Walking Reservations

[Pinnochio]

I would LOVE to see DVC eliminate the walking system (you can only make one modification, otherwise additional changes require you cancel and take your chances on a rebook like everyone else).

Yes to this

 

[Noodlez]

Yes to this

Unfortunately, that would make things far worse for many of us. Personally I would hate this! I am not walking any of my current reservations, but due to many reason such as our flights and the flights of people joining us I have modified them 4 or 5 times already and will probably do so again when things are finalised. I would hate to lose this flexibility because people may or may not be walking reservations! I have noticed that a lot of people blame walking when what they are really seeing is just someone booking the room before them. Other than a handful of room types and a few extremely busy times of year there is very little need to walk the vast majority of the time, and those rooms and times would be just as difficult without walking as there is far more demand than supply! At least if walking is the reason you can't get your room then you can just waitlist it or pick it up after the walkers have moved.

 

[Tumnus]

Unfortunately, that would make things far worse for many of us. Personally I would hate this! I am not walking any of my current reservations, but due to many reason such as our flights and the flights of people joining us I have modified them 4 or 5 times already and will probably do so again when things are finalised. I would hate to lose this flexibility because people may or may not be walking reservations! I have noticed that a lot of people blame walking when what they are really seeing is just someone booking the room before them. Other than a handful of room types and a few extremely busy times of year there is very little need to walk the vast majority of the time, and those rooms and times would be just as difficult without walking as there is far more demand than supply! At least if walking is the reason you can't get your room then you can just waitlist it or pick it up after the walkers have moved.

They could limit modifications only after initial booking for the first week at 11 months and 7 months or something along those lines. Once the rooms can be freely booked by all home resort / all members respectively, the restriction goes away.

 

[drusba]

They could limit modifications only after initial booking for the first week at 11 months and 7 months or something along those lines. Once the rooms can be freely booked by all home resort / all members respectively, the restriction goes away.

Any such changes can create problems, e.g., someone reserves a 7-night period at 11-months out, and then learns the next day that someone going with cannot go until the second day of that reservation. and thus the member wants to move the start date and end date each one day, but if you have to wait 7-days to make the change that last new date needed may disappear. Thus, your proposed change could punish those who are actually trying to make a legitimate change and never intended to do a walk.

Technically, walking is an improper activity. A member is allowed to reserve a room beginning 11-months out from intended date of arrival, But with walking, the member has no intent of actually arriving on the arrival date chosen. But DVC does not have easy ways to change the rules without potentially punishing those who just want to make needed changes that have nothing to do with walking.

Nevertheless, DVC does have one way that it could easily adopt that would do away with most walking and no one could assert the rule change was improper. In fact, it is probably the change it would make if complaints about walking continue, i.e., in response to complaints, DVC has changed rules in the past but they are often not the changes most requested. The one change it could easily make that no one could assert is improper, but what would likely be disliked by many who want a change, would be to simply adopt the rule that existed for all DVC years before June 2008.The rule then was that a member could reserve a room 11-months (or 7 for non-owned resorts) out from date of departure from a DVC room, e.g., if that rule were in effect today, April 10, 2025, you could reserve a room at your home resort for any number of days as long as the departure date was no later than March 10, 2026.

 

[thanxfornoticin]

Technically, walking is an improper activity. A member is allowed to reserve a room beginning 11-months out from intended date of arrival, But with walking, the member has no intent of actually arriving on the arrival date chosen. But DVC does not have easy ways to change the rules without potentially punishing those who just want to make needed changes that have nothing to do with walking.

I'm not a fan of members walking, but I think this statement is incorrect. Members are allowed to reserve a room at their home resort 11 months in advance, plus 6 more days. There's nothing in our rules or contracts that says anything about 'intended date of arrival'.....

 

[walt34]

The rule then was that a member could reserve a room 11-months (or 7 for non-owned resorts) out from date of departure from a DVC room, e.g., if that rule were in effect today, April 10, 2025, you could reserve a room at your home resort for any number of days as long as the departure date was no later than March 10, 2026.

I understand that this would eliminate walking (again) but would this not also mean that, to make sure that I can book a stay of seven days, I’d have to start by booking the first day as soon as possible and then extend the booking every day to make sure that I get the full seven days? Otherwise the first days of my stay might be gone by the time I can reserve my full trip.

 

[Sandisw]

I understand that this would eliminate walking (again) but would this not also mean that, to make sure that I can book a stay of seven days, I’d have to start by booking the first day as soon as possible and then extend the booking every day to make sure that I get the full seven days? Otherwise the first days of my stay might be gone by the time I can reserve my full trip.

It would be day by day booking which is what it turned into.

In December, this is the reason the board gave for changing it because there were owners who ended up with gaps.

It comes down to priorities for DVC in what is going to be the best rules for booking that don’t have the most impactful consequences.

My personal opinion is that many owners would not be thrilled with more restrictive booking rules over the current ones that offer a lot of flexibility to make and modify trips as needed…even if it created walking.

For those really hard to get rooms, when walking increases, DVC can also institute the special seasons list.

Ultimately, we have to simply wait to see what DVC thinks is “in the best interest of members based on feedback”.

 

[drusba]

I understand that this would eliminate walking (again) but would this not also mean that, to make sure that I can book a stay of seven days, I’d have to start by booking the first day as soon as possible and then extend the booking every day to make sure that I get the full seven days? Otherwise the first days of my stay might be gone by the time I can reserve my full trip.

You would have to do a daily attempt but even then there is no guarantee you would get every day you wanted because, for example, if you booked March 9 today with a March 10 departure, tomorrow April 11, you could go online at 8 a.m. and find that someone else, moments before you connect, has already grabbed the night of March 10 for the room assigned to you (e.g., some other member trying to start a one per day walk on April 11). In essence, walking as we know it would be gone and the possible day to day walk one could attempt could easily fail.

 

[walt34]

You would have to do a daily attempt but even then there is no guarantee you would get every day you wanted because, for example, if you booked March 9 today with a March 10 departure, tomorrow April 11, you could go online at 8 a.m. and find that someone else, moments before you connect, has already grabbed the night of April 10 for the room assigned to you (e.g., some other member trying to start a one per day walk on April 11). In essence, walking as we know it would be gone and the possible day to day walk one could attempt could easily fail.

So, as I understand it, getting a longer stay during a busy period was/would be much more stressful than today. It might increase availability but I would have to fight for every day of my vacation. That’s a strong no vote from me.

 

[Brian Noble]

It might increase availability

It does not increase availability. Availability is a function of how many rooms there are. It is a different way of allocating a limited number of rooms to a larger number of owners.

 

[walt34]

It does not increase availability. Availability is a function of how many rooms there are. It is a different way of allocating a limited number of rooms to a larger number of owners.

I should have been more specific. It might increase temporary availability (as no one would be walking through to go somewhere else).

 

[Tatebeck]

I'm not a fan of members walking, but I think this statement is incorrect. Members are allowed to reserve a room at their home resort 11 months in advance, plus 6 more days. There's nothing in our rules or contracts that says anything about 'intended date of arrival'.....

There definitely is, we delved pretty deep into this in another thread. But here is the gist:

From the home resort rules and regulations: "Club Members may call Member Services or make a reservation online via the DVC Website no earlier than eleven (11) months prior to the desired check in day for a reservation of up to seven (7) consecutive days after the desired check in day."

So if you are booking a room but never actually desired that to be even a possible start date for your stay, it could easily be argued that technically you are going against the rules and regulations. But as it stands it would be very hard to enforce without adding another rule, because only the person making the booking knows their true intent or desire at the time the reservation was made.

 

[Tatebeck]

I should have been more specific. It might increase temporary availability (as no one would be walking through to go somewhere else).

It would increase availability at the date of the 11 Month window+7, but cut down on the availability between 10 and 11 months, when dates sometimes pop back up after walkers walk past.

So changing booking methods or eliminating walking would really just shift availability around, but it would shift it towards the dates on which most members are told to book at 11Months+7, so it's wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, it just depends on how they do it and how much collateral damage there is

 

[TCRAIG]

Yes to this

No to this from me! I don’t do studios and I don’t walk but still, this would negatively impact me. At 11 months, I don’t always know my exact dates and I’ve got lots of points - so why should I be limited to only 1 modification - that’s way too restrictive - and I don’t walk and I don’t stay in studios. Limiting modifications to one at 7-11 months (to me) is not worth it just so that those who want hard to book studios at hard to book times have a slightly better chance (but absolutely no guarantee) at grabbing the reservation. In this case, I’d say the ‘cure’ was worse than the ‘disease’.

 

[Sandisw]

I'm not a fan of members walking, but I think this statement is incorrect. Members are allowed to reserve a room at their home resort 11 months in advance, plus 6 more days. There's nothing in our rules or contracts that says anything about 'intended date of arrival'.....

That whole desired and intent is certainly something that people have different feelings about.

Even the board indicated that walking has become an unintended consequence to when it changed from booking day by day to 11 month plus 7.

Right now, the way the rules are stated and that no penalty for walking is included in the rules…which it appears it needs to be based on the POS…it is not stopped.

But, DVC has the power to change things. The hard part for them, as they said at the meeting in December is finding new ones that they believe are better than what they have now without further unintended consequences.

So we must wait to see if they decide it makes sense to change the home resort rules and regulations to combat walking.

The only thing I am fairly confident about is that if they do change things, the new ones willl be straightforward and easy for them to enforce.

And, they could just go back to day by day or use the seasons preference list. All things that have been used before.

 

[Sandisw]

Just a quick reminder that we closed threads 4 months ago because personal attacks became a thing.

For now, this can stay but keep posts out of the judgement zone…and do not turn it into a commercial renting thread.

 

[AstroBlasters]

If we are asking for changes…. can we change the booking window to start when the sun is actually up on the West Coast….

Walking helps with my zzzzz’s….

 

[Mirabell Rose]

I spoke to DVC at WDW back in March, in person. When I was told about the incentives and asked if I was looking to buy more points, I replied unless/until DVC held up their end of my current contracts and cracked down on walking and commercial renting, I would not be buying more points from DVC. Well, they responded they were trying to determine the definition of commercial renting, but walking was definitely prohibited, but they just couldn’t come up with an easy way to stop it. I replied that all they had to do was prohibit changing a reservation made before 10 months out. Oh, DVC said, that would be an easy way to stop it, I should write DVC admin. To which I replied, one of the forums came up with at least 6 ways to stop it in 24 hours, so obviously the problem wasn’t that admin couldn’t figure out a way to stop it. To which they did not have a reply.

I’ve read the other threads on walking and commercial renting and all the arguments that they aren’t the reason that availability at 11 months is not at all what it was 5+ years ago. I don’t find a single one with hard and fast evidence that is convincing. I know there’s people on this forum that argue the other way.

The one true fact is that unless/until DVC does enact policies to eliminate walking and commercial renting, none of us will really know.

 

[juliebee]

If we are asking for changes…. can we change the booking window to start when the sun is actually up on the West Coast….

Walking helps with my zzzzz’s….

Or midnight Eastern

 

[AstroBlasters]

Or midnight Eastern

I’m OK with that.