DVC Club Level and Home Resort Survey

[Genie+]

I can’t shake feeling more than the Trust will be introduced in 2024. DVC portal changes may not be limited to the trust addition. They can point to member feedback when it comes to walking or spec rental business. The Trust gives them more reason to care if it improves their product and cuts out some of their competition. Next year we’ll see.

 

[Mai Ku Tiki]

"Upgrading" is a big pitch when a timeshare developer creates some kind of trust program. Sheraton & Westin Vacation Club (Vistana) convinced many people to "trade in" their deeded weeks at individual resorts to buy their trust based Flex product. The pitch was to be able to book 9 resorts at 12 months instead of just the one you own. A lot of people fell for it and lost true home resort priority. They find that the resorts they want to book at 12 months may not have a lot of inventory in the Flex trust program. DVC could easily do the same. DVC will sell you 150 points in the trust and you can unload your other points. You now have access to more resorts at 11 months. It just requires $10,000 in new money (more points). This way the trust can then add those points they bring in to the trust to provide more inventory for trust owners to reserve at 11 months. Over time the trust gobbles up more and more inventory.

I have no speculation on how a trust could/would work, but I can say that a new FL business was registered recently with the same directors/officers as DVC, with the name “Palmetto Trust Association”:

https://search.sunbiz.org/Inquiry/CorporationSearch/SearchResultDetail?inquirytype=OfficerRegisteredAgentName&directionType=ForwardList&searchNameOrder=DIERCKSENWILLIAM N2300000970912&aggregateId=domnp-n23000009709-13c9dce7-fba8-45e6-852d-e62c66f75aeb&searchTerm=diercksen&listNameOrder=DIERCKSENWILLIAM N140000058261

Time for a bunch of new THREADS on this?... Or let sleeping dogs lie?

 

[Mai Ku Tiki]

I can’t shake feeling more than the Trust will be introduced in 2024. DVC portal changes may not be limited to the trust addition. They can point to member feedback when it comes to walking or spec rental business. The Trust gives them more reason to care if it improves their product and cuts out some of their competition. Next year we’ll see.

In conjunction with PVB2 sales

 

[Sykes]

Yes, trust points can be used, but they are then giving access to their points to a lot more people than I am allowed to give at 11
Months. To me, that could be a big conflict.

Put another way, why should a trust membership be allowed to have multiple accounts created to give access to the points it owns when I, as an owner, am limited to four?

I'm not sure I understand. As best I can tell there's nothing that would stop a group of likeminded DVC members from starting a non-profit corporation (or other similar entity) for the purpose of pooling their points together to share 11 month priority amongst each other. It's a bit technically complicated because only the Officer and designated Affiliates (as defined in the DVC rules) would have access to book (and Club Member privileges), but it could be done. It's really not all that different from how the rental market operates today. (Arguably the rental market is more problematic because there are certainly transactions that run afoul of the full prohibition on commercial activity.)

 

[Genie+]

I'm not sure I understand. As best I can tell there's nothing that would stop a group of likeminded DVC members from starting a non-profit corporation (or other similar entity) for the purpose of pooling their points together to share 11 month priority amongst each other. It's a bit technically complicated because only the Officer and designated Affiliates (as defined in the DVC rules) would have access to book (and Club Member privileges), but it could be done. It's really not all that different from how the rental market operates today.

Technically this is limited to 4000pts per resort and 8000pts total. The trust would be much bigger.

 

[JackosinDIS]

I'm not sure I understand. As best I can tell there's nothing that would stop a group of likeminded DVC members from starting a non-profit corporation (or other similar entity) for the purpose of pooling their points together to share 11 month priority amongst each other. It's a bit technically complicated because only the Officer and designated Affiliates (as defined in the DVC rules) would have access to book (and Club Member privileges), but it could be done. It's really not all that different from how the rental market operates today.

Rules state that no owner can hold more than 4000 points in any one resort (or 8000 in total) so that would put stop to it pretty quickly.

 

[Sykes]

Technically this is limited to 4000pts per resort and 8000pts total. The trust would be much bigger.

Ahhh, that makes sense. But you could still pool points as individual owners. 100 of us could band together, determine an internal exchange rate for our points, and book for each other.

 

[MerlinandtheMouse]

Actually what does this trust do to the current rental market? I’ve read a few people post that this could really undermine the rental companies but that’s only if Disney chooses to start renting themselves, right? Isn’t that a whole new business they’d have start if the trust wanted to rent reservations and points to people? And buy doing that wouldn’t they be taking away from the pool of points awarded to their who buy into the trust? Can they do that or am I reading this wrong?

 

[Sandisw]

I'm not sure I understand. As best I can tell there's nothing that would stop a group of likeminded DVC members from starting a non-profit corporation (or other similar entity) for the purpose of pooling their points together to share 11 month priority amongst each other. It's a bit technically complicated because only the Officer and designated Affiliates (as defined in the DVC rules) would have access to book (and Club Member privileges), but it could be done. It's really not all that different from how the rental market operates today. (Arguably the rental market is more problematic because there are certainly transactions that run afoul of the full prohibition on commercial activity.)

The current rules would allow only up to six owners on a contract.

A single owner, which to me would be this non profit trust is limited by contract to no more than 8000 points, with no more than 4000 at a single resort.

So, it can’t be done by your average group. Also, the one aspect that DVD is required to follow like other owners is booking and they have to follow the same rules to use its points.

In terms of rentals, all those are made on different memberships which does help get around rules.

In terms of even my own points, DVd won’t let me add more than 4 people as associates who can access my points.

Plus, for giggles, my DD and I tried the other day to each go into our accounts and both book rooms on the membership that she is an owner on with DH and I and her siblings.

It would not let us both book something at the same time. And, we even tried different dates, etc. One of us always got the dwarfs.

That’s the issue I am having with this and that if the way it works is to set up 100s to 1000 accounts to access the resorts the same time as a deeded owner, not sure it follows the current rules.

I don’t see this an issue if they start some level of trust without the current sold out resorts and sell those new properties and units differently.

Of course, a whole bunch of owners can book for each other…that’s not the same because each owner is still only booking one room at a time on one membership at a time.

 

[Sandisw]

Actually what does this trust do to the current rental market? I’ve read a few people post that this could really undermine the rental companies but that’s only if Disney chooses to start renting themselves, right? Isn’t that a whole new business they’d have start if the trust wanted to rent reservations and points to people? And buy doing that wouldn’t they be taking away from the pool of points awarded to their who buy into the trust? Can they do that or am I reading this wrong?

The way I understand this who trust association is that it is like one big “prepaid rental” for those who buy a membership in it.

I am not sure how much it will change the rental market since the people who buy into this type od timeshare are still committing to owning a timeshare plan…just not one that deeds it to a specific resort.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

And, as a deeded owner, anything offered to trust members after my one month guaranteed booking woiuld be fine with me,,

Let trust members have 10 to 7 months for all trust points, and 7 months for all resorts.

Just give me a one month advantage! Any deeded owner who doesn’t take that one month it’s on them!! Lol

I don’t see Disney writing the trust to give existing members a 1 month advantage over new purchasers, tbh.

 

[dioxide45]

Put another way, why should a trust membership be allowed to have multiple accounts created to give access to the points it owns when I, as an owner, am limited to four?

POS does say I can expect DVD to have to follow the same rules when it comes to booking. And, giving one owner…the trust…different rules is an issue for me.

But they don't have more access. There are only a set number of owners at a resort. Those same number of points can be booked. The trust can only reserve the number of points that it owns at any given resort.

There would need to be a creative solution (such as the 1 month head-start suggested). Another way would be to only allow a certain % of the members of the trust to be allowed to use the booking system at any one time - though I’m not sure how transparent that process would be for other non-trust members.

One option is that if the trust owns 20% of a resort, then they could allocate 20% of each unit type for each checkin day to be available for trust owners to reserve. Other timeshare systems have very similar requirements regarding reservation priorities and they setup trusts and somehow make them work within the limits of the underlying documents.

Marriott also has lottery provisions in their reservation procedures for trust owners, though to this date they haven't used a lottery system for allocating reservations.

 

[dioxide45]

Actually what does this trust do to the current rental market? I’ve read a few people post that this could really undermine the rental companies but that’s only if Disney chooses to start renting themselves, right? Isn’t that a whole new business they’d have start if the trust wanted to rent reservations and points to people? And buy doing that wouldn’t they be taking away from the pool of points awarded to their who buy into the trust? Can they do that or am I reading this wrong?

Isn't Disney already the biggest renter of DVC inventory? Can't they rent out built but undeclared inventory as well as declared inventory that they haven't sold yet?

 

[walt34]

But they don't have more access. There are only a set number of owners at a resort. Those same number of points can be booked. The trust can only reserve the number of points that it owns at any given resort.

Not more access but the trust would put more pressure on the system than individual owners during peak demand seasons would. Let's assume a trust combined of 20% of BCV and 20% of SSR. During food and wine, a lot of trust owners would want to get into BCV. Even with only 20% of points at BCV one would assume that demand within the trust would push the usage of these BCV points more aggressively into high demand season than individual owners would because the trust represents more people (assuming the trust has an effective mechanism to resolve supply and demand.)

One option is that if the trust owns 20% of a resort, then they could allocate 20% of each unit type for each checkin day to be available for trust owners to reserve.

This would be one option to resolve this. Allowing the trust to book only at 10 months would be another. As far as I understand it, neither resolution is part of the existing contracts so we don't know which solution (if any) Disney would use.

 

[PolyRob]

But they don't have more access. There are only a set number of owners at a resort. Those same number of points can be booked. The trust can only reserve the number of points that it owns at any given resort.

Maybe I am looking at this wrong as a deeded owner that still wants priority access to a resort he paid more for, but if I try to book VGF I am only competing with other VGF owners with the number of points I own in the 11-month window.

If the trust only has 100 VGF points total, but tons of RIV, DLH, and Poly Tower points and tens of thousands of owners and ALL those members are trying to book VGF in the 11-month window I am losing my 1-month home resort booking advantage since it should be restricted to the 100 point ownership and not all those other members.

 

[dioxide45]

This would be one option to resolve this. Allowing the trust to book only at 10 months would be another. As far as I understand it, neither resolution is part of the existing contracts so we don't know which solution (if any) Disney would use.

But allowing 10 months for trust owners would actually work against them and lock them out of those BCV F&W dates because those would all be booked up by traditional point ownerships. Those points in the trust have the same reservation rights as other points at the resort. The deeds are the same.

 

[mkatsy]

Maybe I am looking at this wrong as a deeded owner that still wants priority access to a resort he paid more for, but if I try to book VGF I am only competing with other VGF owners with the number of points I own in the 11-month window.

If the trust only has 100 VGF points total, but tons of RIV, DLH, and Poly Tower points and tens of thousands of owners and ALL those members are trying to book VGF in the 11-month window I am losing my 1-month home resort booking advantage since it should be restricted to the 100 point ownership and not all those other members.

I was wondering something similar. Could the trust have the ability to pre pull dates and hang on to them, and then release them if their members don't select them. Almost like walking, but on a grand scale. If that were true, then we would not only be competing with the other legacy owners for dates, but also with the trusts' bots that are reserving dates like Ticketmaster does.

 

[walt34]

But allowing 10 months for trust owners would actually work against them and lock them out of those BCV F&W dates because those would all be booked up by traditional point ownerships. Those points in the trust have the same reservation rights as other points at the resort. The deeds are the same.

Well yes but currently ownership is limited in size (for any single owner) and in ownership sharing (the booking system does currently not allow me to share my ownership with hundreds of others who might be interested). There are also provisions against commercial renting. Some of this would need to change for a trust to operate.

Now, the changes might even be allowed under the current contracts (e.g. Disney itself is exempt from the ownership size limit, ...) but it would still be a significant change to how ownership has worked so far. Without some accomodations for existing owners, I see legal trouble ahead.

 

[walt34]

I was wondering something similar. Could the trust have the ability to pre pull dates and hang on to them, and then release them if their members don't select them.

That, at least, they should not be able to do as Sandisw has explained earlier. The rules for booking need to stay the same for all owners.

 

[Cfabar1]

I believe Disney can overcome the points maximum limitation. I also think owners are obligated to have the best window that they can have. I think if deeded owners have 11 months, then everyone else can have 10 months, but I think even with that, deeded owners will be very upset to essentially be blocked out at 7 months.