Aggressive anti-rental email response from MS

[Phatscott25]

Not to me. It will benefit me, and many members like me who want to not walk, be able to get the reservation we are looking for with a single phone call, seldom rent our points and seldom give them to friends and relatives. When we travel with guests, we travel WITH guests. For people who bought to use their own points, I doubt any effort Disney makes will have much impact at all. I suspect you will still be able to change the lead guest, as long as you don't do it very often - more often than "stuff happens" would cover. And you'll be able to put someone else's name on a reservation using your points at booking, but not for any more than the minority of your reservations. It will be those that have whatever pattern Disney identifies as "likely commercial renters" who will see an effect. My suspicion is that that will involve a combination of walking, booking for high demand times, changing lead guest names, not traveling as the lead guest the majority of the time, with people who own a lot of points and anyone who owns via an llc or other corporate entity facing additional scrutiny. Your average DVC member who books a honeymoon trip for their kids (and trust me, Disney KNOWS your kids names) using their points, or needs to rent a reservation due to an emergency shouldn't worry.

I never agree with this. There is ZERO ability to causes more harm to everyone.

@crisi I understand what you're trying to say here in theory (dismissing the parts at the beginning where you say it would benefit you and not the membership as a whole). But do we really want Mickey and his wonky IT getting into our business and hopefully only finding the commercial renters? It opens Pandora's Box. Example: @Sandisw mentioned several times that she often books for other relatives and often puts herself as the lead guest, makes changes, changes dates, etc. Nothing nefarious, no commercial renting (or renting at all, even), but her uncle's reservation gets canceled because Disney's IT flagged it as potentially pattern/commercial. No thank you, I'll take my chances with the current system.

I'm actually curious as to how many members really don't get the room they want. And if so, how often? Further, what's the room type and dates? After all that, is it really because of spec rentals or walking? I want to clarify that I don't agree with spec rentals either. And while they may have a small impact on overall availability, I'm confident it isn't nearly as bad as people think. The system isn't perfect, on that I'll agree. But limiting what owners can do with their points is a "fix" that will cause more problems than we have now.

 

[RoseGold]

You guys are all looking at this backwards. Disney does not care who is in the rooms. In fact, they probably prefer renters from Denver over unfavorable me.

Why would Disney care if renters, who are following all of the rules, take the rooms? You are throwing around words like "abusive" and "clogging the system," but none of that is happening for Disney. Disney is just fine. Rooms are booked, no problem. That's a you problem, not a mouse problem.

DVC will not take action on this until members demand it, and it looks like that isn't happening right now. If that does happen, it will likely devalue the whole product, as there are obviously plenty of commercial owners and renters.

 

[tjkraz]

They could easily enforce renting to 1-2 times per year by restricting lead name on reservation as many people have discussed.

Just leave the member on the rental reservation.

The rental marketplace has already adapted many times. 10 years ago, brokers used to have members add them as an associate so they could handle all of the points management. Disney placed restrictions on associate accounts, and the immediate reaction was that it would destroy rental brokers. Why pay a broker if the member still has to do all the work?

But that's exactly how it worked and rentals have continued chugging right along. I don't see "lead guest" restrictions as making much of a dent in rentals.

This is Disney’s goal. ultimately Disney wants to get rid of resale. If they wanted a vibrant resale market they wouldn’t have put in resale restrictions for Riviera, Disneyland Villas…..

No, Disney's primary goal is to promote direct sales. Obviously that brings some harm to resales but it's not a motivating factor. Disney cannot "get rid of resale".

 

[EYL]

You can rent other timeshares too. This has nothing to do with why the value of Disney is higher.

I was, in part, addressing someone's vision of how DVC can restrict its rentals and someone indicating that Wyndham does something similar. In those posts, Wyndham sounds pretty restrictive, although I have zero knowledge of the program.

While it may not have a direct impact on DVC value, it does have an indirect impact, no matter how little. You wouldn't think twice about adding more DVC points to your portfolio if there was a personal rental restriction? I would. That little hesitation on perceived quality affects demand. Life happens and it's good to have a backup plan for your points rather than losing them.

 

[tjkraz]

You guys are all looking at this backwards. Disney does not care who is in the rooms. In fact, they probably prefer renters from Denver over unfavorable me.

Disney would stand to make even more money putting these guests in one of their own hotels. In a rental, Disney has zero lodging income. And if people are renting a 1BR or 2BR villa with a kitchen, it negatively impacts dining expenditures as well.

Simply shifting those guests to all-stars is an improvement. Any pricier hotel, even better.

That said, it's obvious DVC hasn't acted. We can only speculate on the reasons. And if they institute a policy change next week, next month or next year, opinions will immediately change.

 

[DonMacGregor]

While it may not have a direct impact on DVC value, it does have an indirect impact, no matter how little. You wouldn't think twice about adding more DVC points to your portfolio if there was a personal rental restriction? I would. That little hesitation on perceived quality affects demand. Life happens and it's good to have a backup plan for your points rather than losing them.

Reasonably certain that absolutely no one on this thread has suggested eliminating rentals completely, or even restricting non-commercial rentals. No one is suggesting that owners can't make multiple reservations throughout the year and not be able to revise lead guests names, change dates, whatever. No one is suggesting that a member stand to risk losing points if renting isn't an option for them.

Conversely, someone who is renting dozens of times in a single year isn't doing so because "life happens" and they're at risk of losing their points.

 

[we"reofftoneverland]

I was, in part, addressing someone's vision of how DVC can restrict its rentals and someone indicating that Wyndham does something similar. In those posts, Wyndham sounds pretty restrictive, although I have zero knowledge of the program.

While it may not have a direct impact on DVC value, it does have an indirect impact, no matter how little. You wouldn't think twice about adding more DVC points to your portfolio if there was a personal rental restriction? I would. That little hesitation on perceived quality affects demand. Life happens and it's good to have a backup plan for your points rather than losing them.

But having rental companies manipulate the system to the disadvantage of average owners hurts the value of the product much more. That’s why Disney is trying to exercise more control over the product with things like resale restrictions.

 

[crisi]

@crisi I understand what you're trying to say here in theory (dismissing the parts at the beginning where you say it would benefit you and not the membership as a whole). But do we really want Mickey and his wonky IT getting into our business and hopefully only finding the commercial renters? It opens Pandora's Box. Example: @Sandisw mentioned several times that she often books for other relatives and often puts herself as the lead guest, makes changes, changes dates, etc. Nothing nefarious, no commercial renting (or renting at all, even), but her uncle's reservation gets canceled because Disney's IT flagged it as potentially pattern/commercial. No thank you, I'll take my chances with the current system.

I'm actually curious as to how many members really don't get the room they want. And if so, how often? Further, what's the room type and dates? After all that, is it really because of spec rentals or walking? I want to clarify that I don't agree with spec rentals either. And while they may have a small impact on overall availability, I'm confident it isn't nearly as bad as people think. The system isn't perfect, on that I'll agree. But limiting what owners can do with their points is a "fix" that will cause more problems than we have now.

Yes. Honestly, yes. I want the product I paid for and was contracted to get. Which includes no commercial rentals. I don't want to be competing for rooms at eleven months with people who are spec renting. And if that causes some members some pain, well, I believe it will relieve some pain for people like me. Moreover, I could argue (possibly not successfully in court) that Disney is OBLIGATED to enforce the non-commercial clause for the benefit of the members. Most members, I firmly believe, have a small amount of points that they use almost always to travel on themselves once a year - maybe twice a year.

The other option Disney has is to put in the lottery for high demand times of year. I think that would be FAR more painful to the membership as a whole. (They've used it for NYE 2000, so they have the processes in place to do so, it might be really manual).

 

[RoseGold]

Disney would stand to make even more money putting these guests in one of their own hotels. In a rental, Disney has zero lodging income. And if people are renting a 1BR or 2BR villa with a kitchen, it negatively impacts dining expenditures as well.

Simply shifting those guests to all-stars is an improvement. Any pricier hotel, even better.

It's not like they shut down David's and everyone books at Coronado or buys the Aulani points off the shelf.

If DVC shuts down renting, commercial renters will sell contracts. This devalues resale. To an extent, DVC wants this (like the resale restrictions), but not so much that it competes with the real product, which is direct. If resale is worth less because it can't be rented out, it increases the delta between direct and resale, which matters a whole lot to selling direct sales. And it decreases the value of the product over time, which also matters to direct sales.

If Disney thought shutting down renting would help them, they would have already done it. Heck, we've seen from the closing threads, all they'd have to do is require a notary to change lead guest, and no one would be able to figure it out.

 

[we"reofftoneverland]

You guys are all looking at this backwards. Disney does not care who is in the rooms. In fact, they probably prefer renters from Denver over unfavorable me.

Why would Disney care if renters, who are following all of the rules, take the rooms? You are throwing around words like "abusive" and "clogging the system," but none of that is happening for Disney. Disney is just fine. Rooms are booked, no problem. That's a you problem, not a mouse problem.

DVC will not take action on this until members demand it, and it looks like that isn't happening right now. If that does happen, it will likely devalue the whole product, as there are obviously plenty of commercial owners and renters.

Of course Disney cares. The effectiveness of the system underlies their ability to sell direct, and they have many new direct hotels about to open for sale. They cannot sell those hotels if the word gets out that the reservation system is messed up by groups of people who game it to rent for profit. One of the major selling points for Disney is the flexibility of the product. The reservation system has been very inflexible for me lately. And now it’s pretty obvious it’s not because of covid.

But I suspect this issue became much larger when the new guy came in about a year ago and he was trying to address complaints about IT and the reservation system in general—- probably the biggest thing people complain about. He probably realized that this rental situation is a major problem for the system period.

 

[crisi]

Also, for all the crap we give Disney IT - they aren't good at web architecture, they aren't good at timeshare systems. They ARE good at fraud and security.

 

[we"reofftoneverland]

I was, in part, addressing someone's vision of how DVC can restrict its rentals and someone indicating that Wyndham does something similar. In those posts, Wyndham sounds pretty restrictive, although I have zero knowledge of the program.

While it may not have a direct impact on DVC value, it does have an indirect impact, no matter how little. You wouldn't think twice about adding more DVC points to your portfolio if there was a personal rental restriction? I would. That little hesitation on perceived quality affects demand. Life happens and it's good to have a backup plan for your points rather than losing them.

Disney isn’t worried about resale. If they were they wouldn’t have added resale restrictions.

 

[DonMacGregor]

Yes. Honestly, yes. I want the product I paid for and was contracted to get. Which includes no commercial rentals. I don't want to be competing for rooms at eleven months with people who are spec renting.

This is a point that I think gets less attention than it deserves. Often times the argument is made that "regardless of who owns the points, all points are equal and everyone has an equal chance of reserving every room" combined with some version of the "100% occupancy" justification.

However, if you stop to think about it, we have a good number of owners on these threads who individually have admitted (maybe not the best term because it implies some guilt or wrongdoing, which it does not) to owning in excess of 1,000 points (or much more) that are dedicated to renting to offset dues. If an individual owns over 1k points for personal rental, then someone engaged in the business of renting points as a commercial endeavor likely owns orders of magnitude more than that (10k, 15k?), across how ever many memberships/ownership schemes necessary. It also stands to reason that that individual or entity has the time dedicated to setting up the enterprise with any inexpensive databases, scheduling software, whatever to target the best/highest value weekends or holiday periods, and to walk reservations en-masse as necessary to ensure they have as many reservations placed where profit is maximized.

Imagine you're Joe Disney trying to walk that single reservation for a studio at AKL for Christmas week, while at the same time, Bob's DVC Rentals has 15 or 20 or more reservations that they are waking at the same time. Joe has to wake up at zero dark thirty to walk his res before heading to work. Bob's flunky wakes up, walks 20 reservations, then goes back to bed.

 

[RoseGold]

They cannot sell those hotels if the word gets out that the reservation system is messed up by groups of people who game it to rent for profit. One of the major selling points for Disney is the flexibility of the product.

This has been true for years. The most popular rooms have been impossible to get since before I even considered buying in. I knew that in 2017. In 2018, I got the full pitch, which included the club rooms that I knew would be impossible. Sure, it's a "selling point" in that it exists, but actually booking it was the same as it is now. DVC didn't care if I would actually be able to book that room, and it still doesn't.

 

[tjkraz]

It's not like they shut down David's and everyone books at Coronado or buys the Aulani points off the shelf.

Not all but many would. Not everyone falls into the category of "DVC rental or bust." Most renters seem to have made up their mind they're visiting WDW, and are looking for the best value. Right now rentals are pretty high on that list. If not available, most would look into All stars, AOA, Coronado, etc. Even if they lose some guests to off-site, they're still getting the in-park spend.

If DVC shuts down renting, commercial renters will sell contracts. This devalues resale. To an extent, DVC wants this (like the resale restrictions), but not so much that it competes with the real product, which is direct. If resale is worth less because it can't be rented out, it increases the delta between direct and resale, which matters a whole lot to selling direct sales. And it decreases the value of the product over time, which also matters to direct sales.

This I completely agree with. It's an element of the dilemma which goes beyond "renter eats more cheeseburgers than me so disney is fine with it."

If Disney thought shutting down renting would help them, they would have already done it. Heck, we've seen from the closing threads, all they'd have to do is require a notary to change lead guest, and no one would be able to figure it out.

Right but it's not a black and white issue. The premise that Disney is happy to allow rentals because they still get ticket and dining revenue is flawed, IMO. There are other considerations like what would happen to all of those points if rentals were shut down, do rentals serve as an effective sales promotion for DVC, how would an assault on rentals impact Disney's reputation, etc.

 

[DonMacGregor]

Also, for all the crap we give Disney IT - they aren't good at web architecture, they aren't good at timeshare systems. They ARE good at fraud and security.

And let's not forget their legal department. Exactly how many times do you read about Disney losing a lawsuit? Even when they (occasionally) settle, they are avoiding the potential for a larger jury award, and they 100% are avoiding additional negative publicity. Still a win.

 

[we"reofftoneverland]

It's not like they shut down David's and everyone books at Coronado or buys the Aulani points off the shelf.

If DVC shuts down renting, commercial renters will sell contracts. This devalues resale. To an extent, DVC wants this (like the resale restrictions), but not so much that it competes with the real product, which is direct. If resale is worth less because it can't be rented out, it increases the delta between direct and resale, which matters a whole lot to selling direct sales. And it decreases the value of the product over time, which also matters to direct sales.

If Disney thought shutting down renting would help them, they would have already done it. Heck, we've seen from the closing threads, all they'd have to do is require a notary to change lead guest, and no one would be able to figure it out.

I used to think that it was in Disney’s interest to have high resale value. But as Disney has stayed the course with resale restrictions, much to my surprise, I have come to realize that they are playing long game and not backing down. They held firm on that stuff during covid! It is now obvious to me that they want to kill the resale market. They never will get rid of it entirely, but they want it heavily disadvantaged. They want people who buy resale to be limited to one hotel and to be excluded from dvc activities. They are pumping out new hotels to do this. I think clamping down on renters is very appealing to them for many reasons, not just in getting the reservation system to flow more freely.

 

[Sandisw]

Yes. Honestly, yes. I want the product I paid for and was contracted to get. Which includes no commercial rentals. I don't want to be competing for rooms at eleven months with people who are spec renting. And if that causes some members some pain, well, I believe it will relieve some pain for people like me. Moreover, I could argue (possibly not successfully in court) that Disney is OBLIGATED to enforce the non-commercial clause for the benefit of the members. Most members, I firmly believe, have a small amount of points that they use almost always to travel on themselves once a year - maybe twice a year.

The other option Disney has is to put in the lottery for high demand times of year. I think that would be FAR more painful to the membership as a whole. (They've used it for NYE 2000, so they have the processes in place to do so, it might be really manual).

The thing is that DVD has defined what it means to use your DVC "for commercial" purposes, and that is more than 20 reservations within a rolling 12 month period in the names of others. If a membership has that, it is flagged and reviewed.

I get that some of the brokers are buying contracts and then renting from their own sources, but for all we know...and I would bet a lot on this...they have found a way to have the ownership of all these memberships such that they do not violate the current rules of going over 20.

Even spec renters can not be stopped as long as they keep the owner's name on it until the end...they simply fill it with one less guest....

Obviously, DVD can change the definition for renting and obviously, getting renters and owners together is a lot easier now with the internet and brokers than it used to be....but, for me, any changes to curb the commercial renters will have blowback on owners who may not actually be renting or are renting well below the official number that moves it from personal to commercial use.

The POS also allows for companies to own DVC so I don't see how that can be stopped without it being a material change to the product.

IMO, I bet DVD isn't confident they would survive a legal challenge from owners if the limits became very strict

 

[we"reofftoneverland]

This has been true for years. The most popular rooms have been impossible to get since before I even considered buying in. I knew that in 2017. In 2018, I got the full pitch, which included the club rooms that I knew would be impossible. Sure, it's a "selling point" in that it exists, but actually booking it was the same as it is now. DVC didn't care if I would actually be able to book that room, and it still doesn't.

I disagree on this. Things were much easier to book in 2018. And I also think Disney does care about whether or not the system works for average owners. Those owners are their bread and butter.

 

[RoseGold]

I disagree on this. Things were much easier to book in 2018. And I also think Disney does care about whether or not the system works for average owners. Those owners are their bread and butter.

Eh, it's a little different, but not much. I followed trackers back then. Now, trackers don't work, but I look at this a whole lot.

The most popular rooms, value standard club studios, BC and BW studios, are walked now and were then. Recent booking has added some new stuff, like the BLT 1BR and CCV studios and VGF1 studios. The biggest recent change I've seen is GVs. When I bought my SSR it was intending to buy GVs, and those have def tightened in the 7-11 month category.

The system works if you are able to book SSR studio, which you still are, most of the time. This isn't a problem for DVC yet because members haven't made it one.