Member Services Breaking 11 Month Rule!

[pangyal]

I emailed earlier too.

 

[twinklebug]

I agree, if it looks like, sounds like and walks like a duck... Scrooge McDuck is in there messing about.
There are too many rooms/resorts coinciding with the timing of the 50th for these blocks to be a coincidence.

BWV will see this issue the following year for EPCOT's 40th unless it is stopped now.

By the way, to all those dealing with cast members who don't seem to understand the issue, remember they cannot express guilt or suspicion of the company even though this is DVC. They could get in trouble for anything other than escallating the call to a manager, and that manager may also need to escallate it.

 

[Philsfan77]

It would be interesting to know if they could disclose when someones reservation starts, when you guys ask how it is possible. I doubt they can, but I wonder if a CM would say someone has the 30th booked already (and if you asked well when does their reservation start) and they tell you it starts on the 30th...would be a dead giveaway that they are booking rooms ahead of the 11 month window.

 

[JETSDAD]

It would be interesting to know if they could disclose when someones reservation starts, when you guys ask how it is possible. I doubt they can, but I wonder if a CM would say someone has the 30th booked already (and if you asked well when does their reservation start) and they tell you it starts on the 30th...would be a dead giveaway that they are booking rooms ahead of the 11 month window.

If I get a call from a supervisor or above I'll be asking them to check the booking logs to see if any rooms that were booked or set aside by DVC had start dates later than the dates the reservations were created. I assume they won't share the info but if they can see it maybe they'll back down a bit on the company line.

 

[Philsfan77]

Just to piggyback on my post earlier, where Grand Villas were available 2 days into the booking window, and then pulled around October 1st. I just checked the site again today. CCV Cabins are available to be booked the 29th and 30th, and then unavailable to be booked the 1st and 2nd. They are clearly pulling high value rooms several days ahead of the 11 month booking window. I would specifically ask how that is possible. Cabins and Grand Villas are almost always available, now across several resorts, they are booked out, across several resorts, ahead of the 11 month window, and days that are currently available to be booked at 11 month window (29th and 30th are available).

Todays List I'm seeing of Abnormal Bookings, that clearly aren't walking:

CCV Cabins
CCV Deluxe Studios (29th is gone today - normal...however the 30th is available...and then the 1st is unavailable again).

Add them to the list of the last few days...something clearly is up and it's not just glitches.

 

[pkrieger2287]

https://dvcfan.com/2020/10/29/is-disney-vacation-club-breaking-the-11-month-booking-rule/

 

[Cabius]

We're going about this all wrong.

Somebody call their DVC guide and claim that you want to purchase 1000 RIV points, but ONLY if they will guarantee/reserve a Grand Villa for you 13 months out. See what they say.

 

[Sandisw]

I agree, if it looks like, sounds like and walks like a duck... Scrooge McDuck is in there messing about.
There are too many rooms/resorts coinciding with the timing of the 50th for these blocks to be a coincidence.

BWV will see this issue the following year for EPCOT's 40th unless it is stopped now.

By the way, to all those dealing with cast members who don't seem to understand the issue, remember they cannot express guilt or suspicion of the company even though this is DVC. They could get in trouble for anything other than escallating the call to a manager, and that manager may also need to escallate it.

Honestly, I think that frontline CMs really do not have any inside information as to why, I think they know what we do...if they are gone, they are booked,

I think the ones who may know why this is happening are much farther up the line.

As I said before, my question is if there anything that can be changed in the documents, that allows DVD to use their points ahead of the 11 month window And if so, what notification to members would be required.

We know they can pull earlier for those with FW, so the system is set up to process. But, I really don’t think lower level CMs have that power..

Even when new owners call MS to see if they can get points loaded earlier from a resale, the CM has to contact someone in a different department to do it,

It will be very interesting to see what the answers are, and if they are the same to everyone who has emailed!

 

[pkrieger2287]

Honestly, I think that frontline CMs really do not have any inside information as to why, I think they know what we do...if they are gone, they are booked,

I think the ones who may know why this is happening are much farther up the line.

As I said before, my question is if there anything that can be changed in the documents, that allows DVD to use their points ahead of the 11 month window And if so, what notification to members would be required.

We know they can pull earlier for those with FW, so the system is set up to process. But, I really don’t think lower level CMs have that power..

Even when new owners call MS to see if they can get points loaded earlier from a resale, the CM has to contact someone in a different department to do it,

It will be very interesting to see what the answers are, and if they are the same to everyone who has emailed!

I agree. Member Services only has a set number of answers. In this case, the only one that makes sense to them is that the room is booked by someone else. Getting more than that will require going further up the chain as you said. Also interested in seeing what comes of some of these emails.

 

[prs_14]

I will follow this thread closely. I was able to reserve this past Monday (on 10/26) a week in a cabin (9/26 through to 10/3). So these strange restrictions on booking must have been implemented in the last couple days.

 

[twinklebug]

I will follow this thread closely. I was able to reserve this past Monday (on 10/26) a week in a cabin (9/26 through to 10/3). So these strange restrictions on booking must have been implemented in the last couple days.

Chances are only a few units have been pulled from inventory, which would allow the others to book up through the anniversary weekend, but if someone were unlucky enough to not have a surplus of points to reach out that far, they'd be one of the last ones to attempt to reserve those dates and see the blockage.

Disney uses this to their advantage in their response wording to indicate that X number of people had no problem booking, so therefore others just got there before you. What we need is an analyst to sit down and comb through the reservations in a known issue category or two, one without a massive number of rooms such as club level AKV to discover what happened.

Date reservation was made is paired up with the reservation itself in the database, we see it all the time on our confirmation emails.

 

[Catherine S]

I will follow this thread closely. I was able to reserve this past Monday (on 10/26) a week in a cabin (9/26 through to 10/3). So these strange restrictions on booking must have been implemented in the last couple days.

Yes, it seems to be changing from day to day. At first the BLT rooms were available and then slowly different room types began to have this issue. Yesterday the lake view 1BR was fine, but by the evening it was showing the same thing, even though I had a reservation.

 

[DougEMG]

Well shady stuff is definitely going on with the booking.

I currently have BLT 1 bedroom standard view booked for Sept 22 - Sept 30 and tried to change it today (Oct 28) and Sept 30 and Oct 01 are both showing up as not available.

I was just online Oct 29th to see what availability looked like and Sept 30 and Oct 01, 2021 were still showing as not available. 30 minutes after I was online I got a call from DVC about the email I sent them. They were able to give me both those nights that were missing from the online system. I wonder how that was possible. They also said they had heard from a number of people about this issue and were looking into it.

Definitely something very strange going on.

 

[twinklebug]

I was just online Oct 29th to see what availability looked like and Sept 30 and Oct 01, 2021 were still showing as not available. 30 minutes after I was online I got a call from DVC about the email I sent them. They were able to give me both those nights that were missing from the online system. I wonder how that was possible. They also said they had heard from a number of people about this issue and were looking into it.

Definitely something very strange going on.

That's awesome! I hope they resolve the "issue" and we never encounter it again except of course for valid maintenance.

 

[Catherine S]

Just got off the phone with member services. They were able to “find” availability for the room I wanted and set up a reservation for me. I’m glad it worked out but they certainly know something was wrong.

 

[DougEMG]

I did suggest to them that they let members know what was happening otherwise people are going to think the worst, but I doubt that they will ever tell us. Guess they could always blame it on the IT department!

 

[pangyal]

I just got my call from a supervisor at MS. Unfortunately, I seem to have gotten the bottom of the barrel in this regard. She insisted that I was "confused" about how booking works and why I was not able to move my reservation at AKL CL from the 26th forward when I had up to the 28th. She kept telling me that somebody else had just moved their reservation forward and taken that room after the 28th. I even tried to give her an analogy about a highway with five lanes, one for each studio, and how each car could only keep moving forward in their own lane. She suggested I try their waitlist and perhaps read up on how to use my membership if I was experiencing issues with booking the rooms I want. Seriously?

ETA: I am still waiting for a response to the email I sent last night. I realize it might be a few days. This call was very discouraging as she put the blame on my shoulders and essentially told me that I was unaware of how to use my points to book using their system.

 

[heapmaster]

Just to piggyback on my post earlier, where Grand Villas were available 2 days into the booking window, and then pulled around October 1st. I just checked the site again today. CCV Cabins are available to be booked the 29th and 30th, and then unavailable to be booked the 1st and 2nd. They are clearly pulling high value rooms several days ahead of the 11 month booking window. I would specifically ask how that is possible. Cabins and Grand Villas are almost always available, now across several resorts, they are booked out, across several resorts, ahead of the 11 month window, and days that are currently available to be booked at 11 month window (29th and 30th are available).

Todays List I'm seeing of Abnormal Bookings, that clearly aren't walking:

CCV Cabins
CCV Deluxe Studios (29th is gone today - normal...however the 30th is available...and then the 1st is unavailable again).

Add them to the list of the last few days...something clearly is up and it's not just glitches.

The CCV cabins for the 1st and 2nd are available again, so this could be just a glitch at that time.

 

[Catherine S]

I just got my call from a supervisor at MS. Unfortunately, I seem to have gotten the bottom of the barrel in this regard. She insisted that I was "confused" about how booking works and why I was not able to move my reservation at AKL CL from the 26th forward when I had up to the 28th. She kept telling me that somebody else had just moved their reservation forward and taken that room after the 28th. I even tried to give her an analogy about a highway with five lanes, one for each studio, and how each car could only keep moving forward in their own lane. She suggested I try their waitlist and perhaps read up on how to use my membership if I was experiencing issues with booking the rooms I want. Seriously?

ETA: I am still waiting for a response to the email I sent last night. I realize it might be a few days. This call was very discouraging as she put the blame on my shoulders and essentially told me that I was unaware of how to use my points to book using their system.

I’m so sorry they weren’t more helpful! I wish they would stop with the stock response. Members know it’s not possible and all it does is make people feel like they aren’t being heard and are being lied to. Fingers crossed that more comes out of your emails.

 

[pangyal]

I’m so sorry they weren’t more helpful! I wish they would stop with the stock response. Members know it’s not possible and all it does is make people feel like they aren’t being heard and are being lied to. Fingers crossed that more comes out of your emails.

Thanks! We can stay elsewhere, so it's really just the irritation at the entire situation that's getting to me.

However, I must add that I'm extremely happy that you and @DougEMG got your rooms after all!