A thread on walking reservations the other day had me wondering about people’s thoughts on the ethics of my current Christmas DVC reservation situation.
We be going from December 26 to January 1st. I have this full time frame booked at a Savanah View Jambo House studio. I would really like to have either the 1st 2 nights (26 and 27) or the last 2 nights (30 and 31) at Boardwal or Poly. To that end, after stalking the site, have this mess of reservations and waitlists:
AKL Dec 26, 27, 28, 29
AKL Dec 30, 31
Poly (Lake view) Dec 26
BWV (Boardwalk View) Dec 27
BWV (Garden View) December 30
Waitlist (would automatically replace the 2 day AKL):
Poly (standard) Dec 30, 31
BWV (Garden View) Dec 31
I have no more extra points to help cobble together my perfect split stay, if something pops up it would have to replace what I already have.
But I am starting to feel guilty for holding all of these different nights, but adding them one at a time seems the only way to make this happen. Is this a morally ambiguous case of “everyone does it, so why can’t I?” Or is it a straight legit strategy?
I will drop most at 60 days for my own sanity and all by 30 days. Was just curious what you all thought.
I only want to move once, and my family has said it is a 2 night minimum. Currently I only have single nights at non- AK resorts, I haven’t been able to string 2 nights together.
The availability during this time is almost non-existent. I haven’t seen a single NYE availability since 7 months out. So when the 30th BWV became available I took it since my chances of getting both nights at once are slim. At the point I booked the 30th at BWV, I kept my 2 night Poly waitlist (which would automatically replace the 2 night AKL) and then changed my BWV waitlist to just the 31st (which would also take the place af my 2 night AKL)
At some point I realized NYE may be a pipe dream and that I would have better luck doing a different resort on the first 2 nights of my stay. So I have started to try to cobble something together for that. There has been more availability on this end, of my stay, I just haven’t been able to get 2 nights in a row at the same resort. When I get 2 nights at a non-AK resort, I would drop all wait lists and extra nights.
It does feel a bit hordy to me too, I am just at a loss of how else to do it successfully. I keep thinking I should give up and just stay at AKL, but it is so far away, I would like a couple of days with less travel.
So your waitlists are each 1 day long; it is still possible to need to move rooms even if you’re at the same resort. Just making sure you know that piece.
I would probably, if it were me, keep the one full reservation at AK and waitlist the other reservations as a whole - because if you don’t get them as a whole you’re not doing them (because of your family’s rule). So holding one night here and one night there is just… pointless.
In previous conversations with member services they have told me that I can call and merge reservations into one, as long as the points are all from the same contract and I am staying in the same room category. She gave me the impression (and I thought others had confirmed) that DVC handled this a bit differently than the cash side.
But that does make me realize I should drop my Poly night, because I have that booked with transferred points and would for sure run the risk of a split stay at the same resort.
They always try but it’s never a guarantee. At least as far as I understand. There’s even a disclaimer in the waitlist process about waitlisting individual dates for this very reason.
Stalking the RAT and grabbing each night as they become available is a strategy that many people use. That also allows them to modify the waitlists to a single night which is statistically more likely to come through.
However I’m not sure I see the point in having all those single nights booked. I think if I wanted to stalk the RAT I would stick to only grabbing the nights that you have waitlisted if you see them come up first. And then modify the waitlist if applicable. Or just leave the waitlists and hope.
I haven’t ever seen anyone report that MS couldn’t merge reservations together in the circumstances you mention.
If you have the separate nights booked using different contracts, that’s where they are unable to do it, and where you have to hope they can keep you in the same room.
Thank you! I appreciate the advice and the feedback about merging nights as long as they are all in the same contract.
I went in last night and dropped the Poly - I really only want Poly for NYE whereas BWV would be great at either end of my stay. This ensured both of my one nighters are on my main contract, so should help with merging them into one stay. And it was Lake view so big points.
I am tempted to do as you suggest and drop my Poly waitlist and turn into a waitlist for the one night I need at BWV at the start of the trip. Poly doesn’t fit my plans and is a lot of points at this time of year. I have ulterior motives for wanting to stay there, but I can push those off. I would feel better having this trip set!
Just following up on this. I had occasion to cancel one waitlist request and start a new one. Here is a screen shot of the verbiage surrounding multiple nights as separate reservations:
I think they will always make their very best effort not to make a guest move, but it is never a guarantee, cash or otherwise.
I have a 1-bed booked at Bay Lake for the 17th & 18th Feb. I really want to be at CCV instead, so I set up 2 waitlists:
Waitlist 1 - CCV 1-bed Feb 17th
Waitlist 2 - CCV 1-bed Feb 18th
If only the first comes through then obviously I would have to move to Bay Lake for the 18th.
Similarly if I did this instead:
Waitlist 1 - CCV 1-bed 17th-19th Feb
Waitlist 2 - BRV 1-bed 17th -19th Feb
They would match separately and I might not be able to confirm both. In other words, I’d get whichever came 1st, even if that was my 2nd choice. So if BRV matches that’s what I get and the CCV one is “lost” to me.
Guess we’re interpreting things differently.
And by merging it means literally instead of 2 back to back reservations with different numbers it becomes one reservation. MS will (usually) do that for you. I haven’t heard of them refusing if they were the same category in every way.
I’ve had an instance where I had them back to back but one was a DVC cash booking and one was with points. They couldn’t merge them but they did “link” them to try and make sure I didn’t have to move. The first time we did have to move, the second time we didn’t.
For example, let’s say that you have three nights at BWV, and want to add a fourth, but everything is booked.
But then there is another room where a family have five nights booked, but drop the final night which gives you your extra night. But, the room you are in has a family booking it for a week starting the night you were to originally check out. In such a case, they can’t keep you in the same room because it messes up the stay for another family.
So the wording protects for such a scenario. Often, however, they can finagle things such that it doesn’t matter if you stay in the same room for the extra night.
I think the same. We’ve waitlisted a day to add on to an existing reservation several times. Fwiw while we were prepared to move, we’ve never had a problem merging the reservations. Twice they did it automatically. The others I had to call
I originally had a 6 day AKl reservation and a CM suggested I split it into 2 reservations so I could wait list the last 2 days at a different resort. She told me to call to merge them if I didn’t get the waitlist.
I know there are always weird exceptions, but this gave me some peace of mind.
So my DH and I decided to go to Hilton Head for spring break. That means I will need all my points for that and will have to drop my extra Boardwalk nights. I am sad I modified my BWV waitlist to one night only. Now I will have to go and change it back to both nights and be wayy further back in line.
I am hopping for a win/win. I think my DH will love it. I suspect he is only going to be able to handle so much Disney and the occasional trip to HH will make holding onto our DVC worth it without too many trips to WDW.
I know I will love Hilton Head and of course owning DVC means I will still get some Disney vacations.
I just wanted to make a quick update on the ability to merge nights into one stay and other DVC hacks I have used in the last 24 hours.
To book my Hilton Head stay I had to do some light trickery to have the points available when I needed them. This weekend I was able to book 3 out 5 nights, but ran into two problems: 1) the Wednesday in the middle of my 5 days was already taken and 2) I needed to barrow points and buy one time use points which can only be done through calling. To successfully waitlist Wednesday and book Thursday this morning at 8am (7 month window) I needed the points in hand.
So, I called MS and booked 2 nights the week before my stay, as that 7 month booking window was already available, and requires the same point total. They barrowed my points and I got the one time points I needed. Then I promotly canceled that reservation but now had the points in hand, under my control. I waitlisted Wednesday, and was able to book Thursday this morning at 8am (it sold out fast).
With zero points available to mess around with, I decided it was time to stop working on the split stay I originally posted about for this Christmas. So I called MS to ask them to merge that stay into 1 stay. They were able to do this no problem, 2 stays turned into 1 stay. The only thing she was worried about was whether I had ordered 2 sets of magic bands.
I also asked if they would be able to merge my HHI stay if that Wednesday night came through for me. This stay was booked using 30 HHI Feb UY transfer points, 8 OTUP and the rest AKL Sept UY. She told me that I actually had a match for the Wednesday waitlist and she processed it for me. Then they merged all the nights into one stay. This was across three contracts and 3 UY, but the same room type and guests.
