Exploiting the Market - PIT Rentals

[Sandisw]

8k Points is clearly a commercial rental. I would think that the boards here would mostly be arranged for non-commercial activity. I can easily see situations where non-commercial owners need to rent out points. All is good there. Unless you want to make DIS into a commercial rental site with a fee to do that (presently, that appears to be one use of the platinum membership), I would cap it around 1k points per year. Something like..."All members, regardless of tier, can rent or transfer up to 1k points (or the equivalent in confirmed rentals) each year." And I'd also suggest that mods don't need to add up each member individually. But there will be immediately obvious differences between someone selling a few hundred points because of a family issue and someone posting 8k of points to rent as a full-bore commercial activity. I think that latter situation is one that various board might want to avoid, because it creates clear commercial rental situations--it also creates a situation whereby a member can pay a fee to use DIS for their own commercial purposes. Someone with 8K points needs to set up their own website and manage all aspects of the transactions, from listing to follow-through.

By the current definition of the POS, DVC looks at activity on a membership and not across multiple ones.

Now, they could change that and maybe owners would like them to, but for what has been explained, they don’t necessarily do that.

So, I have three memberships and each of those is viewed on their own.

So, it’s possible that someone having 8000 points, which is chosen by DVC as the maximum to allow for personal use…implying they aren’t concerned as much at that level…might have them across many membership and that those rentals don’t trigger the threshold DVC has set.

The DIS has no way to know how those points are structured within DVC rules and nor should they because it’s simply allowing owners, who are the one responsible, to advertise.

Again, owners can and should share concerns about how DVC defines membership for commercial purposes if they don’t like it, but ultimately it is up to DVC and not an individual owners definitions on what should happen, whether it should be that way or not.

 

[disneylandtour]

8k Points is clearly a commercial rental. I would think that the boards here would mostly be arranged for non-commercial activity. I can easily see situations where non-commercial owners need to rent out points. All is good there. Unless you want to make DIS into a commercial rental site with a fee to do that (presently, that appears to be one use of the platinum membership), I would cap it around 1k points per year. Something like..."All members, regardless of tier, can rent or transfer up to 1k points (or the equivalent in confirmed rentals) each year." And I'd also suggest that mods don't need to add up each member individually. But there will be immediately obvious differences between someone selling a few hundred points because of a family issue and someone posting 8k of points to rent as a full-bore commercial activity. I think that latter situation is one that various board might want to avoid, because it creates clear commercial rental situations--it also creates a situation whereby a member can pay a fee to use DIS for their own commercial purposes. Someone with 8K points needs to set up their own website and manage all aspects of the transactions, from listing to follow-through.

PS I just checked. The person who is renting 8k points has posted 51 messages in 12 years. In the message history that is visible, all of them are related to selling points, many of which are "I sent you a PM" to potential buyers. This is not a person who is adding to community discussion aside for commercial activity of selling a whole lot of points. So maybe that's an activity that DIS wants to encourage or allow--or I can also see many downsides to it as well.

 

[disneylandtour]

By the current definition of the POS, DVC looks at activity on a membership and not across multiple ones.

Now, they could change that and maybe owners would like them to, but for what has been explained, they don’t necessarily do that.

So, I have three memberships and each of those is viewed on their own.

So, it’s possible that someone having 8000 points, which is chosen by DVC as the maximum to allow for personal use…implying they aren’t concerned as much at that level…might have them across many membership and that those rentals don’t trigger the threshold DVC has set

Again, owners can and should share concerns about how DVc defines membership for commercial purposes if they don’t like it, but ultimately it is up to DVC and not an individual owners definitions on what should happen, whether it should be that way or not.

I think most of us were responding to Chuck S's question about how this particular board operates, now DVC overall: "If we were to change the policy, what amount of points do you think we should allow per thread?"

 

[disneylandtour]

Also 8K points is allowed as the max across multiple resorts. But this is also from the DVC: "Members may rent their Vacation Points. However, the use of your Vacation Points for commercial purposes is expressly prohibited. Commercial purpose includes a pattern of rental activity or other occupancy by a Member that the Board of Condominium Association, in its reasonable discretion, could conclude constitutes a commercial enterprise or practice." I don't think that there's any situation where a person with 8k points who rents them year after year cannot be defined as commercial activity. And the look for the board--from a certain perspective--can be construed that that type of commercial activity can be allowed here if the person has a paid account. I'm sure that a number of resale shops also do this type of commercial activity as well. But then again, the board isn't condoning it by listing them here. Anyway, just something to think about.

 

[Sandisw]

Also 8K points is allowed as the max across multiple resorts. But this is also from the DVC: "Members may rent their Vacation Points. However, the use of your Vacation Points for commercial purposes is expressly prohibited. Commercial purpose includes a pattern of rental activity or other occupancy by a Member that the Board of Condominium Association, in its reasonable discretion, could conclude constitutes a commercial enterprise or practice." I don't think that there's any situation where a person with 8k points who rents them year after year cannot be defined as commercial activity. And the look for the board--from a certain perspective--can be construed that that type of commercial activity can be allowed here if the person has a paid account. I'm sure that a number of resale shops also do this type of commercial activity as well. But then again, the board isn't condoning it by listing them here. Anyway, just something to think about.

It certainly sounds like it but there is a lot more that goes into it…many of these high point owners own across several different memberships.

It might have 10 memberships , with their name and names of lots of others with 800 points each.

If thst is the case, then they may not be triggering the review you think it would. How thst trigger happens is up to DVC they can only apply rules to a membership, since the language indicates a membership can’t be used that way.

It’s why this is such a hot topic because DVC doesn’t always act the way some want them to act.

 

[Chuck S]

But again, how is renting points, and making reservations upon the request of a renter, diminishing the availability for the average DVC Member? Everyone has the same opportunity to book when it is a point rental type thing as opposed to a pre-existing reservation made solely for the purpose of rental. Even if the DVC owner were to Transfer those points to another member, they would be used in roughly the same way. It is the sole responsibility of DVC to manage members point usage, and on a per membership basis, none of us have any idea if a Member is breaking the criteria set for Commercial Renting as defined by DVC. It is entirely DVCs responsibility to oversee these situations, We can "Gladys Kravitz" all we like, but it will have the same affect that Gladys did, we're just basically nosy neighbors.

It is really basically the same as Disney using their points and the points garnered from Disney Collection trades to rent out for cash reservations.

 

[Xalthon]

it is not the responsibility of this, or any other website to be the primary enforcement arm for DVCs rules. It is up to DVC.

This.

While I totally see where everyone is coming come and think the idea of new PIT owners reserving prime reservations and turning them around and selling them (the initial concern in this post) is not cool, I also can't see how it is the DISBoards' responsibility to enforce DVC's rules. Nothing is stopping DVC from viewing these posts and performing its own investigation and acting accordingly.

 

[Dalaney8]

There is a difference between renting ‘unused’ points and buying points to subsidize the costs of DVC.

If an owner buys way more points than they ever use on a yearly basis, that seems like it doesn’t fit ‘personal use’ and is purely for profit. If someone only ever uses 400pts/yr, bought 800pts and rents out the other 400 every year - that is not selling unused points. That is buying points specifically for commercial purposes.

Yes, some people have hundreds of points with multiple resorts that they couldn’t possibly be using unless they’re living at Disney part of the year. Which sounds amazing now that I’m reading it back to myself

 

[disneylandtour]

Yes, some people have hundreds of points with multiple resorts that they couldn’t possibly be using unless they’re living at Disney part of the year. Which sounds amazing now that I’m reading it back to myself

To be fully upfront, I have 800 points across four resorts. I would like to buy another 50-100 points. I go nearly every month and have for many years. Let's say eight or nine or ten times a year. (I'm not a huge fan of Orlando in July and August.). I've never rented points out. I thought once I was going to have to rent when someone close to me got sick, but I simply cancelled a couple of reservations and then rebooked more expensive rooms (views) later in the year which took care of the extra. The points I have were purchased specifically for me and my wife to use. I can see a situation where if either of us were injured or sick we might need to rent a chunk of points for a year or so. I think this would be non-commercial renting, which is allowed in the contract. I know others with about the same number of points--actually, I know a few people with 1k+--and none of them are renters. One gives points to friends as gifts when they have extra in a year. To me, all of this seems fine. And yes, I think there's a small group of DVC regulars who do use many hundreds of points each year on their own trips--likely many here on the board. But all of these options are very different than purchasing points far beyond your own needs to rent out as a for-profit endeavor, which is what we've been discussing on multiple threads this week.

 

[Dalaney8]

To be fully upfront, I have 800 points across four resorts. I would like to buy another 50-100 points. I go nearly every month and have for many years. Let's say eight or nine or ten times a year. (I'm not a huge fan of Orlando in July and August.). I've never rented points out. I thought once I was going to have to rent when someone close to me got sick, but I simply cancelled a couple of reservations and then rebooked more expensive rooms (views) later in the year which took care of the extra. The points I have were purchased specifically for me and my wife to use. I can see a situation where if either of us were injured or sick we might need to rent a chunk of points for a year or so. I think this would be non-commercial renting, which is allowed in the contract. I know others with about the same number of points--actually, I know a few people with 1k+--and none of them are renters. One gives points to friends as gifts when they have extra in a year. To me, all of this seems fine.

I agree that is fine and I agree with members who said it isn’t our job to police them. But when you consistently check the dvc rental posts on multiple sites and see the same handful of users with 200-1000 points per resort at 6+ resorts renting those points out frequently it doesn’t seem the same as people who post and say “We can’t go this year we’ve got x amount of points at x, y, z.”

 

[disneylandtour]

But again, how is renting points, and making reservations upon the request of a renter, diminishing the availability for the average DVC Member? Everyone has the same opportunity to book when it is a point rental type thing as opposed to a pre-existing reservation made solely for the purpose of rental. Even if the DVC owner were to Transfer those points to another member, they would be used in roughly the same way. It is the sole responsibility of DVC to manage members point usage, and on a per membership basis, none of us have any idea if a Member is breaking the criteria set for Commercial Renting as defined by DVC. It is entirely DVCs responsibility to oversee these situations, We can "Gladys Kravitz" all we like, but it will have the same affect that Gladys did, we're just basically nosy neighbors.

It is really basically the same as Disney using their points and the points garnered from Disney Collection trades to rent out for cash reservations.

Chuck, the more serious problem, IMO, is more with confirmed reservations in terms of commercial activity. This incentivizes renters to capture highly coveted reservations (perhaps using home-made scripts to locate those reservations) such as value rooms, club rooms, anything at beach club, rooms with certain views, rooms during peak holiday periods, boardwalk rooms during opening weeks of EPCOT festivals, etc., which then locks out others. The renter receives a higher profit on highly valuable rooms, which negatively affects the experience for everyone else. So the renter gets additional money by capturing valuable rooms, with this commercial activity locking others out of those rooms.

To be clear, I have no problem with any regular DVC owner who ends up with a couple hundred points renting or transferring them because during some given year (perhaps due to a new job, illness, family concerns) they have less time to travel. No issue at all. If someone had an emergency and needed to rent out a reservation (let's say within a month of arrival), all good, too. But we aren't talking about that: we're talking about posters and businesses who do this repeatedly specifically to produce profit.

The problem is with commercial activity. And yes, a person posting that they have 8K points to rent this year and every year is commercial activity. I see no way in which anyone could say that this is not commercial activity based on what that person posted.

I put this in another thread--but maybe here's something to consider. Cigarette ads are legal in US magazines. If you owned a magazine and included ads for cigarettes, you wouldn't be breaking any law. It would be, after all, the Fed's job to regulate tobacco, including ad venue. But would you, as a magazine owner, be contributing to a known problem by taking money for including such ads in your pages simply to capture profit. I think that's generally the issue here. It's partially an optics problem--from a certain perspective it can look like various boards are defending certain activities (or pushing responsibility for those activities onto others) when there's a transactional element: various boards are making money from paid accounts and sponsors who are clearly contributing to commercial activity, even if it should be someone else's responsibility to ultimately regulate it. That, generally, is the problem as I see it. And in this case many of the people harmed by this type of commercial activity are the general and regular people who have created community on the boards. That person with 8K points, according to her public post history, has done nothing other than post points for rent and then to respond to people wishing to rent them. So the board is protecting that activity under a paid account even if activity like that harms others elsewhere on the board who actually create the community here.

Anyway, hopefully that is something to consider. I still think the 1K board max in terms of point rentals (or the equivalent in confirmed reservations) per year would solve most (maybe not all) of the problems here and be a good step forward.

 

[disneylandtour]

This.

While I totally see where everyone is coming come and think the idea of new PIT owners reserving prime reservations and turning them around and selling them (the initial concern in this post) is not cool, I also can't see how it is the DISBoards' responsibility to enforce DVC's rules. Nothing is stopping DVC from viewing these posts and performing its own investigation and acting accordingly.

Yep, it's not any boards responsibility to police this overall. But should a board profit through sponsors and paid accounts that then help allow these activities to continue? That's a different question.

 

[Sandisw]

Yep, it's not any boards responsibility to police this overall. But should a board profit through sponsors and paid accounts that then help allow these activities to continue? That's a different question.

I think that is the hard part. Not setting policies in place that prevent the average owners to no longer use a broker or a place like the DIS to rent when we need to do such.

 

[Chuck S]

So is the problem really pre-existing reservations, as people are finding fault with a large point owner renting their points and not pre-existing reservations?

And here on the DIS, we do severely limit pre-existing reservations being offered. No one here can rent more than 3 per year, and that is with a $250 PREMIUM plan. We don't allow reservations of 7 nights that start on a Friday, Satureday or Sunday,to be offered here. Nor do we allow those with fixed week contracts to rent out their weeks. If people are renting their pints, they have the SAME opportunity to as anyone else to book rooms. Remember, Disney blocks out rooms, and if they aren't rented, do they release them back to DVC Members? Do they sit empty?

I agree with Sandi, if we set too harsh a policies, then owners will simply go elsewhere to rent out their points and the few reservations we do see here. I think we've got the best policies in place to allow both a few exisiting reservations and not set some arbitrary point rental limit. Rememeber, no one may ever post over 8 threads here on the DIS in one year with the $250 Premium plan, 6 threads with the Platinum and Gold plan, and 3 threads with the Silver and free plan. And the moderator here, including Carol, Sandi, and myself, are all volunteers.

So the more regulations, the more it cuts into our personal time. It already takes a lot of time.

 

[Hubalorian]

So is the problem really pre-existing reservations, as people are finding fault with a large point owner renting their points and not pre-existing reservations?

And here on the DIS, we do severely limit pre-existing reservations being offered. No one here can rent more than 3 per year, and that is with a $250 PREMIUM plan. We don't allow reservations of 7 nights that start on a Friday, Satureday or Sunday,to be offered here. Nor do we allow those with fixed week contracts to rent out their weeks. If people are renting their pints, they have the SAME opportunity to as anyone else to book rooms. Remember, Disney blocks out rooms, and if they aren't rented, do they release them back to DVC Members? Do they sit empty?

I agree with Sandi, if we set too harsh a policies, then owners will simply go elsewhere to rent out their points and the few reservations we do see here. I think we've got the best policies in place to allow both a few exisiting reservations and not set some arbitrary point rental limit. Rememeber, no one may ever post over 8 threads here on the DIS in one year with the $250 Premium plan, 6 threads with the Platinum and Gold plan, and 3 threads with the Silver and free plan. And the moderator here, including Carol, Sandi, and myself, are all volunteers.

So the more regulations, the more it cuts into our personal time. It already takes a lot of time.

I agree with most of what you stated but am genuinely curious the purpose of the limited threads? The simple work around is to condense the multiple threads into one mega thread? Instead of a thread for my Animal Kingdom points and one for my Grand Floridian points I combine them into one “Wildly Posh” thread for both set of points.

 

[disneylandtour]

So is the problem really pre-existing reservations, as people are finding fault with a large point owner renting their points and not pre-existing reservations?

And here on the DIS, we do severely limit pre-existing reservations being offered. No one here can rent more than 3 per year, and that is with a $250 PREMIUM plan. We don't allow reservations of 7 nights that start on a Friday, Satureday or Sunday,to be offered here. Nor do we allow those with fixed week contracts to rent out their weeks. If people are renting their pints, they have the SAME opportunity to as anyone else to book rooms. Remember, Disney blocks out rooms, and if they aren't rented, do they release them back to DVC Members? Do they sit empty?

I agree with Sandi, if we set too harsh a policies, then owners will simply go elsewhere to rent out their points and the few reservations we do see here. I think we've got the best policies in place to allow both a few exisiting reservations and not set some arbitrary point rental limit. Rememeber, no one may ever post over 8 threads here on the DIS in one year with the $250 Premium plan, 6 threads with the Platinum and Gold plan, and 3 threads with the Silver and free plan. And the moderator here, including Carol, Sandi, and myself, are all volunteers.

So the more regulations, the more it cuts into our personal time. It already takes a lot of time.

First of all, thank you for doing this work. Also, Sandi and the rest should be paid, even if that is a modest honorarium. Clearly there's money coming in. And that should be shared in some way with everyone who has a defined role and work. But also look at how posting policies are phrased in transactional terms: for $X people can post X number of confirmed reservations, which clearly indicates that revenue is coming in for the type of reservations many of us find problematic, even if there are limits on those. I think that's the real rub here.

 

[Mai Ku Tiki]

But again, how is renting points, and making reservations upon the request of a renter, diminishing the availability for the average DVC Member? Everyone has the same opportunity to book when it is a point rental type thing as opposed to a pre-existing reservation made solely for the purpose of rental. Even if the DVC owner were to Transfer those points to another member, they would be used in roughly the same way. It is the sole responsibility of DVC to manage members point usage, and on a per membership basis, none of us have any idea if a Member is breaking the criteria set for Commercial Renting as defined by DVC. It is entirely DVCs responsibility to oversee these situations, We can "Gladys Kravitz" all we like, but it will have the same affect that Gladys did, we're just basically nosy neighbors.

It is really basically the same as Disney using their points and the points garnered from Disney Collection trades to rent out for cash reservations.

Wow. I was just about to post something complimentary, thanking moderators for their replies, but this post is unneccesarily rude. Please do better.

With that, I'll leave Felicia, her GOLD Membership & everyone else to their own "business."
Have a MAGICAL Day

 

[Chuck S]

I agree with most of what you stated but am genuinely curious the purpose of the limited threads? The simple work around is to condense the multiple threads into one mega thread? Instead of a thread for my Animal Kingdom points and one for my Grand Floridian points I combine them into one “Wildly Posh” thread for both set of points.

You can use one thread, when renting points, for more than one resort. We have always allowed that, as long as the resorts and number of points are listed in the thread title However, if you are renting pre-existing reservations EACH pre-existing reservation must be in it's own thread. For instance, if you have points for rent at AK and GF, you can put those in one thread. If you are trying to rent a pre-esiting reservation, then they must each have their own thread. And you can not put pre-existing reservations and points rentals into one thead.

All threads on the Rental Board are closed after they have been open a month, or when their linked paid plan expires, which ever comes first. So if you purchased a plan today, and made a thread renting points it would be closed in a month, and you'd need to post a new thread if you have points left that you want to rent. This is to keep the board current, and not have a lot of older abandoned threads cluttering up the rental board as much as possible, as any reply to a thread bumps it back to the top of the forum.

 

[Chuck S]

Wow. I was just about to post something complimentary, thanking moderators for their replies, but this post is unneccesarily rude. Please do better.

With that, I'll leave Felicia, her GOLD Membership & everyone else to their own "business."
Have a MAGICAL Day

I'm sorry if you didn't like the Gladys Kravitz refernce, it was meant to be a way of saying we can complain and discuss the commercial renters all we like....but it really will accomplish nothing of any major scale in the end unless DVC sees a problem and takes action. Even if the DIS were to implement even stricter rules for renting here, it would have no affect on the many, many other websites for such rentals.

But, again, how is someone using their points on a POINTS RENTAL type basis, not a pre-existing reservation for rent, substantially any different from Disney cash reservations using their points for cash rentals? 8,000 or so points is peanuts compared to what Disney owns and rents out, or even uses for free promotions and upgrades to guests from other resorts.

 

[ocdb8r1]

But again, how is renting points, and making reservations upon the request of a renter, diminishing the availability for the average DVC Member? Everyone has the same opportunity to book when it is a point rental type thing as opposed to a pre-existing reservation made solely for the purpose of rental. Even if the DVC owner were to Transfer those points to another member, they would be used in roughly the same way. It is the sole responsibility of DVC to manage members point usage, and on a per membership basis, none of us have any idea if a Member is breaking the criteria set for Commercial Renting as defined by DVC. It is entirely DVCs responsibility to oversee these situations, We can "Gladys Kravitz" all we like, but it will have the same affect that Gladys did, we're just basically nosy neighbors.

I want to start by saying I don't think it's this site's job to police any rental activity and I don't have a problem with the fact there's a section on this board to facilitate it....I agree it is DVC's responsibility to police this (but I do think it's valuable for owners to have a place to discuss and perhaps consolidate thoughts they'd like to voice to DVC).

That said, I do think there's a big difference in some of the things that we have observed or speculate is going on with some of the commercial rental activity. Rental of existing reservations is just one example of where a commercial enterprise's aim (to reserve only the most in demand/profitable dates) is skewed from a casual owner (who is reserving for personal use, which will be shaped by a much wider variety of aims). In addition, being able to amass enough points to extract a greater value from each reservation also facilitates creation of a group with greater power to manipulate the system by deploying greater resources (whether that be people, bots...etc) dedicated to getting the "best" reservations (again, that no casual user would invest in). Bottom line, I don't think points are really "used" in the same way just because the access to the reservation system is the same. Having more points and more resources, combined with an aim to only maximizing return on each point creates a pattern of use very distinct from a casual owner.

It is really basically the same as Disney using their points and the points garnered from Disney Collection trades to rent out for cash reservations.

I don't think it's the same at all as 1) DVC is granted a specific exception to the commercial activity restriction in the governing docs, 2) DVC has a legal and fiduciary duty to use their points in a reasonable way that protects the wider membership and ensures a level playing field in availability (they can't just use those traded in points to cherry-pick every holiday or event week) and 3) DVC has to balance their interest in maximizing the return on those traded in points with their interest in ensuring the wider "system/product" as a whole remains viable and attractive to existing and future owners (a private commercial renter has no such interest in maintaining any balance).