I am a first time cruiser and they were the same price for the Disney cruise, I wasnt aware prices could be different. I only checked with Disney themselves.
I was also talking about Interval International, RCI, and DVC themselves as well, who are not as small of companies but do not create taxable swaps with their systems either as far as I am aware.
I'm confused as to what else you would have been expecting? This is how every DVC rental/swap company works, even DVC themselves. Do you think that they are only renting them out for enough for your payout or swap? Of course not, companies do not work for free. They will rent out the reservation/points for as much as they can get.
DCL may be more of an anomaly with prices but with RCI I have found prices all over the place. I have literally checked 6 different online sites. Some room categories match almost exactly with RCI and some cabins ranged from $6,693 to $7,381 for the same room. And refund policies vary from place to place if you cancel. Several have non-refundable deposits. I will only book a refundable room.
Disney Cruise line is the anomaly in the cruise industry. The price for the DCL cruise will be the same no matter where you go, no one is allowed to discount the cruise fare. Unlike every other line where some travel agents will eat into their commissions to lower your cost because they do such high volumes, plus they can get special incentives and group rates from the cruiseline based on how much business they do. Now some TAs will provide you with OBC for DCL, or some other kinds of perks, but they cannot touch the cruise fare.
Thanks! Glad I didn’t leave a bunch of money on the table!
When you mention RCI are you meaning Resorts Condominiums International exchange company or are you meaning Royal Caribbean International?
I love paying taxes!
I am talking about Royal Caribbean as I was looking into doing a "cruise swap" with the DVC Rental Store as they advertise no 1099's to go this route. Then I discovered through pricing the cruise at different sites that the Rental Store was apparently marking the price up before telling me how many points I'd need to rent out to cover it.
Noted. I can’t discuss this more than saying there are sometimes very legitimate reasons someone may oppose how their taxes are being used, and I have some very legitimate concerns at the moment about how my tax dollars are being used contrary to my state’s interests that I cannot share without getting a warning or a ban. So this is the end of my conversation on the topic.
Sorry. I may messed up on my abbreviations. I thought it was clear in my original post that I was looking to do a "cruise swap" with our points for a RC cruise.
This is good to know, it is one of my frustrations with dvcrs as a renter too. It takes a long time for them to get back to you at times, sometimes even days and theyre not very good at answering their phone either. I dont see why cruise swap would be any different and you just verified that suspicion!
Did you question them on the higher amount? They might not be ignoring you, they take days to answer sometimes. As far as I know there is only one lady that answers the cruise swap emails and sets that up. I could only imagine how frustrating it would be to have them as my cruise TA. With dcl you have to call for a lot of things or at least I do. To add on celebrations, dining rotation requests, etc things come up. Sometimes Disney will talk to u on the phone, but most of the time they'll say your TA has to call. Very annoying to wait days for a simple request. On my most recent rental stay with them, my best friend was listed as the lead guest and not me when I was supposed to be. I called and emailed them and I got no answer until days after the trip.
Did you question them on the higher amount? They might not be ignoring you, they take days to answer sometimes. As far as I know there is only one lady that answers the cruise swap emails and sets that up. I could only imagine how frustrating it would be to have them as my cruise TA. With dcl you have to call for a lot of things or at least I do. To add on celebrations, dining rotation requests, etc things come up. Sometimes Disney will talk to u on the phone, but most of the time they'll say your TA has to call. Very annoying to wait days for a simple request. On my most recent rental stay with them, my best friend was listed as the lead guest and not me when I was supposed to be. I called and emailed them and I got no answer until days after the trip.
It turned out not to be an issue except for the inconvenience of not being able to go directly to our room. My wife was also pissed our name wasnt on the TV but I told her thats not such a big deal but to her it was
I will say that when I was interested in a universal studios hotel swap it was the exact price as the hotel website, but I thought it was false adversting in the sense that the amount of points they advertise what it could be is much lower than the actual price. We went in the low low season and the points were much higher than what they were advertising. I guess their strategy is to get someone interested and then they'll possibly book, but that backfired for me, I was really turned off by a much higher point swap than I expected based on what they said it could be.
I called them out on this and that was the end of that swap lol.
Unfortunately, no … the IRS is clear, you have to declare the full value of what you receive. Then you can go ahead and off set it with any allowed expenses. They don’t allow you to “do the math” and report the difference. If you use a broker/barter network then it’s a 1099-B [the B is for Barter] and both parties report the transaction as income, then individually (obviously) each party uses their allowable expenses to reduce the tax liability. If you treat the transaction as a “sale-purchase” then it’s a 1099-MISC for rental income. Two different forms, ultimately same objective.
Makes sense, the tax man looking to get a piece of the gains between cost basis and current value.
Thanks, never had to think about the details of barter transactions, its complicated...of course.
