Heads Up for DVC Rent/Trade Board Users - an open discussion

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Making "exceptions" is a slippery slope and would require moderators deciding what is appropriate for such an exception. It adds a lot of extra effort already to have to count the past 6 months of posts for EVERY thread submitted without a Rental Plan icon.

Needing to also consider an "exception" for those who didn't even post for three of the last 6 months just to save them $24.95 when they are wanting to rent possibly 100's of points at $16 per point is not a tough decision at all to make. Being consistent with the policy removes all opportunity for future criticism.

We have always made an exception for those offering points for FREE. If you fall into that group, your thread is welcome and will still be going forward.

Otherwise, if you will be financially benefitting from using this DVC Rent/Trade board we do expect posters to contribute, either by offering their time and effort participating in discussions or by paying for that privilege.

These are the issues discussed back in 2010 and the current rules are the result and evolution of those discussions. The possible changes suggested here are a result of observations about recent increased utilization of the board.

There are, of course, other options for Members to rent their points and we are cognizant and accepting of that fact. If the current DIS DVC REnt/Trade Board policies and/or the suggested policies are not acceptable, the other options may be a better choice.

Having a choice is always good! :)
 
Respectfully, the DIS is a small private business and provides a livelihood for several people. One of its most important assets is a large community of people who love Disney. It costs money to maintain that asset.

Why do some feel entitled to free access to that community for their own personal financial benefit, especially when they are not regular contributors?
 


Respectfully, the DIS is a small private business and provides a livelihood for several people. One of its most important assets is a large community of people who love Disney. It costs money to maintain that asset.

Why do some feel entitled to free access to that community for their own personal financial benefit, especially when they are not regular contributors?

I remember those days when we had so many posts that were I agree, yup, etc. just to get to the number posted. So, owner who knew they might need to rent, showed up, posted for a few months, just to use the R/T board, and once down, gone again.

Personally, I think $25 to post if one has not been a regular member of the DIS community is a bargain. It equates to the value of less than 2 points.
 
Maintaining the overall DISBoards website has costs. Technicians, servers, maintenance, board software, virus protection and crash/attack recovery costs are not inexpensive. The R/T Board fees have been the same for the last 10 years. Costs have risen during that time. And you are still able to avoid any fee by meeting the posting prerequisites---8 posts in at least 4 of the last 6 months with an overall total of at least 50. If those 50 posts are spread evenly over the last 6 months, that's an average of just over two posts per week.

First - I would like to state that I do not personally have a problem with having to pay, whether it is $25 or $30, for the ability to post rentals. I may not agree 100% on how you determine who pays what, but understand there has to be some type of easy to enforce rules. In fact, I will gladly be paying for a plan if later this week the Doctor tells me "Still no traveling!" and I'm faced with having to rent out my upcoming reservation.

Second - I fully understand the costs involved in running a website such as this. If it was free, there would be no need for outside advertisements or board and site sponsors. (Coincidently, this particular board has direct sponsorship, which is something not all boards on this site have the benefit of. ) But, I would be shocked to learn that the $1.500 in potential additional revenue was necessary to maintain it.

My comments were not about the fees themselves, but more about the surprise of finding out that these fees don't directly support the R/T Board. Additionally, though maybe not direct or intentional, I am surprised by the somewhat rather vale attempt to relate these increases in fees to the increased workload on the moderators. Again, I find it disappointing to discover that there is no direct compensation to the individual moderators in some manner for having to do all the extra work to maintain the R/T Board. I thank them for all the hard work they have done here and through-out the site for the past 23 plus years.

And to my friend Pete Werner ...... With all do respect ..... STEP UP and do the right thing! ;)
 
First - I appreciate the rent/trade boards 1000%! I have not used it often but I've been very grateful to have it especially this past year.

Only 40 regulars? Surprising. Were there previous limitations for regulars on the number that could be done? I should probably just go look myself but since it's being discussed that was just what popped into my head.
(So I checked and it looks like there were no limitations for regulars on the number of posts as long as it wasn't a confirmed reservation so now it will go to the most limiting option if I understand correctly? It was a nice "perk" indeed for regular contributions. With only 40 who took advantage it becomes more tracking to verify how many they have done and seems like it could be more work than it might be worth. Of course any free posts are still nice. I guess all of the plans add more work in that regard though.)

Overall it's very nice to ask for feedback because your boards, your rules. I understand the comments about the fixed week ownership as it has become a product offered by DVC since the implementation of the rules but also see the other hand. Are people even regularly getting trades thru RCI anymore? I see so little about it now other than that the offers are limited to larger Villas and it seemed like mostly SSR. We also know what resorts even offered fixed weeks - Aulani, VGF, PVB, CCV and Riv and I cannot say when I last saw a post about an RCI trade into any of those if ever in the case of the newest resorts. It does almost seem like there's a screening option that is happening automatically just by the fact of resorts that fixed weeks are available at.
 
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Fixed weeks are something that people want to rent on both sides of the transaction. These are the most high demand rooms and times, and people are willing to pay a premium for them, including paying to list them. If they aren't listed here, they will be listed somewhere.
 
Fixed weeks are something that people want to rent on both sides of the transaction. These are the most high demand rooms and times, and people are willing to pay a premium for them, including paying to list them. If they aren't listed here, they will be listed somewhere.

While I have no skin in the particular game, I think looking a solutions for fixed week postings makes sense. If they are "The Most High Demand" and "People are willing to pay a premium", then require a modified Premium Plan. The poster could be limited to one such fixed week rental per year and the higher fees may help balance the required verification effort required by the mods. Just a suggestion.
 
Fixed weeks are something that people want to rent on both sides of the transaction. These are the most high demand rooms and times, and people are willing to pay a premium for them, including paying to list them. If they aren't listed here, they will be listed somewhere.
Since these are "the most high demand rooms and times, and people are willing to pay a premium for them" then they should also rent quickly and at a premium within 30 days of the arrival date. That alone gives those wanting to offer such reservations a full 11 months to post enough where there would be no cost involved at all to use the Rent/Trade Board.

We would still need to count posts made over the past 6 months but since it would likely only be for that one rental thread (or twice if you have purchased two fixed weeks), it would not be much more of an issue than what is already needed for any other rental thread submitted.

Problem solved and everyone will be happy! :)
 
Since these are "the most high demand rooms and times, and people are willing to pay a premium for them" then they should also rent quickly and at a premium within 30 days of the arrival date. That alone gives those wanting to offer such reservations a full 11 months to post enough where there would be no cost involved at all to use the Rent/Trade Board.

We would still need to count posts made over the past 6 months but since it would likely only be for that one rental thread (or twice if you have purchased two fixed weeks), it would not be much more of an issue than what is already needed for any other rental thread submitted.

Problem solved and everyone will be happy! :)

Yeah, but then there's that whole 7 night weekend thing.
 
Since these are "the most high demand rooms and times, and people are willing to pay a premium for them" then they should also rent quickly and at a premium within 30 days of the arrival date. That alone gives those wanting to offer such reservations a full 11 months to post enough where there would be no cost involved at all to use the Rent/Trade Board.

We would still need to count posts made over the past 6 months but since it would likely only be for that one rental thread (or twice if you have purchased two fixed weeks), it would not be much more of an issue than what is already needed for any other rental thread submitted.

Problem solved and everyone will be happy! :)

Spontaneity is greatly reduced at WDW these days and from all accounts will be for awhile. Park reservations may be here to stay. Last minute rentals will still happen I'm sure but what was in the past may not be a given going forward.

As I posted earlier I also don't think there's too much concern of with legit DVC owned fixed weeks being an RCI reservation or not just because it doesn't seem like what is sold as fixed weeks even ends up in RCI.
 
I've been declinded a few times but I also was approved once on a posting pre-Pandemic and found a buyer for my Aulani Transfer for that use year, so I don't mind the rules as they are what they are. Wouldn't mind if there was an addition of once approved to post, always approved or something along those lines.
 
Help me understand how a fixed week is different than any other 7 day reservation that is booked on points at 11 months for purpose of R/T thread.

If someone has a FW at CCV the first week in December and someone else is able to book that same week just using points, I am not sure why the FW reservation should treated any different.

I think if we want to develop a plan for FW, then it has to apply to all 7 day trips as well...which gets us back to the concern of RCI trades being offered.

Does it make sense that those that own at resorts without FW or ones that see more rooms go to RCI be prohibited from trying to rent the same 7 day confirmed week during a high demand time simply because it’s not a FW?
 
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Second - I fully understand the costs involved in running a website such as this. If it was free, there would be no need for outside advertisements or board and site sponsors. (Coincidently, this particular board has direct sponsorship, which is something not all boards on this site have the benefit of. ) But, I would be shocked to learn that the $1.500 in potential additional revenue was necessary to maintain it.

My comments were not about the fees themselves, but more about the surprise of finding out that these fees don't directly support the R/T Board. Additionally, though maybe not direct or intentional, I am surprised by the somewhat rather vale attempt to relate these increases in fees to the increased workload on the moderators. Again, I find it disappointing to discover that there is no direct compensation to the individual moderators in some manner for having to do all the extra work to maintain the R/T Board. I thank them for all the hard work they have done here and through-out the site for the past 23 plus years.
....

The sponsor that primarily allows the DISboards.com to survive is DreamsUnlimitedTravel.com

All of the DVC Forums are sponsored by The World of DVC ( DVCResaleMarket.com, DVCRentalStore.com and MoneraFinancial.com ). That same sponsor also supports the DVC Podcasts and DVCFan.com . The DVC Rent/Trade Board is included in that sponsorship.

However, without the rest of the Forums on the DIS, the DVC Rent/Trade would not even be here. The DIS was founded as a Disney travel planning site. The DVC Forum and Rent/Trade boards were added later when it became obvious that there was interest in DVC planning by many of the DIS "community" and the DVC "family" of Forums have grown since but to separate the cost to run the DIS into separate categories and suggest that the DVC Forums should not cost "$1.500 in potential additional revenue" to maintain it is a disappointing statement. The fees generated by the DVC Rent/Trade forum are applied to the operating expenses for the DISboards.com

I have personally been surprised that few of the regular members who use the DVC Rent/Trade board (and renew their rental plan year-after-year) have contributed to this discussion.

Regardless, this thread was offered as an opportunity for posters to share thoughts about these potential changes. Any final decision will come from higher up and will not be made by the Rent/Trade Moderators.

Thanks for your participation! These suggestions will passed along to those making the final decision - if any! :)
 
Help me understand how a fixed week is different than any other 7 day reservation that is booked on points at 11 months?

If someone has a FW at CCV the first week in December and someone else is able to book that same week just using points, I am not sure why the FW reservation should treated any different.

I think if we want to develop a plan for FW, then it has to apply to all 7 day trips as well...which gets us back to the concern of RCI trades being offered.

Does it make sense that those that own at resorts without FW or ones that see more rooms go to RCI be prohibited from trying to rent the same 7 day confirmed week during a high demand time simply because it’s not a FW?

Not much other than the person booking their points has the option to make the start date something else or even make it 6 nights instead of 7. They also can modify it to reduce days. The fixed week owner has Sun-Sun and can't reduce to make it conform if they decide they can't use it. So a bit of a difference from the owners standpoint that makes a difference if they need to rent it out.

It's just a choice of the boards of course whether to accommodate something like that or not and just discussion since this thread was offered to discuss.
 
Not much other than the person booking their points has the option to make the start date something else or even make it 6 nights instead of 7. They also can modify it to reduce days. The fixed week owner has Sun-Sun and can't reduce to make it conform if they decide they can't use it. So a bit of a difference from the owners standpoint that makes a difference if they need to rent it out.

It's just a choice of the boards of course whether to accommodate something like that or not and just discussion since this thread was offered to discuss.

I was more referring to the rules of the board and why the FW owner should be treated differently than an owner who wants to try to rent a 7 night reservation booked on points.

Again, if we have two owners with the exact same week, just booked different ways, who want to offer it to get that premium, how can we say one is allowed and one is not?
 
I was more referring to the rules of the board and why the FW owner should be treated differently than an owner who wants to try to rent a 7 night reservation booked on points.

Again, if we have two owners with the exact same week, just booked different ways, who want to offer it to get that premium, how can we say one is allowed and one is not?

It's just Fri/Sat/Sun week long reservations that are not allowed was because it might be an RCI trade, correct? If that remains the reason then it's my proposed point that the type of fixed weeks that have been sold by DVC don't actually end up on RCI as a possibility. If correct then allowing DVC fixed weeks would just be including more week long reservation types that are allowed to be posted. Of course I may be completely wrong as I don't have anything to try and trade in via RCI so maybe weeks at the locations that have fixed weeks are frequently available for trades.

At least weeks 7 nights long starting Mon-Thur are allowed aren't they? So it's not the length of the stay that is prohibited but the type it might be and possibly there's a different criteria, resort, that can safely determine it's not an RCI stay.
 
The sponsor that primarily allows the DISboards.com to survive is DreamsUnlimitedTravel.com

All of the DVC Forums are sponsored by The World of DVC ( DVCResaleMarket.com, DVCRentalStore.com and MoneraFinancial.com ). That same sponsor also supports the DVC Podcasts and DVCFan.com . The DVC Rent/Trade Board is included in that sponsorship.

However, without the rest of the Forums on the DIS, the DVC Rent/Trade would not even be here. The DIS was founded as a Disney travel planning site. The DVC Forum and Rent/Trade boards were added later when it became obvious that there was interest in DVC planning by many of the DIS "community" and the DVC "family" of Forums have grown since but to separate the cost to run the DIS into separate categories and suggest that the DVC Forums should not cost "$1.500 in potential additional revenue" to maintain it is a disappointing statement. The fees generated by the DVC Rent/Trade forum are applied to the operating expenses for the DISboards.com

Doc,

I'm well aware of the history of WDWInfo and the DISBoards and how DreamsUnlimitedTravel.com evolved from them. Like yourself, I was an early settler here.

Sorry my statement disappointed you. Again I was surprised to learn that the R/T board is maintained by volunteers, and I just found it odd how these changes were being presented. I also somewhat question their potential impact versus benefit but I'm not looking at all the numbers you have access to. So again sorry if that was misconstrued and somehow offended you.

I have personally been surprised that few of the regular members who use the DVC Rent/Trade board (and renew their rental plan year-after-year) have contributed to this discussion.

Regardless, this thread was offered as an opportunity for posters to share thoughts about these potential changes. Any final decision will come from higher up and will not be made by the Rent/Trade Moderators.

Thanks for your participation! :)

Ironically, I only ended up reading and posting on this thread because of the potential I may need to utilize the R/T board in the near future.
Quite honestly, I got lost trying to read through all the rules in order to do so, and find these potential changes only adding to that confusion.

I too am surprised by the lack of participation in this thread by the R/T regulars.
My only suggestion would be to consider cross-posting somehow on the R/T board.
After all, 88% of them are not "active contributors" to the boards.

Again I want to express my thanks to ALL the moderators and particularly those here on the DVC Boards.
Thanks to Pete for putting this site up nearly 24 years ago now.
And also my sincere thanks to you Rob, for all you have personally given up over the past 2 decades to continue making this DVC Community what it is.

Finally, Thank you for providing the opportunity to openly share my thoughts on this topic.

Regards,
Shamus
 
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It's just Fri/Sat/Sun week long reservations that are not allowed was because it might be an RCI trade, correct? If that remains the reason then it's my proposed point that the type of fixed weeks that have been sold by DVC don't actually end up on RCI as a possibility. If correct then allowing DVC fixed weeks would just be including more week long reservation types that are allowed to be posted. Of course I may be completely wrong as I don't have anything to try and trade in via RCI so maybe weeks at the locations that have fixed weeks are frequently available for trades.

At least weeks 7 nights long starting Mon-Thur are allowed aren't they? So it's not the length of the stay that is prohibited but the type it might be and possibly there's a different criteria, resort, that can safely determine it's not an RCI stay.

Yes, the fixed week matches the Sunday to Sunday like RCI. We do allow confirmed reservations outside of 30 days but under other plans, but not start with Friday, Saturday, or Sunday

So, any plan that allowed a FW Sunday to Sunday would also have to allow any trip booked Sunday to Sunday by any owner regardless of whether it was a FW to be a fair rule to all owners,

While most RCI trades tend to be SSR or OKW, it could be any resort, Should someone who owns either of those simply be kept out of Sunday to Sunday for a premium week simply because it’s not an official FW? Or how about an owner who owns at BLT or BCV? Those can be pretty high demand resorts, An owner could certainly book a 7 day trip there to try and rent at a premium and capitalize on it like a FW owner is trying to do.

Sure, they have the option to book Thursday to Thursday which a FW owner can’t do without the cancel, but for the same reason the FW may be popular, so could a regular Sunday to Sunday week long trip vs. starting a random day.

Just think these are all situations that need to be considered when changing the rule for fixed weeks to ensure the boards are consistent and fair. I am not sure it’s as simple as it seems.
 
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