DISboards.com is a business. It has sponsors who contribute to financially maintain the site (which is a considerable expense).
The DVC Rent/Trade Board has been around for over 20 years now and its original intent was to allow active members of the DISboards community a resource to use reservations and DVC points which would otherwise go to waste.
Over time, the "free" resource grew, was suggested as resource for DVC Members on other sites and expanded well beyond the original "community". As we grew, so did the issues of that growth when a number of DVC Members (and non-Members posing as Members) took advantage of the trust of those seeking DVC reservations.
In spite of warnings posted regarding due-diligence, precautions to take, etc. we have learned that few read the advice and warnings pinned at the top of Rent/Trade Board. This failure includes both potential renters and DVC Members and we see this daily as regular occurrence.
Many of the lessons learned over the past 20+ years have resulted in the Rent/Trade Board policies now required in order to participate.
By 2010, those actively participating on the DVC discussion Forums here on the DIS made it abundantly clear that there was growing frustration when Members were unable to secure reservations at certain times of the year (early December, Spring Break, October, etc.) but were seeing 'Reservation for Rent' opportunities on the sites (including the DIS) offering the ability for Members to make and offer reservations at DVC Resorts. Around that same time there were also rental broker sites popping up to provide rental opportunities for Members, including the rental of existing reservations.
In late 2010, we had earnest discussion on the DVC forums about what policies should be implemented to continue to allow DVC Members to benefit from points they would be unable to use and allow potential members a safe place to look for DVC reservations.
Those discussions resulted in the early policies where DVC Members needed to be registered for 6 months have at least 50 posts over that timeframe in order to participate on the DVC Rent/Trade. Potential renters have never had any restrictions placed on participation. Existing reservations would only be allowed within 30 days of arrival - which supported the concept that this was truly for Members with a reservation (or points) they were unable to use. It eliminated, at that time, the opportunity to make speculative reservations for popular times.
When those basic policies began in early February, 2011 the silence on the Rent/Trade Board was deafening (cue the crickets) and the complaints began immediately. We had posters making fifty one-word posts over the course of an hour to meet the "letter of the law" and others who just went elsewhere to rent their points.
After a few weeks of almost dead-silence on the Rent/Trade Board, we consulted with a "behind-the-scenes" DIS Webmaster who rarely posts but has a number of very critical responsibilities and he suggested a monetized option and emphasized that, in addition to what was referred to as the "Gold" plan, he wanted a "Premium" option which could still allow existing reservations more then 30 days before arrival. That concession was reluctantly agreed to and the Gold ($24.95) and Premium ($199.95) rental plans were born and offered. The Gold plan was quickly embraced and the Rent/Trade Board became a vibrant option once again. The Premium plan was rarely used and even then found resistance to acceptance of reservations for inflexible specific dates - especially when theses reservations were often priced well above what "point" rentals were going for.
In early 2011,
DVC rentals typically ranged from $7 to $11 per point. DVC itself had priced OTU points for $10/pt and few members ventured much beyond that price. Annual maintenance fees at that time ranged from $3.89 (BLT) to $6.78 (VB) and direct purchases were in the $130 range.
Fast forward over 10 years and rental prices have soared with the abundance of broker sites and other resources for DVC rentals, events of the past year have significantly reduced financial support from DIS advertisers, the cost of the software and servers to run the DIS has increased greatly and, even though all of the Rent/Trade moderators are
volunteers the true beneficiaries have been, as always, those who use this resource - both DVC Members and potential renters.
Most (almost 80%) use only a single rental thread to rent the extra points they have for their current Use Year and they will benefit from "only" a $5 increase per year - to a total of $29.95, even if they end up needing 3 rental threads. Those offering to rent more points (some are offering north of 1500) points will need to find a way to afford an increase of $15 for their six rental threads. The Silver plan is being considered for those who may only need a couple of rental threads to use their points. The Platinum plan was added last year as an option for those with unusable reservations due to the pandemic.
We have had DVC Members using multiple usernames (NOT allowed) and purchasing multiple rental plans a few months apart to increase their ability to use up to 6 rental threads per year per account. When those cases are identified, they permanently lost access to the Rent/Trade. Fortunately it does not happen often, but it has happened several times in the past year and also in prior years. We have several behind-the-scenes tools to assist in locating and confirming those situations.
Essentially, it is time to modestly increase the cost to use this resource or it could just be lost completely. What services have you used over the past 10 years which have not increased in cost?
