I’m a new DVC owner and just had my first experience dealing with walkers. Let me first say how frustrating it is that people do this. Just wait until 11 months so we all have a fair shake at the rooms. In any event, I ended up getting the dates I wanted despite the walkers. People were walking the 2BR value at Jambo for the dates I wanted. I stalked and was able to pick up each day I needed when the walkers dropped it. Yay! 2BR over a 3-day holiday weekend in October for 100 pts!! But I have a few questions.
I grabbed each day when I saw it become available, so now I have 3 separate one-day reservations. I know that MS will link those so it will be a single reservation, but what is the best way to request this? Call? Chat? Is there an email address?
Searching for just the one day I was waiting for the walker to drop seemed like the best/fastest/easiest way to grab days as they became available, but that resulted in multiple single day reservations. Is there a better way to use modify when stalking like this or should I stick to doing a new trip search and then merge the reservations afterwards?
At 11 months, I created a wait list for all 3 nights. The next day, the walker dropped my first day and I grabbed it, so I wanted to modify my wait list to be only for days 2 and 3, but didn’t see a way to do that. Instead, I cancelled my waitlist and created a new one covering the last two days. When I grabbed day 2, I cancelled that waitlist and created another new one for only the last day. Am I missing something? Can you not change the length of stay on a wait list request? I guess that prevents walking waitlists too.
I have linked reservations just by using the chat feature
Creepily, they knew exactly which reservations I was asking about without my needing to tell them.
They made the modification right there and then after a few business days it was all one. They did warn me not to do anything with either reservation until it showed as linked or it might mess things up
Not sure. I would think you could modify your existing trip to include the new date, but I don’t know if that will take time that could result in losing the day.
You cannot, AFAIK, modify a wait list request. You can only cancel and resubmit - which will put you at the back of the line behind anyone who has placed a waitlist for those dates in the interim. Frustrating.
Walkers suck. I’m sorry you had to deal with this.
In the futue you can also grab the day by modifying your original reservation. The availability should show up the same way as if you were grabbing it as a single day. Either way definitely works!
Definitely call. And when you call put in a room request for a value room with a Savannah view.
This annoys me, but no modifications.
It sounds like you did everything perfectly!
Welcome home! I am an AKV owner too
I recently had them merge a BRV day without me asking, when it came off the waitlist. They picked up the day, dropped it, then modified my reservation.
I thought so too! I couldn’t tell what was going on because I was getting notices of the changes but they didn’t arrive in order. When I realized what happened I thought it was very cool!
I would not want that to happen between 7 and 11 months as the split stay might be so I could modify part of the stay at 7 months.
I’ll try playing around with that. I tried it once, but it seemed like every time I updated, I had to reselect the resort, etc., which slowed down my stalking.
Thanks! When I bought AKV, I knew that club level and value were really hard to get even for owners, so I was really proud of myself for piecing this together! (DH, on the other hand, doesn’t really get it and didn’t share my excitement, but he indulges my Disney addiction without complaint, so that’s OK. )
Getting the hard to get resorts or rooms is exhilarating! When I got a VGC studio room over spring break I was over the moon. DH just knows it is my thing.
I was also really pleased to get 3 nights at a value studio off the waitlist (put it in around 10 months). 3 nights for 30 points!
The problem was the walkers weren’t modifying their reservations right at 8am, so I just had to keep checking periodically for availability. From the new trip search, I could keep all of my parameters there (resort, date, number of bedrooms) and just click update (or pull down if on my phone) periodically. I think when I was trying to modify, I had to input all of that again. But I will play around and see if there is a different way to do it using modify.
That makes complete sense! The phone call is not difficult, and it does give you the chance to put in the room request - super important for a value room.
Someone who wants a particular room category in, say December, but they make a reservation for a date well in advance of that, say September (blocking others from making a reservation at 11 months). The walker then modifies the reservation every few days—adding days at the end and dropping days from the beginning—until they get the dates they’re actually interested in. And continually blocking people when they go to book at 11 months.
)