Why does Disney do this?

[jhoannam]

I'm looking for a room at WL from 10/20-10/24, nothing is available but when I extend the stay to either the 25 or 26th they have 4 options available. Staying past the 24th is not an option, but I accidentally clicked the 25th and noticed the difference.

 

[Micca]

Could you book through the 25th or 26th and modify your length of stay at a later date?

 

[ninafeliz]

Could you book through the 25th or 26th and modify your length of stay at a later date?

You used to be able to do this with no problem at all - they would even suggest it to you. Then, maybe a year or year and a half ago, they seemed to change the booking rules and it's much more difficult. Now you have to cancel and rebook, and can only book the change if it's available. I don't completely understand, because I know it seems like if you just cancelled a longer stay then of course the shorter stay i still available, but it doesn't work that way I guess it has to do with them not wanting as many single or short openings in between longer bookings, that they are less likely to fill. At least that's how I was led to understand it. I was really upset when they originally made this change, as we would often book as long as we thought we could potentially stay, and then drop off a couple of days once we had my DHs work and call schedule finalized. He doesn't always know it months and months in advance. I feel for you, it would be very aggravating to see your dates available where you want to stay but not be allowed to book them. Have you tried calling and asking? It can't hurt, and maybe if you got the right CM they could either do it, or talk to a supervisor and get the override approved. it' can't hurt.

 

[Micca]

You used to be able to do this with no problem at all - they would even suggest it to you. Then, maybe a year or year and a half ago, they seemed to change the booking rules and it's much more difficult. Now you have to cancel and rebook, and can only book the change if it's available. I don't completely understand, because I know it seems like if you just cancelled a longer stay then of course the shorter stay i still available, but it doesn't work that way I guess it has to do with them not wanting as many single or short openings in between longer bookings, that they are less likely to fill. At least that's how I was led to understand it. I was really upset when they originally made this change, as we would often book as long as we thought we could potentially stay, and then drop off a couple of days once we had my DHs work and call schedule finalized. He doesn't always know it months and months in advance. I feel for you, it would be very aggravating to see your dates available where you want to stay but not be allowed to book them. Have you tried calling and asking? It can't hurt, and maybe if you got the right CM they could either do it, or talk to a supervisor and get the override approved. it' can't hurt.

Thanks for that info Nina, I wasn't sure if it was possible to do this or not.

 

[bigbabyblues]

Are you looking for a discounted room under a promotion?

 

[jhoannam]

Are you looking for a discounted room under a promotion?

No. There are basically zero promotions in October left, only value resorts. I was looking at regular price.

 

[cluvsdisney]

Does the same thing happen when you call them?

 

[disneykelly]

The reason why they give you availability for the longer stay over the shorter one is that you are presenting yourself as a better source of income.

As a travel agent, I deal with things like this all the time. It happens a ton with car rental agencies, where if your client wants a 24 hour rental, they say they have no availability, but if I extend to a 4 day rental they gladly give me the car.

As others have mentioned, you can try to book longer and then change, but you must understand that you can find yourself penalized for it.

 

[SuperJ]

No. There are basically zero promotions in October left, only value resorts. I was looking at regular price.

We had reserved 3 nights at a deluxe - it was a room only reservation so no package, but we were staying at the "awaken summer savings" rate. when our plans changed and we could only stay 2 nights, I was able to simply modify the reservation online and change the check-out to a day sooner. We made the change well before the 5 day cancellation deadline and, as I said, we just had the room and not a package so that may be why we didn't have to cancel and rebook. It's also possible there were no issues since we had a short length of stay to begin with. But I wanted to let you know it is possible to do; it just appears there are a lot of factors that go into whether or not dropping nights will pose an issue.

 

[DisneyCowgirl]

Just had this problem yesterday and not sure how to deal with it. The "source of income" would make sense, but in my case, for the 3-night, there were only higher-level rooms available. If I booked 4 nights, I could get the standard view enough cheaper that 4 nights would be less than the 3 nights. I went ahead and booked the 4 nights and haven't decided yet how to resolve the issue. I was hoping that if I just left it alone a little while, availability would change and I could go back to the 3 nights standard view that I want.

 

[ninafeliz]

We had reserved 3 nights at a deluxe - it was a room only reservation so no package, but we were staying at the "awaken summer savings" rate. when our plans changed and we could only stay 2 nights, I was able to simply modify the reservation online and change the check-out to a day sooner. We made the change well before the 5 day cancellation deadline and, as I said, we just had the room and not a package so that may be why we didn't have to cancel and rebook. It's also possible there were no issues since we had a short length of stay to begin with. But I wanted to let you know it is possible to do; it just appears there are a lot of factors that go into whether or not dropping nights will pose an issue.

My understanding is that you can modify the reservation if there is still availability under the promotion you are already booked under (or rack rate, if that is what you have) for your new dates. So it isn't that you can't ever do it, it't that it is no longer a given like it was in the past. Maybe the online modify reservation option checks for new availability, and only allows the change if it is there? So you aren't really rebooking like a CM might do, but it doesn't matter since you would be able to rebook if that was done. I assumed that if you clicked on modify reservation and it gave you the option, that meant it was available as a new reservation, and if you couldn't make whatever modification you wanted it would just not show it as available. I hope that makes sense, it's kind of hard to explain i writing. Also, it's not like I have any inside info. I was just very into this topic when the changes first came about, so I followed it pretty closely. We've also pretty uch solely booked RO reservations over the past 25 yrs or so, so I don't have any experience really with packages.