Impossible at 11 months out? About ready to give up!

[agie65]

I bought VGF after looking at reservation pattern. VGF has only 47 studios, so if studios goes first in all DVC resort, VGF by default makes it harder to book.

I was trying to get studio in first week of oct 2015, could not get 2 nights at 11 month mark. Now both nights are wait listed individually.

 

[Snurk71]

Your mention of when the resort sells out making it harder to book - you should understand that they only make sections of the resort available as they are selling them. So when they first started selling, they likely only made a small portion of the resort available for booking. Understand, they want the rooms to be hard to get in order to sell the property.

I thought the word was DVD was way over declaring rooms into inventory ahead of sales - more than they ever did fire other resorts - to where we actually had an overabundance of rooms compared to purchased points for a while.?

 

[Msmithmd]

I thought the word was DVD was way over declaring rooms into inventory ahead of sales - more than they ever did fire other resorts - to where we actually had an overabundance of rooms compared to purchased points for a while.?

On opening day in May 2013, DVC declared 75.84% of inventory in VGF as available for booking by DVC members and open to sales. The remainder was declared sequentially in following months, and now over 90% has been declared (unless there is another update that I haven't seen yet, that the last bit has been fully declared.)

This was indeed an aggressive declaration timeline, but they had the sales to support the plan. Also, realistically they had a tiny fraction of the points to sell versus a BLT, much less an AKV or SSR sales opening scenario.

One did see some studio availability at seven months as recently as this past summer. It will be interesting to see how that plays out as the resort sells complete. Clearly as the discussion above illustrates, VGF will be home-resort-only for studios in peak seasons. Perhaps acknowledged in the layout of the PVB plans.

 

[Dean]

I thought the word was DVD was way over declaring rooms into inventory ahead of sales - more than they ever did fire other resorts - to where we actually had an overabundance of rooms compared to purchased points for a while.?

While they do, the other part of the equation is that they open sales in advance and often those owners are then loaded up with points. Say I buy 31 Jan with a Feb UY, I then have 2 yrs worth of points to use over the next year if I don't borrow and if I borrow I could get up to 4 yrs of points to use in 2 yrs. My observation is that this and the fact that most new buyers plus other owners are rushing to stay there means that from opening through the first 2-3 yrs from when sales are complete, the impact is greatest for reservation pressures. Obviously not everyone buys at the end of their UY, my estimate is that there are around 20% extra points above what's available to reserve the first couple of years including declared but unsold inventory, not counting borrowing.

Now for VGF things may not ease up as much as other resorts have but I do believe it will be easier to reserve for new members and at the 7 month window in a couple of yrs than it is now. Still, my opinion is that those who want to stay there routinely should consider a fixed week. Personally I wouldn't own there without it and if I couldn't afford to buy in that way, I simply wouldn't buy there even if I otherwise wanted to.

 

[DebbieB]

While they do, the other part of the equation is that they open sales in advance and often those owners are then loaded up with points. Say I buy 31 Jan with a Feb UY, I then have 2 yrs worth of points to use over the next year if I don't borrow and if I borrow I could get up to 4 yrs of points to use in 2 yrs. My observation is that this and the fact that most new buyers plus other owners are rushing to stay there means that from opening through the first 2-3 yrs from when sales are complete, the impact is greatest for reservation pressures. Obviously not everyone buys at the end of their UY, my estimate is that there are around 20% extra points above what's available to reserve the first couple of years including declared but unsold inventory, not counting borrowing.

Now for VGF things may not ease up as much as other resorts have but I do believe it will be easier to reserve for new members and at the 7 month window in a couple of yrs than it is now. Still, my opinion is that those who want to stay there routinely should consider a fixed week. Personally I wouldn't own there without it and if I couldn't afford to buy in that way, I simply wouldn't buy there even if I otherwise wanted to.

One thing about new resorts - all use years might not be available the first year. I ran into this with VGC. I was considering buying a 100 point add-on. I have an April use year. When sales were announced, they started with June use years with a September opening day. Which meant I would have to wait to the following year to get any points. There was no "doubling up" on points if you purchased when it opened.

 

[Dean]

One thing about new resorts - all use years might not be available the first year. I ran into this with VGC. I was considering buying a 100 point add-on. I have an April use year. When sales were announced, they started with June use years with a September opening day. Which meant I would have to wait to the following year to get any points. There was no "doubling up" on points if you purchased when it opened.

There have been times when points weren't available until a certain time or UY that were older didn't get that UY's points. In the situations I recall it was only the oldest UY compared to the resort opening that didn't get the old point such as in my example for an opening say 6 months later. That's why I chose 20% as likely, it could be more without such exceptions. The numbers aren't that important once there are more points than villas other than how long the backlog lasts.

 

[MEK]

I had the same experience as the OP since I was also trying for a 12/4 arrival date for 4 nights in a studio. After checking availability at exactly 8am on 12/2 and 12/3, it became obvious to me that I wasn't going to get it on 12/4. Seriously - I am talking logging in at exactly 8am and its gone, almost as if its already taken from a dedicated week reservation that gets immediately activated at 0800. Weird. And a little disappointing as it does seem impossible and futile.

I have VWL points so I am fine staying there at Christmas, just disappointing to know that VGF is off the table in December. 1 BR's are booked too. 2BR's are available.