DVC Renting

[Marionnette]

Fair point, but I feel handing over money to rent points shows a commitment. I don't rent from people who have low post counts or low joined years. I also don't rent from someone who owns mega amounts of points either. Maybe it's just me, but I get a bad feeling from those mega owners who are renting points as a businees, not just to payoff their homeowner fees. I like to rent from those who come on to post their extra unused points each year. There's a pattern that you can see in the post search history.

Yes, there's always a risk when renting points from someone. I've never had an issue though in all the years. I've already rented for next April. Also, now that your reservation is tied to your My Disney Experience account. Wouldn't you know sooner, if your reservation was cancelled underneath you or not made at all?

I completely agree with you to a point. Most owners are not going to rent just to recover their maintenance fees (they are NOT homeowner fees). We paid a lot of money just to buy our annual allotment of points and the points alone have value above the MFs. There's that cost to be considered as well when an owner sets their price for their points. If a member is "DVC Gold" they paid a hefty $50/year fee to the disboards to have that icon under their avatar. They paid that fee because they are not a frequent poster in the other forums (and by frequent, I mean 50 non-rent/trade posts over the past 6 months), so they aren't someone who generally has a high post count or recent record of participation on the boards.

It's very rare that a rental goes bad. But it can happen whether the owner dealt directly with the renter or thru an agency. The agency gives the renter a layer of protection but can also mean having to pay more and/or settling for a second or third choice of resorts. Dealing directly with an owner whose home resort is where you want stay can greatly increase your chances of getting what you want. You can check your MDE to see if your reservation is still there, but if it disappears for a day that may not mean it has been canceled. Disney IT is so bad that resort reservations, FP+ and ADRs disappear and reappear all of the time without really being lost. But if some unscrupulous person were to take your money and run, you would have a better chance of getting it back from an agency than the creep who stole your vacation.