Commerical Use Policy Update - New Thread!

[Cyberc1978]

Disney does not publicly release a full breakdown of ownership types within Disney Vacation Club (DVC), including how many memberships are held by LLCs. However, we can draw a reasonable estimate based on a combination of public data and industry observations.

Key Facts:​

• Total DVC Memberships: As of recent years, there are roughly 220,000–250,000 DVC memberships.
• Commercial Renters / LLC Ownership:
  • While many LLCs are small and set up for family estate planning or tax reasons, some are created for commercial rental purposes, like DVC rental companies.
  • Estimates from DVC experts and resale brokers suggest that 1–3% of all memberships are owned by LLCs, trusts, or corporate entities, either for legal structuring or commercial use.
  • That would imply approximately 2,000 to 7,500 memberships could be LLC-owned.

Commercial Impact:​

• The most visible LLCs in the space are large-scale renters like David’s DVC Rentals or DVC Rental Store. These companies may hold thousands of points, but that could be spread across many memberships (and sometimes structured to look like individuals or families).

At the Grand Californian:​

Given its small size and popularity, LLC ownership at the Villas at Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa might be more noticeable. Some speculate that 5–10% of points at high-demand resorts like VGC may be owned by commercial entities or structured LLCs.

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Summary Estimate:


Let me know if you want data specific to a resort or on how this affects booking windows or availability.

Thanks. That type of data is great, although we need to take it with a grain of salt.

Since the most hard to get rooms are at AKV and BWV could you break it down for those resorts - more specifically how it affects booking availability?

 

[Cyberc1978]

I notice chat GPT seems to believe that LLCs and commercial renters have a noticeable impact on the VGC availability because of the limited number of points.

If so, I doubt they are buying in at today’s prices, but anything purchased before 2020 would have a significantly lower buy in price.

Or maybe they are buying foreclosures, since they don’t need to go through ROFR.

 

[AstroBlasters]

Thanks. That type of data is great, although we need to take it with a grain of salt.

Since the most hard to get rooms are at AKV and BWV could you break it down for those resorts - more specifically how it affects booking availability?

Commercial renting—where companies or individuals rent out DVC points as a business—has a moderate to significantimpact on certain Disney Vacation Club resorts, particularly the Animal Kingdom Villas and BoardWalk Villas, due to their unique characteristics and availability patterns. Here's a breakdown of how and why these two resorts are affected:

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Animal Kingdom Villas (AKV)​

Impact: Moderate​

• Large inventory: AKV has one of the largest DVC inventories, with Kidani Village and part of Jambo House offering hundreds of rooms. This makes it easier for commercial renters to secure availability.
• Lower point cost: Point charts at AKV tend to be on the lower end, especially for studios and value accommodations. This appeals to point brokers seeking lower capital investment for rentals.
• Longer availability window: Because AKV isn’t as highly demanded as other resorts during many seasons, it often has open availability late into the booking window—ideal for renters looking to fulfill client requests on shorter notice.
• Client appeal: AKV’s unique theming, animals, and amenities (like Sanaa and the savanna views) make it attractive to guests unfamiliar with DVC but drawn to the "resort experience."

Net result: Commercial renters use AKV as a reliable inventory filler and a fallback for clients who are flexible or value-oriented.

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BoardWalk Villas (BWV)​

Impact: High​

• Small DVC footprint: BoardWalk has one of the smaller numbers of DVC rooms compared to its popularity.
• Prime location: Being within walking distance to both EPCOT and Hollywood Studios, BWV is in extremely high demand, especially during festival seasons.
• Low point cost: Standard view studios at BWV are among the lowest in point cost for a premier location, making them highly desirable to commercial renters.
• Difficult for members to book: Owners frequently express frustration about standard view rooms being snapped up quickly at 11 months—often believed to be due to bulk bookings by large commercial renters or point brokers.

Net result: BoardWalk suffers from tight availability, particularly for its standard view rooms. Regular members often find it hard to book unless they own there and are booking exactly at 11 months. Commercial renting is widely believed to contribute to this problem.

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Community and Member Sentiment​

• Frustration is higher at BWV than AKV due to limited supply and high competition.
• Calls for reform: Many DVC members on forums like DISBoards and Facebook groups have called for Disney to crack down on bulk commercial renting, especially at resorts like BoardWalk.
• Less concern at AKV because availability is more forgiving and the impact is more diffused.

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Summary Comparison​

Resort	Commercial Renting Impact	Reasons
Animal Kingdom Villas	Moderate	Large inventory, lower demand, appealing theming
BoardWalk Villas	High	Small inventory, high demand, low-point cost, walkability to EPCOT

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Would you like insights into how this compares to Beach Club Villas, Grand Floridian, or Polynesian? Those resorts experience a very different pattern.

 

[lowlight]

Since ChatGPT is likely sourcing from Disboards, if we could get two instances of ChatGPT to argue with one another here using only info sourced from Disboards, we could all do something else with our time and check back in a few hundred pages to see if any progress was made.

 

[ShaneDJ]

Since ChatGPT is likely sourcing from Disboards, if we could get two instances of ChatGPT to argue with one another here using only info sourced from Disboards, we could all do something else with our time and check back in a few hundred pages to see if any progress was made.

I agree with this!

 

[DougEMG]

So I had ChatGP try and figure out how much spec renting and regular renting is out there.

For spec renting it estimated about 1300 active ads at 200 points per ad for a total of 260,000 points. Assuming a rough estimate of 80,000,000 points in the system this works out to 0.33% of the points are being used for spec rentals.

It's best guess for total points being actively rented was 300,000 to 400,000 still less than 1%.

Now this of course is all extremely rough estimates from what I could tell based on the sources it was using. So, a huge amount of guess work. This just shows that only DVC knows what the real numbers are like.

This of course doesn't tell the entire story as this would be a snapshot in time, so one would need to know how quickly those ads were turning over and new ones appearing over time.

So, from DVC's point of view, it isn't a big problem (under 1%), but from an owner seeing how much is being rent (2000+ ads) it certainly looks like a large problem to them.

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

This is why many of us are encouraged by the only up to dues ( no profit) plan as that will cut out all of the Joe's and Sally's who bought BW for 85 a point in 1999 and used to go to WDW but kept the contracts and now rent the 1,500 points each year.

This is an area where we strongly agree. Some non-trivial number of owners transitioned into exclusively renters or predominately renters, and that is outside the scope of personal use and gumming up the works for families who need studios with limited travel flexibility.

When asked How knowledgeable is AstroBlasters ......

…they’re widely regarded in the Disney Vacation Club (DVC) online community as a highly knowledgeable member…

Another area we strongly agree!

 

[VGCgroupie]

So I had ChatGP try and figure out how much spec renting and regular renting is out there.

For spec renting it estimated about 1300 active ads at 200 points per ad for a total of 260,000 points. Assuming a rough estimate of 80,000,000 points in the system this works out to 0.33% of the points are being used for spec rentals.

It's best guess for total points being actively rented was 300,000 to 400,000 still less than 1%.

Now this of course is all extremely rough estimates from what I could tell based on the sources it was using. So, a huge amount of guess work. This just shows that only DVC knows what the real numbers are like.

This of course doesn't tell the entire story as this would be a snapshot in time, so one would need to know how quickly those ads were turning over and new ones appearing over time.

So, from DVC's point of view, it isn't a big problem (under 1%), but from an owner seeing how much is being rent (2000+ ads) it certainly looks like a large problem to them.

A huge portion of spec renting takes place behind a door (private groups on FB) so chat gpt won’t find those ads.

Also does chat gpt know that a “confirmed” reservation is spec?

 

[zavandor]

Since ChatGPT is likely sourcing from Disboards, if we could get two instances of ChatGPT to argue with one another here using only info sourced from Disboards, we could all do something else with our time and check back in a few hundred pages to see if any progress was made.

You just won not only this thread, but the whole DISboards .

 

[muppets3d]

Somebody should ask ChatGPT to write them a bot to book value Studios every morning

 

[mkatsy]

I noticed that some of the smaller point rental companies are now advertising “we don’t own blocks of points in shell companies” and it made me think that “point hoarding” to the scale of tens of thousands of points, is probably hurting the smaller companies that truly just match up owners and renters. Without access to the capital to acquire an endless stream of points, they have to rely on owners reaching out to them. Just another group of people, using the club as intended, that are affected by commercial renters skirting the rules un challenged.

 

[zavandor]

Somebody should ask ChatGPT to write them a bot to book value Studios every morning

I tried, it provided a pyton script, but it doesn't look it could work (I don't know python, but it seems just the scheleton of a script).

 

[Cyberc1978]

I tried, it provided a pyton script, but it doesn't look it could work (I don't know python, but it seems just the scheleton of a script).

I don’t think it can.

However what it can do it rewrite something you already got to another programming language.

For it to work the creator needs to have some level of knowledge of how the DVC booking engine works.

 

[Kingkonig]

I don’t think it can.

However what it can do it rewrite something you already got to another programming language.

For it to work the creator needs to have some level of knowledge of how the DVC booking engine works.

Which would make sense as to why these companies are hiring away former Disney employees!

 

[Sandisw]

I noticed that some of the smaller point rental companies are now advertising “we don’t own blocks of points in shell companies” and it made me think that “point hoarding” to the scale of tens of thousands of points, is probably hurting the smaller companies that truly just match up owners and renters. Without access to the capital to acquire an endless stream of points, they have to rely on owners reaching out to them. Just another group of people, using the club as intended, that are affected by commercial renters skirting the rules un challenged.

That is interesting and wonder if it’s based on just the discussions happening around this on social media sites or if there has been some movement by DVC behind the scenes in terms of enforcement?

 

[Cyberc1978]

That is interesting and wonder if it’s based on just the discussions happening around this on social media sites or if there has been some movement by DVC behind the scenes in terms of enforcement?

IMO that statement is only to soften public opinion towards that company.

If DVC have made any moves then it wouldn’t matter with that statement or not.

 

[zavandor]

Which would make sense as to why these companies are hiring away former Disney employees!

They don't really need that.
It's very easy to set up a proxy between a browser and the DVC site to analyse how authentication and the booking interface works.
Someone with some experience developing such apps could then replicate it and create a bot to automate search and Booking rather quickly.

 

[Cyberc1978]

They don't really need that.
It's very easy to set up a proxy between a browser and the DVC site to analyse how authentication and the booking interface works.
Someone with some experience developing such apps could then replicate it and create a bot to automate search and Booking rather quickly.

That’s way above my programming skills.

My skills starts and end with the “Hello world”

 

[IMMkXLVI]

That’s way above my programming skills.

My skills starts and end with the “Hello world”

With a user name that starts with "Cyber", I am not sure if I believe you

 

[Cyberc1978]

With a user name that starts with "Cyber", I am not sure if I believe you

There are difference between IT skills and programming skills - or at least there are in my book