Read these bolded parts again. My system does this BETTER than the current system! In the current system all rooms AREN'T made available to all members, some rooms are offered via modification to only certain members walking those rooms!
Modifications function the way they currently do because the system is in effect holding your current room as available for only you AND allowing you to add days as if it were available in the true inventory when it is NOT actually available. Or it also allows you to cancel and make a whole new booking with the true inventory that everyone can see in one fell swoop.
There is nothing that says they have to HOLD this room for you during your modification. They could limit you to modifying only to the rooms that are available or keeping your current reservation, without being able to add days to it if it includes rooms that are not available in the true inventory that all members can see. This would be treating modifications including dates in the 11+7 (or the could do it to all modifications even) to be a true cancel and rebook. Where your reservation is cancelled, the rooms released to the true inventory to show up shortly or be taken by waitlists, and your new room booked as separate parts.
Rooms are never held back for walkers.
Walking works because we can book up to 7 nights at the 11 month window and DVC currently allows unlimited modifications.
The owner who books an 11 plus 7 rooms has taken that room under the same rules as everyone else…not talking about intent. Thats different.
Once that owner has that room, it comes out of inventory as not bookable for others.
So, yes, when you have 7 nights booked in a room no other owner can book it but not because DVC blocked it. It is blocked because you used your points to reserve it.
You are completely correct that they can change the modification rules so that rooms are not held when you try and modify…which is basically a cancel and rebook situation.
As I said, that could definitely happen. However, what they can’t have is a situation where some modifications hold the room and other times it does not.
It has to be consistent based on the nature of the booking rights we have. So, either rooms what you have booked doesn’t cancel until you complete the modification process…what happens now…of rooms get immediately released when you modify…DVC has the right to choose to implement either one of those options.
They used to make everyone book from check out day. People simply booked day by day and some ended with not being able to get an entire consecutive stay.
So, they switched to what we have now. As I have said, they can make different rules for booking but they can never have a rule that prevents an owner from booking an open room.
As long as DVC keeps the rules that a room isn’t released during a modification until the owner completes it. then they have to allow modifications to pick up new dates they don’t have if the room is still there.
Because of the 11 plus 7 rule, inventory on any given morning is not going to be the same. And yes, because we get to book up to 7 days when the window opens, we get a jump on someone arriving later…hence the reason people walk.
It comes down to having a system that allows all owners to access every room still open each morning on a FCFS basis.
Beyond that, DVC can put into place whatever rules and penalties they want for changing trips. Even the plus 7 days could be changed…they could allow 11 plus 2 or 11 plus 14 from the start, etc.
So while walking is frustrating, the rules they put in place have to mesh with what they beleive owners, as a collective group, want to see.
Again I applaud your efforts to try and find a middle ground here, but I think the rights we have make a middle ground hard when the sole purpose is to prevent and curb walking.