What do you do if DVC overcharges you on points?

[JudyS]

Hello, all! I am asking a question I never thought I'd have to ask -- what do you do if DVC charges you more points than you thought you'd be charged?

When I talk to the DVC reps, the points they say I have in my account are about 100 points lower than what I thought I had. I have now spoken to 3 reps, and each insists that DVC can't have made a mistake and I must be adding things up wrong. But, I really think they'd made a mistake and I should have more points.

I've asked if there is someone else I can talk to, or someone I can email with my explanation of why I think I should have more points, and they say no. I've checked the DVCmember site, and it says if you don't understand the number of points you have, call member services -- it has no suggestions if you don't agree with what member services says.

Here's one problem I've found on my account at DVCmember.com; it's for a recently completed vacation:
Arrival Date 07.27.2008 Departure Date 07.31.2008
Resort / Experience Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort
Accommodation 1-Bedroom
Vacation Points Used 133

How do they get 133 points for 4 July weeknights in a one-bedroom at SSR? That should be 27 points a night, and 4 times 27 is 108, not 133.

Any ideas what I should do next?

 

[CarolMN]

You can either call MS back and insist on speaking to a Supervisor, or you can email the Member Satisfaction Team.

Since you've already had several MS reps tell you they don't make mistakes (not true, LOL), I'd email or write a snail mail letter. Both the email and regular mail addresses are in your Planner.

Give them the same example you gave here and tell them you want a complete accounting since their records do not match yours.

Good luck!

 

[dvcfanatic]

You could also contact your DVC guide, the person who sold you your membership. I know when we had some issues before w/ member services we contacted our guide and she was able to sort out the issues.

 

[Dean]

Pull your points usage from the internet and go over it. Then call back and ask for a supervisor and go over everything one entry at a time.

 

[Laurabearz]

Pull your points usage from the internet and go over it. Then call back and ask for a supervisor and go over everything one entry at a time.

Have you checked online yet?

I will say that according to MS I have 1 point in my 2008 UY, yet that one point does not show up online...

 

[JudyS]

A big "Thank you" to everyone who posted!

....
Since you've already had several MS reps tell you they don't make mistakes (not true, LOL), I'd email or write a snail mail letter. Both the email and regular mail addresses are in your Planner.....

Thanks! That is exactly the information I needed! I want to send them my written accounting on what has been used and I was getting very frustrated because I couldn't find an address to write to. I will look in the Planner for the addresses.

You could also contact your DVC guide, the person who sold you your membership. I know when we had some issues before w/ member services we contacted our guide and she was able to sort out the issues.

Well, I bought resale, so it wasn't through a guide. I officially was assigned a guide, but have never really had any contact with him. In fact, when we wanted to add-on about a year ago, he generally didn't return our calls and we gave up. (I guess I shouldn't have said in the message I left that we only wanted 25 more points! ) Actually, I would really like a different guide, but that's a topic for another thread....

Pull your points usage from the internet and go over it. Then call back and ask for a supervisor and go over everything one entry at a time.

Well, I have some transferred points in my account, which don't appear in the online detailed summary of my points transactions; I imagine that's a big part of the problem. I did try going over the list of my upcoming vacations with the Member Services rep, but she was saying things like "You are using 48 points plus 64 points for your next two vacations" when the screen I was looking at said 12 plus 23 points. She clearly was looking at something very different from what I can see on my internet DVC account.

Have you checked online yet?

I will say that according to MS I have 1 point in my 2008 UY, yet that one point does not show up online...

I wish this was only 1 point! Yes, I just spent over an hour checking my points. I show that I should have 215 points left; DVC is saying I have 103.

I'm pretty sure I have found 102 points of the discrepancy (the 133 points I was charged that should have been 108; the 64 points I was charged that should be 23, and the 48 points I was charged than should have been 12). I'm not sure where the remaining 10 points of the discrepancy comes from. I'll redo the math in the morning when I'm more awake.



By the way, has anyone checked my math for my SSR stay? 4 weeknights in a one-bedroom in July should be 108 points, right, not 133 like my account says online right? I've had Member Services tell me so many times that I'm wrong, I'm starting to doubt my sanity....

 

[LisaS]

By the way, has anyone checked my math for my SSR stay? 4 weeknights in a one-bedroom in July should be 108 points, right, not 133 like my account says online right? I've had Member Services tell me so many times that I'm wrong, I'm starting to doubt my sanity....

I just looked it up. It's 27 points per night for weeknights in July 2009, so four weeknights should cost 108 points, not 133.

This is the third thread within the past few days where people are reporting that MS is quoting the wrong number of points for a reservation!

 

[JudyS]

I just looked it up. It's 27 points per night for weeknights in July 2009, so four weeknights should cost 108 points, not 133.

This is the third thread within the past few days where people are reporting that MS is quoting the wrong number of points for a reservation!

Thanks for checking my math, Lisa! This was July 2008, not 2009, but I think the points per day are the same.

Quoting me the wrong number of points wouldn't be so bad. But, when I booked I was told the correct number (108), and now my account says I was charged 133.

 

[CarolMN]

....This is the third thread within the past few days where people are reporting that MS is quoting the wrong number of points for a reservation!

I wonder if there was a typo when the SSR chart info was entered into their system.


The SSR chart on our site is the same as is posted on the Members' Website, so I don't think ours is incorrect. I don't have access to my planner right now so I can't check that.

I cannot figure out any way to get a total of 133 points for a 4 day stay in July in a 1 bedroom, so that is why I think the MS system contains incorrect info. (Not sure how multiple MS reps could be giving out wrong point totals,otherwise).

Judy - If you have time, try calling and asking how many points it would take to stay in a 1 bedroom for 4 weeknights next July. (You are correct that the points are the same for 2008 & 2009). Then ask them what it would be for one weekend night and 3 weeknights. If they don't say 108 and 135, then we know where the problem lies, LOL. If the charts are wrong, I wonder how many other members have been "mischarged" for SSR stays.

Just a theory.

 

[Laurabearz]

Since all my children are now in school I have way too much time on my hands (cry) and i had to call MS anyway, sooooooooooo I asked about 4 nights in a 1 bedroom at SSR for July... but since we dont own there, they couldnt tell me since we are not in the 7 month window. LOL But I was able to get the cost of 4 nights in March and the total there was 108...

I played around with Caskbills planner and I could not come up with any combo of nights at SSR for a 1 bedroom that's 133 points (all seasons, all the days of the week.... did I mention I now have way to much time on my hands?)

Please keep us posted.

 

[JudyS]

Thanks for all the replies!

I am writing up a letter detailing all of my accounting, and will email it to Member Services. I'll let you know what they say!

I'm not sure how relevant my problems are to any other problems people may be experiencing with getting mis-quoted points values. My account contains transferred-in holding account points, plus there was a messed-up reservation that had to be fixed manually by a supervisor, so there's a lot of places mistakes could have been made.

This does point out the need to keep one's own records in case Disney makes a mistake. Before this, I had never bothered to check Disney's math. But in this case, the discrepancy was so large (over 100 points, on a relatively smallish account) that even before I added up how exactly many points I had used, I knew there had to be a mistake somewhere. I guess I'm going to have to keep closer watch in the future!

 

[BillPA]

In basic math, 4 times any whole number will always be an even number. 133 is odd, something is not right.

 

[Dean]

In basic math, 4 times any whole number will always be an even number. 133 is odd, something is not right.

While it works in this instance, it does not always with DVC due to the fact that the points may change mid stream such as changes from one season to another or weekend to weekday or vice versa.

 

[rlduvall]

I recently had some issues with MS on my points. IT had to step in and fix the issue, but it wasn't fixed necessarily to my advantage.

What happened is in December of 2007, MS cancelled my AKV reservation in the DVC system the day of check-in, even though the reservation was used. I kept bringing it to their attention (5 phone calls), but it wasn't fixed. I placed a reservation at AKV for December of 2008 - not touching the extra points I knew were not legitimate - at least that's what I thought. Fast forward to last week . . . I decide to cancel some of my December 2008 nights in order to have enough points for a May 2009 trip to AKV. That's when I found out that their "accounting" error (BTW, not discovered or fixed for four months after the fact) caused them to bank my 2007 points I used for the original December of 2007 reservation and use that for the December of 2008 reservation Then to cover their error for the December of 2007 reservation, they took my current use years points to cover it.

At this point, I had already cancelled two coveted nights at AKV. IT/MS only fixed it enough that I could get the 7 nights for next year that I needed [all I originally mentioned I wanted] when I really would have liked 9 nights. All the December of 2008 reservation should have been with my 2008 UY, allowing them to banked into 2009.

Not the end of the world . . . but disappointing that I have absolutely no flexibility with my 2008 reservation due to their IT error.

 

[disneynutz]

You could also contact your DVC guide, the person who sold you your membership. I know when we had some issues before w/ member services we contacted our guide and she was able to sort out the issues.

You Guide may get involved but it really isn't their job and some Guides will just refer you to MS. Guides are sales people who are employed to guide you through the sales process. Once you have purchased, your Guides job is technically done until you want to buy again.

 

[dis-happy]

I posted about this same issue a couple of months ago. We completed a stay at BCV in early June.....and one day I happened to notice that my points total online was incorrect because the BCV stay showed too many points used. Weird. A couple of days later the points were back to normal. I called MS accounting and asked if there were website problems and they said no. HA!

Before you do anything else save the screen that shows up for you to another file. If anything changes again you will have a record of it.

I also have another points discrepancy when we stayed at BWV standard view last year. They upgraded us to a preferred view and tried to give us housekeeping every day to boot (as if we had stayed CRO). Now there is absolutely no record of that trip being taken on my dvc page, but they did adjust out the points, so my totals are accurate. But the whole thing is weird. I'm glad I saved my reservation confirmations showing that trip "just in case".

 

[CarolMN]

.....I also have another points discrepancy when we stayed at BWV standard view last year. They upgraded us to a preferred view and tried to give us housekeeping every day to boot (as if we had stayed CRO). Now there is absolutely no record of that trip being taken on my dvc page, but they did adjust out the points, so my totals are accurate. But the whole thing is weird. I'm glad I saved my reservation confirmations showing that trip "just in case".

Same thing happened to me. I didn't even want the "upgrade", but since the room was ready and my DH wanted to watch some football game on TV, we took it. I much prefer Standard view to Pool/Garden view and I think the CM was surprised that her "surprise" upgrade wasn't really appreciated.

All records of that trip totally disappeared from the website's list of completed vacations, but since our point totals were correct, I just blew it off as a front desk CM who didn't quite know how to properly manage point reservations. When I look at the point activity, it shows our trip as canceled - but of course, it wasn't. We had a fine time, LOL.

 

[JudyS]

I just wanted to post an update here.

After many hours spent writing emails, and several calls to Member Services, my account is STILL not fixed.

Basically, the issue involves about 200 points that another member transferred into my account. Member Services agreed that I had been shorted 112 transferred-in points, and said that their I.T. department would fix it and add the 112 transferred-in points back into my account. However, it looks as if rather than adding the 112 missing points as promised, 112 points replaced the 96 transferred-in points that were still in my account. So, after all that work, the only improvement is that I am now down 96 points instead of 112.

Also, I have some points in holdings status, and those seem messed-up, too. About 20 points that I believe should be regular points are instead showing up as in holding status.

This is certainly going to make me re-think transferring points in. I thought transferring points was straightforward, but it seems to have really messed up my account! In fact, this is such a hassle that I'm starting to question whether my DVC membership is worth it at all. I just don't have the time to be constantly battling to get my points back. I might end up selling my DVC contract, and buy a much smaller contract so that I can have the Annual Pass discount. If I only have one reservation or so a year, there won't be as much to mess up.

 

[DeeCee735]

Hello, all! I am asking a question I never thought I'd have to ask -- what do you do if DVC charges you more points than you thought you'd be charged?

When I talk to the DVC reps, the points they say I have in my account are about 100 points lower than what I thought I had. I have now spoken to 3 reps, and each insists that DVC can't have made a mistake and I must be adding things up wrong. But, I really think they'd made a mistake and I should have more points.

I've asked if there is someone else I can talk to, or someone I can email with my explanation of why I think I should have more points, and they say no. I've checked the DVCmember site, and it says if you don't understand the number of points you have, call member services -- it has no suggestions if you don't agree with what member services says.

Here's one problem I've found on my account at DVCmember.com; it's for a recently completed vacation:
Arrival Date 07.27.2008 Departure Date 07.31.2008
Resort / Experience Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort
Accommodation 1-Bedroom
Vacation Points Used 133

How do they get 133 points for 4 July weeknights in a one-bedroom at SSR? That should be 27 points a night, and 4 times 27 is 108, not 133.

Any ideas what I should do next?

Do you have your reservation confirmation letter? If so, does it show 108 points or 133? If it's got the correct 108 points on it, I'd scan that into an email and send it as well. Good luck.

 

[manning]

At least you have a place to stay

Several years ago I was buying something in the park and the CM said I couldn't charge to my room because I was checked out. What????

They had erroneously checked me out 4 days ahead of schedule. Talk about what we had to do to get checked back in.

First no rooms available routine, then oh yes here's one pack the bags and we will transfer them for you. No, no, we aren't moving. blah blah blah

I was on the phone with both BCV and MS for several hours. It was resolved on the spot when I said "I'm coming over for a face to face with top management."

They even gave one day free.

Stick to your guns and get it straightened out.