Should DVC eliminate walking?

[jarestel]

I meant if a room is booked at 10 months and I want to change it after I book it, for whatever reason...to adjust dates, etc.

I book 10 days and then decide a few days later to drop the first nights and add a few more. It’s still walking even though my purpose may not be to walk,

When would I be able to change? Some ideas are that nothing can be changed for x day, etc. So, it’s just an example that any resection on changing reservations would have consequences on people adjusting for other reasons.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to making changes to reservations at all, We all have done that after booking a room in good faith that we fully intended to use. I'm just looking for ways to eliminate members from taking rooms out of circulation when they have no intention of ever using the rooms on those specific dates.

It may take someone way smarter than me to figure out a relatively simple solution, but I don't really subscribe to the "we can't change anything 'cause it might make it worse" problem solving model.

 

[JETSDAD]

You can book as many days at a time as you want, but you book 11 months from check-OUT date.
Hard to get reservations you call day by day to extend the room by one night at a time if you thought that was necessary.

So something like 1 week in a value or club studio isn't going to happen? At 7 days there won't be availability. If you need to add daily you then essentially need to win a small lottery 7 straight days or your reservation is broken.

 

[Sandisw]

You can book as many days at a time as you want, but you book 11 months from check-OUT date.
Hard to get reservations you call day by day to extend the room by one night at a time if you thought that was necessary.

Thanks! Got it! IMO, it’d probably stop walking but its effect the rest of the time would be a big negative.

 

[Maistre Gracey]

So something like 1 week in a value or club studio isn't going to happen? At 7 days there won't be availability. If you need to add daily you then essentially need to win a small lottery 7 straight days or your reservation is broken.

It totally will happen. In that situation you may want to book one day at a time from checkout date.
Remember, with this method it’s impossible to be blocked from someone with an earlier reservation. The earliest that day can be booked is 8:00 am on that day.
It can be blocked if someone is a bit faster calling MS on that day, but at MS opening there will ZERO rooms booked for that day.

 

[Maistre Gracey]

Thanks! Got it! IMO, it’d probably stop walking but its effect the rest of the time would be a big negative.

Well it’s actually impossible to walk.
That said, the only negative is if you opted to call day by day for a hard reservation.
Another small plus for easy to get reservations is that you can back up as far as you want, so if you wanted a 10 day reservation that can be done with one booking.

 

[Philsfan77]

Is it over a marathon weekend or a major holiday? that's the times I meant

Still don't like that idea at all...even for those few isolated dates...could easily impact people just trying to do something nice for their families or a friend at a special time of year.

 

[DVC_HK]

Still don't like that idea at all...even for those few isolated dates...could easily impact people just trying to do something nice for their families or a friend at a special time of year.

I figured the only way Disney would fix people selling dates is they someone get a piece of the money. I'm sure they actually keep track of how many reservations are made without the owners on it

 

[JETSDAD]

I figured the only way Disney would fix people selling dates is they someone get a piece of the money. I'm sure they actually keep track of how many reservations are made without the owners on it

They wouldn't know how many are rented vs simply booked for friends/family. With renting being expressly permitted there really isn't much they can do outside of changing the definition of commercial renting. It's a fine line to walk between trying to stop people from running it as a business and hurting members who book for others or who just want to rent their points because they can't travel or want to go elsewhere that year.

 

[Disney Dad ADL]

It totally will happen. In that situation you may want to book one day at a time from checkout date.
Remember, with this method it’s impossible to be blocked from someone with an earlier reservation. The earliest that day can be booked is 8:00 am on that day.
It can be blocked if someone is a bit faster calling MS on that day, but at MS opening there will ZERO rooms booked for that day.

That sounds pretty awful. It would mean if you want a difficult week, then you would need to book right at opening for 7 days straight, and there is a high likelihood that you may get only a partial reservation. For a busy week, the most likely outcome is that you have no one with a full week reservation and 100 people with partial reservations, and not necessarily even consecutive days.

 

[Orsino]

Okay. So only at 11 months you’d be locked in to the no change rule? Say I start a reservation at 10 months out from a date, is that allowed To be changed?

I don't see why not. The point is to hold a reservation while part of the reservation is outside the booking window. These dates are what make severe walking possible. If you book at 10 months, all of the booked days are within the booking window and can't be leveraged to walk the reservation. So no restriction would apply.

Book 1 to 7 nights. Get up on day 5, book a new reservation for another 7 days and then cancel first. 5 days in again, book a new and repeat.

The key here is on Day 5 you are booking a new reservation without the benefit of the prior reservation. While it looks like walking, it isn't. You can't book the day 5 reservation unless a room is available. And if a room is available, you didn't need to walk. "Book New" is completely different than "Modify Old". This type of behavior would be completely fine in my opinion. Useless extra work for someone, but fine.

 

[CarolMN]

It totally will happen. In that situation you may want to book one day at a time from checkout date.
Remember, with this method it’s impossible to be blocked from someone with an earlier reservation. The earliest that day can be booked is 8:00 am on that day.
It can be blocked if someone is a bit faster calling MS on that day, but at MS opening there will ZERO rooms booked for that day.

But it actually wasn't happening much of the time. Too many members were ending up with holes in their desired reservation, waitlists weren't working and the partial reservations were being cancelled at the 31 day mark.

Members were even beginning to call day by day for SSR. System needed to change & going back to it now would be disastrous, IMO.

 

[Orsino]

But then you get back to someone being able to simply keep adding on for a lengthy period and making one drop later on. And there are a lot of people who book a bit of a buffer to be able to change things around once they book their flights. So then they would book their flight, go to drop a day at the beginning and lose their entire reservation?

That's not what we are saying at all. The restriction on the dropping the first day is temporary. Restricting dropping the first day is so people can't drop the first day in order to have enough points to tack on dates at the end of the stay while no one else can access that day. Then repeating over and over again to 'walk' the reservation many many days.

Once the booking window moves past the existing reservation there would be NO restrictions at all. Drop the first day. Drop Two! Drop whatever you want. The idea is you won't be able to leverage those points to walk further because the window already moved past your reservation. Obviously if rooms are available you could add on dates too. but the point is the room was open fair and square to everyone and not just the walkers.

As for people with lots of points. There isn't anything that can be done about that. Nor should there. I reject the notion that changes should not be made because there exist people with more points than me.

 

[JETSDAD]

That's not what we are saying at all. The restriction on the dropping the first day is temporary. Restricting dropping the first day is so people can't drop the first day in order to have enough points to tack on dates at the end of the stay while no one else can access that day. Then repeating over and over again to 'walk' the reservation many many days.

Once the booking window moves past the existing reservation there would be NO restrictions at all. Drop the first day. Drop Two! Drop whatever you want. The idea is you won't be able to leverage those points to walk further because the window already moved past your reservation. Obviously if rooms are available you could add on dates too. but the point is the room was open fair and square to everyone and not just the walkers.

As for people with lots of points. There isn't anything that can be done about that. Nor should there. I reject the notion that changes should not be made because there exist people with more points than me.

I can still walk a reservation a few weeks....others, months. You're not eliminating walking, you're simply creating a tiered walking system.

 

[Maistre Gracey]

But it actually wasn't happening much of the time. Too many members were ending up with holes in their desired reservation, waitlists weren't working and the partial reservations were being cancelled at the 31 day mark.

Members were even beginning to call day by day for SSR. System needed to change & going back to it now would be disastrous, IMO.

Agreed, but if there was a mishap is was due to member error, not system error.
People did get carried away with booking day by day, myself included. People also get carried away with walking.

 

[Orsino]

I can still walk a reservation a few weeks....others, months. You're not eliminating walking, you're simply creating a tiered walking system.

This seems like one of those theoretical that while technically true, is it really true? On the surface someone with a lot of points could walk a lot. But there is a natural limit to what can be done and what is practical. If someone owns 1000 points, I doubt they are holding extra 500 just to walk. Ultimately, in order to use those points, they can't walk them. The power of walking gets out of hand when reusing points over and over in a walk comes into play.

Anyway, I think we both know that we use the term walking to describe two similar but different things. One type of walking recycles points by dropping and adding days on a cycle to get what one wants. The other type of walking uses legitimately owned points to book a larger booking that gets trimmed down later, but does not recycle any points. I am intentionally addressing the former, not the latter. They are different things in my opinion. Removing the former is my "goal", if you will. I do not think the existence of the latter justifies the former.

 

[JETSDAD]

This seems like one of those theoretical that while technically true, is it really true? On the surface someone with a lot of points could walk a lot. But there is a natural limit to what can be done and what is practical. If someone owns 1000 points, I doubt they are holding extra 500 just to walk. Ultimately, in order to use those points, they can't walk them. The power of walking gets out of hand when reusing points over and over in a walk comes into play.

Anyway, I think we both know that we use the term walking to describe two similar but different things. One type of walking recycles points by dropping and adding days on a cycle to get what one wants. The other type of walking uses legitimately owned points to book a larger booking that gets trimmed down later, but does not recycle any points. I am intentionally addressing the former, not the latter. They are different things in my opinion. Removing the former is my "goal", if you will. I do not think the existence of the latter justifies the former.

But you're wanting people to hold unwanted reservations longer than they currently do. If I need to walk 3 weeks I will but then I'm holding a few weeks of rooms that I have no intention on keeping....to me that is worse than having someone drop daily or every few days.

 

[Orsino]

But you're wanting people to hold unwanted reservations longer than they currently do. If I need to walk 3 weeks I will but then I'm holding a few weeks of rooms that I have no intention on keeping....to me that is worse than having someone drop daily or every few days.

If someone can book a three week block to walk, they can do that whether or not the temporary restriction exists or not. The ability to cancel in this case doesn't mean someone will hold less inventory. Frankly, that sounds like unnecessary extra work. Just book the three weeks and cancel later, who would do the extra steps?

 

[JETSDAD]

If someone can book a three week block to walk, they can do that whether or not the temporary restriction exists or not. The ability to cancel in this case doesn't mean someone will hold less inventory. Frankly, that sounds like unnecessary extra work. Just book the three weeks and cancel later, who would do the extra steps?

So in your system you're also taking the 7 night limit away? Otherwise they have to keep adding, they can't just book 3 weeks and cancel later.

 

[Orsino]

So in your system you're also taking the 7 night limit away? Otherwise they have to keep adding, they can't just book 3 weeks and cancel later.

Ah. I see what you are saying. I'm still uncompelled, but I get your point now.

To me its 6 or a half dozen. I don't see one or the other being significantly different from the other. I could argue that all at once is better than piecemeal for filling waitlists, but I don't think the differences are significant. I'm definitely not in the camp that thinks this minor difference is a reason to keep recycled point walking!

As a side note: I think the +7 limit is silly. It doesn't actually achieve anything.

 

[JETSDAD]

Ah. I see what you are saying. I'm still uncompelled, but I get your point now.

To me its 6 or a half dozen. I don't see one or the other being significantly different from the other. I could argue that all at once is better than piecemeal for filling waitlists, but I don't think the differences are significant. I'm definitely not in the camp that thinks this minor difference is a reason to keep recycled point walking!

As a side note: I think the +7 limit is silly. It doesn't actually achieve anything.

At 7 months it does, otherwise you could book quite a while into a 7 month window, negating the 11 month advantage for owners...at 11 months I'm not sure the reasoning.