No Free Dining for CR Tower?

[2PrincessDad]

My family has a MK view room at the CR from 9/22-9/29, and we've been told that we ARE NOT eligible for the free dining package. We're booked through AAA and our agent, (who is incredible), has been told by five different CM's and managers that free dining is not being offfered for tower reservations. We are Disney Visa Cardholders, by the way. Disney said we can cancel our reservation in the tower and book a Garden Wing room to get the free dining!!! What a joke! If I wanted the Garden Wing, I would've asked for it when I made my reservation in January!

I an extremely frustrated with WDW right now...

[TammiMcMan]

Are you talking about the free dining package for Disney Visa cardholders? The effective dates are only through 9/22, so perhaps that has something to do with it. Either that, or they only set aside a limited number of tower rooms for this package and they have sold out.

Maybe one of our TA's from Magical Journeys can help answer this question. On a side note, just from personal experience, I would never book a AAA Disney vacation again. We got nothing but misinformation from them on a trip and I'd never go that route again.

[Tink1]

The CR tower rooms are not excluded from the promotion. I have booked one.


As an educated guess:
Rooms are capacity controlled so it may not be available for those travel dates.

Not all agencies are truly willing to work hard to lower your price on any package. (It means less money to them)

We are often scoffed at for the way we do things by "traditional" agencies, but it works for us an our clients. Sometimes, things are not about money.

Nanci

[TammiMcMan]

Not all agencies are truly willing to work hard to lower your price on any package. (It means less money to them)

Thanks Nanci. That was part of our one and only experience with AAA. They are great for some things (love their trip tickets when we're driving anywhere), but they really lacked in getting us the most for our money.

[threeh]

If you have a AAA discount then you are not eligable for free dining. You would need to re book for the free dining disount (can't apply 2 discounts to one ressie) See which way saves more dollars and choose that discount. If your AAA agent can't get the discount either call Disney direct to get a free dining quote or use Intercot's own Magical Journeys

good luck and happy planning!!!!

[TammiMcMan]

If you have a AAA discount then you are not eligable for free dining. You would need to re book for the free dining disount (can't apply 2 discounts to one ressie)

This makes sense and probably best describes what Nanci was getting at. AAA is most likely not going to tell a client that they need to drop AAA in order to get free dining.

[DizneyRox]

Discounts are offered to "lure" people into the resorts. If a certain category of room is already at or near capacity they need, discounts will be very limited.

In this case however, I'm going to guess that the AAA discount is the main problem. For the "free" dining, you need to pay full price for the room. The "discounts" are not stackable.

Call Disney directly and see what's really available through the promotion and pick the better deal. You may find your existing reservation is a better deal. The room discount on the deluxe rooms is often big enough to offset the cost of just paying for the dining plan.

[CleveRocks]

The other thing to realize is that discounts are NOT automatic. The reason Disney ever offers discounts is to sell rooms that aren't selling as well as they'd like.

For each resort, and for each class of room within each resort, they have a super secret number, a percentage of rooms. If occupancy for your dates exceeds that percentage, then no discounts are applicable for those rooms. If there are cancelations, then the discount will temporarily open up for those rooms, until the occupancy rate exceeds the number again.

When a discount code comes out, you CAN get it applied to your reservation but ONLY if it is currently being offered for your class of room at your resort.

I hope that makes sense.

I gave an example in another thread. CBR has 2,112 rooms. Let's say the magic number at CBR is 80% occupancy. 80% of 2,112 is 1,689.6. So if you want a room at CBR and have the code, you can get the discount. Let's say you booked the 1,689th room for your dates. Now let's say 30 seconds later someone else calls with the same dates and discount code. They would be booking the 1,690th room at CBR. Since that would mean CBR is above 80% occupancy, that person wouldn't be allowed to use the code that you just used 30 seconds ago.

If you owned a fish store and had 30 pounds of flounder and 1 pound of tuna, you'd put the flounder on sale to get rid of it before it spoils, and even if you end up throwing out that one pound of tuna at least it was very little money lost, compared with that 30 pounds of flounder. Unrented rooms are money lost, money that can NEVER be recovered. In the hotel trade, time truly does equal money.

[Disneytravels]

I would try again and call Disney direct tomorrow morning right at 7am when it is released to everyone. I have been booking for other disney Visa card members clients and what they wanted is filled but tomorrow they will release more rooms to accomindate everyone. I think it also may true about booking with AAA and not getting the deal.. normally only one deal is allowed. Besides Disney can normally beat AAA price along with Most travel agency knowing Disney good. I know there are certain rooms that they don't allow on the plan but I don't think that is normally one of them- hasn't been for me. Normally they have the same rooms that have blocks on them for every promotion out.
Anyways try tomorrow morning... if its there put a 14 day hold on it and cancel the other one.
Best of luck!

[DisneyDudet]

My guess would be its because you have AAA.

My suggestion is that you contact MJ and have them see what they can do.

Can you cancel your AAA package? If you can w/o money lost, maybe MJ can get you a better deal with the free dining.

I guess its all up to you.

[CleveRocks]

My guess would be its because you have AAA.

My suggestion is that you contact MJ and have them see what they can do.

Can you cancel your AAA package? If you can w/o money lost, maybe MJ can get you a better deal with the free dining.

I guess its all up to you.

No disrespect to MJ or any other travel agency, but there are no discounts or "specials" in the free dining promotion that MJ can get that a well-informed Disney consumer can't get.

[2PrincessDad]

Thanks to everyone for the responses. To give a little background, I did contact MJ when we were first planning our trip and was very uncomfortable with how things were being handled. I was told I could not apply any AAA discount, even though I was a member, and was quoted the exact same price that I got on the WDW site.
I then went back to my AAA agent who did a fantastic job handling our last trip. I was able to book the trip and saved around $500 off the quoted Disney and MJ price with the AAA 15% discount.
At this point, it's less than a $200 difference between trying to cancel and rebook, or just staying with what we have. I'll save more than that amount on the dining plan for the week, even if I do have to pay for it.
As an aside, I know things do change, but when we went in 2005, we did get BOTH the AAA discount and free dining.

[TammiMcMan]

No disrespect to MJ or any other travel agency, but there are no discounts or "specials" in the free dining promotion that MJ can get that a well-informed Disney consumer can't get.

This is definitely the place where you will find some very educated Disney consumers . In my experience, one advantage in working with a Disney expert TA, is that they continue to work for you in regards to discounts and sometimes they do know about them before they're released to the general public. I've had great success with placing my reservation with a TA (specializing in Disney vacations) and they saved me money twice by applying discounts before I even asked. I appreciated not having to worry about doing the legwork myself or being on the phone as soon as the codes were released. In some situations it works out well to have a TA, but with so many of us here discussing things, it's not always needed.

2PrincessDad, I'm glad you are comfortable with your choice and I'm just sorry that the dining discount didn't work out in your favor. Considering AAA said it was available on a wing room, perhaps they can double check tomorrow morning, when the code is made available to the general public. I don't know if your TA is available to make that call at 7am, but you may get lucky and have something open up in the tower.

[DisneyDudet]

No disrespect to MJ or any other travel agency, but there are no discounts or "specials" in the free dining promotion that MJ can get that a well-informed Disney consumer can't get.

I never said that MJ would do more than the OP would. But he used AAA, which means,the OP probably would want someone else to work on the reservation, other than himself.

I am a well informed Disney consumer, and save myself a ton of money on my own. If I were to use a TA, it would be MJ, just from the raving reviews here on Intercot.

I hope you enjoy your trip, even without the free dining. I would say a tower room facing MK at CR will make it great!

[Tink1]

Thanks to everyone for the responses. To give a little background, I did contact MJ when we were first planning our trip and was very uncomfortable with how things were being handled. I was told I could not apply any AAA discount, even though I was a member, and was quoted the exact same price that I got on the WDW site. .

Yes, only AAA can apply the AAA discount to a package. Best advice is to have your agent just keep trying! Things change by the minute down there and it may open up later in the booking window.

Nanci

[ktm]

Can you get both AAA and the free dining plan? I thought 1 cancelled the other out?
-KTM

[Tink1]

Yes, your right. You can only get one discount per package.

Nanci

[vorchik]

My family has a MK view room at the CR from 9/22-9/29 ...

You can't qualify for the offer: for the free dining your first night must be not later than Sept. 20, 2008.

[sainter]

Yes, only AAA can apply the AAA discount to a package. Best advice is to have your agent just keep trying! Things change by the minute down there and it may open up later in the booking window.

Nanci

And the key word here is "package", is that correct? Because I know you guys (MJ) can book room only with AAA discount.

[sainter]

You can't qualify for the offer: for the free dining your first night must be not later than Sept. 20, 2008.

Oh, yeah that is correct according to the sticky note on free dining -- it doesn't have anything to do with the room --- am I missing something??