Why the 7 day limit

[cmwade77]

Ok, so why the 7 day limit at the 11 month and 7 month window?

When I ask member services, they say there are very good reasons for it, but never say what such reasons are. Seems to me all it does is cause people to tie up member services by having to call each day to add on another day. Although they have told me that online modifications should be up an running bu probably next week, which is basically the day after I will be done modifying my reservation.

Really though, I would like to know what the logical reason for this is vs being able to book your entire trip at the 11/7 month window, as I am sure there must be a good reason, I just cant think of one.

 

[jlapointe30]

This is to avoid you bypass the 7/11 months window easily if you have lots of points. I.e. Book for 4 weeks at the 7/11 months and then call back to drop the first few weeks a month later. It is called walking. Still doable, but you can only “walk” by one week

 

[chalee94]

Ok, so why the 7 day limit at the 11 month and 7 month window?

When I ask member services, they say there are very good reasons for it...

Really though, I would like to know what the logical reason for this is vs being able to book your entire trip at the 11/7 month window, as I am sure there must be a good reason, I just cant think of one.

The previous rule was to book day by day at the 11 month window. Very egalitarian but tedious to call every day to add another day to your reservation. You also risked booking 4 nights but losing out for the 5th night and having to waitlist and hope for the best to fill in the holes. Or you could wait until 10 days after the window opened for a 10 day trip to book the whole stay (hoping it would all still be available).

I suspect that is what MS is comparing the new system to...

Again, some still miss the old system since it didn't penalize small contract owners.

 

[drusba]

DVC has never explained why it chose 7 nights rather than more nights (or less), so one can only guess. I suspect it may have something to do with the fact that the vast majority of members always reserve 7 nights or less (because they do not have points to reserve more) and DVC probably did not want to design the computer system to go out more than 7 dates beyond any given 11 month window.

 

[The Jackal]

My guess would be that their computer system could not handle booking 8 days that far out.

 

[cmwade77]

This is to avoid you bypass the 7/11 months window easily if you have lots of points. I.e. Book for 4 weeks at the 7/11 months and then call back to drop the first few weeks a month later. It is called walking. Still doable, but you can only “walk” by one week

I understand that, it wasn't the point, the question is why the 7 day limit.

 

[southerngirl528]

the question is why the 7 day limit.

jlapointe30 is correct that they try to "level" the playing field a bit by limiting how many days a member can book all at once. It does make sense.

For the first several years (10 or 12 yrs maybe?? Hard to recall when you've been a member for 25 years. LOL), the booking windows were 11 & 7 months from your check OUT date. Not from your check IN date. I do think the current booking windows & allowances are fair, even if annoying at times.

 

[cmwade77]

jlapointe30 is correct that they try to "level" the playing field a bit by limiting how many days a member can book all at once. It does make sense.

For the first several years (10 or 12 yrs maybe?? Hard to recall when you've been a member for 25 years. LOL), the booking windows were 11 & 7 months from your check OUT date. Not from your check IN date. I do think the current booking windows & allowances are fair, even if annoying at times.

Wouldnt even say being able to book 30 days still be a level playing field? Everyone can still have the same booking opportunity.

 

[bumbershoot]

For questions like this I've chosen to be content with "because" being the answer.


And no, I don't think that being able to book 30 days would be a level playing field. There are very few people with that many points. That would be a super-elite playing field.

 

[pkrieger2287]

Ok, so why the 7 day limit at the 11 month and 7 month window?

When I ask member services, they say there are very good reasons for it, but never say what such reasons are. Seems to me all it does is cause people to tie up member services by having to call each day to add on another day. Although they have told me that online modifications should be up an running bu probably next week, which is basically the day after I will be done modifying my reservation.

Really though, I would like to know what the logical reason for this is vs being able to book your entire trip at the 11/7 month window, as I am sure there must be a good reason, I just cant think of one.

Can we go back to the second part here... Will we really be able to make our reservation modifications online soon?

 

[Bing Showei]

For questions like this I've chosen to be content with "because" being the answer.


And no, I don't think that being able to book 30 days would be a level playing field. There are very few people with that many points. That would be a super-elite playing field.

[turns nose up @bumbershoot]

Peasant.

 

[southerngirl528]

Wouldnt even say being able to book 30 days still be a level playing field? Everyone can still have the same booking opportunity.

It would definitely not be fair. Most members only have enough points to book a small handful of nights each year. If those members that have very large points contracts can book massive amounts of dates at once (like 30 days in your example), that would delve far into the inventory and put small points owners at a huge disadvantage. Hope that makes sense to you.

If no one can book farther than 7 days into just released inventory, it makes it far more fair for all. This is the reason DVD made the current booking decisions.

 

[Matty B13]

This would also take a huge amount of rooms out of inventory by only a handful of owners who wouldn't be using all 30 days of their stay. That doesn't really seem fair to the rest of the owners either. It would be one thing to go for 30 days, but most people don't go for that long even if they have the points. Also, those units would be tied up until the owner decided to release those units back into inventory, which could be well into the 7 month booking window, thus killing the benefit of being an owner at a resort with the 11 month booking window.

 

[cmwade77]

Can we go back to the second part here... Will we really be able to make our reservation modifications online soon?

That's what I am being told every morning that I call, basically it should be ready just after I am done.

 

[BillPA]

Just curious, how many points do you have that you want to book 30 days at a time? Or is this just looking for info? Are you in our 1000 point club?

 

[cmwade77]

Just curious, how many points do you have that you want to book 30 days at a time? Or is this just looking for info? Are you in our 1000 point club?

I dont, but generally I want to book 14 to 15 days at a time when we go to Disney World. I was just wondering what the logic was in the 7 day limit. I was just saying the 30 days because that is the limit on a continuous stay.

And no, we have 206 points....wish we had 1,000+, but then again, does would be high. Really, we go during off season and usually stay in a studio, so 206 points works out well for us to book a couple of weeks when we go, we sometimes have to borrow a few points here or there, but not too bad.

 

[BillPA]

Currently you can book up to 30 days at a time, but not right at the 7/11 mark, but rather any time on or after the 6/10 month point. At 10 1/2 months you could do the 14-15 nights, if it's not a high demand time or a high demand resort (Poly, GF..) you should be fine waiting the extra week. I would also like to have the 1,000+ points, at least until it was time to pay the dues, ouch that would hurt.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Ok, so why the 7 day limit at the 11 month and 7 month window?

When I ask member services, they say there are very good reasons for it, but never say what such reasons are. Seems to me all it does is cause people to tie up member services by having to call each day to add on another day. Although they have told me that online modifications should be up an running bu probably next week, which is basically the day after I will be done modifying my reservation.

Really though, I would like to know what the logical reason for this is vs being able to book your entire trip at the 11/7 month window, as I am sure there must be a good reason, I just cant think of one.

Back when DVC changed reservations from check out day to check in day they set it up to be limited to 7 days if booking right at the 11/7 month windows. All they stated was that it was the average length of stay by most owners so that's why they chose that number. No idea on the validity of that statement but it's probably the most average length of stay that we personally book.

The previous rule was to book day by day at the 11 month window. Very egalitarian but tedious to call every day to add another day to your reservation. You also risked booking 4 nights but losing out for the 5th night and having to waitlist and hope for the best to fill in the holes. Or you could wait until 10 days after the window opened for a 10 day trip to book the whole stay (hoping it would all still be available).

I suspect that is what MS is comparing the new system to...

Again, some still miss the old system since it didn't penalize small contract owners.

Not exactly - it was actually that you were supposed to call to book from our day of check out.

What you describe became the way to circumvent and get a head start on others who might also plan on arriving and leaving on the same days as yourself.

 

[drusba]

I was just saying the 30 days because that is the limit on a continuous stay.

There is actually no limit to the number of days for a continuous stay except that dictated by the number of points you have to use. The computer system limits any single reservation to 30 days total (assuming you are far enough beyond your 11 or 7 month window to be able to reserve that number of days) but that is a computer system limit not a DVC rule limit (until about two years ago, the computer allowed a maximum of only 14 days). Some have mentioned laws in Florida that allow one to claim residency and force a landlord to use formal eviction procedures to force you out of a rented room if you stay more than 30 days, but those laws are inapplicable to the DVC timeshare units including because the offical documents provide that you cannot use time spent in a DVC timeshare to claim residency in a DVC unit or in Florida, and thus DVC has no legal downside to allowing more than 30 day reservations..

On a different note, if DVC did extend the 11 month reservation rule to more than 7 nights, e.g., such as 30 nights, it would not actually favor those with large numbers of points any more than the system may already do now. That is because once you make a reservation at 11 months out, for example for 7 nights, you successfully prevent anyone else from reserving whatever room you will get, and since you can call and add nights, you are the only one who can add any nights for that room beyond 7 nights until all the nights you have reserved are past any 11 month window. In other words, the perceived advantage an owner with 1,000 points may have over someone with a 150 points is the same regardless of whether the allowed number of nights is 7 or 30, except that owner with 1,000 points has the minor annoyance of calling to add nights when the limit is only 7 nights. Nevertheless, it is different for the 7 month window, since the owner with a lot points cannot block out later date reservations by owners of a resort when he reserves his first 7 nights.

 

[cmwade77]

Can we go back to the second part here... Will we really be able to make our reservation modifications online soon?

It is now available to modify online, but they are having issues, especially with adding additional days. The system currently wants to cancel the entire reservation and make a new one, Disneys IT department at its finest....LOL