Hi All ~ We are going to WDW in 11 months so it's now that I'll be considering renting points for BCV.
Thing is....dd14 has medical conditions that could have us cancel the vacation [we have NEVER had to cancel before....but whay if?]. What if we have to cancel the ressies and we paid up?
Thanks! Sandra
You need to consider your rental non-refundable. Most contracts that you sign with a DVC member will likely say this, but even it they don't, you are very unlikely to get your money back.
To help you understand why this is necessary to protect the DVC member, there are three basic rules with DVC that make cancellations a problem. First, DVC gives points to members on a yearly basis. For members, that "year" does not match the calendar year, it can start in any of eight different months of the year (called a Use Year). Disney limits the ability of a member to move (bank) points from one year to the next to the first eight months of your use year only. Second, a member can only bank points one year - after that they must be used or lost. Third, any reservation cancelled within 60 days of the check in date cannot be banked at all AND can only be reused for a reservation less that 60 days away.
All of these circumstances put the DVC member at risk of losing the use of their points if you cancel and severely limit the ability to make a rental reservation for someone else.
To give you examples of the above situations: Let's say the DVC member you are contracting with gets hisher yearly points on June 1 and you are booking a May 5 vacation. If you cancel your reservation on February 10, you are past the date that he/she can bank those points to the next year (past 8 months), so the member is in a "use it or lose it by May 31" mode. If your vacation was for January 20 (so lots of time to bank) but you cancelled on Nov 31, now you are within 60 days and the member cannot bank those points or make a reservation for more than 60 days away from the current days.
So, DVC members are not really being difficult by being non-refundable, there are simply a lot of restrictions that put them at risk.
You may be able to work something out in a specific circumstance with an individual, but you should enter the deal believing it is non-refundable.
