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

[xdan0920]

I’ve seen reports that someone was told they might not be allowed but then it did happen

I’ve made three.

You’ve made 3 lead guest changes?

ETA: I contend that I notified them and added the name at the time it became a rental…prior to that it was not.

Ah. Got it.

 

[Sandisw]

You’ve made 3 lead guest changes?

Ah. Got it.

Yes because for two of the reservations, my friends who will be going have now confirmed whether they can go. So, I updated those reservations to reflect the actual guests who will be there in the second room....since we do split stays, there is always 2 to 4 rooms per trip.

I could have left the friend who I put as lead guest on it, who can no longer go, but I always contact MS to make sure the reservation in correct.

The point is that I was upfront and honest with why I was making changes, and wanted to see if there was any change to procedure...and whether or not we would be getting anything from DVC about the new policy....and in talking with the different CMs, they all said that there is no new policy, but rather this is just a way to have owners confirm, when calling, the same thing they confirm now when booking online.

 

[Sandisw]

Yeah I saw the 15 month mentioned, but I couldn't tell if that was when they would just be telling the members that there would be a special season list or if it would be when you would start making reservations/requests to be on the list.

The other aspect is they could make these a required minimum too...which, the rules state can be up to 5 days....It definitely could help those who want to see those specific rooms more controlled for the purpose of rentals, but how would owners of those resorts feel about losing those extra 3 months advantage over non resort owners?

 

[IMMkXLVI]

This thread is hitting close to home for me right now. This year and the next, we're renting out some points because we can't use them as planned. TLDR, My wife is going back to college for her MBA and these classes are intense. Time is a commodity she can't spend on trips to Disney or elsewhere, at least not to the degree planned.

This means renting out some excess points. Right now I have a renter with a confirmed reservation in their name, has been that way since day one. The person has been slow to reply to messages but responsive eventually. There is a balance due which has been on the books for a few months. By next month I must decide, cancel and release the reservation and points so I can bank them OR ......become one of those people with what will essentially be, a spec rental. Once the July deadline passes for banking, that option is gone and the points will expire in December if I don't go the route of a spec rental. I'm reluctant to go that route but the dates covered by this reservation happen to be, what I think, are highly coveted dates in a desirable resort for a sought after accommodation. I could probably make more money with it as a spec rental than the terms he rented it for. Like a grand more.

It wasn't even on my radar until my Siri reminder to email him last week and the reminder that it has been 5 days and no reply. I then looked at the reservation and the dates made me think...damn, that's a good week. Then this thread came to mind. Then I looked to see what spec rentals for that period go for.

I'm hoping he replies and settles up so I don't have to deal with this quandary.

 

[LoveToDisney]

As an owner at BWV, I would not want to lose my 4 month advantage for booking. It’s already hard to get SV and I do 1BRs.

 

[lowlight]

How would that work with fixed weeks which get booked at 12 months?

 

[Tatebeck]

I don't think you would realistically be losing anything other than the ability to plan a bit closer out (with the seasons list, it would be mean choosing dates 12-15 months out instead of 7-11 months out currently)

The sought after standard/resort view studio rooms at BWV and AKV value studios go so fast that I cannot imagine many would make it through the home resort advantage and the entire list of owners who put their names down without booking up.

And if you do 1BR they may not even have to do it for those rooms since that is not snatched up as quickly

 

[Tatebeck]

How would that work with fixed weeks which get booked at 12 months?

"For each Club Member who owns a Fixed Ownership Interest, Member Services will automatically book that Club Member’s Guaranteed Reservation every year prior to the beginning of the applicable Home Resort Priority Period"

Looks like they would just book it for you sooner

 

[Genie+]

As an owner at BWV, I would not want to lose my 4 month advantage for booking. It’s already hard to get SV and I do 1BRs.

The good news is DVC is very unlikely to roll out the same exact cure they used over 20 years ago when there was just a handful of resorts, and technology was a fraction of what we have today.

 

[CarolynFH]

How would that work with fixed weeks which get booked at 12 months?

Neither AKV nor BWV have fixed weeks, so it wouldn't be an issue at those resorts. If the special seasons lottery were implemented DVC-wide, I would think that fixed weeks would be removed from the inventory available for the lottery, just as they are for inventory for normal bookings. IOW, instead of being booked at 12 months, they'd be booked before owners could ask to be placed on the special seasons list.

 

[crisi]

This is a double-edged sword. There are many people (I am not one of them) who thinks this is EXACTLY what Disney wants. I agree Disney wants people to believe there is a real risk to renting from strangers on FB and 3rd party rental brokers but I’m not sure they actually want the family of 12 from Sheboygan suddenly homeless in the Grand Floridian lobby live-streaming their misery.

Luckily, they have a middle ground option— the sweet spot would be cancelling rentals from some of the more egregious spec renters (fairly easy to identify) about 6 days in advance. Near enough that they are upset to lose their dining reservations and LLMPs and have to choose from last minute hotel inventory, but not actually causing a crisis for the people on vacation. They could even gently explain they’d been preyed upon by a sinister commercial renter but that if they want to hold on to their advance planning bookings, Disney is willing to set them up with a room at:
Poly- $684+tax
GF- $706+ tax
All Star Sports- $166+ tax
BW- $409+ tax
Port Orleans -$226+ tax
Pop Century- $194+ tax

(These are all real rates currently available for a family of 4 from 6/24-6/30)

I suspect Disney does not really care if bargain hunters are dissuaded from going to WDW. The parks are busy all year round and at certain times of year you cannot fit another human in there. For everyone who is dissuaded from going to Disney, there is a (in Disney's mind) never ending stream of visitors who they want spending their money on cash rooms (for which there is INCREDIBLE markup) They want to be able to sell more points retail - easier to do when someone isn't searching up whether DVC is a good deal on their cell phone in the presentation and coming across "can't get a room due to rentals" threads. If toddlers getting eaten by alligators didn't put a dent in their attendance, if people were lining up for their fix during Covid, this won't affect Disney - and if and where it does its probably a plus for them. For the Disney Parks business, more guests isn't necessarily a good thing, and some guests are more preferable to other guests. (Disney World does not scale quickly or well).

On some other issues - we won't ever get hard numbers - and that is because there is a difference between me renting all 150 points I have for four years while my kids are in college, and someone renting 90% of the 4,000 points they own year after year and someone renting 80% of the 3000 points they own one year and then the rest are big vacations with all the grandkids.. Somewhere - in a combination of numbers and proportion and time period - Disney will define for themselves commercial rental - and they will err on not losing in court. Whatever that algorithm is Disney will keep confidential - that gives them the flexibility to adjust it and lowers their liability.

As to how do they tell if its a stranger renter or a friend - that's easy. They probably already subscribe to a fraud service that will tell you if two people are associated. (This is how Best Buy avoids shipping a TV to a scammer who has your credit card - they know what addresses and people you are associated with and if the TV isn't going to you at your home, they check. And they discover its your stepson in college with a different last name and ship it without a phone call). That's been happening for at least fifteen years. As long as you are associated (graduated from same college in the same year, worked at the same place), they will figure its plausible. It even gives you a weighting on how associated these people are - someone I'm working with now, likely. Someone who graduated from a huge public university the same year I did forty years ago who isn't even on any of my social media lists - not high.

 

[IMMkXLVI]

As to how do they tell if its a stranger renter or a friend - that's easy. They probably already subscribe to a fraud service that will tell you if two people are associated. (This is how Best Buy avoids shipping a TV to a scammer who has your credit card - they know what addresses and people you are associated with and if the TV isn't going to you at your home, they check. And they discover its your stepson in college with a different last name and ship it without a phone call). That's been happening for at least fifteen years. As long as you are associated (graduated from same college in the same year, worked at the same place), they will figure its plausible. It even gives you a weighting on how associated these people are - someone I'm working with now, likely. Someone who graduated from a huge public university the same year I did forty years ago who isn't even on any of my social media lists - not high.

Those sketchy "people finder" sites won't list every connection, just the easy ones. For those like me that shun social media, don't allow friends to tag me in their posts and never post about anything about friends and family, they'd have a hard time finding my outer circle, let alone my inner one. To say nothing of acquaintances and my second cousins best friends roommates adopted brothers neighbor.

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

By next month I must decide, cancel and release the reservation and points so I can bank them OR ......become one of those people with what will essentially be, a spec rental. Once the July deadline passes for banking, that option is gone and the points will expire in December if I don't go the route of a spec rental. I'm reluctant to go that route but the dates covered by this reservation happen to be, what I think, are highly coveted dates in a desirable resort for a sought after accommodation. I could probably make more money with it as a spec rental than the terms he rented it for. Like a grand more.

I'm hoping he replies and settles up so I don't have to deal with this quandary.

Someone else pointed this out hundreds of posts ago, but this is how the path to spec renting starts for a lot of people. They discover by accident that they can get 2x as much per point if they snatch up the desirable dates in certain categories and then they start doing it frequently. Some even buy more points at resale so "my points can pay for my points." I do think there are lot of huge renters, but I don't think the problems in the system will improve enough unless the people spec renting a few hundred points every year are also stopped.

The trick is balancing the situations where you actually have no choice (in your case, the cancellation occurs after July banking deadline for reasons beyond your control, instead of just ignoring it until July so you can try to make more money) so owners in a bind can rent out the trips they legitimately booked for their family, without making it easy for others to lock up the most desirable rooms to max profit. My concern is that the more people who think "oh Disney will never come for me, I'm just a small fish with my 300 points a year of spec rentals" the more likely it is that Disney will eventually have to take action to stop all name changes.

Those sketchy "people finder" sites won't list every connection, just the easy ones. For those like me that shun social media, don't allow friends to tag me in their posts and never post about anything about friends and family, they'd have a hard time finding my outer circle, let alone my inner one. To say nothing of acquaintances and my second cousins best friends roommates adopted brothers neighbor.

"My second cousins [sic] best friends [sic] roomates [sic] adopted brothers [sic] neighbor" would definitely not be friends and family personal use... acquaintances is probably closer to the line when Disney says friends and family... but I don't think Disney is going to be trying to split hairs with whatever system it uses to assess commercial renting, there are plenty of clearcut cases of people who spec rent half or more of their points to strangers on the internet that can be matched up with FB posts, internet sites, and 3rd party broker listings.

 

[mkatsy]

Those sketchy "people finder" sites won't list every connection, just the easy ones. For those like me that shun social media, don't allow friends to tag me in their posts and never post about anything about friends and family, they'd have a hard time finding my outer circle, let alone my inner one. To say nothing of acquaintances and my second cousins best friends roommates adopted brothers neighbor.

Yes, but you are the exception. We live in a very narcissistic world, and a Disney trip is a pretty big brag for many people.

 

[Sandisw]

How would that work with fixed weeks which get booked at 12 months?

For a seasons list? No impact at all because they would have to take those rooms out earlier.

The last time the SPecial list was used there were no resorts that offered them

 

[Sandisw]

I don't think you would realistically be losing anything other than the ability to plan a bit closer out (with the seasons list, it would be mean choosing dates 12-15 months out instead of 7-11 months out currently)

The sought after standard/resort view studio rooms at BWV and AKV value studios go so fast that I cannot imagine many would make it through the home resort advantage and the entire list of owners who put their names down without booking up.

And if you do 1BR they may not even have to do it for those rooms since that is not snatched up as quickly

The difference is that the non resort owners can get on the list one month later which can put them ahead of anyone who joins later, even if it is there home resort.

IIRC, there is no waitlist for these rooms since a list exists…it was also a continuation each year…it wasn’t new..so you could put in a new request, but you went to the bottom if everyone from the year before, including non resort owners, was still on it and active.