Should DVC eliminate walking?

If that particular room was in such high demand, it would have been long gone anyway by walking.
Yes, I always got what I wanted when I booked day by day. Not sure if I said that, but the answer is that I did.

But don’t you think that no matter what they do, people will find a way to book that is seen as an advantage to others?

I still have a hard time wrapping my head around how people will feel any less frustrated if walking is curbed, and there are still a boat load of people not getting the rooms. Just not enough cheap studios to go around for high demand time like fall And early December.
 
But don’t you think that no matter what they do, people will find a way to book that is seen as an advantage to others?

I still have a hard time wrapping my head around how people will feel any less frustrated if walking is curbed, and there are still a boat load of people not getting the rooms. Just not enough cheap studios to go around for high demand time like fall And early December.
I have no problem with imagining what life would be like without walking!
 
Just for my own info, I read the Home Resort Rules and Regulations Again.This is where it talks about changes and stuff. It can be changed at DVC discretion so imposing limits or fees seems to be within their power.

After reading it, it would seem that the option of Seasonal Preference Lists is the one way they could possible deal with the walking in the fall...which is really when people struggle...without it changing the flexibility of what we currently enjoy for all the times when we change and cancel,

It basically starts before the 11 month window. If you put in your request and get it, you have to accept or go to bottom of the list,

The way I read it is that those rooms would be filled using the list prior to an 11 month window so even if someone tries to walk prior to when the dates start, it’d be stopped because those rooms would be filled via the list. They can even put in minimum stay requirements

I would still not want it..l like it the way it is...but I had never really paid attention to this language and thought it was interesting. So I’m sharing!
 
DVC has a cure for walking . And it involves money... just buy a guaranteed fixed week if you are frustrated with those walkers.
The harder it gets , the more we discuss it, makes it even more appealing. They have Sold Out the available fixed week advantage at Copper Creek. I am certain walking helped pushed many over the edge into calling their guide to buy fixed.
Why would DVC think there is a problem???
 


Just for my own info, I read the Home Resort Rules and Regulations Again.This is where it talks about changes and stuff. It can be changed at DVC discretion so imposing limits or fees seems to be within their power.

After reading it, it would seem that the option of Seasonal Preference Lists is the one way they could possible deal with the walking in the fall...which is really when people struggle...without it changing the flexibility of what we currently enjoy for all the times when we change and cancel,

It basically starts before the 11 month window. If you put in your request and get it, you have to accept or go to bottom of the list,

The way I read it is that those rooms would be filled using the list prior to an 11 month window so even if someone tries to walk prior to when the dates start, it’d be stopped because those rooms would be filled via the list. They can even put in minimum stay requirements

I would still not want it..l like it the way it is...but I had never really paid attention to this language and thought it was interesting. So I’m sharing!

The Special Season provisions apply to things that could be special, high demand seasons such as Christmas. It was used for Christmas week in the 1990s. Any member could, beginning about 2 years before an applicable Christmas, put themselves on a reservation list for any room and resort for that future Christmas week (no limitation that it had to be home resort). The list was closed about a year before the applicable Christmas, at which time DVC would start calling all such members in the order they got on the list to determine if they still wanted the reservation. It did that until the resorts were full or the list expired. If, thereafter, there were still any openings, the week would then be subject to the regular 11-month reservation window. The program was ended mainly because it required too much work for DVC, a reason why we are unlikely to ever see it again, except perhaps if something like the summer olympics comes to Orlando.

DVC cannot use that provision as an excuse to create special seasons for times that simply have excess demand, like the first two weeks of Dec or other times during the Fall season, because of DVC's failure for over a decade to alleviate the excess demand via shifting points among seasons, a process started with the new point charts for 2021 and which might continue with 2022 charts.

The Special Season and other provisions in the official documents say nothing about DVC being able to charge fees for making or changing DVC reservations. Under Florida law and regulations, that absence of terms in the POS's which would allow charging such fees means trying to now charge fees would be deemed an improper use charge.

The issue of rooms booking full before or right at 8 a.m. at 11-months out is limited to certain rooms, and for a number of those just part of the year, e.g., threads to end walking on these boards seem to show up after the 11-month window passes for extremely high demand but low point times such first two weeks in Dec and marathon weekend in Jan, which emphasizes the point that the real problem is that there are far too many members trying to reserve rooms, particularly low-point cost studios, during the most-desired low point cost seasons, which weeks should actually have point costs similar to magic season.

For the rooms involved, the major cause of the 11-month problem is Disney, not, as many apparently want to believe, walking (which activity is mainly a response to, not the cause of, an 11-month issue): (a) until beginning with 2021, Disney failed to move points out of the lower demand times and into the excessively high demand fall season; (b) Disney built far too few club level and super low-cost value rooms at AKV while, for years, it sold AKV with a minimum purchase point for new purchasers of only 50 to 100 points; (b) Disney put only 46 studios in VGF to be sold beginning in 2013 at very high per-point sales prices, $145 for a short while to members and then $155, which combined with a much higher point structure than BLT, represented a 60% price increase over the the price for a week that BLT had sold out for in 2010 -- that was the beginning of its modern sales model to continuously raise the price per point beyond any reasonable amount (for a number of resorts the price has increased more than 100% in ten years), later enhanced by adding extremely high point cost bungalows and cabins, while keeping the minimum point purchase to 100 or less, all of of which actions effectively resulted in the oversell of studios; (c) Disney stuck high-point-cost cabins in CCV resulting in the oversell of studios by selling the cabin points to many who can afford only studios; Poly has thus far avoided the 11-month issue because more than 90% of the rooms are studios; (d) Disney created too few BLT standard rooms to handle demand for those lowest cost rooms; (e) Disney created too few bargain level (an OKW point cost for a near park resort) BWV standard studios to handle the Food & Wine and other high fall demand, and likewise too few BWV boardwalk view studios with their outstanding views; another Disney decision has done in those BWV studios entirely -- before 2016 the BWV 11-month issue was limited to times during the high fall demand season; by 2018, it had become a year-round problem because of one change: Disney put a fifth bed in the studios to allow 5.

Eliminating walking will not end the 11-month issue for rooms that have it. The solutions offered to walking are, when studied closely, much worse than the disease, e.g., allow only cancelling and then rebooking, an activity that would result in many who have to modify reservations for valid reasons -- such as drop and add a day due to a work schedule change, a flight change, or a change in school schedule -- not being able to do a change because availability has changed. And asking the modern DVC to rectify walking is like inviting the devil into your home to do you in, because what will happen is that it it will do something far worse than you ever imagined and assert it is being done because members overwhelmingly requested it, e.g., one of its explanations offered for adopting the new resale restrictions for reserving Riviera and future resorts was the assertion that many direct purchasers complained that resale purchasers were preventing them from getting reservations.
 
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So, if people want walking stopped, then they really have to be okay with a complete change in the system and be okay with being penalized for changing even when they are not walking.
I'm ok with that. If someone is changing their reservation several times within their 11-month window, they are either a lousy planner or a walker. I don't think DVC should be obligated to design a system that enables either group.
 
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I'm ok with that. If someone is changing their reservation several times within their 11-month window, they are either a lousy planner or a walker. I don't think DVC should be obligated to design a system that enables either group.

So, the room you want opens up because someone else made a change and you should be penalized for that? With numerous view categories at some resorts I can see multiple changes happening. At AKV you could decide to switch between Jambo and Kidani for various reasons. Not all changes are related to walking or poor planning.

What rooms are you trying to book that you feel so slighted by walkers that you would want to decrease flexibility for everyone?
 
Not all changes are related to walking or poor planning.
Only multiple changes during the 11 month window fall into that category. If you don't know what you want or when you want it but book a bunch of dates anyway, that should be on you not on the rest of us.
 
Hypothetically, what happens to this system when the internet rhetoric convinces nearly everyone that they need to walk a reservation to get their prefered dates? And once that starts, what happens when the walking starts at an ever increasing number weeks before the desired reservation just to beat the other guy?

I don't know how many reservations get walked nor do I care, I own at Saratoga. When walking starts to cause problems there we are all in trouble. This is just a thought I had while reading through this thread.
 
Hypothetically, what happens to this system when the internet rhetoric convinces nearly everyone that they need to walk a reservation to get their prefered dates? And once that starts, what happens when the walking starts at an ever increasing number weeks before the desired reservation just to beat the other guy?

I don't know how many reservations get walked nor do I care, I own at Saratoga. When walking starts to cause problems there we are all in trouble. This is just a thought I had while reading through this thread.
I doubt it would ever get to a point where SSR lacks availabilty at 11 months due to walking unless you have hundreds of people walking at once. IF that were to happen I would just say not to bother logging in at 11 months because a couple of days later you would have all those rooms released back into inventory. You could then grab whatever you want at that point. It's not like Club level rooms at AKV where there are only 5 studios available and even if there is a walker dropping dates it is still hard to get those as they go past.
 
Yep, they should. And they can do it by putting a cancellation policy in place that says if you cancel anything within two weeks of booking, the whole reservation gets cancelled. No adding days to the end and dropping them at the beginning if they do that - at least, not unless you have a lot of points to tie up in walking.
 
Yep, they should. And they can do it by putting a cancellation policy in place that says if you cancel anything within two weeks of booking, the whole reservation gets cancelled. No adding days to the end and dropping them at the beginning if they do that - at least, not unless you have a lot of points to tie up in walking.
Again, that then gives advantage to those with more points. Right now it's fair for everyone. A system that essentially shuts out smaller point owners from harder to get reservations doesn't sound like an improvement to me.
 
DVC has a cure for walking . And it involves money... just buy a guaranteed fixed week if you are frustrated with those walkers.
The harder it gets , the more we discuss it, makes it even more appealing. They have Sold Out the available fixed week advantage at Copper Creek. I am certain walking helped pushed many over the edge into calling their guide to buy fixed.
Why would DVC think there is a problem???
Well they “sold out” meaning the resort sold out. But the guaranteed weeks at CCV haven’t actually hit the 35% threshold in most weeks (I believe last I heard it was none). Very few guaranteed weeks were sold at CCV, only VGF really hit the limits and truly sold out on guaranteed weeks for a number of weeks. I believe push come to shove DVC will sell you a guaranteed week at CCV still it’s more an issue of points being free in the UY that the guaranteed week requires. Actually most of the guaranteed weeks sold at CCV were for race weekends (that was a special one where they float around and not the same week every year since the race could move) and a few (but still available as of November) first two weeks of December.

These are great options as you say for avoiding walking issues if the buyer goes the same time every year. But they definitely aren’t very popular by any means. I think simply because guides don’t even understand them or present them as an option.
 
Well they “sold out” meaning the resort sold out. But the guaranteed weeks at CCV haven’t actually hit the 35% threshold in most weeks (I believe last I heard it was none). Very few guaranteed weeks were sold at CCV, only VGF really hit the limits and truly sold out on guaranteed weeks for a number of weeks. I believe push come to shove DVC will sell you a guaranteed week at CCV still it’s more an issue of points being free in the UY that the guaranteed week requires. Actually most of the guaranteed weeks sold at CCV were for race weekends (that was a special one where they float around and not the same week every year since the race could move) and a few (but still available as of November) first two weeks of December.

These are great options as you say for avoiding walking issues if the buyer goes the same time every year. But they definitely aren’t very popular by any means. I think simply because guides don’t even understand them or present them as an option.

I actually just emailed my guide on Friday about this because it came up in the Owners of CCV thread, and I had been under the impression that they were sold out for December from other posts on various boards. My guide got back to me pretty much instantly and said they have every guaranteed week of December still available for a studio (I didn't ask about bigger rooms, because studio's are the issue there).
 
drusba hit the nail on the head with everything...this thread more or less summarizes why it exists, and why I think most people are indifferent to it. 10 pages in, and there hasn't been a single proposal without a major flaw in it. Most are more restrictive to owners, and booking as well. Some of the people who are advocating against the current system, also highlighted, why it actually is more than fair (someone who wants a short stay 2/3 nights NYE actually has a chance to get it by walking, but without walking, they'd be shut out by the longer reservations that occur during that time period).

Ultimately, walking impacts very few room categories, at very few times of the year. Currently almost 11AM today, and I could get just about any room category and size room right now today except AKV Concierge, AKV Value and BWV Standard. Why are we trying to re-invent the wheel for something that maybe impacts 2 total months out of the year and very few room categories? And also doesn't shut you out from getting a room at a certain date (SSR and usually OKW have rooms year round at the 7 month window or after). Walkers aren't preventing vacations from happening, they are just securing a few very specific room categories, that even without walking, most members would be shut out from getting anyways. Going back to my original comment in this post...the impact walkers have, and the disruption they possibly cause is severely overstated, and like drusba said...we won't hear about this again until probably mid december (when booking for middle of november and thanksgivng week starts to increase), and by mid january, early Feb it will be an afterthought again.
 
Only multiple changes during the 11 month window fall into that category. If you don't know what you want or when you want it but book a bunch of dates anyway, that should be on you not on the rest of us.

it is not necessarily a matter of knowing what you want but what is available. How many people book something then waitlist something else because what they really wanted is not available? So if a waitlist comes through during the 11 month window that person is charged a penalty?
 
Again, that then gives advantage to those with more points. Right now it's fair for everyone. A system that essentially shuts out smaller point owners from harder to get reservations doesn't sound like an improvement to me.

It isn't fair to everyone though. And never will be. DVC booking is set up to be most advantageous for those living on the East Coast - those on the West Coast are up at 4am to make reservations. Web stalking is set up to be most advantagous for those with a lot of web access - if you don't have access to external websites at work, and can't get out your phone without getting fired, you are screwed. Even walking isn't fair to everyone - its fair to those who have the time and access to walk the reservation. The number of people who have enough points to tie up for a two week reservation for walking is small enough that it will have a large impact to availability to change the policy. My bet is that walkers are by and large small point owners - or people with a small number of points at that resort - if you have a ton of points, you don't need to walk your BWV Standard View studio - you can stay in a one bedroom book Preferred.
 
It isn't fair to everyone though. And never will be. DVC booking is set up to be most advantageous for those living on the East Coast - those on the West Coast are up at 4am to make reservations. Web stalking is set up to be most advantagous for those with a lot of web access - if you don't have access to external websites at work, and can't get out your phone without getting fired, you are screwed. Even walking isn't fair to everyone - its fair to those who have the time and access to walk the reservation. The number of people who have enough points to tie up for a two week reservation for walking is small enough that it will have a large impact to availability to change the policy. My bet is that walkers are by and large small point owners - or people with a small number of points at that resort - if you have a ton of points, you don't need to walk your BWV Standard View studio - you can stay in a one bedroom book Preferred.
It doesn't take many points to walk a reservation 2-3 weeks for the rooms that people tend to walk (other than AKV Club) and most AKV owners have enough to walk a value studio for a while. When you're starting at 55 pts/week it doesn't take a large point owner to walk a few weeks.

A lot of people who walk are also renting out spec reservations for the hard to get bookings such as BWV Standard and AKV Value....these people do have a lot of points and aren't opposed to walking a long time.
 
As far as everything being fair, the system is set up to be the same for everyone. That's as fair as you can get. By changing to a system that favours one group of owners over another you've now made a system that in and of itself is not fair. DVC doesn't control what hours you work. DVC doesn't control where you live. DVC does control the basic rules of booking and that is what they ought to keep fair.
 

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