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

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The slightly-less-unpopular route they should go is to be more aggressive with repricing the seasons over the course of the year rather than repricing Studios relative to 1BRs.

But we all suspect they do the low point seasons to manipulate park attendance, not to make booking easier.

 

[GoingSince1990]

Get angry all you like. Prices will rise, politicians will philander and you too will grow old.

I disagree, the powers that be at DVC don't give a red penny about the blowback if they increase point costs. If the law allows it, if the contracts permit it, then it is on the table along with any other measure.

As something of an economics nerd, I personally would be happy and not angry if DVC rebalanced the points charts to better reflect demand. However, I think that DVC would care very much about the members' reaction to this. They have said they are addressing perceived rental abuse by commercial operators due to members complaining about this practice, since they would prefer everyone to be happy with their membership as opposed to bombarding them with gripes. But if they were to (for example) increase the points cost of studios by 20% while reducing the cost of 1BRs, I would expect that the volume of complaints they would get would dwarf the amount of complaints about commercial renting.

 

[muppets3d]

Obviously I was being flippant to illustrate a point. Raising the price of studios is obviously a tradeoff between "slightly more expensive" and "easier to book." I don't think it's crazy to say that owners should be able to book Studios at their home resort at, gasp, 9 months!

The slightly-less-unpopular route they should go is to be more aggressive with repricing the seasons over the course of the year rather than repricing Studios relative to 1BRs.

The way DVC works is they sell as many points as it takes to fill every room every night, so no matter how expensive they make the Studios - not everyone that may want one is going to get one.

 

[lowlight]

Did not even have to go back a page.

Has nothing to do with what you are alluding to.

 

[RamblinWreck]

The thing that would actually solve all of this, which they're not going to do because the entire membership would have a temper tantrum, is dramatically raise the price of Studios and lower the price of 1 bedrooms.

A properly-balanced points chart would have rooms that are equally difficult to book across room types and points seasons. If it's too hard to get a Studio, Studios are too cheap. If it's too hard to book in December, December is too cheap, etc.

ETA: They obviously couldn't do this across resorts because Saratoga Springs is never going to book as quickly as Beach Club, but within the home resort booking window, pricing should be restructured to mitigate disproportionate demand.

As someone who always stays in 1 bedrooms, and never in December, I am all for this!

Or maybe I'm not. I feel spoiled when I read the threads where everyone is talking about there being no availability for the lower cost rooms. When it comes to 1 bedrooms, it's often very feasible to switch to other resorts and use their lowest cost "resort view" rooms at the 7 month mark.

 

[WinterSolider]

But we all suspect they do the low point seasons to manipulate park attendance, not to make booking easier.

That doesn't make any sense.

1. There's nowhere near enough DVC inventory to move the needle on park attendance. Most park guests stay off site. Most on-site guests stay in Value or Moderate resorts. Most Deluxe guests are staying on Cash, not Points. DVC makes up a fraction-of-a-fraction-of-a-fraction of park guests on any given day.

2. DVC capacity is very close to 100%. From a park attendance perspective, it doesn't matter whether a room books at 11 months or 11 days.

 

[RamblinWreck]

The way DVC works is they sell as many points as it takes to fill every room every night, so no matter how expensive they make the Studios - not everyone that may want one is going to get one.

That is definitely not true.

You could make Studios the most expensive rooms in the building and they will go unused for most of the year.

Obviously that wouldn't happen, but the closer in price studios are to 1 bedrooms, the less competitive they would become (and the more competitive 1 bedrooms would become). There's really no debating that.

 

[WinterSolider]

The way DVC works is they sell as many points as it takes to fill every room every night, so no matter how expensive they make the Studios - not everyone that may want one is going to get one.

Except demand is not static. The idea is that if you raise the price of Studios and lower the price of 1 bedrooms, some subset of the would-be Studio guests decide to book a 1BR instead.

The list of "everyone that may want one" changes.

 

[lowlight]

Except the “1%” was pulled out of someone’s ### on here. Disney has made no public comments regarding their progress (hence all the posts asking if it was brought up at any quarterly meetings).

There are a few statements that have been repeated so many times in so many threads over so many years by just a few select people that they are now repeated as fact, and this is one. Nobody in their right mind thinks it’s 1%. If I had to guess based on number of reservations listed at any time, the spec rental market is likely around $100 million a year, and then add the points rental on top of it.

 

[WinterSolider]

Except the “1%” was pulled out of someone’s ### on here. Disney has made no public comments regarding their progress (hence all the posts asking if it was brought up at any quarterly meetings).

Source: Trust me bro.

See also: I made it up.

 

[muppets3d]

That is definitely not true.

You could make Studios the most expensive rooms in the building and they will go unused for most of the year.

Obviously that wouldn't happen, but the closer in price studios are to 1 bedrooms, the less competitive they would become (and the more competitive 1 bedrooms would become). There's really no debating that.

Even expensive room types like the Polynesian bungalows, 3 bedroom grand villas, and treehouse cabins end up getting booked - so I don't think they could price the studios high enough to make them sit empty. That's just not realistic. We should at least try to be realistic when engaging in debate, shouldn't we?

Except demand is not static. The idea is that if you raise the price of Studios and lower the price of 1 bedrooms, some subset of the would-be Studio guests decide to book a 1BR instead.

The list of "everyone that may want one" changes.

It depends on the resort - at BWV for example a lot of people want studios vs 1 bedrooms regardless of point charts because the studio sleeps an extra head that the 1bed cannot accommodate. The extra space and amenities of the 1 bedroom are less important than the sleeping surfaces available to them in the studio.

There are a few statements that have been repeated so many times in so many threads over so many years by just a few select people that they are now repeated as fact, and this is one. Nobody in their right mind thinks it’s 1%. If I had to guess based on number of reservations listed at any time, the spec rental market is likely around $100 million a year, and then add the points rental on top of it.

If only 1% of DVC reservations were commercial rentals, this huge cottage industry of DVC rentals sponsoring every Disney podcast and instagram page would not be viable. There's just not enough money with only 1% of bookings. Obviously it is much higher than 1%. Ray Charles can see that.

 

[TCRAIG]

Except the “1%” was pulled out of someone’s ### on here. Disney has made no public comments regarding their progress (hence all the posts asking if it was brought up at any quarterly meetings).

True - but I would (if I had to) guess that it’s still a very very small % of DVC owners renting a very specific resort/room type/season that is causing all this brouhaha over commercial renters. I myself don’t really care about it other than on principle…same with walking I would add.

 

[lowlight]

$100 million sounds like a really small percentage, though. That's like 5 million points.

The number of points it would take to book up all of the DVC rooms at WDW for an entire year is about 500 million, is it not?

That looks an awful lot like 1% to me.

I’m only talking about WDW, I don’t track any other spec rentals, and you forgot the part at the end “add the point rentals on top of it”. I think spec rentals are the smallest, yet most negatively impactful part of the rental market.

 

[TCRAIG]

Even expensive room types like the Polynesian bungalows, 3 bedroom grand villas, and treehouse cabins end up getting booked - so I don't think they could price the studios high enough to make them sit empty. That's just not realistic. We should at least try to be realistic when engaging in debate, shouldn't we?



It depends on the resort - at BWV for example a lot of people want studios vs 1 bedrooms regardless of point charts because the studio sleeps an extra head that the 1bed cannot accommodate. The extra space and amenities of the 1 bedroom are less important than the sleeping surfaces available to them in the studio.



If only 1% of DVC reservations were commercial rentals, this huge cottage industry of DVC rentals sponsoring every Disney podcast and instagram page would not be viable. There's just not enough money with only 1% of bookings. Obviously it is much higher than 1%. Ray Charles can see that.

I disagree-DVC rental sites are 3rd party clearing houses for individual owners…which under any and all DVC statements concerning rentals is allowed and NOT considered commercial.

 

[lowlight]

I disagree-DVC rental sites are 3rd party clearing houses for individual owners…which under any and all DVC statements concerning rentals is allowed and NOT considered commercial.

I might be misunderstanding your argument. Are you saying it’s ok for the brokers to do it and it isn’t commercial to list for owners, or that owners who rent through brokers aren’t doing so commercially?

 

[Mouseforward]

True - but I would (if I had to) guess that it’s still a very very small % of DVC owners renting a very specific resort/room type/season that is causing all this brouhaha over commercial renters. I myself don’t really care about it other than on principle…same with walking I would add.

If you’re talking the total percentage of points not the percentage of owners - 1% is ridiculously low. It could very well be one percentage of the owners but that’s not really relevant. If they average 4000 points each and the average DVC owner has between 200 and 300.

The part that gets lost in the shuffle is what is the effect? Which goes back to what is the difference between a commercial renter booking patterns verse the regular DVC user. Since the point would not disappear if we removed commercial renters, they would be sold.

I definitely can see there’s a difference in studio booking but would it be more than 20%? So you’re really talking 20% of whatever percent of commercial rental points you land on. Obviously, that significantly reduces the effect.

 

[IMMkXLVI]

Even with DVC which I think we can, all agree is the best of the timeshares. Buyer ignorance is a frequently used sales tool.

Oh yea. Our other timeshare is no exception. Again I wanted to see a live system for reservations and availability.
While I couldn't explore it myself, they did send me screen shots of specific dates I gave them at specific properties.

It was enough to buy in.

 

[TCRAIG]

I might be misunderstanding your argument. Are you saying it’s ok for the brokers to do it and it isn’t commercial to list for owners, or that owners who rent through brokers aren’t doing so commercially?

If I - as an individual - list my points or rental via a third party broker’s site (like the board sponsor’s) - then the site is not the member renting, I am…and only my membership should be subject to the commercial review. That said, true commercial renters would NOT use a third party site to rent because the commissions would eat their profit.
So - discounting the third party sites and members renting small number of points or infrequently over the years - I really do think there’s a minuscule number of true commercial renters as per Disney’s loose interpretation.

 

[IMMkXLVI]

That doesn't make any sense.

1. There's nowhere near enough DVC inventory to move the needle on park attendance. Most park guests stay off site. Most on-site guests stay in Value or Moderate resorts. Most Deluxe guests are staying on Cash, not Points. DVC makes up a fraction-of-a-fraction-of-a-fraction of park guests on any given day.

2. DVC capacity is very close to 100%. From a park attendance perspective, it doesn't matter whether a room books at 11 months or 11 days.

At first I was going to disagree with you but before I spoke, I looked it up. It seems the answer may exist somewhere in between.
According to an online search, Disney has a combined (Disney and non on-site Disney) total room capacity of 35k.

If you use an average of 3 people per room, that is close to 100k people.
Annual Park Attendance
Magic Kingom 43k
Epcot 32k
Hollywood Studios 28k
Animal Kingdom 24k.

I think Disney could move the needle a little, not a lot. Maybe enough to keep the needle in the black?

 

[xdan0920]

- discounting the third party sites and members renting small number of points or infrequently over the years - I really do think there’s a minuscule number of true commercial renters as per Disney’s loose interpretation.

So discounting basically all renting there is only a small amount of rental activity. Got it!