Will we ever see online booking for dvc resorts?

[Inkmahm]

Access to MS is much better now with them being open 7 days. I would not count on seeing online booking for us in my lifetime, lol!

Also true. It really isn't that much of a hassle to be able to call MS and get instant answers. Until there are many many complaints about calling MS, I don't see DVC ever going to an online system. They have no reason to.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Also true. It really isn't that much of a hassle to be able to call MS and get instant answers. Until there are many many complaints about calling MS, I don't see DVC ever going to an online system. They have no reason to.

Well, being from the West Coast I would have some feedback about getting up at 6AM, day by day to call for a reservation that I really wanted. Now what I would like is to have an online system that allowed you to begin reserving at Midnight, East coast time. Wouldn't that be great!!!!

Actually, I do think it would just be nice if there was an online system that showed availability. It might alleviate working out all kinds of plans for a certain time period and then discovering it had never even been a chance. But then I also want to do everything online possible, while DH will first grab a phone to talk to someone before he'll turn on his computer. I am the first one he'll call when he gets stranded by an airline though - then I tell him what exact flights are available so he can tell the agent who wasn't able to find him anything until he tells them where to look. I haven't actually used MS yet and it does sound like they do a pretty good job - it just sounds kind of behind the times.

 

[jagson]

Couldn't IT develop a basic online reservation system; show availability; allow straightforward reservations from one, or more (in good standing) contract(s)? Forget MF, mortgage status, banking and borrowing, dining plans, etc. You just put in the dates, accomodations preferences, and select the DVC contract(s) to use for the reservation wanted. For other complex circumstances/issues the member would be referred to MS. From this basic model they could develop a more sophisticated format. This could free up the MS to handle the more complex reservation requests. Anyways, doesn't MS have all the basic info at their disposal to make straightforward reservations? This would eliminate one (sometimes time consuming) step.
I know I've been able to make hotel, and cruiseship reservations online, which required as much, or more input. I suspect many DVC members, like myself, just want/do basic reservations, anyway. Those who need assistance should also appreciate an online user friendly system, since they would be able to contact MS easier.
Later, as the system ages, more options could be added.
Just a thought.

 

[Chuck S]

Couldn't IT develop a basic online reservation system; show availability; allow straightforward reservations from one, or more (in good standing) contract(s)? Forget MF, mortgage status, banking and borrowing, dining plans, etc. You just put in the dates, accomodations preferences, and select the DVC contract(s) to use for the reservation wanted. For other complex circumstances/issues the member would be referred to MS. From this basic model they could develop a more sophisticated format. This could free up the MS to handle the more complex reservation requests. Anyways, doesn't MS have all the basic info at their disposal to make straightforward reservations? This would eliminate one (sometimes time consuming) step.
I know I've been able to make hotel, and cruiseship reservations online, which required as much, or more input. I suspect many DVC members, like myself, just want/do basic reservations, anyway. Those who need assistance should also appreciate an online user friendly system, since they would be able to contact MS easier.
Later, as the system ages, more options could be added.
Just a thought.

What would be the point of such a limited system? It would HAVE to have the ability to check status of points or make sure your payments were current, or else each and every reservation would have to be manually reviewed prior to confirmation, so it is no different than sending in an email request, which is what we have currently.

 

[grizbuzz]

Of course it can be done, it's just a question of money.

We once had a company president who would always say "If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we (meaning Engineering) 'insert project here'.

Here are some of the things the program would have to address if you just wanted to make a reservation on-line:

1. Your Account: It would have to check your personal account and ensure your dues were up to date and paid. If you have a mortgage loan through DVC, it would also have to check to make sure your payments were up to date.

2. Availability: It would need to examine every resort, every villa type, every option, and see what is available. Some things are:

Room types: Studio, 1-B/R, 2-B/R, GV, Inn, Cottage, Lodge, etc., with of course HA categories.

2-B/R unit: Some are dedicated, some are Lock-Off's. If you want a 2-B/R it would have to look at available dedicated units, and also at the 1-b/r and Studio and find all combinations where both are available, and connected to each other, so it could confirm it as a 2-b/r.

Then there are views or areas: Boardwalk View, Near OKW HH, BWV standard/preferred, VB Inn or Studio, and AKV is going to be a nightmare: Kidani or not, and which of the multiple of room types do you want.

3. Your Points: You can have 6 different classifications of points: Regular, Banked, Borrowed, Holding, Reservation, Developer, and the rules for using these points differ. AND, these points are divided into different Use Years, and can only be used for reservation dates within their particular use year.

Contracts: You can have multiple contracts (under the same membership number), with different home resorts. Points at the same resort can be combined to make reservations. Points at different resorts can only be combined at 7-months. Some points cannot be combined at all.

4. Waitlist: They would need to incorporate the waitlist into the system somehow. You have a waitlist for December. A unit becomes available. The system would need to assign that unit to you and NOT make it available to someone on line.

5. Reservation: All of the above has to be combined. Total points need to be calculated (Resort, room type, dates) (That's actually the easiest part), and you have to 'pay' for the room using points.

OK, so I'm a product marketing manager or one of those people who works with engineers with irritating comments like ""If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we (meaning Engineering) 'insert project here'.

So here are my stupid questions...

Don't these reservation systems already exist? I mean what is MS using to check for all this information? (ok here's where the really annoying part of the question is...) Isn't it just a matter of "tweaking" systems to get users access to some of the systems that are already there and "idiot proofing them"? As a customer, I'm accostumed to making my own reservations whether on disneyworld.com or expedia or priceline. DVC has a lot of members all over the world and ultimately will need to develop online, automated systems that are on par with what is being offered across the industry.

OK, engineers...don't throw anything at me...

 

[Caskbill]

OK, so I'm a product marketing manager or one of those people who works with engineers with irritating comments like ""If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we (meaning Engineering) 'insert project here'.

So here are my stupid questions...

Don't these reservation systems already exist? I mean what is MS using to check for all this information? (ok here's where the really annoying part of the question is...) Isn't it just a matter of "tweaking" systems to get users access to some of the systems that are already there and "idiot proofing them"? As a customer, I'm accostumed to making my own reservations whether on disneyworld.com or expedia or priceline. DVC has a lot of members all over the world and ultimately will need to develop online, automated systems that are on par with what is being offered across the industry.

OK, engineers...don't throw anything at me...

I wish it were that easy because if it was, we'd have had on-line reservations for several years already.

The current system obviously resides on a mainframe somewhere. It uses proprietary software to do everything, with special screens developed for the CM to monitor. Most likely everything is in code. Also, it's been my experience the CM has to call up different screens to handle things. One screen to check availability, another to access your account, and a different screen for each contract you own.

To just interface all of that to an on-line system just doesn't work. The on-line system would need to be built from the ground up, totally from scratch. It would have to have it's own handles to access all the different information.

Not to be trite, but maybe think of it this way. You have a Volkswagen. It has 4-tires, a steering wheel, an engine, and gets you from point A to point B. In other words it has all the components of a 'vehicle'. So now you need a city bus that will carry 50 people at a time. You can't just take the volkswagen and turn it into a bus, no matter how many common components they may have. The bus is a different 'vehicle'. Likewise, an on-line system would be a totally different 'vehicle' than what they currently use.

 

[CarrianneB]

What would be the point of such a limited system? It would HAVE to have the ability to check status of points or make sure your payments were current, or else each and every reservation would have to be manually reviewed prior to confirmation, so it is no different than sending in an email request, which is what we have currently.

Doesn't the system do this already? I find it hard to believe that MS goes through all these steps when making a reservation. It's more of a back end - reservation will be cancelled if dues aren't paid by time of travel thing.

Hotels have online booking, why can't Disney for all the straightforward stuff?

 

[Chuck S]

Doesn't the system do this already? I find it hard to believe that MS goes through all these steps when making a reservation. It's more of a back end - reservation will be cancelled if dues aren't paid by time of travel thing.

Hotels have online booking, why can't Disney for all the straightforward stuff?

As Bill said, the current system seems to require several screens. To incorporate all of that into a single, easy to use, online reservation system that interfaces with the MS database efficiently would be costly. Remember, that in real time, people can lose a reservation even while on the phone to MS, if someone else snatches it first. Imagine being online, seeing an available reservation, and by the time you hit send, the reservation is gone. How many more complaints would DVC receive? Most regular hotels are not booked to the capacity that timeshares have to book. There is much more "wiggle room" at Holiday Inn or Ramada. With DVC you have not only rooms, but rooms that are CRO inventory, DVC inventory, and II inventory. Even simple DVC reservations aren't so "simple" compared to most other venues.

 

[jagson]

What would be the point of such a limited system? It would HAVE to have the ability to check status of points or make sure your payments were current, or else each and every reservation would have to be manually reviewed prior to confirmation, so it is no different than sending in an email request, which is what we have currently.

The system I see would be 24/7 available (for those worldwide to use at anytime, in any time zone), thus ease of access. The system already knows the status of points, currency of your contract, MF, etc. Fully automated, real-time online reservations; and if not capable of meeting certain requests beyond its capacity, refer to member to MS.

 

[CarolMN]

....(snip).... what I would like is to have an online system that allowed you to begin reserving at Midnight, East coast time. Wouldn't that be great!!!! ........

The system I see would be 24/7 available (for those worldwide to use at anytime, in any time zone), thus ease of access. The system already knows the status of points, currency of your contract, MF, etc. Fully automated, real-time online reservations; and if not capable of meeting certain requests beyond its capacity, refer to member to MS.

I doubt that Disney/DVC would ever give online booking an advantage over those who call for reservations - at least not at first. If an online system becomes available, I see it opening for reservations each day at 9 am Eastern, just like the phone reservations.

 

[mjy]

Do you think we will ever see online booking for DVC using our membership points?

Yes.

I do believe it will happen.

I also believe that a gene expert can create a pig that flies.

I do believe . . . I do believe . . . I do believe . . .

 

[grizbuzz]

Not to be trite, but maybe think of it this way. You have a Volkswagen. It has 4-tires, a steering wheel, an engine, and gets you from point A to point B. In other words it has all the components of a 'vehicle'. So now you need a city bus that will carry 50 people at a time. You can't just take the volkswagen and turn it into a bus, no matter how many common components they may have. The bus is a different 'vehicle'. Likewise, an on-line system would be a totally different 'vehicle' than what they currently use.

Thanks for walking me through the back end processes Caskbill.

With 100k plus members (how many is it now?), at least three new DVC resorts in the works, worldwide membership and the online travel blossoming around them, I'm thinking it's time for Disney to upgrade from a Volkswagen bug to at least a minivan! But I'd like the cost of that covered in my current dues, of course

 

[dvc at last !]

Of course it can be done, it's just a question of money.

I've been an Engineer for longer than I want to admit, and only if you're in a particular field can you appreciate what it would take to actually do something.

We once had a company president who would always say "If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we (meaning Engineering) 'insert project here'.

Of course, among ourselves the answer was simple: "Give us NASA's budget, and we can do the project...." (Of course we wouldn't get the budget, it'd be more like here's $20,000...go make it happen)

The answer for DVC is the same....Commit enough funds and it can be done. The issue is whether it's cost effective. How much would it cost, and how many people would actually use it. How much would we save???

Here are some of the things the program would have to address if you just wanted to make a reservation on-line:

1. Your Account: It would have to check your personal account and ensure your dues were up to date and paid. If you have a mortgage loan through DVC, it would also have to check to make sure your payments were up to date.

2. Availability: It would need to examine every resort, every villa type, every option, and see what is available. Some things are:

Room types: Studio, 1-B/R, 2-B/R, GV, Inn, Cottage, Lodge, etc., with of course HA categories.

2-B/R unit: Some are dedicated, some are Lock-Off's. If you want a 2-B/R it would have to look at available dedicated units, and also at the 1-b/r and Studio and find all combinations where both are available, and connected to each other, so it could confirm it as a 2-b/r.

Then there are views or areas: Boardwalk View, Near OKW HH, BWV standard/preferred, VB Inn or Studio, and AKV is going to be a nightmare: Kidani or not, and which of the multiple of room types do you want.

3. Your Points: You can have 6 different classifications of points: Regular, Banked, Borrowed, Holding, Reservation, Developer, and the rules for using these points differ. AND, these points are divided into different Use Years, and can only be used for reservation dates within their particular use year.

Contracts: You can have multiple contracts (under the same membership number), with different home resorts. Points at the same resort can be combined to make reservations. Points at different resorts can only be combined at 7-months. Some points cannot be combined at all.

4. Waitlist: They would need to incorporate the waitlist into the system somehow. You have a waitlist for December. A unit becomes available. The system would need to assign that unit to you and NOT make it available to someone on line.

5. Reservation: All of the above has to be combined. Total points need to be calculated (Resort, room type, dates) (That's actually the easiest part), and you have to 'pay' for the room using points.

"Dear computer, I want a 2-B/R villa at BWV, with a boardwalk view, for September 3rd to 7th. I have 20 banked points in my SSR contract, 32 banked points in my VWL contract, 42 Reservation points in my VB contract. I want to use these points, plus I will need to borrow 45 points from my BWV contract. What, I can't use the reservation points? OK, I'll use some developer points. What, I can't use the developer points for those dates? OK, just borrow some points from my other membership number. What, I can't use points from two different memberships for the same reservation? OK, let me make the Sept 3rd to 6th with the points I mentioned, and make the Sept 7th reservation with points from my other membership number, and then I want you to link the two reservations. Oh, BTW, I also want to add ME, and the DDP to all of this. Here are all our names and ages......

Hello? Computer? Computer? Are you still there...."


The thing is, that what may seem simple (You want to reserve a Studio at OKW using your current UY OKW points), the computer system has to be developed to handle things that can get very complex. And it has to be idiot-proof. This means the developer has to think of EVERYTHING someone could possibly do wrong, and write code to intercept it and present error messages.

Can it be developed and implemented? Sure! If it will raise your dues $1.00/point are you still for it? I doubt it. But you'd be willing to pay $0.02/point I bet. The answer we don't have is how much of "NASA's" budget would it take?

There's other issues I haven't mentioned yet, but this post is already long enough as is....

My .02

Wow !
That is way too much DVC lingo !

 

[Caskbill]

Thanks for walking me through the back end processes Caskbill.

With 100k plus members (how many is it now?), at least three new DVC resorts in the works, worldwide membership and the online travel blossoming around them, I'm thinking it's time for Disney to upgrade from a Volkswagen bug to at least a minivan! But I'd like the cost of that covered in my current dues, of course

I agree completely, and I'm sure one day there will be on line reservations. Unfortunately my OKW contract expires in 2042 so I may not ever be able to ever get a chance to use it....

OK, it'll be here before that, but maybe not for 5 years yet, maybe more. If they're designing something now, I presume they're planning for all the new resorts.

I know they use to have about 100 CM's on the phones during the busy times, and I think it was about 80 during not so busy times. I don't know what the numbers are now with the 7-day week. The big unknown is just how many people would reserve on-line and thus how CM salaries can be saved. Many of us on the DIS would reserve on line, but we all might be a little more computer savy. Even at that there are plenty here who could, but wouldn't use an on-line system.

If 10% booked on line and that reduced the need for 10 CM's, I don't believe the savings would even come close to what it would take to develop, implement, and maintain the system.

Put another way, by NOT having an on-line system, we've saved some CM jobs. Real people we can talk to. I'm perfectly OK with that. I can say with all honesty, in 15 years of ownership, I've never had a rude CM.

 

[dianeschlicht]

I can see the advantage of on-line booking and the nightmare it would be to manage, but I really like being able to talk to a real person when I book. Whenever I get that poll about on-line booking, I always say "no thanks". Like Bill, I have never had a rude MS CM.

 

[Starr W.]

I can see the advantage of on-line booking and the nightmare it would be to manage, but I really like being able to talk to a real person when I book. Whenever I get that poll about on-line booking, I always say "no thanks". Like Bill, I have never had a rude MS CM.

I had one borderline rude MS CM, she laughed at me when I asked about waitlisting other resorts at Thanksgiving.

Last couple of CM's I have talked to have been great and actually had a sense of humor(I sometimes get the very serious ones). But I've never had a reservation messed up either, so I guess I should not complain.

On line reservations.

 

[dianeschlicht]

I had one borderline rude MS CM, she laughed at me when I asked about waitlisting other resorts at Thanksgiving.

Last couple of CM's I have talked to have been great and actually had a sense of humor(I sometimes get the very serious ones). But I've never had a reservation messed up either, so I guess I should not complain.

On line reservations.

LOL, that probably wasn't being rude, that was probably her way of telling you there was NO chance! I remember your original post about that, and my reaction would probably have been to laugh first and explain later too.

 

[vacationman]

What I would like about an on-line system is the feeling that I would have the same chance for a reservation as everyone else. Sometimes you get a MS CM who knows less than the average member and feel like you are losing time while all the standard view rooms are being taken. On-line reservations work in many industries - hotel, airline, etc. that are every bit as complicated as DVC.

Even if they just started with home resort reservations, I would be happy. Then they could add features on as they developed them.

But, if the Hilton Vacation Club can develop a system that I think works well, Disney could sure do the same. There is no way Hilton would have spent the money to create their system if it was not cost justified. While I don't want folks to lose their jobs unnecessarily, I also don't want to pay more for live CM's when an automated system could work just as well for many situations.

 

[JimMIA]

Typical engineer thinking

If there's one thing I've learned in dealing with "systems" projects, it's that throwing money at a project isn't enough. You need good people.

Disney may be great at many things. But they are lousy at systems. Spend a few days on the DIS's resorts board, and you'll see the following exchange come up at least once:

Q: I checked online, and <my choice of> resort is sold out. What should I do?
A: Don't trust the online system. It's unreliable. Call-up and ask a CM.

Disney's problem with systems isn't a lack of money. Their websites have every sound/movie/animation gizmo there is. But not only are the unreliable, they are poorly laid out, difficult to navigate and make it tough to find basic information.

The good news is that, while they might not be great at systems, Disney is great at training CM's.

Amen, Sal! I was going down the same path. For a company in the industry they're in, it's just astounding how inept Disney is with their online presence.

They're so bad, they've created an entire industry which supplies useful information about Disney, in a format people can use, and which consistently works. The DIS is just one important example of that industry...which grew out of Disney's incompetence online!

 

[crisi]

What I would like about an on-line system is the feeling that I would have the same chance for a reservation as everyone else. Sometimes you get a MS CM who knows less than the average member and feel like you are losing time while all the standard view rooms are being taken. On-line reservations work in many industries - hotel, airline, etc. that are every bit as complicated as DVC.

Even if they just started with home resort reservations, I would be happy. Then they could add features on as they developed them.

But, if the Hilton Vacation Club can develop a system that I think works well, Disney could sure do the same. There is no way Hilton would have spent the money to create their system if it was not cost justified. While I don't want folks to lose their jobs unnecessarily, I also don't want to pay more for live CM's when an automated system could work just as well for many situations.

Hilton has a much larger system. As DVC grows, the costs of the system spreads out over more room nights, making it more affordable. Hilton has reached the point in their timeshare presence with membership and roomnights where they felt they could justify online reservations - DVC apparently hasn't.