MOM POPPINS said:
Can someone explain to me how to a reservation not using points on the weekends? Is the discount good for all WDW resorts or just the Villa's? What kind of discount do you get? Is there a certain time frame to call ahead of time? Thanks for any help!
If you are reserving cash through DVC MS the discount is 25% off rack rate if they have it available and only at the DVC resorts. Sometimes they will have rooms/villas available for cash with the discount, sometimes they will have them available for cash but no discount and sometimes they won't have anything available at all for cash
Sometimes they will have rooms available months in advance and sometimes they won't have them available until around the 60day mark....it's all in when MS determines that the rooms won't be booked up on pts. The good thing about it is that if you book with cash via DVC MS they can link your cash nights to your pts nights and it will be like one big ressie
Now, if you're talking about booking cash via CRO that's a whole other story. They have all different discounts that may or may not be available to you from AAA to AP discounts. CRO has their own small inventory of rooms separate from DVC. You may be able to get a DVC room for less $$ through them if there's a good discount available. However, being that they have a separate inventory, they cannot link your ressies. Worst case senario...you'd get a good cash rate on the room but you'll have to check out and then back in again and worst of all
you'd have to MOVE ! Best case senario, you won't have to move but they
will make you check out and then back in again and get new room keys. So sometimes even if MS has the cash night for more it may be worth the extra $$ just to not have the aggrevation of having to check out and back in or definetly of having to move.
And then of course, lots of people just switch resorts all together and pay cash either with or without a discount through CRO for the weekends rather than lay out the extra wknd pts or pay so much more cash for the DVC rate
HTH's