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!

 

[muppets3d]

The first thing dh said when he heard about this is Disney has enough in house attorneys to do what they want with commercial renters.

I agree with others who say that Disney is only going after the largest offenders.

I think Disney is being vague on purpose.

Yeah Disney is probably one of the most litigious companies in history.

 

[xdan0920]

We do rent a lot.

Frequently and regularly. Could be a problem going forward...

I see there is someone renting a huge amount of SSR and OKW points. What is wrong with that?

It's against the rules. DVC is for personal use.

This whole thing reminds me of a very underrated Disney movie... Chicken Little

Haha. Only difference is, the sky isn't falling, it's doing whatever the opposite of that is, this is great news. I only hope they enforce it strongly.

 

[Judique]

The first thing dh said when he heard about this is Disney has enough in house attorneys to do what they want with commercial renters.

I agree with others who say that Disney is only going after the largest offenders.

I think Disney is being vague on purpose.

I agree Disney is being vague on purpose also. They hold most of the cards.

From personal experience I disagree that they will only go after the largest offenders.

Disney does not like competition from within. I see a lot of that from former DVC guides working for companies that rent points as one aspect of their business profile and those companies have bragged about their experienced employees.

That said, not expecting any huge or visible changes and impacts, although I do wish they would improve the website to shut out certain behaviors.

Will be waiting and interested in any reports of canceled reservations or cease and desist letters.

Oh, and I really doubt anyone at DVC will discuss why a 'rental' reservation was canceled or what parameters were used in determining to cancel. They are probably not going to argue with you.

Took a trip to the rental board: saw someone with over 3000 points up for rent with 5 or 6 available home resorts. Maybe that's a little bit more than just covering some dues or getting rid of leftover points. I'm in another world so off to buy a $2 lottery ticket........

 

[xdan0920]

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.

Yes I think they will, and I hope I am right about it.

Folks keep saying things like this, but the reality is 99% of DVC membership is 1000pts or less. If they don't regulate those members, they won't be regulating anything.

 

[Sandisw]

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?

Was it in an actual version of the POS? I don’t remember seeing that it was rather part of Home Resort Rules and Regulations?

 

[tx911]

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.

I think renting half your points every single year to pay dues should qualify as frequent and regular. Renting should be occasional and rare.

Use the points to go on vacation. If you have too many points, sell some contracts. If you can't afford the dues, sell all your contracts. If you don't want to go to Disney any more, sell all your contracts.

 

[tjkraz]

There are 246 studios , and 29 BWV , 52 SV - 165 g/pool view

If you bring 29 cookies to a party with 246 guests - some are just not gonna get a cookie ....

If all the commercial renters sold their contracts ... we would still have only 29 BWV and more than 246 people wanting a studio. Some years I still wont get a cookie ..

(BoardWalk is a confusing example because all of the Two Bedrooms are lockoffs, and many will be rented as 2B villas. There aren't REALLY 246 people with Studio reservations on every single night. Nevertheless...)

On the basis of that 246 number, 46% of the villas at BoardWalk are Studios. More than half of the guests staying at the BoardWalk on any given night have a reservation for something other than a Studio. (And that's one of the larger studio %, short of PVB and VGF which are heavily studio. Five resorts are in the range of 30-35% studio including lockoffs.)

One DVC rental site currently has 151 confirmed reservations for Boardwalk Villas. 150 of them are for studios...99.3%. THAT is where everyday members are being harmed.

Personally, I don't have a problem with rentals. If someone posts "hey, I've got 500 points available to rent at $22 each, hit me up"...good for them. We all have reasons for not using points at some stage.

What damages the program is when people cherry pick room types and dates that will maximize their own personal profits. And it's not just a one-off thing...it's a very coordinated effort. I have no idea how many points this website personally controls. There are entities who control FAR more points than the limit stated in the DVC ownership docs. If the vendor isn't managing these points / reservations personally, they're certainly advising people to engage in this behavior. And it's not just 150 reservations. If this site has 150 BW Studio listings now, they certainly sold dozens...probably hundreds of others over any 11 month span. And there are independent people doing the same things to sell on eBay, Facebook, TUG, etc.

Stopping this behavior won't change the number of rooms available. But it would lead to an increase in the satisfaction level of members seeking those same accommodations.

Some would argue that if the renter went out of business and sold their points, the new owners would do the same thing. Unless those new owners are booking 99% studios, that's not true.

The issue is a disproportionately large number of (ostensibly) commercial rental points going toward studios. Points that are used for reservations which sit unclaimed for weeks and months until rented. There's still a budding market for DVC point rentals. Offering points for any reservation opens up countless rental partners for other resorts, dates and room types. The issue is that the owner isn't satisfied with $22 per point, they want $28 per point by targeting certain resorts and room types.

Some will shrug their shoulders and say the renters have every right to do whatever they wish. And that's fine. Probably not going to change anyone's mind. But let's not kid ourselves...getting rid of this ability to claim and hold uncommitted rooms for months at a time would absolutely increase booking success for everyday owners just looking to vacation with their families.

 

[Sandisw]

Yes I think they will, and I hope I am right about it.

Folks keep saying things like this, but the reality is 99% of DVC membership is 1000pts or less. If they don't regulate those members, they won't be regulating anything.

If those owners are not renting to a degree of frequency or regularity that DVC has decided is in line with commercial use vs legally allowed levels of renting under personal use, there is nothing to regulate.

We should all want DVC to enforce the contract against owners who are renting in excess since it’s against the rules…regardless of whether we care or not.

But, we should also want DVC to use common sense enforcement for owners when deciding that and those who own resorts prior to RIV have contract language to support it should be a reasonable definition

So, how much is too much? I have my own opinion and so do you and many others.

We shall see what level of frequency or regularity DVC decides is indeed too much to still be considered a membership whose primary use is vacations.

 

[DL1WDW2]

I remember the days when we all wanted to spread the good news secret about DVC .
We rarely had anything to complain about because the DVC creation worked and really wanted to share . Now I choose to respect this new legal decision because DVC was not created for false profit on Disney property that they do not really own the rights to. I don’t want to make it easier to spread the greed by these corporations … It might not make it easier for me to grab a cookie but when I do I promise to enjoy it so much more.

 

[Sandisw]

I think renting half your points every single year to pay dues should qualify as frequent and regular. Renting should be occasional and rare.

Use the points to go on vacation. If you have too many points, sell some contracts. If you can't afford the dues, sell all your contracts. If you don't want to go to Disney any more, sell all your contracts.

DVC could choose to agree with you. Do I personally think they will? No, especially for owners whose point level is below a few thousand.

If at least half the points were used for owners reservations, and half the points are in the names of others, and some of those others could be family/friends and not rentals, then I can see DVC not bothering those owners.

IMO, it’s simply not worth it.

Plus, one thing DVC did do this year, is give owners with excess points the ability to use them for APs.

Thst alone might mean fewer owners find themselves needing to rent their points…granted, it’s a win for DVC becsuse they know get those rooms to rent themselves…

 

[squeezeplay101]

I am not a fan of the changes. I agree that walking and commercial renting by LLC's has gotten way out of hand but this is a ridiculous overreach filled with ambiguity. Disney has given themselves the ability, with no recourse, to call whatever they want and whenever they want commercial renting. I called DVC today and essentially they told me as long as we're renting to family and friends and using the majority of our points each year then we would be ok. This is infuriating to me because this particular year we have rented all our points and likely will have to do so for the next 3 years. Regardless of your political leanings, we're Canadian and our government has advised us to exercise caution travelling to the USA. Many other countries have done the same.

Our family and friends are majority Canadian as well and dont want to travel either. So of course I am going to put my points up for rent via an intermediary and rent to some unknown family or individual.

Sorry to hear you won't be able to use your points for some time!

From what I've gathered, I highly doubt you'd come upon the Disney radar as a "Commercial" renter, even if you're renting out your points for the next three years. This is assuming you don't have more than 2000 points year to year, and aren't booking something like 20 rentals each year. There are likely MANY people in situations where they can't sue their points for extended periods (for a lot of reasons).

 

[muppets3d]

(BoardWalk is a confusing example because all of the Two Bedrooms are lockoffs, and many will be rented as 2B villas. There aren't REALLY 246 people with Studio reservations on every single night. Nevertheless...)

On the basis of that 246 number, 46% of the villas at BoardWalk are Studios. More than half of the guests staying at the BoardWalk on any given night have a reservation for something other than a Studio. (And that's one of the larger studio %, short of PVB and VGF which are heavily studio. Five resorts are in the range of 30-35% studio including lockoffs.)

One DVC rental site currently has 151 confirmed reservations for Boardwalk Villas. 150 of them are for studios...99.3%. THAT is where everyday members are being harmed.

Personally, I don't have a problem with rentals. If someone posts "hey, I've got 500 points available to rent at $22 each, hit me up"...good for them. We all have reasons for not using points at some stage.

What damages the program is when people cherry pick room types and dates that will maximize their own personal profits. And it's not just a one-off thing...it's a very coordinated effort. I have no idea how many points this website personally controls. There are entities who control FAR more points than the limit stated in the DVC ownership docs. If the vendor isn't managing these points / reservations personally, they're certainly advising people to engage in this behavior. And it's not just 150 reservations. If this site has 150 BW Studio listings now, they certainly sold dozens...probably hundreds of others over any 11 month span. And there are independent people doing the same things to sell on eBay, Facebook, TUG, etc.

Stopping this behavior won't change the number of rooms available. But it would lead to an increase in the satisfaction level of members seeking those same accommodations.

Some would argue that if the renter went out of business and sold their points, the new owners would do the same thing. Unless those new owners are booking 99% studios, that's not true.

The issue is a disproportionately large number of (ostensibly) commercial rental points going toward studios. Points that are used for reservations which sit unclaimed for weeks and months until rented. There's still a budding market for DVC point rentals. Offering points for any reservation opens up countless rental partners for other resorts, dates and room types. The issue is that the owner isn't satisfied with $22 per point, they want $28 per point by targeting certain resorts and room types.

Some will shrug their shoulders and say the renters have every right to do whatever they wish. And that's fine. Probably not going to change anyone's mind. But let's not kid ourselves...getting rid of this ability to claim and hold uncommitted rooms for months at a time would absolutely increase booking success for everyday owners just looking to vacation with their families.

I share your hope that these kind of actors - those that control thousands of points and use them to perpetually walk studios for in-demand seasons - are wiped from the program somehow. I doubt Disney can repossess their points and ban them from the property (or can they?) but Disney can certainly tap on their shoulder, tell them they're on notice and any further reservations had better be for personal use or they will be cancelled. And the problem will take care of itself in short order!

 

[Sandisw]

I share your hope that these kind of actors - those that control thousands of points and use them to perpetually walk studios for in-demand seasons - are wiped from the program somehow. I doubt Disney can repossess their points and ban them from the property (or can they?) but Disney can certainly tap on their shoulder, tell them they're on notice and any further reservations had better be for personal use or they will be cancelled. And the problem will take care of itself in short order!

While I don’t think DVC can legally force someone to sell, they can indeed lock someone out from using their membership if they find them in violation of th terms and conditions of the contract.

It’s all spelled out. Locking out of course means they can’t use it and in that case, an owner would most likely sell because they’d be paying dues for nothing.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

No, my plan is to alternate renting and visiting each year for 5-10 years

Then I will give the advice that you would get on Timeshare User Group if you were asking this question about any of the other developers that have already gone down the path that Disney is now going down: What you are describing is a bad idea, and you do so at your peril.

 

[CraigInPA]

Years ago, they addressed David's rental business using the feature that allowed you to give someone booking control over your contacts. They addressed David's rental business use of the transfer feature by limiting the number of transfers per year, in or out, to one. So, is this another attack on David's? I don't think so. I think this is directly going after the few people with a whole lot of points who engage in commercially renting their points, but are trying to hide it by regularly buying up loaded contracts and then selling stripped contracts, so Disney can't easily identify them by looking at individual contracts. Now, if the commercial renter doesn't check the "rental" box, they're making a fraudulent booking, subject to DVC cancellation. Make no mistake, DVC probably has someone on FB looking at every offering of reservations, which DVC can then look up and see potentially who has that reservation.

But, what is DVC's motivation in doing this? I suspect it's because these commercial renters use technology to grab up desirable rooms in desirable periods, which impacts Disney's own rental business using their own points. DVC members have complained about these folks, and this "rental" check box is a "two for". They put commercial renters on notice that they're being watched, and they have a hammer to squash them if they ignore the rules.

Ironically, they could squash the bot traffic just by putting a captcha on the booking page.

 

[mistysue]

What sort of rooms are unavailable out of interest? I was the under the impression that pretty much all rooms were bookable at 11 months.

Every type. 9 of them are not studio or 2 bedroom, and those that are 2 bedroom are not all lock-off, so the person say if they are studios or a lockoff (so including a studio) it doesn't count is just an awkward comment.

I think perspective is needed here. I’ve never looked at that number, but I saw the 24% and immediately said to myself “oh, that’s actually a nice availability at 11 months!”.

What might seem bad to someone, might be great to someone else. Honestly I think 76% availability at 11 months is amazing.

This is another piece of why these conversations go in circles. I don't think 76% availability on the first day to book is good. I think it's even worse when I can't book it but I can easily rent it.

When I looked earlier it was 27 across the entire DVC system (not counting Aulani GV SV
which has not been declared).

Now remove lockoffs where a studio is being counted twice….

Right now there are 9 non-studio related room types that are not available at 11m at all of WDW. In almost every case there is a similar room size with a different view available.

Only 8 of those room have a studio/2 bedroom overlap in unavailability. So we can pretend that number is only 19 unavailable, but it also means the number of room types is fewer. There's a lot of unavailable rooms knowing you can rent them - which means no member is getting to book and stay there.

I was not able to get a BW view for my week in may next year ( I got a GP studio ) I was clicking at the right second but this year no luck. I really don't think that is a popular week for renters ( not in the top ten)

There are 246 studios , and 29 BWV , 52 SV - 165 g/pool view

If you bring 29 cookies to a party with 246 guests - some are just not gonna get a cookie ....

If all the commercial renters sold their contracts ... we would still have only 29 BWV and more than 246 people wanting a studio. Some years I still wont get a cookie ..

Yes, but when 29 of the cookies are stolen by bots who go sell them right in front of you so only 15 of them go to guests, it becomes even more frustrating for members. These things add up over time when members can almost never get into the room they want while people are casually strolling up 3-5 months later and renting that same room.