DVC T &C Personal Use - Only Thread to Discuss!

[AstroBlasters]

Probably not who this is targeted at, but I am concerned. DH and I own about 700 points and rent 5-7 60 point reservations a year and keep the rest. Some years we use all of them on Bungalow stays or Grand Villas. Or like last month when I booked VDH, but a 30% Grand Californian cash rate came out, I rented my reservation and paid a bit more to stay cash at the Grand.

We do rent a lot. We bought when we were 23, being able to rent to subsidize the cost really helped us being able to afford to buy in at a young age. We are 30 now and in a better financial position and can afford all the points, but I like renting to cover the points we do use. They really are “free” stays that way. And we will often splurge on weekends in Grand Villas or Bungalows with friends and family if I had decent rental income for the year. This week I have a Copper Creek Cabin booked while some family is in town. If they really cracked down I think I would sell and stop those stays. Also, we will normally book a Grand Californian studio at 11 months at 7 months I will try to use my SSR SAPs to book a two bedroom. If I can rent the Grand Californian studio out at $25+pp we will keep the two bedroom and take friends. I really like renting to be able to subsidize and splurge on reservations I normally wouldn’t do.

Spec renting, a frequent pattern of renting (“we rent a lot”), and the term “rental income for a year”…. seems like a pretty good use case of something that could be considered “commercial” now even though it was under the previous 20 rental per year threshold.

 

[Galun]

I own a fair number of points, rent out what I don’t use, and I am not worried about this change. In fact I think it’s positive.

Back of the envelope calculation, DVC has over 80 million points total. Think they are going to crack down on someone who own a thousand points or two? The scale of an individual owner like me is like peeing into the ocean.

What gets owners (me included) really upset are commercial operations that use bots to spec reserve and hold prime reservations and dates to rent them out. I tried to book spring break standard view at Aulani (couldn’t care less for the view since we were never in the room anyways) for myself this year and I needed to walk it! I never needed to do that in my almost a decade of going to Aulani. That’s direct competition to Disney’s own business. That’s clearly an abuse of the system, not the intent of DVC, and makes the vast majority of the normal owners upset. They will get cracked down and I am 100% for it.

I distinctly remember the DVC guides telling me I can rent my unused points out to cover my annual dues. Yeah sure take what the guide said with a grain of salt, but the point stands that DVC is the only timeshare with a reasonable rental market, which helps owners to avoid defaulting on their maintenance fees (think DVC wants to deal with owners not being able to afford maintenance fees because you can’t rent it out?), and holds decent value at resale (which certainly helps their direct sales pitch).

If I make my vacation plans and rent out my excess points on demand, I am just another DVC owner looking for room availability at that moment that’s available to everybody. I am using my points as intended and it’s not hurting anybody. If someone comes to me with a date and it’s not available, I say sorry not available and move on. If those bot serviced spec reserving commercial renters are gone, it’s more likely that I can actually rent out my excess points on demand.

DVC’s change of language explicitly allowed renting under “personal use”, and left room for them to interpret their definition of “frequent”. I think they’ve already identified who they think are the commercial renters and they’ve already received warnings to stop doing whatever they are doing or else. The attestation makes new reservations by these commercial renters eligible for further disciplinary action if they don’t stop.

Disney has somehow created the rare timeshare where there is a vibrant rental and resale market which helps them sell direct, and I don’t think they are going to mess that up. There are also bad apples that abuses the system by spec renting desirable reservations which is direct competition to Disney’s own rooms, and they 100% deserve to be cracked down. I doubt we will even see high profile cancellations. The commercial renters will be warned to stop, and if they ignore it and book new reservations with the attestation, Disney can act on it. I doubt these commercial renters will risk it. They’ll probably have to do on demand rental requests to survive.

 

[Wakey]

People are discussing the 20 rents a year POS statement (the rule is quite clear if you bought a resort with that POS they cannot question why you are renting unless you breach the 20 bookings a year).
The POS isn’t a rule. It’s part of the timeshare contract, including in Florida statute.
No one, Disney included, can then just change what was in the POS by issuing a retrospective rule whenever they feel like it.
I’m not sure how many resorts had that in the POS but with them, Disney could well be easily challenged if they breach the POS.
This may be why they are vague- if this POS wording isn’t in newer POS (I haven’t looked) so effectively different criteria could apply to different resorts.
And really since when did Disney really do anything for owners and not profits. I’m not convinced it will make much difference to availability, yes the big commercial renters are walking etc a lot of points, supposedly using bots but in the 80 million points it will be a small amount. Lots of people who don’t understand DVC and don’t understand that those points still exist and Disney gets them in breakage if they don’t use them and rent them cash.
I think Disney could have multiple motivators. Renting DVC may be eating into cash room demand- particularly in slower takeup. It may be helping suppress rack rate. They have their own massive points rental business. They of course want renting stopped to increase their profits. They are massively conflicted actually in my opinion. They may see the complaints about rentals by a membership under a false impression that it’s going to make booking easier as an ideal opportunity. The tick box thing - that won’t bother commercial renters. It may bother mom and pop offering points to a family member for a payment. May make them not go ahead. May result in more points being unused, and guess who gets them?

 

[CVG]

I rent out my points to cover my dues on years I'm not visiting. I'm not worried by the new terms. Funnily enough DVD benefit from this since I have already paid next years dues (there is no point in me converting the rental income into my local currency and then converting back to pay dues) and they should be enjoying the interest on that money!