I have just started reading through some of these posts to see if there are some unwritten rules to this reservation game. I call it a game as i really am starting to believe you are going to stay where DVC says you are going to stay. I am a brand new member having just paid $26K for my units and then a month later getting a bill for another thousand dollars for maintenance. I have just tried multiple times to use my points by trying to book on line, only to get waitlisted each time. Multiply requests, different dates, different resorts and waitlisted each and every time. How is this possible? The funny part is I could stay at Saratoga Springs each and every time but no where else. I am not talking about 3 or 4 requests in prime times, i am talking like 20 in times that show in the book to be the slowest, i.e. lowest point cost. I have gotten on the phone with member services and they have been no help what so ever, in fact even transfering me to member services saying i could sell my units, esentially hanging up on me by transfering me to a unanswered line. i havent even had a chance to use any of my units and they are happy to help me sell them.
i have gone to disney resorts probably 40 times or more over the years, i have been a great customer and spent a lot of money down there. i thought DVC would be a nice thing for my kids to have. i was wrong. i was shocked at the attitudes and complete lack of help in getting bookings from DVC. It is almost impossible to use these units without doing multiple bookings nine months in advance. That wasnt what we were sold and frankly i am pretty unhappy about it. What did i do wrong? i didnt pay all this money to be treated like they are doing my a favor by letting me stay at a resort i have no interest in staying at. The hotels are all slow during the times i am trying to book the timeshares, no problems getting in anywhere if i want to pay for the room. Not all the timeshares can possibly be entirely full each and every time i ask for. i take that back, there was one night available for one of the multiple periods i requested. impossible.
i am just totally disallusioned with how i have been treated versus how nice they were when i bought the units. Has anyone experienced anything this bad? is there any secret handshake that i need to know. I am so upset and unhappy about this. i really feel taken.
Some specifics would help but in general I can tell you that the entire fall period from October right through New Year's is immensely popular these days.
In October and November there's the Food & Wine Fest at Epcot plus Halloween decor and parties. I think there's a marathon event in there, too.
November also has the infamous "Jersey Week."
Then later in the month you get into Thanksgiving and the start of the Christmas holiday season. Perhaps the biggest mistake new members consistently make is thinking that those early December weeks where points are low is a slow time. That is perhaps the highest demand period in all of DVC. Members book right at 11 months and do a good job of filling the resorts.
If you look at those point charts DVC gave you and add up the points to stay in a single room for an entire year, THAT total is the number of points DVC can sell for every room it builds. According to my handy-dandy iPhone point tracking app, it would take 17,380 points to spend all of 2012 in a Two Bedroom Savanna View room at Animal Kingdom Villas. So for every 2B they construct, Disney can sell nearly 17,000 points (they hold back 2% for maintenance purposes.)
To carry the analogy further, imagine there is just the one Savanna view 2B. That's the only DVC room. If you want to spend December 1-7, 2012 in that room, you would have to be the very first caller among the dozens of owners to call and book those nights. If another owner calls first, you won't get the dates.
It's not that difficult because there are actually thousands of rooms...but there are also hundreds-of-thousands of owners. With a timeshare it that everything is first-come, first-served.
My wife and I have been owners for nearly 10 years now and have gotten what we wanted pretty much every time. This December we are staying at the BoardWalk for 5 nights. Three of those nights were booked 11 months out using points we own at the BW and the other two nights I was lucky to get right at 8:00am, 7 months out.
I can understand the frustration but there's really not much DVC could have done for you. When the rooms are full, they are full. You could always go on the waiting list and perhaps get something on your first choice of dates. Or you could just chalk this up to poor timing and start planning something for 2013.
Good luck!
