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

[Cyberc1978]

Can someone fill me in with how bots work? Im not techy at all. These big renters had programs written to grab sought after rooms at the 11 month window?! How do we know?

We don’t know for sure. But the assumption is that they do. Mainly because they have all the high demand times up for rent. Maybe if they didn’t we would see more members be able to book the high demand rooms at high demand times.

 

[chicagodisneyguy]

Here was a big discussion on it, was a revision back in 2007. DVC Mike on here actually received this POS when he bought an add on. I agree that they could not change it retrospectively for people who had bought before that date. They also changed it again to remove reference to the 20, not sure when though, they probably realised that would give them issues. If anyone bought during the period when it existed, I think they’ll have issues departing from it.

https://www.disboards.com/threads/dvc-commercial-use-policy-added-to-pos.1687889/

This portion of the POS as I read it says at 20 rentals an owner is required to establish proof they are NOT a commercial enterprise. I don't take that as 19 rentals are condoned or allowed. I take that as back then that's when DVC would automatically investigate. I don't think just because they say 20 rentals triggers an audit doesn't mean if they feel there is a pattern of breaking their policies they can't/won't act even.... if said activity is less that 20 rentals.

"Accordingly, the Association reserves the right to promulgate such additional rules or to take such additional actions or measures as it deems appropriate with respect to any breach of such prohibitions."

I feel just this line alone allows DVC to amend how they identify and address commercial activity. A 50 year contract is a long time. These provisions give DVC some wiggle room to address issues with the system not preverlant 5, 10, or 20 years ago as times change.

Personally I think DVC already knows who they will be targeting first. My guess is the last 6-12 months they've already been making a list and checking it twice. Those large contracts on the "naughty" list I think will be hearing from Disney sooner rather than later....once they make a ressie DVC thinks breaks their policy. The question after the low hanging, large operations are targeted...do they keep going. i think the answer to that is how much revenue DVC thinks they are losing versus how much money and resourses they want to exert to police the system. My feeling is they 1,000+ renters could be in the crosshairs....and most everyone else is safe. but we will see.

 

[kilik64]

Can someone fill me in with how bots work? Im not techy at all. These big renters had programs written to grab sought after rooms at the 11 month window?! How do we know?

We don't, just a big assumption that is probably accurate.

There are bots you can get and program to click and enter data on websites, people use them for all sorts of things like buying hard to get items at release (think sneaker drops or tech things like videogame consoles). The bots are going to be faster than any human so the theory is they use bots to swipe desirable rental rooms constantly.

 

[muppets3d]

Can someone fill me in with how bots work? Im not techy at all. These big renters had programs written to grab sought after rooms at the 11 month window?! How do we know?

It could be as simple as the broker has set up their computer to record their keystrokes to search for and book a room, and then sets it to run at exactly the right time to book the room. Or it could be more sophisticated. It all depends on how hardened DVC's booking engine is. I haven't really looked deeply into it to see how much is possible. But considering the amount of money at stake for the commercial renters, you can be sure they are using bots to book high-demand rooms.

 

[Cyberc1978]

As most probably remembers after the last system update which resulted in the big cluster f… when people couldn’t change reservations were able to book RIV using restricted points etc Disney also implemented a sort of recording system on the website.

They teamed up with clicktale.net they offer the feature to record user interactions and later play it back. Maybe this is a feature that DVC will use against brokers - assuming they use bots or similar. If owners are booking using super powers or super speed aka using bots this could potentially tell them.

Could also just be to improve the website

 

[Brian Noble]

But, the point is that life happens and Disney doesn’t want you to stop spending money on Disney products and services over the rest of your family’s lifetime because you had a job change once in your 30s that led to a few lean years.

I mean, maybe? I'm not as sure about that as you are. This is another thing I write often: Disney is a business that sells happiness for money. It is easy to go from that to: "Disney wants me, personally, to be happy." But the latter is very much not true. If for some reason I am no longer a good customer, they will not miss me when I am gone.

Perhaps I am just cynical, but I am confident that Disney does not care about me and my potential to give them more money, only the actual fact of whehter or not I do. But I've had 20+ years of Disney fandom to reach that point.

I think the only ones that are safe at making a business out of going to Disney Parks are YouTubers and social media influencers.

Many years ago (I want to say ~10) the Mouse made a very explicit play to influence influencers via free this-and-that. I have no idea how many of them are still "on the payroll," because I don't pay any attention to that world.

What is the tour guide massacre?

https://www.entrepreneur.com/busine...ur-guides-issued-trespass-notices-bans/464960

 

[Sandisw]

If you are regularly renting half your points, why is it ridiculous for DVC to stop that?

Membership is for personal use. Renting for 10 years isn’t personal use.

It’s just not that simple and why DVC didn’t put black and white rules.

Someone who owns 300 points and has one reservation for 150 in the name of someone else every year is simply not the same as someone who has 4000 points and is making 2000 points worth or reservations in the name of others

Renting a lot of points yearly for 10 years is definitely something that supports the owner is in it for something other than vacations.

But, take the owner who gets diagnosed with cancer and can’t travel for a few years and owns 1000 points and needs to rent…but doesn’t have a history of it…should that be prevented or should it be considered an emergency situation?

And, given how expensive DVC is, they may decide that owners who don’t have massive amounts of points simply aren’t able to rent to the degree that it’s out of line with the right to rent.

 

[tjkraz]

I completely disagree with your premise. The thing is the new owners will be mostly booking studios that’s why the new resorts are built with more studios. People’s preference isn’t going to change. They want the cheapest room.

Yes there’s a handful of people who like to book one bedrooms. However. a significant amount of them are people who are locked out of studios.

For people who aren’t staying for a week the one bedroom is basically the redheaded stepchild of rooms DVC it doesn’t sleep anymore than a studio, and it cost more than twice as much.

That’s causing the studio issue.

One Bedroom villas have always been somewhat underutilized. (Personally, probably 75% of my stays have been in a 1B, though I understand I'm in the minority. Why would I want to spend a week sleeping in the same room with my kids???) But let's not pretend that 95+ percent of owners are trying to book studios. If everyone just wanted "the cheapest room", they'd all be at All Star Music. There are plenty of DVC owners, both old and new, who bought in for a degree of luxury that goes beyond a studio.

When you look on rental sites and see 95% of the listings being BWV studios, AKV Value Studios, Riviera Standard and Tower studios...yeah, the renters are tilting the scales.

 

[Wakey]

This portion of the POS as I read it says at 20 rentals an owner is required to establish proof they are NOT a commercial enterprise. I don't take that as 19 rentals are condoned or allowed. I take that as back then that's when DVC would automatically investigate. I don't think just because they say 20 rentals triggers an audit doesn't mean if they feel there is a pattern of breaking their policies they can't/won't act even.... if said activity is less that 20 rentals.

"Accordingly, the Association reserves the right to promulgate such additional rules or to take such additional actions or measures as it deems appropriate with respect to any breach of such prohibitions."

I feel just this line alone allows DVC to amend how they identify and address commercial activity. A 50 year contract is a long time. These provisions give DVC some wiggle room to address issues with the system not preverlant 5, 10, or 20 years ago as times change.

Personally I think DVC already knows who they will be targeting first. My guess is the last 6-12 months they've already been making a list and checking it twice. Those large contracts on the "naughty" list I think will be hearing from Disney sooner rather than later....once they make a ressie DVC thinks breaks their policy. The question after the low hanging, large operations are targeted...do they keep going. i think the answer to that is how much revenue DVC thinks they are losing versus how much money and resourses they want to exert to police the system. My feeling is they 1,000+ renters could be in the crosshairs....and most everyone else is safe. but we will see.

A lawyer would have a field day with this. Question is what the representations were to induce a party to enter into the contract, and what would a reasonable person think when reading the documents together. Ambiguity is usually interpreted against the maker.
I don’t personally rent points so it’s immaterial to me, but if my situation changed in future I may want to. It’s always been a pro of the product as far as I’m concerned,
Many people are going to be very disappointed and don’t seem to fully understand how DVC works, if they think there’s suddenly going to be availability as a result of this.
The question is what is ‘personal’ and what is ‘commercial’. Renting for cash clearly isn’t deemed non personal. It’s vague, it’s opaque.
I also think virtually everyone is in agreement that it’s no bad thing clamping down on commercial renters of scale, particularly those linked to resale brokers who strip contracts and rent confirmed reservations.
But if Fred from Chicago decides he doesn’t want to go for the next 5 years, but intends to pick it up again in future, or wants to see the actual world so has 3 years of good trips planned to places outside the USA, or his wife is ill, or his job takes him away abroad, or there’s another pandemic, it makes not one iota of difference to me, you or any other member that he rents his points. The only body this benefits is Disney, who has less competition for cash rooms, more breakage and more profit.

 

[Brian Noble]

When you look on rental sites and see 95% of the listings being BWV studios, AKV Value Studios, Riviera Standard and Tower studios...yeah, the renters are tilting the scales.

And part of that is the DVC rental market demographics. For mnay people, DVC rentals are a way to upgrade their resort category without paying more money. "A Deluxe resort for Moderate prices."

 

[muppets3d]

And part of that is the DVC rental market demographics. For mnay people, DVC rentals are a way to upgrade their resort category without paying more money. "A Deluxe resort for Moderate prices."

Which I am sure is like nails on a chalkboard to the mouse.

 

[DonMacGregor]

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

Bots have been getting around security features like Captcha for almost a decade.

CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA: How Fraudsters Bypass It

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

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.

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.

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.

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.

I took a look at the availability 1 year out and there were only 2 "unavailable" categories that slightly surprised me. 1 is the BCV studio but that May timeframe is starting to encroach on Mother's day which from casual observance has a higher demand. The other is the non-HH OKW GV. Everything else has some explanation (PVB tower not sold out and high demand to check out the new building, CCV undergoing refurb) or historically, going back to pre-online way prior to any commercial type renting (other than perhaps Davids but it was run quite differently then), isn't surprising. That was when some members would call in day by day to piece together a reservation and it wasn't unheard of for them to not get a day in the middle of their reservation in the BWV standard or Boardwalk view categories. The mantra then from some is the same today. Do not buy a resort with the intent to only book the cheapest or scarcest room. What I see in availability still applies, not that it's difficult to book a room at your home resort.

There isn't a single resort that doesn't have rooms available for their owners to book.

Right but if you buy just enough points to stay in the cheapest studio at your resort in September and no more, you will be perpetually frustrated with DVC.

The only people who have ever implied that was a viable plan is a guide. There was a time they would pull out the AKV value chart to tell people buying at SSR some other resort that they could book that room for 7 points a night. Guide=timeshare sales person
That's an issue for a points based timeshare if people don't really study it. But it's also the beauty of a points based timeshare - you're easily able to book different types of accommodations.

 

[Galun]

Even 1000 points is like 0.00001% of outstanding points. As a Disney shareholder who saw them blew $65 million on straight to TV series Andor (which I really enjoyed), I hope they don’t have to stoop down to squeezing out a few hundred bucks from a room that they could have rented out instead of an individual DVC owner, who paid tens of thousands up front to begin with. That’s would mean the company is in deep financial trouble.

We have some historical guidance on what they consider as personal even if it’s not in the t&c anymore - <20 reservations, 4000 points at one resort, 8000 total under one name.

If they do anything, they’ll go after the contracts owned by LLCs with an identified pattern of “frequent” transactions (buy strip rent sell). That’s how commercial owners get around the ownership limit and scale it, in direct competition of Disney.

IMO you have nothing to worry about if you own the points under your name and rent out excess points.

 

[muppets3d]

The only people who have ever implied that was a viable plan is a guide. There was a time they would pull out the AKV value chart to tell people buying at SSR some other resort that they could book that room for 7 points a night. Guide=timeshare sales person
That's an issue for a points based timeshare if people don't really study it. But it's also the beauty of a points based timeshare - you're easily able to book different types of accommodations.

Well if they were honest and said "this room we are sitting in books up by 8:30AM 11 months before check-in" nobody would buy, LOL.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Here was a big discussion on it, was a revision back in 2007. DVC Mike on here actually received this POS when he bought an add on. I agree that they could not change it retrospectively for people who had bought before that date. They also changed it again to remove reference to the 20, not sure when though, they probably realised that would give them issues. If anyone bought during the period when it existed, I think they’ll have issues departing from it.

https://www.disboards.com/threads/dvc-commercial-use-policy-added-to-pos.1687889/

Do DVC and their lawyers even know this existed?! Maybe they do, hence the verbiage now is so vague. They may try to argue that the last para allows them to introduce more rules but if you bought then on a basis of a 20 a year test I suspect a lawyer would make a good go of it.

I don’t accept that Disney have these lawyers and no one can ever win and they never settle. In fact I personally know that’s nonsense. The law is the law. These agreements are so loosely drafted, that arguments can probably be made both ways, but ambiguity is usually interpreted against the contract maker.

I’m hoping DVCs move is doing what is right for membership and not clamping down to ridiculous levels where people with 300 points can’t rent half etc. I continue to say they are horribly conflicted.

Yes, they can and do lose. Or settle. They are not infallible and I believe will also at least try to bluff and bully their way thru things.

Your point on specific language in older POS documents is why I suspect they have that oh so various caveat about if findings prove otherwise they still get to use a stick, even if it's a lot smaller.

 

[AstroBlasters]

Even 1000 points is like 0.00001% of outstanding points. As a Disney shareholder who saw them blew $65 million on straight to TV series Andor (which I really enjoyed), I hope they don’t have to stoop down to squeezing out a few hundred bucks from a room that they could have rented out instead of an individual DVC owner, who paid tens of thousands up front to begin with. That’s would mean the company is in deep financial trouble.

We have some historical guidance on what they consider as personal even if it’s not in the t&c anymore - <20 reservations, 4000 points at one resort, 8000 total under one name.

If they do anything, they’ll go after the contracts owned by LLCs with an identified pattern of “frequent” transactions (buy strip rent sell). That’s how commercial owners get around the ownership limit and scale it, in direct competition of Disney.

IMO you have nothing to worry about if you own the points under your name and rent out excess points.

+1 on the Andor shout out.

 

[Cyberc1978]

Which I am sure is like nails on a chalkboard to the mouse.

While that might be true - renting DVC is also a way to actually get a Disney vacation onsite.

A lot of people can’t afford onsite and if they didn’t rent they might have booked offsite instead or not went to Disney at all.

 

[DonMacGregor]

Well well well, how the turntables have turned. So interesting to see a bunch of new names (or old dormant ones) crawl out of the woodwork to sway public opinion with tales about indigent grandmothers who need to rent thousands of points for “a few years” to save their great great grandpappy’s farm home from repossession.

Don’t forget that brood of great-grandchildren guaranteed to appear in 15 years, even though their future parents are still in 5th grade.

 

[muppets3d]

While that might be true - renting DVC is also a way to actually get a Disney vacation onsite.

A lot of people can’t afford onsite and if they didn’t rent they might have booked offsite instead or not went to Disney at all.

Well for one thing, people not being able to afford Disney has always existed and always will. Staying offsite is a valid choice for lots of people and can save a family hundreds, if not thousands, versus staying onsite even in a value resort. I mean you can stay at a timeshare villa off-property for free in exchange for a heavy-handed sales presentation (just say no as many times as it takes!).

You're suggesting it's cheaper to rent a DVC room than it is to stay at, for example, All-Star Sports? I very seriously doubt that.