Oh wow, I finally caught up to the end of the thread. I wasn’t sure it was even possible! A few thoughts:
But you have to prove standing and you have to prove you’re correct. Proving standing against Disney would involve claiming you’re losing profit, which would make it harder to justify that you’re not a commercial renter.
This, exactly. Also, you don’t get anything from winning the suit unless you can prove you lost money you had a reasonable expectation of earning (for an unjustifiable reason)—which also is inconsistent with proving it was only personal use.
Or they could argue that what they are doing are with the boundaries of the old rules which Disney changed and now they are loosing out.
Losing our what though? Profit!
Furthermore they can claim what Disney is doing they are doing in bad faith as the only reason or the primary reason is for their own benefit.
Enforcing the terms of a contract for their own benefit is not bad faith, it’s why you put the terms in the contract.
Additionally since the wording is so vague it leaves a lot of rooms for interpretation.
Disney doesn’t have to have the only possible correct interpretation, it just has to be reasonable.
I’m sure if anyone did take Disney to court a judge would ask for Disneys interpretation or the metrics they use to decide if an owner is a commercial enterprise or not.
Sure, but so far Disney has not said (let alone done) anything unreasonable.
If you charged by the point that’s not accurate. Your profit margin is the same.
I think this is the fundamental misunderstanding many people have about spec renters— they aren’t charging per point, they are looking at BWV rooms going for $500 on dates they cost 12 points and charging $400, which looks like “save 20% when you rent with me!” And they are making maybe $30/pt after overhead— and the more points you buy and the more reservations you spec, you the higher your profitability because the costs don’t really scale. That’s why people are seeing spec renters buying points in bulk on transfer boards when they can get them even at $15pp and up.
Here’s the core issue - there is simply a stronger demand either owners or renters for studios. This means that studios will always be the hard one to get. If every single commercial renter was forced to sell their contract and it was purchased by individuals
you’d still have let’s say 25 different people clicking the button at 8 AM for a studio versa commercial renter who’s hired 25 people to click the button at 8 AM for the studio.
This is a misunderstanding or an underestimation of how many points are being used to target specific room categories. How can you tell an individual owner they are almost never going to have a shot ever anyway when a single commercial renter can get 300 nights a year (or more!) in that category? Pulling out even one prolific spec renter is going to free up several hundred nights for owner users.
It won't be very easy for a commercial renter to just up and liquidate. I mean, the whole model exists to rent points and rent them all, all of the time. That means countless existing reservations, likely with many of them months and months out, and all through the holidays.
Resale contracts can't close with pending reservations, so a seller would have to either cancel any and all pending reservations outright (pissing off all their renters and coughing up serious refund cash), let them fall off organically as the stays are completed, or price the contract so low as to make it appealing to a purchaser willing to go with a months-long delayed close (again, until after all stays are completed).
This was really helpful, thanks. I was looking at delayed close to save money and now realize it may well be from a commercial renter. This is now riskier because (a) what if Disney takes action against their account and they just walk away or (b) Disney doesn’t take any action, the market climbs upward, and the renter changes their mind about selling.
Or people start taking a lot more trips in Grand Villas
I love this kind of glass half full thinking!
Are there benefits for traditional owners if Disney goes after the commercial owners? Absolutely. But make no mistake they aren’t doing any of this for you. They want a higher percentage of non
DVC bookings going to their reservation website, not some chat forum listing guy with thousands of points.
I agree with your whole post but especially this. I think Disney will probably crack down to the extent they don’t have to routinely offer major discounts to hit their target occupancy rates, especially in busy seasons. Maybe it’s only big accounts but they may want to start with a broader initial wave to put everybody on notice that the days of renting 75% of your points most years are over and to stop potential renters from assuming they are safe is they only rent from small fry renters?
), but the discussions have been informative, even if nothing really new has been brought up. I enjoyed the humor sprinkled throughout and the relatively cordial back and forth. Wish we could see those screenshots of all the activity from FB and other places about all this. That would for sure have brought the entertainment factor up at least 2pts. Also, good to see the usuals posting same as they did last time and fascinated by the new posters, hope y’all keep coming back and don’t disappear again. 
