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

[muppets3d]

But most cash guests deciding to DVC are not thinking of that.

That’s why the sales continue because they are in the magic of it all!!

I can definitely see staying on cash at Riviera and being so in the magic that I don't even think of the math and I decide to join DVC on that stay. It probably happens a lot.

 

[Judique]

I ran a spreadsheet the other day, the long and the short of it is for a week in a deluxe studio at Riviera - it takes about 30 years of annual travel before renting is more expensive than buying direct. That's a very long payoff for a very large upfront expense, especially considering the resort's deed expires just a few years later. And if lots of guests are attending DVC sales presentations on rented points and giving that as a reason for declining a purchase, then I can definitely see why DVC is looking into it now. DVC rental brokers have done a very good job marketing themselves lately, perhaps too good of a job.

And, with my Boardwalk purchase 25 years ago, I broke even after slightly less than 5 years. Of course, before BW I was staying at Poly.

 

[Judique]

We share the same definition, that is why Vero Beach still clings to live as viable since cash stays at an ocean resort are still pricy.

I am seriously considering grabbing a cash week at a cabin for august , I wonder if the internet is good. its 2k for the week ! tax and fees included.

Internet was fine when I was there Dec 2024 for a couple of nights. I like to try out new rooms. Much nicer than the old cabins were.

 

[Judique]

That is a pretty great option for those families of 5!!!

Probably why DVC in a rush if they can get cash guests into them!!!

Families of 6, if two are small enough for the bunks.

 

[Mouseforward]

And, with my Boardwalk purchase 25 years ago, I broke even after slightly less than 5 years. Of course, before BW I was staying at Poly.

You must have been one of the smart ones who ignored all the old Key West people saying don’t buy them they’re so small. And got that massive deal. I remember those days I think it was 58 a point.?

 

[Sandisw]

Families of 6, if two are small enough for the bunks.

I was thinking for the families of 5 who are locked out of the values and most moderates.

But yes they do sleep 6

 

[WilsonFlyer]

As @Brian Noble has pointed out, every attempt by other timeshare companies to fix the supply side, or tweak the system, has failed to curb the problem of commercial renting causing supply issues for casual timeshare owners. The only tried and true method is to crush demand, by instilling fear in the marketplace of cancelled reservations.

Don't really care how or what the after-effects are for commercial operators and they're clientele, so long as they don't affect us.

 

[Judique]

You must have been one of the smart ones who ignored all the old Key West people saying don’t buy them they’re so small. And got that massive deal. I remember those days I think it was 58 a point.?

I actually had a small discount on that.

And yes, the OKW people used to joke about the size as in 'you could sit on the balcony and reach in the fridge for a beer.'

OKW rooms are definitely bigger, no disputing that. But having visited friends at OKW and then while in Epcot, walking out International Gateway to BW, it occurred to me it was a much longer walk into Epcot from OKW <g>. Then they built BCV and I got myself some points there as well.

If I could do it over again, I would not buy BCV and instead just buy more BWV. No one I brought there really cared about SB and usually hung out at the villa pool.

 

[BeachClub2014]

I don’t know, but perhaps Disney does care whether Grandma Tuttle w/ her 7 figure IRA is using her DVC points to host the grandkids every year for a week v. a local doing a one night stand & paying a third party the equivalent of the cost of a value or moderate resort.

I agree with your comments about DVC/Disney wanting to maximize guest spending, but that wasn't the scenario I was illustrating with Grandma Tuttle from Iowa. In that scenario, Grandma was using half of her annual allotment of points for herself and her family, and then renting out the other half. So DVC/Disney isn't going to get Grandma's money for the full personal use of her points. That's why I believe, from the DVC perspective, it doesn't matter who is renting the points and getting that money.

I'd go one step further and suggest that, in your excellent explanation, DVC/Disney has a greater interest in encouraging Grandma Tuttle to use all of her points for personal use to increase the additional guest spend. Sending her a cease and desist letter to stop renting every year is one way of doing so.

 

[MartyParty]

If prices like that keep up I don't see how anyone can justify buying points there. Especially in resale. That's the definition of a worthless timeshare - when the maintenance fees are just as, if not more expensive, than a cash stay.

I'm out! Y'all convinced me. Sold my points. Moving along....

Just kidding. As enjoyable as this thread is, the weather is nice. Heading out for some golf with my daughter. Hope she doesn't beat me...again. : )

 

[JackosinDIS]

I agree with your comments about DVC/Disney wanting to maximize guest spending, but that wasn't the scenario I was illustrating with Grandma Tuttle from Iowa. In that scenario, Grandma was using half of her annual allotment of points for herself and her family, and then renting out the other half. So DVC/Disney isn't going to get Grandma's money for the full personal use of her points. That's why I believe, from the DVC perspective, it doesn't matter who is renting the points and getting that money.

I'd go one step further and suggest that, in your excellent explanation, DVC/Disney has a greater interest in encouraging Grandma Tuttle to use all of her points for personal use to increase the additional guest spend. Sending her a cease and desist letter to stop renting every year is one way of doing so.

I know this is very anecdotal, and by no means the norm, but I have rented twice this year, both last month. One guest a Canadian and the other a friend from my home town in the UK.

3 weeks later and both are now DVC owners. Both bought direct (against my better advice, but hey! ). Both stayed a week and I’m sure spent plenty of their hard earned cash while they were there.

I’d say Disney has a pretty big interest in encouraging me NOT to use my points for me and my family given I like to bring my own breakfast cereal from home and make my family drink the tap water in the villas

 

[tjkraz]

Because it seemed tangentially related to some comments in this thread, I looked up some numbers regarding DVC ownership. First, comparing number of owners per resort from a 2006 POS vs 2024. Doesn't seem to be a radical shift in raw number of owners per resort (e.g. not so much "people gobbling up small contracts and only booking studios.") At least, not in significantly different numbers than 18 years ago. Except Vero Beach, interestingly.

Beach Club and BoardWalk have interestingly lost members. Some element of current owners increasing their holdings when points become available?



Also, average points per owner, per resort hasn't taken a massive downturn over the years. VGF is surprisingly high. I'd probably ignore that one. Perhaps there's an issue with the last of the BPK owners not being recognized in DVC's owner count from early 2024. But since VGF has some of the most expensive villas to book, it makes sense that owners would have a healthy number of points if they want to stay in larger rooms or theme park views.

Other active resorts were omitted for obvious reasons.



If 150 points is the de facto minimum, basically this tells me that there are more people buying large contracts than there are people having only small 50-100 point add-ons. Or the people who start with small add-ons eventually buy more. And there are some owners with 500-1000 points who boost the average.

By and large, do owners prefer studios? Absolutely. But there are plenty of owners with the resources (and desire) to book One, Two and Three Bedroom villas.

Pro renters just want the smaller, cheaper rooms that they can flip for a healthy profit.

 

[Genie+]

Yes, I have been able to book some hard to get villas. How it compares? Not sure because my bookings are based in what is wanted.

Again, my post was not about specs but about DVC influencing those who rent points, who are not your mega renters to leave the open market and now let DVC do it to avoid getting “caught”

It makes the appearance they care about the owner who has a need to rent.

Even if you look at AkV value. There is a high number of rentals out there that are one or two nights. Those don’t screen bots at 11 months to me.

Bots have use beyond getting a leg up on home priority. They can continue scanning 7-11 month inventory for anything that pops up, and at less than 7 months out start scanning any trading availability that pops up. 1 or 2 night booking does not necessarily translate to botless resvtn.

But it’s not just bots being problematic. It’s the nature of intending to target only the most lucrative as the sole purpose for those points existence, and the sheer number that now stand in the sidelines only to pounce those dropped dangler high demand nights or anything/everything else that converts points into the highest $pp tier.

Just pointing out again that the more people trade points to DVc, the more rooms they get to sell for cash.

Reduces the rental market for those points but certainly does not increase availability associated with them.

Especially if DVC decides to be the one who picks up those spec rentals dropped when they crack down on the commerical renters.

If an AKV owner trades now for an AP, and DVc knows a value will be popular, what’s to stop them from using those owners points and taking it for cash?

Absolutely nothing.

Yes there is absolutely nothing to stop DVC from booking that popular value to sell cash.

But we do see that’s rare, while spec renting is almost always 50% and up for any given date when counting everything that is listed and sold over time.

RIV standard studios have been super popular. DVC has sold for cash yet it never appeared to be an imbalanced targeted use of their undeclared points.

My take is that DVC appears to have shown some restraint. Maybe they care about the optics? And the potential impact to the product? Breakage looks pretty sweet. Future DVC sales are important. All of that together could explain the restraint.

I’m not naive to Disney’s greed but also don’t suspect DVC’s only motivation for correcting the commercial/for-profit issues is so they can turn around and run the same exact game themselves. They could’ve done that all along; they chose not to.

They need a product worth selling at steep prices, and protecting the product helps ensure its continued success.

 

[Genie+]

That wasn’t in relation to bots. It was the notion that DVC giving owners an opportunity to use points for an AP, means that we may see fewer rentals on the open market but now you will see them on the Disney website.

So, if an owner today is renting 150 of their 300 points yearly, but now trade 150 points for APs, is it really any different in terms of its impact?

DVC doesn’t slam the system the same way.

Look at what is out there for spec rentals vs cash villas.

They are still renting…just now using Disney to do which means it doesn’t count.

I don’t think it was a coincidence that the transfer rule changes and this came out at the same time they were getting complaints to do something about the rental market.

 

[Sandisw]

DVC doesn’t slam the system the same way.

Look at what is out there for spec rentals vs cash villas.

Again, missing my point as I have said this is not about spec rentals. It’s the rental market and the change this move might have on it.

I just find the timing of it interesting since they will benefit from any renters out there who choose to trade instead of rent.

And, at the same time, be able to say they did something to deal with the exploding rental market.

 

[drusba]

I provide here my initial views on the new Terms and Conditions for On-Line Booking for Disney Vacation Club Resorts (hereinafter referred to as the “June 2025 rules”).

The Transfer Rule

Outside of what the June 2025 rules say in relation to rentals, most of the terms are just reiterations of rules most members know about and do not reject, except that there is one major mistake (or at least I assume it is a mistake) that does not involve the rental issue. The Vacation Points Banking Guideline section declares that already banked points cannot be transferred. In December 2024, DVC issued new rules applicable to transfers, which were approved by the government agency that controls condominiums and timeshares, which expressly declare that already banked points can now be transferred. That is a rule that today remains in the Home Resort Rules and Regulations, and there is nothing to indicate that DVC has sent the new June 2025 rules to the government agency for approval or sought reversal of any December 2024 changes to the transfer rules.

New Rental Rules

The General Terms and Conditions in the June 2025 rules appear to adopt rental rules similar to those DVD first adopted for the Cabins of Fort Wilderness in its declarations and DVC Membership Agreement. A member (apparently by using the on-line reservation system) agrees: (a) that any reservations are solely for “personal use and not for commercial purposes,” and that meaning is the one required by the governing documents of all DVC resorts; (b) personal use “may” include reserving vacation homes for friends or family on occasion, and (c) “personal use” means that a member does not regularly or frequently rent/sell reservations booked using the membership.

Whatever the drafters of the June 2025 rules believed should be the rules, it is incorrect to declare that these new rules are the same “personal use” rules contained in any of the POS’s for DVC Resorts that came into existence before Riviera and it is even doubtful for Riviera. As I have pointed out before, see e.g., www.disboards.com/threads/aggressive-anti-rental-email-response-from-ms.3919744/page-16 post #316, and www.disboards.com/threads/new-definition-of-rental-activity.3939178/page-24#post-65340745, post #474., the Declarations (usually in section 12.1) and other governing documents define the term “personal use” as the actual use of the rooms as “vacation accommodations.” The “use of the accommodations” are then limited to the “personal use of the Owners, their lessees, guests, exchangers and invitees,” and thus the term “personal use” is deemed to expressly include members renting rooms to “lessees” as vacation accommodations. What is then prohibited is the actual “use” of the vacation homes for a “commercial purpose or any purposes other than personal use described herein.” Since personal use is expressly described herein to include rentals by members of rooms as vacation accommodations, the term commercial purpose in that sentence is not even referring to rentals but instead just to the actual use of the rooms, e.g., they cannot be used to conduct business operations, a use that can be engaged in only in designated “Commercial Units” as set out in the Declarations. The Declarations then provide the only rental prohibition that exists pre-Riviera by stating that a “commercial purpose” includes a “pattern of rental activity” that the “association can reasonably conclude constitutes a commercial enterprise or practice.” That section was prepared by lawyers. In the law, there are statutes and cases that refer to “commercial enterprises,” a term generally understood in the law to mean a person or organization that is actually in the business of doing something to achieve profit.

DVC itself in the mid-2,000s showed that its understanding of the personal use provisions was that many rentals were allowed by a member as long as the member was not perceived as actually being in the business of doing rentals, including by adopting a rule that declared that if a member did more than 20 reservations in a year, a presumption, which the member could defeat, would arise that the commercial enterprise rule was being violated.

Another issue is that the June 2025 rules state that “DVCM reserves the right to interpret personal use and determine if reservations are booked for personal or commercial purposes in its discretion.” The rule that actually exists for pre-CCV resorts is that the association or its Board is the determiner on the issue of whether a member has violated the commercial purpose rule using the reasonableness standard, and there is nothing in the DVC Membership Agreements applicable to DVCM that gives it the authority to make such determinations, including one that requires no level of reasonableness. The CCV Declarations and Membership Agreement are the first to ever allow DVCM to decide the issue, and the reasonableness standard existed until the creation of CFW. In fact, the DVC Membership Agreements for BLT, VGF, and Poly themselves expressly repeat that it is the association’s Board that is to make any determinations concerning violation of the commercial purpose rules, i.e., DVCM itself is precluded from making such determinations in the very document that controls what it has the power to do.

What Is Really Going on

My initial reaction was that the June 2025 rules were attempting to do something devious. The document phrases things as something a member agrees to by using the online reservation system (which did not exist before 2012) after seeing the June 2025 rules. The potential was that DVC may in the future contend that a member’s use of the online reservation system after learning of the June 2025 rules results in the acceptance by the member of the new rental rules and thus a waiver of any rental rules actually contained in the Declarations and other documents for a DVC Resort. However, it appears that may not be DVC’s intent since the document does state that if there is a conflict between the June 2025 rules and any rules contained in the POS’s of a particular resort, the terms in those POS’s will control. Moreover, if DVC's new rules are deemed in any way to lessen the number of times a member can rent under the the terms of the original declarations for a DVC resort, they can be thrown out by a court as a violation Fl. Stat §718.110 (13) which provides that rental rights provided in the original declarations for a condominium resort cannot later be changed to lessen in any way the number of times an owner can rent except via an amendment to be voted upon by the owners, and any owner that votes against the amendment will not be bound to follow the changer made.

Nevertheless, there is still some outside possibility that DVC may later contend that the June 2025 rules relating to rentals control because they state your agreement that the June 2025 rental rules are themselves what is “required by the governing documents for each DVC Resort,” i.e., a member agrees that what is stated in the June 2025 rules about rentals really has the same meaning as the rules stated in the DVC resorts’ POS’s.

An ultimate issue is what DVC intends to actually do with the June 2025 rules. Its intent may be two-fold: (a) the new rules will simply make many who are doing multiple rentals do less; and (b) DVC will attempt to stop a number of those who are actually doing a lot of rentals to make profit, including those members that are joined with others in a business-type relationship to mainly do rental. If that is what occurs few can complain. If instead DVC intends to be far more restrictive on rentals, a lawsuit may arise, and would be one that DVC could lose if it takes any position that the June 2025 rules control.

I have seen reports that those currently seeking to make reservations are being asked to confirm if it is for “personal use,” or requesting the member to state whether it is a “rental.” If all DVC is doing is asking whether a reservation is for “personal use,” then the problem is that members of most the DVC resorts can honestly answer no even if it is a rental because the actual meaning of "personal use" in the pre-Riviera DVC declarations includes member-rentals to persons who will use the rooms as vacation accommodations.

If instead, the system is asking whether the reservation is a “rental,” then the answer to that is I wonder why DVC did not start asking that question some years ago when reservations were made, so as to provide DVC needed information on rentals. What many are unaware of, including because DVC has not asked the question when one is making a reservation, is that the Home Resort Rules and Regulations, §5(3)(b), have, for a number of years, required members to inform MS whether a reservation made for someone other than the member is a rental.

 

[JackosinDIS]

As I posted, we know they take the AkV values for cash guests. Every one they take is one less an owner gets.

Do you know whether Disney has to abide by the same first come first served system that owners do, or do they have a way of grabbing inventory before we can get to it? Do some of these rooms get taken out of the inventory that we see before we get to 11 months?

 

[Genie+]

Again, this is not about spec rentals . This is about the rental market in general.

Some hope DVC should crack down on owners renting even small number of points

It’s interesting to me that this program to allow owners to use points for APs came out the same time they were getting complaints about renting.

It’s a move that will shift rooms booked on points to cash that prior to MMB were being used or rented.

And, as I said, you have no idea if DVC plans to change what rooms they take for trades. Just because they haven’t, doesn’t mean they won’t capitalize on picking up the spec rentals that commerical renters are currently picking up.

As I posted, we know they take the AkV values for cash guests. Every one they take is one less an owner gets.

Forgive me if I’m off here (haven’t completely read this whole thread, did some skimming)-

But I did get the feeling you’re dismissing any action on spec rentals because, well, DVC can just do it themselves.

 

[JackosinDIS]

The Vacation Points Banking Guideline section declares that already banked points cannot be transferred

Interesting… we all missed this little error in the June 2025 rules!

nevertheless, there is still some outside possibility that DVC may later contend that the June 2025 rules relating to rentals control because they state your agreement that the June 2025 rental rules are themselves what is “required by the governing documents for each DVC Resort,” i.e., a member agrees that what is stated in the June 2025 rules about rentals really has the same meaning as the rules stated in the DVC resorts’ POS’s.

I may resort to only making reservations by calling member services… thereby never actually agreeing to these new terms and conditions!

 

[muppets3d]

Interesting… we all missed this little error in the June 2025 rules!


I may resort to only making reservations by calling member services… thereby never actually agreeing to these new terms and conditions!

I am sure that there is language in the contract that by continuing to use your membership you agree to DVC's terms even as they are amended, and they'll probably ask you over the phone as well.