Cancelled Rental Reservations??

[Fitswimmer]

With all the discussion of the enforcement of transfer rules, is there any HARD evidence of Disney cancelling rented reservations? It appears that a lot of the discussion is conjecture-what Disney might do to commercial renters or how they might handle reservations-but I haven't seen anything about guests being turned away or renters being "disciplined". The only thing I can see that might relate is a thread about Disney and ROFR-and even that is just conjecture as we do not know the real reason that Disney exercised that right.
I use all my points, greedy slob that I am-but I might look to rent rather than add-on if I have a trip I just HAVE to take and I've used all mine.

 

[CarolMN]

So far, there have been no reports on these boards of any cancelled reservations associated with the commercial renting email many of us received from DVC in early August.

Doesn't mean there haven't been any and doesn't mean there has.

Best wishes -

 

[Sammie]

I seriously doubt Disney will cancel a reservation at the desk after a guest has arrived, it will be dealt with way before that point.

 

[JimMIA]

I seriously doubt Disney will cancel a reservation at the desk after a guest has arrived, it will be dealt with way before that point.

Absolutely.

If they are going to act in that manner (which I think will be unnecessary anyway) they would do so at the time the DVC owner tries to make the reservation. They'd simply say no at that point.

They're not going to hurt innocent renters. They wouldn't do it anyway, plus there is no necessity to do so. They have many, many options that none of us will ever see or even hear about.

 

[Sammie]

Someone posted in another thread this has already happened.

They were going to rent from someone on Ebay and were contacted by the Renter they would not be able to rent to them due to the canceling of the reservations by Disney and legal issues.

 

[CarolMN]

Someone posted in another thread this has already happened.

They were going to rent from someone on Ebay and were contacted by the Renter they would not be able to rent to them due to the canceling of the reservations by Disney and legal issues.

I don't think Disney cancelled any existing reservations, but instead, sent the owner/renter some type of "cease and desist" letter. Rather than fight with the elephant, the owner is probably just complying - maybe even selling. JMHO. YMMV.

Best wishes -

 

[Sammie]

Posted by Twinklebug.
I rented our reservation over at VWL last week through a member here. But before finding the owner here, I contacted one of the eBay folk who had a listing I was interested in. I wanted to know if they were an owner or going through a third party.

We exchanged a couple messages when I got one back apologizing that Disney had eBay yanked their listings and was cancelling all of their reservations, both sold and unsold as well as threatening them with legal action. I have never read such a frantic message in all my life.

This was the quote I was talking about. Twinklebug shared it.

 

[JimMIA]

We exchanged a couple messages when I got one back apologizing that Disney had eBay yanked their listings and was cancelling all of their reservations, both sold and unsold as well as threatening them with legal action. I have never read such a frantic message in all my life.

I don't doubt that Twinklebug was told that, but I doubt seriously if it is all true. If it was, I'm quite sure we would have seen a screaming rant from the aggrieved renter whose actual ressie was canceled. I think the more likely explanation is Disney lawyers sent a cease and desist letter, and threatened to follow up with both cancellations and legal action.

 

[crisi]

I don't doubt that Twinklebug was told that, but I doubt seriously if it is all true. If it was, I'm quite sure we would have seen a screaming rant from the aggrieved renter whose actual ressie was canceled. I think the more likely explanation is Disney lawyers sent a cease and desist letter, and threatened to follow up with both cancellations and legal action.

Why? It sounds like this was one of the eBay businesses - I don't think many folks who have found the DIS use eBay for rentals. If the owner didn't have any DISers as current clients, we wouldn't necessarily have heard.

 

[keys2kingdom]

I don't doubt that Twinklebug was told that, but I doubt seriously if it is all true. If it was, I'm quite sure we would have seen a screaming rant from the aggrieved renter whose actual ressie was canceled. I think the more likely explanation is Disney lawyers sent a cease and desist letter, and threatened to follow up with both cancellations and legal action.

I'm betting it is true, and hoping it was smw. I doubt we'll see anyone complaining about canceled reservations purchased on ebay given the current climate here. This is the LAST place I'd come to rant about canceled reservations. Even if a renter stumbled upon this board a quick check of recent topics would tell them they are unlikely to get sympathy 'round these parts.

 

[JimMIA]

Why? It sounds like this was one of the eBay businesses - I don't think many folks who have found the DIS use eBay for rentals. If the owner didn't have any DISers as current clients, we wouldn't necessarily have heard.

Two reasons --

One, I'm well aware that not everyone comes here, but the DIS does have a pretty good track record of getting DVC info promptly...especially negative information. If something like that had actually happened, I think we'd hear pretty quickly. YMMV.

Two, I don't think Disney will actually cancel a family's vacation out from under them. They certainly have many more options that directly address the sources of the problems, without collateral damage which can only make them look bad.

Regardless of the truth and legalities of the situation, if Disney cancels a renter's ressie, Disney will be the bad guy in that family's minds, and they'll scream to anyone who will listen.

 

[crisi]

Regardless of the truth and legalities of the situation, if Disney cancels a renter's ressie, Disney will be the bad guy in that family's minds, and they'll scream to anyone who will listen.

But they've held their ground on transferred tickets bought through eBay in the past....they do have a record of being willing to be the bad guy.

 

[JimMIA]

But they've held their ground on transferred tickets bought through eBay in the past....they do have a record of being willing to be the bad guy.

Sure, but refusing to honor bogus park passes is a far different thing from ruining someone's vacation.

The bad PR is not the reason I don't think they'll actually cancel existing reservations anyway. The reason is canceling ressies is possibly the least-effective method they have of addressing the problem.

What I think they are really doing is simply telling some of the commercial renters that they've identified a "pattern of commercial renting" in their accounts, and they're no longer taking ressies in those accounts (or putting severe limitations on the accounts). That does two things -- it stops them from renting (Disney's objective), and it puts the onus where it belongs...on the commercial renter.

If that account holder feels they've been wronged, they have two options: they can sell, or they can sue.

Suing is not an attractive option, because it's not the kind of case a lawyer would take on contingency fee. It would require a considerable amount of preparatory work just to evaluate whether or not a case would be worth filing. Plus, the Disney lawyers could easily beat the account holder's brains out with numerous filings that would run the costs way up. And, finally, what would the damages be? The residual value of their DVC account? That's not a big payday, either for the account holder or the attorney.

The Disney lawyers are not stupid. They will take the most effective, least risky alternative -- and that's not canceling some family's vacation. Not that they necessarily care about the family, but because there are a number of options which just work better for Disney.

 

[CarolMN]

I agree with Jim - who said it all so much better than I did.

Best wishes -

 

[LisaS]

I don't think Disney would cancel a reservation with a check-in date in the next month or so. But I could see them cancelling reservations with check-in dates that are still a few months away. There would be ample time for the member to notify their customers that they need to make other arrangements. Once word got around that Disney was making good on their threat to cancel reservations, the commercial renting market would start to collapse.

 

[JimMIA]

Once word got around that Disney was making good on their threat to cancel reservations, the commercial renting market would start to collapse.

...which is neither in Disney's interests, nor in any of our interests.

I don't rent points, but the ability to do that if I choose (within reasonable parameters) is part and parcel of DVC ownership. It is another of those things that I may never use, but which add value to my ownership.

I think Disney will respond to the rental issue (which is a crisis only for those who own DVC solely to rent points) in a sensible and measured way. As mentioned above, they have lots of options and they can deal with any problems with effective direct action which few of us will ever hear of, and no one will notice.

 

[LisaS]

...which is neither in Disney's interests, nor in any of our interests.

I don't rent points, but the ability to do that if I choose (within reasonable parameters) is part and parcel of DVC ownership. It is another of those things that I may never use, but which add value to my ownership.

I agree. I'm not suggesting that Disney wants to stop all renting and I don't think it would be a good thing for members or for Disney if they did. I think they are only concerned with commercial renting and my question is, by how much do they want to reduce commercial renting? They can take action against the biggest commercial renters and that will reduce the problem a bit by reducing the supply of points available for rent. But they can also reduce the demand for rental points by making it clear they mean business when they say they will cancel reservations. They only have to cancel a few and let the word get out that, in addition to worrying about your reservation being cancelled by the total stranger/DVC member you rented from, you also have to worry about it being cancelled by Disney because that stranger was actually on DVC's "watch list". If the cancellations are done only for reservations a few months off, there is ample time for people to rebook through CRO, which is exactly what Disney wants them to do. I don't think anyone's vacation would be ruined, other than maybe ending up in a moderate resort instead of a DVC resort, or paying CRO rates for that DVC resort.

I think Disney will respond to the rental issue (which is a crisis only for those who own DVC solely to rent points) in a sensible and measured way. As mentioned above, they have lots of options and they can deal with any problems with effective direct action which few of us will ever hear of, and no one will notice.

If their goal is to stop only the biggest commercial renters, then I agree, it will be done quietly. If they want to make a bigger dent in commercial renting and make the bargain shoppers think twice about renting from strangers over the internet, then I think they will want their actions to be noticed.

My 2 cents...

ETA: Just wanted to add: Jim, I always enjoy reading your posts and I respect your views, even on the rare occasion when we disagree! It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

 

[JimMIA]

One of the difficulties we have in this discussion is we're all flying blind. None of us really know what Disney's real motivation is for the crackdown; we can only guess.

It could be the renter competition with CRO, but I sorta doubt that.

It could be complaints from DVC owners who find they are unable to get ressies at smaller resorts during peak times, even within their 11-month windows. Especially to the degree that point-morphing distorts availability during certain periods, I think that's a likely concern.

It could be that DVC owners are complaining they can't get the ressies they want at non-home resorts during their 7-month windows. It's easy to say, "You snooze, you lose," but to the degree that point-morphing is responsible, it's still a legitimate complaint. We all know how the Guides hype the ability to "book anywhere at seven months," and if the inability to do that has caused complaints, DVC may need to respond to protect the integrity of their program.

It could be that there have been incidents where renters encountered problems with their ressies (or DME, or DDP, or requests, or name changes in their party, or a dozen other possibilities). Sure the rental is a private transaction between the owner and renter, but when that renter is in the OKW lobby upset, it becomes a DVC problem. The Disney lawyers could be concerned that some liability accrues to Disney if they facilitate renting to the degree they have in the past.

It could have been sharp MS CMs or Disney auditors who looked at some of the transaction histories in some accounts, and said,"Wow, look at THIS!" From some of the stories we hear about people running 100,000 points through their account in one year, I can especially see auditors being concerned about the accounts being used inappropriately.

Just from the sales/resort tax issue alone, I can understand auditors being concerned. 100,000 points rented at $10 is $1 million, and that should generate somewhere between $60,000 and $100,000 in tax revenue for the State of Florida alone. If rentals are occurring on a huge scale, DVC may unwittingly be facilitating the avoidance of huge amounts of tax.

The other reason auditors might become concerned with large-scale renting is it's not the purpose of DVC. The program is set up in a certain way as a vehicle for families to vacation, not for people to run a rental business or fund their retirement. Auditors have a responsibility not only for the monetary aspects of things, but also for adherence to established policies.

And finally, another possibility is the large rental volume has simply magnified the workload of MS to the degree that it's become burdensome. As MS has to add more and more people, eventually someone should look at the workload and have an enlightening experience about the level of work that is devoted to processing rental transactions. I'm sure that's what led to the Members-only MS policy, and may in turn have led to the rental crackdown.

Until we figure out why Disney is cracking down, I think it's very difficult to anticipate how they'll crack down. It's fun to speculate, but none of us really know.

 

[Y-ASK]

Two, I don't think Disney will actually cancel a family's vacation out from under them. They certainly have many more options that directly address the sources of the problems, without collateral damage which can only make them look bad.

I don't think Disney would look bad, I think the commercial renter will look bad. After all Disney is not going to notify the renter. They are going to notify the DVC Commercial renter/owner of the cancellations and then the owner is going to have to notify thier customers. Sure there might be some renters that get hot but once they understand the situation they'll know who to blame and it won't be Disney or DVC. And the best part about it is that the non-owner can no longer call DVC MS to complain. I've rented points from a DVC owner before and I would have held the DVC owner responsible for my reservation being cancelled, not Disney.

Y-ASK

 

[LisaS]

Until we figure out why Disney is cracking down, I think it's very difficult to anticipate how they'll crack down. It's fun to speculate, but none of us really know.

Exactly, and great post by the way. I suspect some folks at Disney are also having fun watching us speculate.