Low Room Inventory?

[skywaywaver]

We have All Star Music family suite for this August 18-24 booked for rack rate. Of course, with the new discount, I jumped on to check if it was available for our dates. It wasn't, but that's to be expected. I even shifted dates to 20-26 (we're looking to add on to the Polynesian for 24-26). It's okay, hopefully another discount will come along. If not, we still want to go.
However, we were hoping, if finances allow, we wanted to upgrade to OKW or Saratoga Springs 2 bedroom. If finances really allowed, I was even willing to pay rack rate, as this may be our last family WDW trip for a while, and it's our first trip since 2019. But looking through online, even just room rates (ie, where available, did not have the Disney+ offer selected), I see hardly any villa inventory in the DVC resorts for our dates.

Is this a glitch from the Disney+ discount? Are there just more villa bookings from DVC members because of the past couple of years? Will Disney possibly release more inventory for DVC villas as we get closer to August or is what I see what we get? I'm asking because we were planning on doing Disneyland next year but might possibly switch it to this year to allow us more leadtime for a Disney World trip in 2023. I'm not a newbie by any means but pre 2020, I've been able to see availability for most resorts well into July. Crowd calendars I'm looking at say very low crowds for late August, so I guess I'm seeing a bit of disconnect from expected crowds and actual inventory.

Any insight is appreciated, thanks in advance.

 

[Dug720]

Honestly even before the discount there were not that many studio/villa bookings available for cash.

 

[SG131]

It looks like there are openings at those resorts for dvc members. Maybe your best bet would be to consider finding someone to rent point from. Or, if you'd rather wait, there is a chance some rooms might be released for cash bookings closer to your dates, but that's a gamble. The dvc rooms have been a bit of a mess lately to book because of all the points that went unused through covid and as a result there has been very limited cash inventory.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

Disney only has a very limited inventory of villas for cash booking. Most are available only to owners of DVC. The cash bookings are based on points Disney themselves own, which is limited.

 

[skywaywaver]

Thanks all. I was thinking about all of the points that got pushed off from 2020. I guess we'll see what happens as we get closer and keep checking. For now, we have a room that works for us, so at least there's that. And we'll be in Disney again finally!

 

[Theta]

Disney only has a very limited inventory of villas for cash booking. Most are available only to owners of DVC. The cash bookings are based on points Disney themselves own, which is limited.

How do owners book these rooms? Do they have to call or is the inventory found somewhere online?

 

[gregskellington]

How do owners book these rooms? Do they have to call or is the inventory found somewhere online?

DVC members have a web portal they can book vacations with using their points.

 

[Theta]

DVC members have a web portal they can book vacations with using their points.

Yes, but the discussion is about booking rooms using cash to book, not points.

 

[gregskellington]

Yes, but the discussion is about booking rooms using cash to book, not points.

Then your question doesnt really fit. Cash rooms are cash rooms and the inventory online is it. Members see points inventory, which is a separate thing.

 

[Theta]

Then your question doesnt really fit. Cash rooms are cash rooms and the inventory online is it. Members see points inventory, which is a separate thing.

Interesting, well, I read @AuroraBorealis comment to mean there is a separate pool of cash DVC rooms that are set aside exclusively for DVC members.

"Disney only has a very limited inventory of villas for cash booking. Most are available only to owners of DVC. "

 

[gregskellington]

She meant most villas are reserved for members, AKA point bookings. We don't have a separate cash inventor.

 

[Theta]

Ooooh, okay, thanks!

 

[FSU Girl]

I think the villas are low on inventory because of Covid and people not using their points and now having a lot to use. I think also if they book a cruise with points that opens a room, but not entirely sure how it works since I don’t own DVC

 

[_auroraborealis_]

I think the villas are low on inventory because of Covid and people not using their points and now having a lot to use. I think also if they book a cruise with points that opens a room, but not entirely sure how it works since I don’t own DVC

If an owner moves points to a cruise, it does mean Disney can convert those points to a unit to be booked on cash.

If an owner trades with another timeshare, DVC has to make an equivalent unit available to users of that timeshare, so it doesn't result in cash availability.

 

[FSU Girl]

If an owner moves points to a cruise, it does mean Disney can convert those points to a unit to be booked on cash.

If an owner trades with another timeshare, DVC has to make an equivalent unit available to users of that timeshare, so it doesn't result in cash availability.

That’s what I thought. I think that also might be limiting inventory because not as many are cruising right now so less getting converted

 

[_auroraborealis_]

That’s what I thought. I think that also might be limiting inventory because not as many are cruising right now so less getting converted

I think the number of banked points in the system is a huge factor. Lots of banked points mean high member demand.

 

[CarolynFH]

And DVC has deposited a large number of weeks at SSR and OKW to RCI this year, presumably to use up the large number of DVC points deposited to RCI, mostly as a last resort, by owners who couldn’t use them otherwise. The weeks occurred between January and September.

 

[sndral]

DVC must own 2% of the villas at each DVC resort by the terms of the timeshare, sometimes they own more.
During the closure & for a long time after for international owners DVC was working w/ owners - allowing unbanking & extending deadlines - they were using points they owned to accomplish this, so it’s possible that they don’t have as much inventory to convert to cash bookings as in more normal times.
DVC usually makes that 2%+ available for cash bookings, the other 98% is member inventory & can only be booked by members with points, so owners’ bookings will not usually effect cash inventory. There are 2 exceptions one is when the owner uses their points to cruise or some other w/in the Disney universe use of points in essence they trade their points & those points go to cash bookings. The other is breakage inventory when owners don’t use their points - DVC can use a formula to ‘anticipate’ breakage & exchange that inventory for cash bookings - it’s possible ‘breakage’ is less now because owners are using or renting more of their points & the formula is predicting lower breakage so there’s less cash inventory from that source.

 

[saraheliz]

Make sure you keep looking. SSR was not available initially with the discount but a bunch of rooms got dumped into it late Thursday evening and I was able to grab a 2 bedroom yesterday- they had discounted rooms in almost every room category. A couple of room categories have filled up since but still some availability at SSR. There were Kidani villas available initially but those got filled up relatively quickly. I'd just be vigilant about checking a couple of times a day- you never know!

 

[Shellyred8]

One more thing for you to try: if you were signed into your WDW account, sign out and then look to see what is available. It's super annoying, but I see much more availability when I'm not signed in than I do when I'm signed into my account (even when I've change the "offer type" to room-only when I'm signed in).