HH - Room available for cash but not points

[WolfpackFan]

Has this ever happened to you? We are going down to WDW the week after Easter. We check out of AKV on Friday and driving back home and I had the idea that we might stop for a night at HH in a studio if available. I called MS yesterday and asked about availability. I was not optimistic because of the late date and it being near Easter. Turns out there is a studio available but not for points. I could get the room as a cash ressie for $240 for the night. I know I've heard of this happening before, but it's the first time it's happened to me. Somehow as a DVC member who even has HH points this really bugged me. I said no thanks and made a ressie instead at the Hampton Inn at HH for $110.

 

[Simba's Mom]

Has this ever happened to you? We are going down to WDW the week after Easter. We check out of AKV on Friday and driving back home and I had the idea that we might stop for a night at HH in a studio if available. I called MS yesterday and asked about availability. I was not optimistic because of the late date and it being near Easter. Turns out there is a studio available but not for points. I could get the room as a cash ressie for $240 for the night. I know I've heard of this happening before, but it's the first time it's happened to me. Somehow as a DVC member who even has HH points this really bugged me. I said no thanks and made a ressie instead at the Hampton Inn at HH for $110.

Is this the member's cash price? If so, we had a similar situation, and it really bugged/puzzled me too. We wanted a 1 BR for Thanksgiving. At 7 months, nothing available, so we went on the waiting list. Nothing. At about 6 weeks out, for some reason, I called and asked if a 1 BR was available on member's cash. "Oh, yes!" Always wondered why nothing on points all that time, but member's cash was OK. Now, we book on MC first, then waitlist there.

 

[WolfpackFan]

Yes, it was the member cash price. What puzzled me was the MS person was the one who offered to check. I had no idea there would be any availability at all since I couldn't book on points. Evidently there is some percentage of units that are withheld from members using points. To me, that just doesn't seem right.

What I really found interesting was for that one night there was only one unit available via points - a 3 bedroom GV.

 

[DVC Mike]

Evidently there is some percentage of units that are withheld from members using points. To me, that just doesn't seem right.

There are two sets of inventory:

Declared (or Member) inventory can be reserved with Vacation Points. These are vacation homes associated with ownership interests that have been purchased by members and declared into the Condominium Association. Declared inventory is available only to members.

Undeclared (or Developer) inventory can be reserved on a cash basis. These are the vacation homes owned by DVD that have not been declared into the Condominium Association, or those points ROFR’d by Disney.

 

[DisDaydreamer]

Yes, it was the member cash price. What puzzled me was the MS person was the one who offered to check. I had no idea there would be any availability at all since I couldn't book on points. Evidently there is some percentage of units that are withheld from members using points. To me, that just doesn't seem right.

What I really found interesting was for that one night there was only one unit available via points - a 3 bedroom GV.

Any time a DVC member books outside of DVC using their points, DVC pays cash for that reservation. DVC must rent these points for cash to recover the cash spent. So... these points become a part of the cash inventory, which is totally separate from the points inventory. There is no other way of handling this situation, other than not allowing DVC members to book II or concierge, or other outside (DVC) resorts. The books have to balance in the end.

I think crisi would appreciate that last line.

 

[starbox]

I've often wondered if the longer a resort has been open, the more cash reservations are open - as I am guessing a good percentage of owners have a pattern of spending the first couple of years of ownership doing WDW/DVC and then start to branch into using points for WDW some of the time - but more and more for cruises/exchanges. I've wondered if this is part of the reason that there appears to be limited availability at times at BCV/BWV/VWL/HHI. If just 15% of HHI owners decide, after ten years of Disney trips, to do exchanges - seems like that could almost wipe out points inventory on peak dates. Do we know if CRO has any restrictions on when they take the inventory that is turned over during exchanges? Seems like they'd want it during peak, easy-to-rent dates - which would be things like Easter/4th of July/Thanksgiving......... It also seems like they'd want to put most of their exchange inventory into studios because they'd be easier to rent.

I know we all say it's a bad use of points - but honestly, I expect that a very large number of owners start to get Disneyed out and either sell or start to use their membership to do more varied vacations.

 

[3pirates]

We ran into the same thing (even at HH) years ago when the resort was new. It was explained much the same as it was here....the points inventory and the cash inventory legally have to be kept separate. Any transactions between the two have to be arms length.

I don't know about people branching out..probably true. We ran into it most likely because HH wasn't sold out yet. The units that were not sold had to be rented for cash.

And we have been members for 15 years. We don't worry so much about what is a good use of our points, we have more than recouped our investment and just use our DVC to enjoy ourselves. We have exchanged for cruises a couple of times and will be using some points for our May ABD. It sure makes those trips more affordable!

 

[WolfpackFan]

I guess what bothers me with HH is that there are so few studios. So if they are holding x% to rent out for cash, that leaves even fewer for members to get with points.