DCL vs. Costco owning your reservation

[MillauFr]

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.

How are people going to scalp cruises?

 

[ember1205]

How are people going to scalp cruises?

How about a TA that makes a bunch of bogus reservations, artificially runs the price up and makes room unavailable, then suddenly becomes the only one that can get a certain room or a certain cruise? I'm sure there are plenty of ways the system could get abused heavily if all of the functionality were made public.

Also, I wasn't specifically saying that cruises would get scalped... I was more referring to that as an example of how fully public systems get exploited.

 

[MillauFr]

How about a TA that makes a bunch of bogus reservations, artificially runs the price up and makes room unavailable, then suddenly becomes the only one that can get a certain room or a certain cruise? I'm sure there are plenty of ways the system could get abused heavily if all of the functionality were made public.

Also, I wasn't specifically saying that cruises would get scalped... I was more referring to that as an example of how fully public systems get exploited.

Not sure how the current system couldn’t be abused in the same way

 

[ember1205]

DCL does not make all rooms available through the web site. Sure, you can book on your own, but contacting them directly or via a TA opens more options up. They need to be involved in order to gain access to the additional rooms.

 

[DahliaRW]

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.

First cruise TA misspelled one of my kids names on the reservation. Took two weeks of emailing to get a response and another week for her to fix it. Asked for a phone number, never got one, could only communicate via email. Second cruise I actually emailed the same agent to give her another chance and asked her to give me a quote. Never heard back. So, booked with Costco. Anytime I needed something from Costco, I knew I could call during business hours, get someone on the phone, and get it taken care of. They also have never made a careless mistake like misspelling a name. So maybe it's not quite level of service and more like someone willing to be attentive and helpful. I never had specific questions about the cruise, I did my own research.

 

[ember1205]

First cruise TA misspelled one of my kids names on the reservation. Took two weeks of emailing to get a response and another week for her to fix it. Asked for a phone number, never got one, could only communicate via email. Second cruise I actually emailed the same agent to give her another chance and asked her to give me a quote. Never heard back. So, booked with Costco. Anytime I needed something from Costco, I knew I could call during business hours, get someone on the phone, and get it taken care of. They also have never made a careless mistake like misspelling a name. So maybe it's not quite level of service and more like someone willing to be attentive and helpful. I never had specific questions about the cruise, I did my own research.

I booked a cruise through Costco and didn't have a Costco Visa when I did it. It was "short notice" and a VGT rate, so payment in full was required immediately. The person I worked with at Costco Travel made sure I understood that having the Visa would benefit me and talked with DCL before actually booking (on my behalf) and explained that I was in the process of applying for the card. They worked with DCL to get everything notated on my reservation so that I could call them back a week or so later and switch my method of payment to that card once I got it.

What was REALLY impressive was I just so happened to get the SAME REP when I called in to make the payment swap and she remembered me AND the situation. She stopped me part way through my explanation and said "I've got this... Hang on while I get DCL on the line." It was nice, but it was also a bit of a fluke.

 

[NickE]

Hi, Original Poster here. Thanks to all of the responders here, I just finished transferring our DCL cruise to Costco.

And tonight my wife hit me with something new: she was going to pay for the next partial payment with the $2,300 Disney Reward Dollars we've earned on our Disney Visa.

Can I do that? Or now that it's in Costco's hands, we have to use regular money?

(muttering: **it would've been nice to know this BEFORE I transferred the booking**)

 

[MillauFr]

And tonight my wife hit me with something new: she was going to pay for the next partial payment with the $2,300 Disney Dollars we've earned on our Disney Visa.

How much did you have to charge to get $2,300 in Disney Dollars?

 

[NickE]

How much did you have to charge to get $2,300 in Disney Dollars?

We use the Disney Visa as our standard card, and have been saving up these points for years. Some of the points start expiring next March, and they have a five-year expiration.

 

[MillauFr]

We use the Disney Visa as our standard card, and have been saving up these points for years. Some of the points start expiring next March, and they have a five-year expiration.

Can you get a 2% rebate on your purchases by cashing in Disney dollars? I just use one of the 2% cash back cards but am always on the lookout for better deals>

 

[ember1205]

Hi, Original Poster here. Thanks to all of the responders here, I just finished transferring our DCL cruise to Costco.

And tonight my wife hit me with something new: she was going to pay for the next partial payment with the $2,300 Disney Reward Dollars we've earned on our Disney Visa.

Can I do that? Or now that it's in Costco's hands, we have to use regular money?

(muttering: **it would've been nice to know this BEFORE I transferred the booking**)

To the best of my knowledge, ANY form of payment that DCL would accept directly can be used through Costco as Costco basically makes the payment on your behalf.

 

[lilsonicfan]

Hi, Original Poster here. Thanks to all of the responders here, I just finished transferring our DCL cruise to Costco.

And tonight my wife hit me with something new: she was going to pay for the next partial payment with the $2,300 Disney Reward Dollars we've earned on our Disney Visa.

Can I do that? Or now that it's in Costco's hands, we have to use regular money?

(muttering: **it would've been nice to know this BEFORE I transferred the booking**)

Probably possible but I would get Costco on the line and tell them you need to make a payment to DCL but not using your cc. I imagine it will work, they will have to call DCL. I know they will do Disney gift cards. Let us know how it goes !

 

[tinkerone]

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.

Our Costco has someone who is there to give advice on TV's as well as computers. DH loves talking with them while I do the rest of the shopping.

 

[ProgressCity]

How about a TA that makes a bunch of bogus reservations, artificially runs the price up and makes room unavailable, then suddenly becomes the only one that can get a certain room or a certain cruise?

This is why a cruise needs to have at least one name stay the same from the time of booking until sailing. If you book a stateroom with 4 people in it you can change up to three of the names, but once you try to change that 4th name it becomes a cancel and rebook at the current rate.

While I was there we had a TA try what you're talking about. They would call in on different days to change each name on the res because it wasn't initially booked for real people. We caught it and it resulted in their bookings getting more scrutiny to prevent anything shady.

 

[ProgressCity]

DCL does not make all rooms available through the web site. Sure, you can book on your own, but contacting them directly or via a TA opens more options up. They need to be involved in order to gain access to the additional rooms.

Yes they do make all the rooms available on the site. If a room isn't showing up on the web site, it's because it's being held (or there's a glitch). Disney doesn't purposely hold back any inventory from the web site. What guests, TA, and cast members can see are all the same.

 

[FigmentSpark]

Yes they do make all the rooms available on the site. If a room isn't showing up on the web site, it's because it's being held (or there's a glitch). Disney doesn't purposely hold back any inventory from the web site. What guests, TA, and cast members can see are all the same.

I disagree. If I can phone and find a whole selection of rooms available that aren't showing on the website then they aren't displaying everything I could book. Their old system used to show all availability, mind you.

Now, I don't think they "hold anything back", but they do have a list of things that show up first. For example, Fantasy 4A aft on opening day (and many days afterward) for 2 people will show this, almost always:


Maybe the starboard side is full, but I'd bet my bottom dollar that it's not. I'd also bet that 9100 and 9118 are also available. You just have to call.

Suddenly, when my number of guests goes up to 5, that same cruise shows:



Those rooms weren't displayed when it was only 2 guests. Are they holding them back? No. Are they encouraging a travel party of 2 to take one of them, no. But they are available to book and there would be no problem having only 2 in those rooms.

 

[ember1205]

This is why a cruise needs to have at least one name stay the same from the time of booking until sailing. If you book a stateroom with 4 people in it you can change up to three of the names, but once you try to change that 4th name it becomes a cancel and rebook at the current rate.

While I was there we had a TA try what you're talking about. They would call in on different days to change each name on the res because it wasn't initially booked for real people. We caught it and it resulted in their bookings getting more scrutiny to prevent anything shady.

That's actually not what I was saying at all.

The TA books the room under a bogus set of credentials - even if it's just a short hold without a deposit. Potential guests see no availability because the TA's have them all "reserved". Then the TA advertises that they have availability. Guest reaches out, finds out they can get what they want, and agrees to pay the TA's price (which includes specific [bogus] fees). It's basically a shell game, and putting 100% of the reservation system into the hands of the public could facilitate this.