Why would Member Services link my separate vacations?

[helenk]

I booked the VGC for May 2nd to May 7th, after I booked those date I booked the night of May 7th separately. I did this on purpose as I am going to China on the 8th but not sure if we care going to take a late flight, if we are I wanted to stay in a room, if we take an earlier flight I was going to cancel the 7th.
Today I get an e-mail from member services and I now have 1 reservation. Member Services is closed now so I will have to wait until tomorrow. The dates I have booked are no longer available so I do not want to lose my whole reservation to drop off one night.

 

[DebbieB]

I booked the VGC for May 2nd to May 7th, after I booked those date I booked the night of May 7th separately. I did this on purpose as I am going to China on the 8th but not sure if we care going to take a late flight, if we are I wanted to stay in a room, if we take an earlier flight I was going to cancel the 7th.
Today I get an e-mail from member services and I now have 1 reservation. Member Services is closed now so I will have to wait until tomorrow. The dates I have booked are no longer available so I do not want to lose my whole reservation to drop off one night.

You can drop that night with no problem at least 31 days before check-in. 30 days or less, the points go into holding. You can drop days at the beginning or the end of the reservation without rebooking. Days in the middle are more difficult.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Because they were being helpful and know better what you need than you do.

But as DebbieB mentioned - there's no problem in this case. Cancelling days off the beginning or end of a reservation is done without cancelling the entire reservation. I'd just leave it until you decide what day you are departing.

 

[helenk]

You can drop that night with no problem at least 31 days before check-in. 30 days or less, the points go into holding. You can drop days at the beginning or the end of the reservation without rebooking. Days in the middle are more difficult.

Thank you, I was a bit upset that they put the 2 reservations together without my requesting them to do this. As long as I can drop that day if I need to without affecting the remainder of my trip I'll be okay. I can't book my flight yet as my daughter is not sure of the city she will be teaching in quite yet.
I will know well before the 30 day mark.

 

[Judique]

I booked the VGC for May 2nd to May 7th, after I booked those date I booked the night of May 7th separately. I did this on purpose as I am going to China on the 8th but not sure if we care going to take a late flight, if we are I wanted to stay in a room, if we take an earlier flight I was going to cancel the 7th.
Today I get an e-mail from member services and I now have 1 reservation. Member Services is closed now so I will have to wait until tomorrow. The dates I have booked are no longer available so I do not want to lose my whole reservation to drop off one night.

They did that to me also earlier this year. I had 3 nights booked separately because I was waiting for some confirmation on spending a night in Tampa with friends during our visit. When I went to cancel the night and rebook the points to another night, I had one reservation. This happened during my visit - I was at another resort on a separate reservation. It was okay when I left home but somebody got busy a day or so before the checkin.

Member Services told me I should have made a note so they would not link the nights. Then they told me that I couldn't fix it or drop it or I would possibly lose my 3rd night. So I was busy trying to fix it during my vacation by cellphone with long waits on the line etc.

I had to keep the three nights as modified by them. I was not a happy camper as I then had to pay for an additional night, and to visit with my friends leave a room sitting empty at Disney.

 

[Sandisw]

I think that when there are reservations that are consecutive for the same room and type with the same guests, they will try to put them under one reservation. In most cases, this is probably something members want done and the reasons behind having multiple ones were due to wait lists and piece mealing trips and allows for not having to do the whole check out/in numerous times.

It was that way for me for an upcoming trip and was happy when I saw that MS did it. However, there may be times when someone needs them kept apart for specific reasons, like you did and its good to know that a phone call asking that it be noted not to combine is all it would take.

Sorry you ended up having to deal with it during vacation.

 

[Chuck S]

It may also be flagged by the new reservation system software as a continuing stay, so it is probably almost an automatic change. AS others said, it should not be a problem to drop that last night at 31 days out, the same would have been true if it had remained a separate reservation.

 

[bumbershoot]

I can vouch from experience 10 minutes ago that it's simple to drop a last night from a reservation.

But I really disagree with them automatically doing this. I think you should opt IN to having them connect, rather than having to magically know they do it and knowing you should call to ask to be opted OUT.

 

[Chuck S]

I can vouch from experience 10 minutes ago that it's simple to drop a last night from a reservation.

But I really disagree with them automatically doing this. I think you should opt IN to having them connect, rather than having to magically know they do it and knowing you should call to ask to be opted OUT.

Unfortunately the software was designed for Disney resorts, not specifically for DVC. The cash resorts did not want people buying packages for only part of their stay and going discounted room only for other portions. Thus stays in the same resort and room type are linked together to prevent this. Just as DVC does not permit having segmented stays for DDP purposes. How many posts did we see of members wanting the DDP every-other night of a trip, and the problems it cause not only within the system, but having to reissue room keys daily? This linking prevents that as well. It is a case of DIsney/DVC preventing people from working the system, which in effect made it more expensive for both Disney and our dues in terms of time and money to re-issue cards daily.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

And unfortunately they are not consistent.

I had a waitlist fill for next May for 1 day. The CM even called me about something with it. But - they filled it as a separate reservation and did not make it part of the original. It's still sitting there that way today and for now I'm letting it do that to see if they change it.

 

[bookwormde]

I learned that you have to put a note on the reservation to keep it form being linked (or have different names)

I leave reservations unlinked sometimes so that I can cancel on line.

 

[LisaS]

But I really disagree with them automatically doing this. I think you should opt IN to having them connect, rather than having to magically know they do it and knowing you should call to ask to be opted OUT.

I would vote the other way because I suspect that in most cases this situation arises due to a wait list getting filled and the member wants one contiguous reservation. Leaving some nights as a separate reservation is probably the exception case, where someone is considering dropping a day in the middle for example. I think it's better to have 10% of the members calling with an exception case than 90% calling to ask that their wait-listed nights that finally came through be merged into the original reservation. Worst case is that they don't notice or don't know to call and ask, so they end up having to check out and check in again at the resort, increasing costs and wasting time.

 

[Dean]

But I really disagree with them automatically doing this. I think you should opt IN to having them connect, rather than having to magically know they do it and knowing you should call to ask to be opted OUT.

I see it the other way. IMO they have the right to do this whether the member wants it or not. However, there are ways around it.

 

[DebbieB]

They recently did it automatically for me. I originally had a waitlist for Nov 10 to 15. Nights 3, 4, 5 came open on the website, so I booked it and changed the waitlist. Then I saw night 2 available, I booked it and changed the waitlist to night 1 only. Much to my surprise, a couple of days later I got a confirmation for all 5 nights together. On my activity statement, after the waitlist came through for night 1, they cancelled nights 2 and 3 to 5 reservations, then modified the night 1 reservation to include all 5 nights. It saved me from calling them and asking them to be linked or having to checkout and back in two more times since I would have had 3 reservations.

 

[Tinkerbellcrafter]

If they were booked as separate reservations and had separate numbers MS can "untie" them...we just did that with a friend's reservation as nights became available at AKV to replace nights at SSR. Member Services can also tie reservations back together...it takes some phone time but our friends were able to move an entire 5 day trip from SSR to AKV during New Year's week as different days became available.