Anyone know how reservations work on sites such as Orbitz, Travelocity, etc? They only have suites available for my selected resort and dates, but the Disney website has standard rooms available as well. Can anyone explain this?
Orbitz, Travelocity, etc. are allocated a certain number of rooms. That is why availabilty on each second-party site as well as Disney’s own site can vary. Sometimes the reverse happens and Disney has no standard rooms available while Orbitz does.
3rd party vendors pre purchase blocks of rooms in bulk from hotels. This gives hotels money up front and guarantees a certain level of revenue. These rooms have been sold so the hotel can’t sell them again.