You know that feeling when you find a $20 in an old pair of pants?

[Richyams]

About a year and a half ago I had a disagreement with MS on the number of points I had available.

We went through all kinds of conference calls, had point usage charts faxed and corrections faxed back and forth, it was hell. It started because I was forced to cancel a 500 point stay and move it three times. During one of those times they all of a sudden said that I didn't have enough points.

They were saying that on the original reservation, there was a mistake and I was allocated 270 points too many. They tried for hours to go over those "point allocation", or "point usage" or whatever they call them. These are the worst formatted things I have ever seen. I am real good with charts, numbers and tables, I couldn't figure these things out for the life of me. I mean hours, we must have faxxed them back and fourth a dozen times.

After all that, we left it as me being wrong, they did make a mistake and I now have 270 less points than I thought I should have had.

Time and the vacation go by.

We were going to make just a small trip this year. My sister is going down to stay in he own OKW GV at the end of October. I put in a DREAMS request for quote for an AKL delux savannah, I did that last night. I figured I would call MS for the point cost also. They said 189 points for Thur, Fri ans Sat starting Oct 24. I asked what my current point total was.

According to my last conversation with MS, I was dead flat this year and has borrowed 10 from next year.

Well, to my joy and surprise, they said that I had 270 current points!!!!!!

I was exactly right the whole time!!! My mystery points returned!!!

I banked them into next year and booked the 189 point AKL....I know, I could have rented the points and done it cheaper, but the points were banked and almost like found money.

 

[mikesmom]

Good deal, Rich!! You must be living right.

 

[Niagara2]

It feels good to find the $20 but it must feel estatic, fabulous, thrilling and more to find 270 points! Good for you! Enjoy.inkbounc

 

[ncligs]

Rich,

I am glad they realized it was their (MS) mistake and corrected it for you.

 

[Luv2Dream]

Nice, real nice...

 

[Richyams]

They actually never realized it. Never!

I think the computer did.

I was flabberghasted when he told me I had 270 current. It was that number "270" that made me realize exactly what had happened. That was the number I was shy, it was the number MS said I was "mis-allocated".

Had they said a different number, it may have never clicked.

Had I not called for another month or two, we would have had serious banking deadlines to worry about.

 

[DVC Daisy]

I wonder how common this is???

This EXACT same thing happend to me too! Only it was like 40 points not 270. After many, many attempts to *fix* the problem, I decided to let it slide for a month or two and try again. I called MS last week and POOF, the points are back. MS had no idea why the points disappeared or appeared again.

Very Strange. I hope this is not really common.

Deb

 

[SleepyatDVC]

Good for you Rich!!! Much better than $20 found money - more like 270 x $3.22 = $869.40!!!!

Looks like you're not the only one. I too hope that it doesn't happen often. Guess we're going to have to keep better track of our points on our own!

You are so right about the points history/activity statement being gibberish. It's even worse when you have reservation points in holding - they seem to disappear totally from the statements!!

Now you have more points foor next year!!

 

[dbond]

We've had similar misunderstandings with MS, but not any that lasted that long or went that far. Apparently though, to add somewhat to the confusion, the contracts are set up in their computers separately and if a CM doesn't add them together, they could misquote you on points available. That doesn't sound like what happened to you Richyams, your issue sounds much more complicated and mysterious, but on several occasions, MS has quoted me a #, I've been caught off guard by the # and just hung up, but after thinking about it, doing my own calculations and then calling back, another CM will take a little more time and add all of our various contracts together and we'll both agree on a #. That happened just this week in fact, we are already borrowed into 2003 and trying to borrow more and the CM only looked at our first contract and said we don't have enough points to borrow. I even asked, are you sure and she was absolutely positive. After much # crunching on paper, I realized that the # she quoted me was exactly short the amount of add-ons we had purchased, I called back and sure enough, she missed the add-ons that were still available.

 

[KimOhio]

Good for you Rich anyway you can find a mistake in my use year I could use a few more points. LOL let me know

 

[AZKathy]

That is much much better than finding $20 in a pocket! Yeah for you!!!!!

 

[ripleysmom]

That kinda happened to me recently too....but not to the tune of 270 points.

I called MS at the end of February to see if I could book a 2BR at HHI for the last week in August. Amazingly they had availability so I booked it. While we were on the phone MS reminded me that I had a point left over and would I like to bank it? I had completely forgotten about it but was tickled to be able to bank it (it was still within my banking window!!)

 

[Lesley]

Glad your points are back! But personally, I'm surprised you let them tell you that you were wrong....I have yet to see you back down on an arguement on these boards so I can't imagine it at all! Heck, I'd be fuming if they tried to tell me I was missing 270 points!

I've already been told "You don't have enough points for that" and had to remind them "I banked those last week so I could use them for this". I find it incredibly confusing that they insist on telling me my point totals for both of my home resorts combined rather than separate, because I always figure them apart. At 11mo I can't use them interchangeably...but they act as if I can, then act confused when they try using the wrong points and it won't let them make the ressie. But at least they're usually quite polite while trying to figure out how DVC works!

 

[Laurabearz]

Wooo hoooo! What a great find! That would keep my toes in the air for a week! Congrats!

 

[Terry S]

Congratulations! Being a new member I am now going to be more diligent about keeping track of my own point usage.

 

[Richyams]

I do have two contracts. But that doesn't justify the turgid mess they use to keep trach of points. This was the most mystifieing atrocity I had ever seen. It was completely undecipherable.

It wasn't a case of them simply not seeing a second contract, I mean we spent many hours going over my point usage from '93 to that trip. No matter how many times I showed them a column of points used versus the column of points recieved since '93 and how there was a difference of 270 points, they kept mantaining that they were right and it is how they keep such good track....LOL.

It was quite nice to be proven right finally....I just wish I still had all the papers and names, I would call them and ask them where these points came from if I was so wrong.....the only risk is that they may claim error again and take them back.

 

[Towncrier]

For the record, we have two contracts at OKW and haven't had any problems with MS keeping track of our points. We haven't had to cancel or move any reservations, and we most often do one trip a year. We haven't had to bank any points for MANY years since we are constantly borrowing next year's points. So don't worry too much Terry. I would agree that it's an excellent idea to keep close tabs on your points, but don't lose sleep over it.

I'm glad that things worked out in your favor Rich. Kinda reminds me of the Monopoly card:

Bank Error In Your Favor

 

[DVC Eeyore]

I had a similar problem with MS over 40 points. I had reservations the previous year where I applied banked points to a reservation and then decided to bank the remaining points into the next use year. MS told me that I had points in holding and couldn't do this with all of them. When questioned as I had used the banked points for one entire trip and the remaining for another trip, they told me since I had multiple contracts at the same resort it was up to me to make sure MS knew which contracts to use!! I happened to have the name/date with me so I asked to speak with a supervisor and she told me that the CM couldn't see all the contracts on one screen and it was up to the member to make sure they knew if we had more than one!! I did have to count to 10 before responding that I had done just that and even had another trip a few months later where I used a combination of banked and current use year points. The supervisor told me that they would grant me a ONE TIME banking approval but in the future I had to be specific. I still have issue over this as I now have additional contracts at another resort. I always ask for a split by the resorts and make sure they understand what contracts to use for banked points. I think if they had a better computer system this wouldn't happen as it was desiged for "one contract/resort" per member and they didn't realize how many of us would have multiple contracts much less multiple contracts at multiple resorts. . . Glad to hear you too won!!

DVC Eeyore