I agree . IMHO , I think Disney could hurt themselves by becoming too strict with the renting dilemma. When we first bought, we had extra points in our contract that we knew there was no way we could use all of our points. So, we decided to rent through the boards here to help cover our maintenance fees. Jump ahead a couple years later, and the family we rented to, are now owners as well.
I just wonder if that maybe is the main reason for the address and phone request....so Disney can market to those people in order to get them to join.
I don't really agree on not being able to change names on a ressie at a later date. We , too, take my family with us a lot and have already experienced the "original family member ends up not being able to go but other family can" and had to change their names.
As far as renting goes in general, I just really don't think it is fair to hurt those little people occasionally renting their little bit of points as to those who have a ton of points and are doing it on a regular basis. There will be times I am sure where we will not be able to travel to Disney / HHI as much . There may be budget issues, illnesses (hope not), or , what will be coming our way soon.... payment of our children's college education! We bought in b/k we liked the idea of being able to do that if we ever NEEDED to. We will probably sell if it gets too strict like the OP is stating.
IMO, I don't think Disney will get that strict. I think all these new rules that are supposed to be starting are more for the commercial renters. The ones who have maybe 400 points but only use 200 a year & rent out the other 200 EVERY year. Disney says themselves that you can "rent out" to family & friends, they just frown upon renting for profit.
I do feel that they need to get a little more strict to stop the commercial renters but still stay a little lenient to members who really can't go one year & will lose their points if they don't. I hope Disney can find that happy medium. But something definitely has to be done.
For example, I have never stayed at BC. I'm dying to but I've never been able to get a room. Then I go on ebay or DIS & see tons of listings for BC. The thought that me, as a DVC member, would have to rent out my points so then I could turn around and then rent a BC villa is absurd. I couldn't buy into BC when they were available. Financially it would have been tight, being that I was 16 when they started selling & the local grocery store didn't pay THAT well.
Yes, I could have bought thru resale but I'm young- those extra years I got with going with SSR are really important to me. So what do I do. If I knew that I would not be able to stay anywhere but my home resort (which I'm NOT a fan of-thank God for AKV) I probably wouldn't have bought.
There has to be a happy medium. If Disney doesn't put their foot down a little it will end up hurting them.
I know no one would like it if all of us AKV owners rented out all the rooms leaving all the other DVC members to never be able to get a room there.
It goes both ways. I'm a fan of being able to rent out my points if I was ever in the situation where I couldn't use all of my points- which I never see happening, but I also want to have to opportunity to stay in other DVC resorts- that's the reason I bought into DVC instead of a "traditional" timeshare.
I don't know what the answer is, but all I know is that if any company can find a happy medium, it's Disney.