Frustated about being locked out of 11 mos booking due to walking

This is very well a case of beware of what you wish for.
DVC has clearly demonstrated they're ready to disregard the interests of the members for their own gain. Walking can give them an excuse to add more fees or make more points go wasted.
What if they remove the possibility to modify a reservation? If you cannot go you lose your points, simple as that. Or $200 fee for each modification (that they would keep).
All the membership would suffer just to stop something that affects a very limited number of owners.
If they really want to stop walking they can just stop building unbalanced units, like the cabins, which create the booking problems for the rest of the resort. And yet it seems the 200 units at Reflections will get 20 cabin style accommodations.
So please , stop giving DVC an excuse to hurt us more by complaining about walking.
 
I love the flexibility of DVC. If all of these proposed restrictions were to occur, it becomes like any other timeshare. Just work within the system in place. It is what it is.

I agree. Booking 11 months out is hard and too early to buy airfare. I probably modify every reservation for every trip. Flexibility is important on getting decent airfare. If I got penalized for modifying my lodging that would be stressful. I got shut out last October when booking my Bwv standard studio for a 10 day reservation. I did end up getting it day by day. And ironically, I had to cancel it after all that work. I figured I made a lot of members happy being able to get a Bwv standard studio for October. We go on 4-5 trips a year and I have to fight for my Bwv and BLT standard rooms, but glad they are 2 of my homes.
 
Walking appears easy to stop to me. If you book you are not allowed to modify until 11 months and 2 days from the last day of your stay. For example, if you book April 1st -5th 2020 you can not modify before May 7th 2019. That would give an opportunty to block the walk thereby discourage the practice.
What happens if you want a longer stay? Only being able to book 7 nights means that you have to modify just to get to the number of nights that you want. Then people say to instead allow people to keep adding days as long as they are not dropping days and to only allow one or two modifications aside from extending the stay. This then would benefit owners with a large amount of points as they could still essentially walk a reservation by making one very long reservation and then dropping the dates they don't want once they get to the ones they do.
 


The poster is commenting that the booking patterns have recently changed, making 11 month availability more scarce, and therefore attributes it to walking, i.e. the easier ability to walk a reservation by modifying online. A recent deviation from past booking experience would seem to exclude it simply being a matter of tight 11 month availability at a resort...
I was responding directly to the scenario the poster laid out; so in that case the poster was saying that when a friend books at 11 months their checkin date is available, but a date after the checkin wasn't available. This is absolutely not walking as a walker can not make this behavior present, which is exactly the booking pattern they were referencing being changed. Here is the follow up post by the poster that makes it very clear; I quoted a very specific part of their post to make the comment that a walker would not cause it. See the bolded section. Also I don't believe I made any comment on the 11 month availability being tighter causing the change in patterns at 11 month, but I will go ahead and say that actually is true probably across the board at all resorts, some worse than others. I will say this probably has lead to quite the booking pattern changes at 7 and 11 months more so than walking is actually affecting it.

As I said, I think some (not necessarily the poster I commented below) automatically go to walkers being the problem when other issues are present. The other change they were referencing in booking patters is it used to be easy to take short-notice trips, and I was highlighting why that likely is the case now (walkers again aren't the issue here). DVC is getting more and more popular and the owners are being able to use their points more and more thus availability is shrinking quite a bit.
My wife and I visit Disney several times a year. We usually book based on what rooms are available not always by a certain time of a year so to us it is not a big deal. I have 2 friends who will get up first thing in the morning on their 11 month booking window. They will to try to book a full week and find that one day in the middle of their reservation is not available, both were in the middle of the week. This has happened to them multiple times. One friend finally got so fed up with it she had a very heated conversation with member services. They accommodated her needs but she found it very disappointing she had to do this. Others have had to book multiple reservations for the week. They will do a wait list but there is no guarantee.
I my self have been lucky. I just booked a tower studio at Riviera. I was on the computer at exactly 8am at the 7 month window, hit enter and got it. I was told how lucky I was due to at the time there were not many tower wooms in DVC inventory.
I think in the end walking benefits very few and makes it harder for most, even people who are doing the walking.
My biggest aggravation lately is trying to get Brunch at the California Grill.
 
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I thought the limit at 11 months was booking 7 nights, is it 14? But I know you can't book like a month and then start dropping days.
 
I thought the limit at 11 months was booking 7 nights, is it 14? But I know you can't book like a month and then start dropping days.
You can only be booked for 7 nights from the 11 month point but you can keep adding days to make your trip longer. Online you can book up to 30 consecutive days (not sure what can be done by phone).
 


These threads pop up every once in a while and have since I joined almost 10 years ago. I think that a lot of people really don't understand walking. A few of the suggestions some have posted would either only restrict walking to a shorter time frame, but would still allow multiple weeks of walking, or would do absolutely nothing to stop walking, because people wrongly think that walking is a process that requires a change every single day, which is not accurate. Many fixes impose an inflexibility on the system that I believe will hurt far more owners than are hurt by walking, many would rig the system towards large point owners, some would result in extra fees to retain the flexibility we all currently enjoy. I, personally, have yet to see a fix that would actually address walking, without adding restrictions that I believe would be more of a detriment than the current system.
 
If you think walking is an issue now just wait until Riveria has resale contracts in the mix. Everybody who owns Riveria is gonna be walking to get the rooms they want especially resale buyers with small contracts who will have to either use their points or lose them ( banking is also an option) since they cannot go to OKW or SSR at a 7 month window.
 
I tried 11 months out for OCT 2019. I actually check earlier about 12 months out for walking and could not get in. First night always gone.
 
I tried 11 months out for OCT 2019. I actually check earlier about 12 months out for walking and could not get in. First night always gone.
Which resort, room size and view type? Also was the day before your check in available?
 
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I tried 11 months out for OCT 2019. I actually check earlier about 12 months out for walking and could not get in. First night always gone.
You're a BWV owner, right? (I see it under your username). There were all villa types available well into the 11-month booking period for October as long as you weren’t aiming for standard or boardwalk views. No P/G views were booked up on the first day that owners could book.
 
I think that more and more walking will occur as more people learn how to do it. I have mixed feelings about walking On the one hand I understand doing the extra to assure getting the best but it puts others at a disadvantage.
 
Sorry, I just could get what I wanted other than P/G.

Yep, exactly the same thing for me last year. We’ve taken our mid October off our list now. Too crowded for us. So one less person trying for a room. Though we do plan to go in September instead, which will be just as hard to get probably.
 
I disagree that walking at 7 months is pointless. I got a 1 bedroom at VGC for the Sunday to Wednesday nights before D23 by walking. It was clear that others were doing it by the way dates were reappearing.
 
On Saturday I checked availability. My arrival date was now available, so I modified my reservation from a 2 bdrm lock off to a dedicated 2 bdrm, both in Standard view. I was very happy to see that arrival date open up.
 
After AKL club level I find BLT standard the most difficult to get, 1 beds anyway and this is at 7 months, I can sometimes get AKL value in summer, but never standard BLT.

It is now impossible to get a Value studio at 8:00 am 11 months out. I have gotten one every summer for the past nine years but not this year. I am a teacher so I have a great deal of flexibility with my dates. I have tried every single day for five or six weeks now and not once have I been able to get one.
 
It is now impossible to get a Value studio at 8:00 am 11 months out. I have gotten one every summer for the past nine years but not this year. I am a teacher so I have a great deal of flexibility with my dates. I have tried every single day for five or six weeks now and not once have I been able to get one.
I’m talking about 1 beds. Last summer I could have booked AKL value two weeks running at 7. Studios are different kettle of fish entirely I agree.
 

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