so it was quite annoying and taking a lot of CM time. Fortunately it's been change to the current system of 11 months from checkin + 7 days.

 

[KVacc]

Thus, if today you were to book Oct 7-13, 2023, you effectively block out everyone else from booking the room you have, not just for Oct 7 through Oct 12, but all dates thereafter, until Nov 13, 2022.

OK thanks! I get it now, I think the above part is what was confusing and why I was like what is this 30 day blockout? Thank you though for the explanations!

 

[DonMacGregor]

OK thanks! I get it now, I think the above part is what was confusing and why I was like what is this 30 day blockout? Thank you though for the explanations!

That 30 day part was what threw a few people. It can easily be 60 or 80 days out, but the example was based on starting a month before the actual dates you want to end up with. As long as you start your first day of the walk at the 11-month limit, then the days at the end of your stay are always outside 11 months and no one can take the days before you can (because as you walk, the end of your stay moves forward and is always outside the 11-month booking window as it moves along). That's why people try to follow walkers too: as the reservation move forward in the calendar and ties up days at the end of the reservation, days that are not needed at the beginning of the reservation are dropped and become available.