DCL vs. Costco owning your reservation

[CM Dad]

First, you said it was a matter of double-booking, then you said it was a matter of Costco's credit card processing freezing and charging twice. If it is the double-booking, I don't see how the customer wouldn't see the double-booking when they log into the Disneycruise.com website, Costco, or even in the confirmation emails, and be able to fix it prior to final payment. Also, for those booking specific rooms, that would not be possible in the system to book the same room twice.

I have never used Costco for cruising, but as for seeing the double booking on the disneycruise.com site, my reservations used to always automatically show up. More recently, it seems like sometimes I have to manually add my reservations.
As for double bookings. I thought I had seen posts somewhere that said that DCL system does not allow two reservations on a given cruise with the same guests names. The context I saw this conversation was people being unable to book multiple rooms on opening day and then deciding which one they actually want before making the deposit

 

[ProgressCity]

And the money would be going directly to Disney. So why wouldn’t disney refund?

This is the fundamental misunderstanding that people have when they book through Costco or any other TA. Disney cannot under any circumstances whatsoever refund your money without the TA asking them to. Period. End of story. It is not your reservation. It is the TA's reservation. If Disney were to refund you, they would be breaking their contract with the travel agency and they will not do that. If it's in the penalty phase, penalties are assessed. It's up to the TA as to whether or not they'll make the guest whole because Disney is not going to do it. It's not Disney's problem, it's the TA's. This is hands down the most frustrating thing about working with guests who book through a TA. They usually only do it for the OBC or the cash card and then are pissed that it means they have to go through their TA for certain things or that Disney isn't going to do this or that for them.

If the guest is double booked through Costco, catches it, and it's outside of the penalty phase then they can just call Costco and cancel and get a refund (it's important to note that refunds with DCL are not usually as instant as people think, they can take a while so that money's being tied up). This leads me to believe the double booking thing happens much more often because the only reason I would ever get involved is because it's escalated because the res is in the penalty phase when the guest notices. Knowing how many times I had to deal with it just makes me shudder to think how many times it's actually happened.

As to how it happens, I'll try to explain the best I can. Have you ever submitted a post to a forum and your computer/internet/forum freezes and it looks like you didn't post so you post again and it double posted? Same kind of thing. It doesn't book the same room twice, it books two different rooms. It has to do with Costco's website infrastructure and how they connect into DCL and other travel companies (this is not a DCL specific problem, but it does seem Costco specific because I have never seen it happen with any other company and it's happened enough times over a long enough period that it wasn't like a momentary problem that they fixed). Less common was having a guest call Costco, book over the phone, call back because the phone got disconnected or because they wanted to switch rooms or something and book another reservation because the agent they spoke to didn't think they had already booked (the times those happened though the guest figured it out right away and it got sorted, but Costco is the only agency I ever saw that happen with). I know it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense to me that sometimes my printer doesn't work when I didn't do anything differently or that the Disney site will sometimes decide to not let me do online check in and show me the Seven Dwarfs instead. Computer systems don't always make sense.

As to why people don't notice until after penalties kick in or even until they get to the port? I don't know. Why did I have a guest book months in advance, get their documentation, book shore excursions, and then show up at port on the wrong day thinking their cruse was a week earlier? People are dumb and don't pay attention. Some people just have so much money that they don't notice the extra money being charged (these are problems to aspire to, lol). (Seriously, this was always my first reaction: How do you NOT NOTICE you're paying for 2 cruises? Clearly, you don't work for an hourly wage. Is this how trust fund babies live? lol) If you want to know how a guest didn't notice, all I can say is you have clearly never worked as a cast member, lol. Not noticing paying for 2 cruises doesn't even break into the top 25 what-the? things I've seen guests do. It's not even a blip on the crazy guest radar.

Double booking is prevented if Disney can tell it's happening, usually by Castaway Club number. So if you were to go to the website and try to book yourself for two rooms with the same name, it's not going to fly. Castaway Club numbers (which are a unique identifier assigned to you internally even if you haven't completed your first cruise yet) are the only way for Disney to tell that a guest is double booked. If a TA books a Tom Smith born 1/1/70 and then books another Tom Smith born 1/1/70, the computer isn't going to do anything about it (a cast member would if they caught it, at least they would look into it and see if all guests are the same, the address, etc.) because there's more than one Tom Smith born on 1/1/70. TAs are also allowed to book with slightly less info than a regular guest is booking directly because it's assumed they're going to get the rest of the info later. It's actually pretty rare that a TA initially books with a guest's Castaway number unless the guest is on top of things and is insistent the TA book with it.

I hope that addressed all the questions. I don't come to the forum as much as I used to, but if people have questions I'll do my best to address them. Here's a post a guy made about this same issue happening with Royal Caribbean booked through Costco: https://costco-travel.pissedconsumer.com/costco-travel-website-double-charged-me-20160910916405.html It's the best explanation I've seen of the issue by someone who directly experienced it. ETA: Here's another more recent review of someone being double booked on a cruise. In this instance Costco refused to refund them: https://costco-travel.pissedconsumer.com/cruise-booking-nightmare-201807031294935.html.

When I left DCL, I left with two rules for myself for booking cruises:
1. Never book through Costco
2. Never pay early
It's like someone working at a meat packer and therefore becoming a vegetarian, lol. You see things that make you cynical. Doesn't mean I don't get that my view is different than the average person's.

 

[FigmentSpark]

Thanks for your response, @ProgressCity. Very weird glitch. But since I've noticed that the Costco site never shows availability on deck 9 (4A Fantasy, at least), even on opening day, I'd say there are probably more glitches in their system.

 

[lilsonicfan]

That post makes sense from the perspective of "it certainly can happen".

I'll continue to book my cruises through Costco. I recognize stuff can happen. I couldn't care less that they own my reservation because they've always been easy to deal with. A customer who needs some hand holding or walking through the booking process should probably avoid Costco. I can honestly say that I do not believe for one second that Costco would somehow refuse to refund me if a double payment somehow went through. But that's just my experience with Costco - 100% positive, and a savings of nearly 10% on a cruise line that offers no discounts aside from on-board booking - I'll take it. Frankly I've had better service with Costco than when I've used any other TA to book a cruise. YMMV I guess, but ProgressCity's cautionary tale is not one I'll be bearing in mind.

 

[brentm77]

I can honestly say that I do not believe for one second that Costco would somehow refuse to refund me if a double payment somehow went through.

Not only that, but they wouldn't legally be entitled to keep the double-payment. The most efficient way to deal with it is probably to dispute the credit card transaction for the second charge. I will take the risk of dealing with a glitch for the huge rebate. It could not be that common given this is the first I have heard about in here and so many of us use Costco. Even searching back through the disboards, the only reference I found to double-charging was from the same poster as above, not from anyone here who actually had it happen. Not saying it doesn't happen, I just don't think it is a major concern.

 

[wombat_5606]

I began using Costco Travel in 2012. In that time frame, I have booked 13 cruises and 37 cars. I have never once had a double-booking issue.

I can't say whether the scenario posted above has happened or could happen, but I can say that I've never experienced it. With my luck and with the amount of business I do with them, I feel like if this was at all common, I would have been exposed to this. So, I'll keep using Costco.

I have also received excellent customer service from all agents I've talked with, whether for a simple car rental or Platinum DCL cruise booking on opening day.

 

[mommy2allyandaveri]

We did not use costco for DCL (we are using it for RC), but I would assume it is the same for any TA. Our docs and tags came directly from DCL. So far I have only seen benefits from using a TA such as costco.

 

[cvjw]

13 DCL cabins booked so far with Costco. No issues with double booking. Only positives with Costco.

 

[g_ppetto]

requesting distilled water for a cpap

We also travel with a CPAP, but don't need the water. There is a form to let DCL know you are bringing the equipment - https://disneycruise.disney.go.com/special-services-information-form/ There is a phone number at the bottom of the page that may help too.

We haven't worked with a travel agent in years. I imagine if you go through a TA, once the reservation is made, you need to work through them for payments and changes, the same as having to work through Costco.

FYI - they do not accept Costco cash cards to pay for travel. I guess we could have tried to cash it in at the local Costco...

 

[MillauFr]

When is Disney going to wake up and realize Costco is just a loophole to get discounted cruises? Why doesn't Disney give the same discount if you book direct and just use their website to make all changes and requests? They could eliminate a large portion of their agents that manually take calls can deal with customers. Disney is making large payments to Costco for providing basically no service.

 

[lilsonicfan]

When is Disney going to wake up and realize Costco is just a loophole to get discounted cruises? Why doesn't Disney give the same discount if you book direct and just use their website to make all changes and requests? They could eliminate a large portion of their agents that manually take calls can deal with customers. Disney is making large payments to Costco for providing basically no service.

It is not a "loophole" per se. Costco, like any TA, gets a commission for selling Disney cruises to guests. Disney has no incentive to offer you a discount. They don't offer a discount to anyone, but if a TA books the cruise, that TA is paid by the cruise line. It's pretty mutually beneficial, I imagine - Disney gets its product sold quicker (more widespread) and the TA gets paid and the customer pays the same. And for that same reason, DCL keeps 100% of the money if customers book cruises directly through them, so no need to get rid of their own call agents.

The reason that Costco can offer such a massive discount is, as with all things Costco, due to volume. I believe I read that agencies booking over $1,600,000 in DCL travel get a 16% commission. (Here's the article, for whatever it is worth) Pretty sure Costco easily falls in this range, which is why they can afford to give you back 8% on a gift card (the other savings comes by using Costco's own credit card, and being a Costco executive member). DCL benefits too - maybe someone who was on the fence about a Disney cruise might bite the bullet b/c of Costco's incentive.

 

[DVC Doc]

When is Disney going to wake up and realize Costco is just a loophole to get discounted cruises? Why doesn't Disney give the same discount if you book direct and just use their website to make all changes and requests? They could eliminate a large portion of their agents that manually take calls can deal with customers. Disney is making large payments to Costco for providing basically no service.

It’s even more interesting for Adventures by Disney, which generally speaking costs a lot more than the average DCL cruise. When you call the Costco line, it actually connects you directly to a Disney agent and you don’t deal with Costco Travel at all. All of the confirmations come directly from Disney and say “booked with Costco cash card offer” and you pay through Disney. Still get the same 8% cash back!

 

[MillauFr]

Disney has no incentive to offer you a discount

Disney is paying huge commissions to the large travel agents like Costco. Sooner or later Disney will do what the airlines did and start cutting off these large travel agents. They should provide you big perks for booking direct so they can eliminate paying commissions. Can anyone honestly say that they book with Costco because of the service Costco provides? I would guess 99.9% of their customers are booking just to get a lower price on their cruise.

 

[DahliaRW]

Disney is paying huge commissions to the large travel agents like Costco. Sooner or later Disney will do what the airlines did and start cutting off these large travel agents. They should provide you big perks for booking direct so they can eliminate paying commissions. Can anyone honestly say that they book with Costco because of the service Costco provides? I would guess 99.9% of their customers are booking just to get a lower price on their cruise.

I actually got better service from Costco our past 2 cruises than I did the travel agent we used for our first cruise. And that agent was with a travel agency that sponsors a large message board. So while I book primarily for the savings, the fact that the service is good too is definitely a bonus. As great as other agents out there? Probably not, but we'll worth it for us

 

[lilsonicfan]

Oh of course the primary reason to use Costco, for most of us, is the savings. But I actually agree with DahliaRW. I tried to book a cruise with a well known TA some years back and the agent I was assigned had clearly zero interest in really helping me - took a long time to get answers, for one. Costco always answers the phone and their service for me has been perfect. The long hold time is undesirable but still worth it.

I don’t believe for one second that if DCL got rid of travel agents (seems unlikely in any event) that they’d be too keen on passing on the savings. Let’s consider that this year alone, gratuities increased (they certainly are relying on us to pay their employees), Palo and Remy price increased, liquor tasting prices increased, fares increased over the year previous (constant, I know), they don’t even give free bags when you purchase items in the on-board shops. DCL may be amazing in many ways, but not in saving its customers money.

 

[wombat_5606]

Disney is paying huge commissions to the large travel agents like Costco. Sooner or later Disney will do what the airlines did and start cutting off these large travel agents. They should provide you big perks for booking direct so they can eliminate paying commissions. Can anyone honestly say that they book with Costco because of the service Costco provides? I would guess 99.9% of their customers are booking just to get a lower price on their cruise.

I book with Costco for the cash back I receive AND because I get good service from the agents I have dealt with. I wouldn't book with Costco if I got lousy service, no matter what kind of discount I received.

By the way, I can't even envision lousy service from Costco. You call an agent. You do get a different agent each time, but there is a file with your reservation there for them to see. I can call an agent from 5am-9pm Pacific Time on Weekdays and 6am-5:30pm on Weekends (8am-Midnight Eastern Time, 9am-8:30 Eastern Time) and ask them to do anything. They call Disney while I'm on hold with them and do as I ask. Has been done perfectly the 10 times I have booked Disney cruises and the 3 times I have booked with Holland America.

If you are a first time cruiser and don't know much about cruising or any travel you are doing, then maybe Costco isn't for you. They aren't a full-service travel agency. I would say they are more like a booking agency. There is no where on their site where they boast they are members of the American Association of Travel Advisors or Cruise Lines International Association. They are merely booking a cruise for you. They are more like Expedia, Orbitz, etc.

I have talked to several Costco agents who have taken many cruises themselves, even Disney cruises, but I feel like their advice is from their personal experiences, not from any professional standpoint.

I feel like the service is excellent for what I expect them to do. If the service is not up to expectations, it is perhaps because the traveler needs the assistance of a full time agency, such as Dreams Unlimited Travel.

 

[ember1205]

I've worked through Costco on my last few DCL reservations and I can't see any difference. You'll have the DCL reservation that you can put into the site, you check in online with everyone else, and schedule all of your activities when your window opens.

I've called Disney directly to add transfers or Onboard credit so no need to work with Costco on those things.

I've also had no problem calling Costco when I needed to get help (like wait listing for Main dining).

You'll also receive all regular documentation directly thru Disney.

I found no drawbacks and will continue to use them.

DCL won't do ground transfers direct if you book through Costco - that add-on has to be handled by contacting Costco. For reference, this is as of May of this year in case your experience was prior. It may be due to a change.

When is Disney going to wake up and realize Costco is just a loophole to get discounted cruises? Why doesn't Disney give the same discount if you book direct and just use their website to make all changes and requests? They could eliminate a large portion of their agents that manually take calls can deal with customers. Disney is making large payments to Costco for providing basically no service.

It isn't a loophole. DCL, like ANY travel 'destination', has to market their wares and pay people directly on staff to book and manage the trips. When they can offload a large portion of that to someone else (a TA), they can reduce their own internal costs for supporting those trips. And that money then becomes available to "pay" the third party (TA) for taking over those job functions. They also can reduce their internal systems requirements overall and offload more and more of the work to external entities. Not only is this NOT a loophole, by paying commissions out to third parties increases their profit margin.

Disney is paying huge commissions to the large travel agents like Costco. Sooner or later Disney will do what the airlines did and start cutting off these large travel agents. They should provide you big perks for booking direct so they can eliminate paying commissions. Can anyone honestly say that they book with Costco because of the service Costco provides? I would guess 99.9% of their customers are booking just to get a lower price on their cruise.

Why would they want to take on the staff? 100% of the marketing? All of the technology support? All of the training? The commission is a smaller amount per cruise than what it costs them to support a direct booking for the same trip. They will likely reduce the big commissions, increase the threshold to earn it, add additional requirements to earn it, or potentially move to a third-party only model because it's more profitable for them to do it that way. The airlines had to get away from this model because of the competition dragging down the costs and cutting into their margins. Who is Disney competing with here? No one. That's why there's a premium that we pay for ANY of their parks, activities, etc. When the mouse ears are in the corner, it costs more. Period. That allows them to have the margin that they do and generate the profits that they do year after year.

 

[MillauFr]

Why would they want to take on the staff

I would advocate for them to get rid of much of their staff. It is crazy that in 2019 they still have many people taking phone calls to make changes. As far as their IT staff.... They should get rid of most of them too and outsource their computer systems to Amazon Web Services. Disney's computer systems are a joke. You should be able to do 100% of the changes and requests via the website.

 

[MillauFr]

I actually got better service from Costco our past 2 cruises than I did the travel agent we used for our first cruise. And that agent was with a travel agency that sponsors a large message board. So while I book primarily for the savings, the fact that the service is good too is definitely a bonus. As great as other agents out there? Probably not, but we'll worth it for us

That is shocking. Not sure how any TA could stay in business if they had less service than Costco. Costco is not there to provide any advice. When you walk into Costco you don't expect to have anyone give you advice on purchasing a TV. They expect you to do all of your own research just like Costco Travel does.

 

[ember1205]

I would advocate for them to get rid of much of their staff. It is crazy that in 2019 they still have many people taking phone calls to make changes. As far as their IT staff.... They should get rid of most of them too and outsource their computer systems to Amazon Web Services. Disney's computer systems are a joke. You should be able to do 100% of the changes and requests via the website.

While you certainly should be able to make those changes, I like the fact that Disney holds things back from the general public so that we don't end up with another situation like sports with all the scalping. If you pushed it 100% to the web, it would be a total free-for-all and there would be far more issues than there are today.