Availability Weirdness

[twoj]

There is definitely going on, I had been watching the availability at Aulani to try and change room categories and there have always been days available but with changes every day.
Mid day Friday it is like all availability for every resort is gone through the night of 7/4.
There is no way that rooms were not cancelled over the weekend, so for sure Disney is doing something.

I have booked nights very last minute and have never seen availability so scarce in my over 10 years of ownership.

 

[marsh0013]

Just as a data point, I’m currently walking a value akv studio and I didn’t run into any block. Mine was 6 days long, now 7 that we’re beyond the super high point time. You definitely risk not being able to move your walk forward if you have less days as 3-4 can be blanked out on the calendar at a time. At least for value and club rooms. I’ve seen it at BWV standard as well. We own both AKV and BWV.

 

[SLThomas318]

So I called and the person I spoke with said they had been getting a lot of calls with people calling in with website issues and asking about sudden lack of availability.... she said it just looks like it's going to be a busy month. She was able to give me a cash price for OKW and SSR for the 1 night we needed to add. She did not say there were any website issues.

The website is still glitchy for me, so I'm hoping some magic availability shows up soon....

 

[hhisc16]

So I called and the person I spoke with said they had been getting a lot of calls with people calling in with website issues and asking about sudden lack of availability.... she said it just looks like it's going to be a busy month. She was able to give me a cash price for OKW and SSR for the 1 night we needed to add. She did not say there were any website issues.

The website is still glitchy for me, so I'm hoping some magic availability shows up soon....

I notice multiple dvc rooms available on cash for my date, but not a single one on points? Something is going on.

 

[kes601]

I notice multiple dvc rooms available on cash for my date, but not a single one on points? Something is going on.

While we all can agree the change in inventory seems very strange, having cash rooms and not points rooms is not. They come from different inventories.

 

[hhisc16]

While we all can agree the change in inventory seems very strange, having cash rooms and not points rooms is not. They come from different inventories.

True. What alerts me is there is not a single ssr or okw studio available for may or june on points.

 

[pirate33]

I just looked at VGC, and there is not a single room in any category available going 11 months out. I also tried BLT, about five or six categories, and the same thing. Something must be broken.

 

[kes601]

True. What alerts me is there is not a single ssr or okw studio available for may or june on points.

I completely agree that the availability is very strange to say the least. Just wanted to point out the difference in inventories to those who didn't realize it wasn't the same pool of rooms.

 

[kes601]

I just looked at VGC, and there is not a single room in any category available going 11 months out. I also tried BLT, about five or six categories, and the same thing. Something must be broken.

There are studios available for VGC -- a few nights in Dec, over half the month of January, about half of February, and all of March. BLT has plenty of availability once you get past July 4 as well. Guessing your browser was getting the blank calendar bug. Try looking in incognito mode.

 

[mz-s]

Even a few weeks ago there was very little availability for July 4th weekend and the days surrounding...my wife and I booked and pretty much all we could choose was OKW. During the availability boom a few days ago we were able to switch to BLT.

 

[pirate33]

There are studios available for VGC -- a few nights in Dec, over half the month of January, about half of February, and all of March. BLT has plenty of availability once you get past July 4 as well. Guessing your browser was getting the blank calendar bug. Try looking in incognito mode.

I didn't know about that bug. Before I posted, I tried two browsers on my iPad. Incognito mode didn't fix it nor resetting the cache/history on each browser. Never had this issue before.

However, using Firefox on my macbook made the problem go away. At least this mystery is solved!

 

[kes601]

I didn't know about that bug.

It pops up every now and then when I've been stalking for too long.

 

[hhisc16]

There are studios available for VGC -- a few nights in Dec, over half the month of January, about half of February, and all of March. BLT has plenty of availability once you get past July 4 as well. Guessing your browser was getting the blank calendar bug. Try looking in incognito mode.

I notice the availability is more normal after july 4 as well. May and june appear to be gone.

 

[JulieBeeRN]

I was looking on the regular WDW website bc we might have friends coming with us in November, and I can’t find availability at any hotel; even when I started picking random dates.

 

[kmorlock]

Taking rooms for Breakage is supposed to be continuous around 60 days from any given date. If May & June having not one room in any category for ALL DVC resorts was simply due to taking grooms for Breakage, we would see this happening all the time and it would not raise the red flags that it has.

 

[kes601]

It is supposed to be continuous. However as often as Disney has IT glitches with DVC it doesn’t mean a glitch couldn’t have occurred that prevented the rooms from automatically being moved to breakage. If they can manage to mark 1000s of accounts as delinquent with dues when they weren’t then it is a possibility.

 

[Sandisw]

Taking rooms for Breakage is supposed to be continuous around 60 days from any given date. If May & June having not one room in any category for ALL DVC resorts was simply due to taking grooms for Breakage, we would see this happening all the time and it would not raise the red flags that it has.

There are other things besides offering for cash to create breakage income though thst could be playing a role.

It certainly seemed many disappeared right after cruise bookings began..maybe that’s why they took them?? Or they decided to book them using their own points? Could be a combination of all of those as well as owners grabbing some last minute to rent as confirmed?

I think because we have had multiple reports now from MS that it’s simply showing booked, for May/June, the there is a good chance that is true.

They have no reason for them to say that if there is an issue. The other thing is when the system went down online the other night, MS had full access still…and could complete booking as usual. They were able to handle my modifications for me.

I agree that this is not typical to see two full months out of nothing..but then again, maybe it really is a busy time, especially since the system doesn’t say how many rooms are available on any given day.

 

[Claudia1]

I called Member Services around 4:30 to see about a last minute availability this week and she was seeing what I was seeing... nothing anywhere. She said she didn't have anything anywhere thru the end of August at that time. I asked if it was the glitch and she said they have been hearing a lot about it with the phone calls. She wouldn't officially confirm it was "the glitch" but she said IT was aware of it and they are working on it. (Heard that before way to many times!)

I asked if they had received cancellations for this week and she confirmed "rare but yes" so I think there may be rooms in the inventory. We have had to cancel at the last minute more than once in the past so I know it happens.

I told her, in my opinion, it is virtually impossible that every, single room is booked thru the end of August and she agreed. She urged me repeatedly to call back when they open in the morning so I'm wondering if they are expecting something to happen overnight.

This really puts us in a bad spot to be in limbo, tho.

 

[Sandisw]

I called Member Services around 4:30 to see about a last minute availability this week and she was seeing what I was seeing... nothing anywhere. She said she didn't have anything anywhere thru the end of August at that time. I asked if it was the glitch and she said they have been hearing a lot about it with the phone calls. She wouldn't officially confirm it was "the glitch" but she said IT was aware of it and they are working on it. (Heard that before way to many times!)

I asked if they had received cancellations for this week and she confirmed "rare but yes" so I think there may be rooms in the inventory. We have had to cancel at the last minute more than once in the past so I know it happens.

I told her, in my opinion, it is virtually impossible that every, single room is booked thru the end of August and she agreed. She urged me repeatedly to call back when they open in the morning so I'm wondering if they are expecting something to happen overnight.

This really puts us in a bad spot to be in limbo, tho.

Not sure why she told you August because there are a lot of rooms open in July and August at all the resorts.

It is only May and June and the first few days in July that are showing nothing…the rest of the summer can be booked, unless you are taking a specific room or resort.

 

[zachatak]

There are zero rooms available period until July 5 at SSR. There is almost always a preferred 1 BR available on random days every month, last minute. All types of SSR rooms across the board were available just a few days ago. Called MS and got zero intelligent response on what's up (I need to add 1 random day mid May). Will check again tomorrow and see it that changes from 7/5 to 7/6 for all resorts to see if it is incrementing day by day because that is what seems to be happening.