DVC plans to target commercial renters

[xdan0920]

Uncle.

 

[Sykes]

I'll start by saying that rentals don't bother me THAT much--I'm pretty atypical for DVC and mainly book inside of 3 months before arrival, mostly book shorter 3-5 night stays, and prefer 1BRs, so I'm usually picking up the scraps anyway. (Fortunately, if I'm willing to stalk the engine I can almost always get the exact resort and dates I want since 1BRs aren't in high demand.)

I understand the argument that points are points, and given that DVC is essentially always at 100% occupancy then those points are going to be spent regardless (even if it's Disney renting out the breakage). Having said that, it's hard not to see how 1 professional renter booking 200 reservations will act significantly differently than 100 renters each booking 2 reservations--the distribution of those reservations will be SIGNIFICANTLY different.

The professional renter is potentially doing this as their full time job and has both the time and the (potentially prohibited) tools to focus on maximizing revenue. They're going to be able to book the most high value reservations much much much more reliably than 100 different renters each acting within their own time and planning constraints. 100 individual renters will on average be far less efficient at extracting value out of their points--they'll have less experience with the booking engine, less knowledge about what reservations are high value, might not know that they'll need to rent until later, etc., so while the rentals from the most experienced and motivated renters will look the same as those from the professional renters, the distribution curve of rentals will be spread out significantly more. AND there will be more breakage--more people will screw up and lose their points.

 

[Genie+]

But let me ask…if all of those 2500 confirmed rentals are booked on a different memberships, by different owners, does it still fit this situation?

That 2500 number did not include everything available.

It was just one site, for the next 11 months and even then does not include all the reservations that site has already sold for dates within that snapshot and all the reservations that will be added later down the next 11 months.

Counting all the unique spec reservations that happen in 2025? We’ll see but that number will dwarf 2500.

And maybe that is why DVC said “it’s not common practice”? They have the data, the number of reservations in the names of others that exist on each membership. Maybe just maybe the majority of owners memberships are renting within reason
If you have 100k memberships, and only 10% have activity that is seen as commercial, thst means 90% are fine.

That doesn’t mean there are no rentals occurring in that 90% but each of those is within acceptable levels.

If every membership rents just two a year, which I think a lot of DVC owners would support as okay, that would put over 200k rentals on the market every year.

But owners are not likely averaging 2 rentals per year.

And that is why we view it differently.

Yes.

 

[tidefan]

After 90 pages of following this discussion, which is quite interesting...

To me, this all boils down to the fact that DVC created the problem themselves by allowing the imbalances in the point charts, especially between some of the 2042 vs. later resorts and by having some very limited room types (AKV Value and Concierge). So the fix is somehow in the point charts. DVC is suppose to be doing this anyway by balancing point usage with demand.

For instance, take Aulani. June at Aulani is obviously high in demand, mainly because it is a lower cost Summer point total. I am surprised we haven't seen June raised a bit and other times reduced a bit to even the demand out.

Of course, I don't have access to the reservation patterns, per se, only DVC has that, but it doesn't take a lot of first-hand experience by trying to book some of these things to know what is hard to book and what is not.

However, this isn't a new issue. I remember all of the strategies back in the mid-2000's when we joined about everyone checking in on Sunday and out on Thursday because of the large imbalances between weekdays and weekends. That got somewhat fixed, so hopefully they can address some of this through the appropriate point chart reallocations as well...

 

[Mouseforward]

As a single guy with more than 3 weeks worth of points - I tend to end up renting some each year ( twice last year)

I would not have purchased as many points if renting was not allowed.
1. Guests of mine have cancelled where I was left with a 250 point 2br reservation
2. Work has caused me to trim down vacation some years.
3. Many of us were sold on buying more points to rent and help cover our dues.

The “ fix” to the the problem would cause hardship for people who need to rent points from time to time.

In general- I think people are creating a rental boogeyman when they don’t get the week they wanted. I did my homework and knew that I was not guaranteed the value room on demand at 11 months.

 

[Mouseforward]

It turns it that it does not matter if some individual owners don't have a problem with rentals. Enough do that DVC has taken notice of it---to the point that they discussed it at several different condo association meetings, in response to Member questions.

Time will tell what that "taken notice" translates into.

Discussed but not acted on for decades. That is the key point.

When it is in DVCs interest to change a successful product will we see actual action.

 

[Genie+]

As always DVC has to balance all the different interests, and for that I would not get overly invested too far in any one corner.

 

[Grumpy by Birth]

See, in your example it’s not the listing of it alone is the trigger, it’s the volume of the listing.

Apply that to an owner like me who currently has 14 reservations across all three of my memberships and my name is on every single one.

Some now have other guests with me, some are split stays, and some are bookings for trips I might take…but not one will be a rental.

Plus, my comment about listing alone not being enough was in reference to enforcement and the potential canceling of reservations on an owner.

Until that name change happens, DVC would be hard pressed to say they had the right to cancel any reservation in an owner’s name.

Valid points. But in your example, those reservations are not being advertised as "for rent." But, if you had dozens (or even 100s) of reservations listed on the internet "for rent" I can't see how that's anything other than commercial activity. Maybe DVC would be able to warn an owner that they needed to remove the "for rent" listings in excess of a certain number or else the reservations will be cancelled.

Honestly, I don't think the discussion is about how many reservations an owner is holding. It's about how many they are listing online "for rent." If someone is renting directly to family/friends, or list a few on the internet now and then, chances are they aren't even causing a ripple. So, even if that technically meets the definition of commercial renting, I don't see DVC going after the little fish.

But the whales who have huge numbers of reservations listed "for rent" on the internet? Low hanging fruit. Easy to categorize as commercial renting violations. Cancelling those reservations would quickly put those entities out of business. If they legitimately own that many points for personal use, they will have no issues booking enjoyable vacations with them. If they are purely commercial enterprises, they will instantly find themselves holding 1000s of points that are now worthless to them because they can't be rented for profit and they will need to quickly dump those contracts.

 

[kilik64]

In general- I think people are creating a rental boogeyman when they don’t get the week they wanted. I did my homework and knew that I was not guaranteed the value room on demand at 11 months.

 

[Sandisw]

That 2500 number did not include everything available.

It was just one site, for the next 11 months and even then does not include all the reservations that site has already sold for dates within that snapshot and all the reservations that will be added later down the next 11 months.

Counting all the unique spec reservations that happen in 2025? We’ll see but that number will dwarf 2500.



But owners are not likely averaging 2 rentals per year.



Yes.

is that without context, just seeing all one set of rentals doesn’t mean much

I didn’t say that particular situation may not lend itself to someone in violation and maybe those all do exist in one owner’s name or under LLCs that were created to get around the rules.

And that proves my point, if all fall under that, than that is potentially just one high volume renter. And who DVC was targeting when they discussed it.

And of course, not everyone rents 2, but they did, do you not agree that could put almost 200k rentals for sale every year, without ever having an owner renting out of bounds?

As I said earlier, we have concerns about owners like above, but also owners who have concerns about the large rental market, regardless of who the owner is.

That’s all.

 

[tx911]

As a single guy with more than 3 weeks worth of points - I tend to end up renting some each year ( twice last year)

I would not have purchased as many points if renting was not allowed.
1. Guests of mine have cancelled where I was left with a 250 point 2br reservation
2. Work has caused me to trim down vacation some years.
3. Many of us were sold on buying more points to rent and help cover our dues.

The “ fix” to the the problem would cause hardship for people who need to rent points from time to time.

In general- I think people are creating a rental boogeyman when they don’t get the week they wanted. I did my homework and knew that I was not guaranteed the value room on demand at 11 months.

Both can be true.
1. No one is guaranteed a room at 11 months.
2 Commercial renters are a problem.

And number 2 definitely has an impact on number 1.

 

[kilik64]

After 90 pages of following this discussion, which is quite interesting...

To me, this all boils down to the fact that DVC created the problem themselves by allowing the imbalances in the point charts, especially between some of the 2042 vs. later resorts and by having some very limited room types (AKV Value and Concierge). So the fix is somehow in the point charts. DVC is suppose to be doing this anyway by balancing point usage with demand.

For instance, take Aulani. June at Aulani is obviously high in demand, mainly because it is a lower cost Summer point total. I am surprised we haven't seen June raised a bit and other times reduced a bit to even the demand out.

Of course, I don't have access to the reservation patterns, per se, only DVC has that, but it doesn't take a lot of first-hand experience by trying to book some of these things to know what is hard to book and what is not.

However, this isn't a new issue. I remember all of the strategies back in the mid-2000's when we joined about everyone checking in on Sunday and out on Thursday because of the large imbalances between weekdays and weekends. That got somewhat fixed, so hopefully they can address some of this through the appropriate point chart reallocations as well...

This is some of it too, especially for early Dec now. Its too cheap for how popular it is now that they raised points in the fall.

 

[Sandisw]

Valid points. But in your example, those reservations are not being advertised as "for rent." But, if you had dozens (or even 100s) of reservations listed on the internet "for rent" I can't see how that's anything other than commercial activity. Maybe DVC would be able to warn an owner that they needed to remove the "for rent" listings in excess of a certain number or else the reservations will be cancelled.

Honestly, I don't think the discussion is about how many reservations an owner is holding. It's about how many they are listing online "for rent." If someone is renting directly to family/friends, or list a few on the internet now and then, chances are they aren't even causing a ripple. So, even if that technically meets the definition of commercial renting, I don't see DVC going after the little fish.

But the whales who have huge numbers of reservations listed "for rent" on the internet? Low hanging fruit. Easy to categorize as commercial renting violations. Cancelling those reservations would quickly put those entities out of business. If they legitimately own that many points for personal use, they will have no issues booking enjoyable vacations with them. If they are purely commercial enterprises, they will instantly find themselves holding 1000s of points that are now worthless to them because they can't be rented for profit and they will need to quickly dump those contracts.

And there has not been one poster here who has said that owners should be allowed to rent a ton of reservations every year that is clear they have turned it into a business

We all agree that renting for commercial purposes is against the contract. It’s just the degrees to which one sees it and the impact one believes it has

I am indifferent to the rental market but I do care about the rules for using my membership and I have made sure that DVC knows how important that is. I’d rather have rules that might let a few bad actors get away with it than rules that catch up your average owner whi may be renting occasionally, let alone not renting at all.

I am taking the boards statement as accurate and that this is not a common practice.

I think what we have is a small set of owners who are breaking the rules in a big way but the vast majority of renting owners are doing is not.

 

[Mouseforward]

Both can be true.
1. No one is guaranteed a room at 11 months.
2 Commercial renters are a problem.

And number 2 definitely has an impact on number 1.

But I have yet to see any actual evidence of commercial rentals or them being a problem

 

[Genie+]

Look what DVC did last year with Moonlight Magic - removed ability to qualify under a rental. We actually got caught up in that - booked a trip around a night we rented from another owner so we could qualify with our blue card, then DVC changed the criteria that round and no MM for us.

I understood though. DVC needed to protect the membership experience. Did not make sense to keep a reward in place for spec renting moonlight magic dates.

 

[lowlight]

But I have yet to see any actual evidence of commercial rentals or them being a problem

What exactly do you consider “actual evidence”? Do you have actual evidence that DVC encouraged you to buy extra points to rent to pay your dues? I’d imagine this could be useful evidence if they send you a letter about your pattern of behavior.

 

[Brian Noble]

I have yet to see any actual evidence of commercial rentals

If this means what I think it means, the only explanation is that you are being deliberately obtuse.

There have been people running side hustle-businesses in DVC rentals for a very long time.

 

[CastAStone]

But I have yet to see any actual evidence of commercial rentals or them being a problem

 

[Sandisw]

Look what DVC did last year with Moonlight Magic - removed ability to qualify under a rental. We actually got caught up in that - booked a trip around a night we rented from another owner so we could qualify with our blue card, then DVC changed the criteria that round and no MM for us.

I understood though. DVC needed to protect the membership experience. Did not make sense to keep a reward in place for spec renting moonlight magic dates.

IIRC, they never allowed owners to qualify on a rental for early registration. I remember were discussions here about why those who had exchanges via RCI counted, buy rentals did not.

Last year, what they eliminated was using a cash stay booked via Disney..

 

[Genie+]

IIRC, they never allowed owners to qualify on a rental for early registration. I remember were discussions here about why those who had exchanges via RCI counted, buy rentals did not.

Last year, what they eliminated was using a cash stay booked via Disney..

You could be right - it was DH who tried to book as a surprise for us, and I could swear he showed me afterward that the rules had changed that round. He booked AKV rental then tried to register. I only found out after he didn’t get in. Maybe there is something amiss here.