Make reservation with intent to rent?

Snurk71

DIS Veteran
Joined
May 17, 2001
Messages
3,239
I don't see a lot of reservations for rent - usually it's points offered to make a reservation. When I have seen an existing reservation for rent it usually says it was because of a trip cancellation.

Curious what others think about making reservations for high demand times/resorts with the sole intent of renting? Have you done it? Do you think you could fetch a higher rate? Downside would be finding a good/perfect match on travel dates, I'm sure.

Though I think it's OK within the current official member rules, I have a feeling there may be a lot of negative sentiment about blocking out other members (even home resort members) for doing such a thing. I haven't done so, but I admit the thought has crossed my mind (flame on!!).
 
No flaming, but I would never do it. I use my points for my personal use which includes friends and family. I don't rent, transfer my points for monetary gain.

I did not buy my points to make any money off the use of them.
 
I think you should book trips for times you think you'll be going. Booking it in hopes to rent later seems like a waste of time and risky. What if you forget to cancel or what if you're not able to fetch the price you want?

I only book for myself and if we had chosen to rent out using one of the websites bc we can't make it that year.
 

If you are using 11 month advantage, not really. If you manage to score a hard to get resort at 7 months for xmas, easter, thanksgiving, F&w, then yes, you will likely get a premium over the $12-13 you would normally get for 7 month points. You will probably have to reserve a larger window of nights, and then trim down to satisfy request.

note: I'm not encouraging this, just answering question....
 
I have not looked at the site rules in a long time but, unless they have changed, you cannot offer a confirmed reservation time for rent unless you are something like only 30 days or less out. In other words, you can do it only if you are already in a distressed situtation where you may lose your points because you need to cancel.

As to what you describe, reserving high demand times and then trying to rent them, it is an activity you sometimes see on other boards like eBay. As to views on the issue, you will likely find a large number that will despise you if you do it and refer to it as "predatory reserving.". The reason is historical. By the mid-2000's online rentals of DVC timeshares had become the normal and easiest way to rent. At the time, the rules allowed unlimited number of transfers per year, although limited to one way (you could either transfer in during the year or transfer out an unlimited number of times, but not both). Moreover, anyone could become an associate member on an unlimited number of memberships and make reservations using those memberships. Any inidividual could own up to 2,000 points per resort and 5,000 all resorts and a gourp onf individuals could get together and own a lot more than that as long as points were bought separately by each member of the group.

What happened is that DVC rentals were basically taken over by some groups of professional renters who were in the business of renting points. There were partner groups that purchased large amounts of points. They also heavily advertised seeking transfers of points to them and would actively solicit owners who wanted to do some renting to make them associate members. They then used many of the points they had control of to book, at exactly 11 months out, huge numbers of reservations for highly sought after rooms and reservation times such as Christmas, Thanskgiving and other holidays and then advertised their reservations for rent in numerous places. Many other owners found themselves blocked out from reserving the desired times.

The cacaphony of complaints were eventually heard by Disney. Prohibited by the offical documents is to rent for commercial purposes, a vague term defined as including repeated renting from which Disney, in its discretion, can conclude shows you are a commercial enterprise. Disney created three rules to attack the professional renters: (a) it adopted a rule that said that any member who made more than 20 reservations in one year will be presumed to be in violation of the commercial purposes rule and would be prohibited from making additonal reserations unless the member could show none were rentals; (b) it abolished the unlimited transfer rule and adopted the single transfer per year rule that exists now (and which was actually the original DVC rule on transfers); and (c) it adopted a rule limiting any person to being an associate member on no more than four memberships.

That did not resolve the professional renter problem completely but it certainly took the wind out of their sails and greatly reduced predatory renting. This site adopted rules limiting who could offer rentals and how it could be done, including prohibiting predatory reservations by limiting your ability to rent a confirmed reservation to a short period before date of arrival.

In other words, I would not expect to find large numbers, particularly of veterans, on these boards who would think that your proposal is something members should really do.
 
Last edited:
Nope, I wouldn't do it for a number of reasons. All, by the way have been mentioned in the posts before me. Whether my opinion is right or wrong my opinion is, I don't agree with those who think about it ahead of time and reserve for that purpose.
 
I doubt you'd get more. Like another person said, you may get less. You would have to find someone who wants the exact same dates, resort and room size.
 
I don't see a lot of reservations for rent - usually it's points offered to make a reservation. When I have seen an existing reservation for rent it usually says it was because of a trip cancellation.

Curious what others think about making reservations for high demand times/resorts with the sole intent of renting? Have you done it? Do you think you could fetch a higher rate? Downside would be finding a good/perfect match on travel dates, I'm sure.

Though I think it's OK within the current official member rules, I have a feeling there may be a lot of negative sentiment about blocking out other members (even home resort members) for doing such a thing. I haven't done so, but I admit the thought has crossed my mind (flame on!!).
IMO it offers some advantages. As to whether it'd fetch more depends on what you book. It's a function of demand vs points so sometimes lower demand or season options return a better ultimate per point rate. While I haven't tended to do so when I've rented, it's because I haven't needed to do so. I have enough people contact me wanting to rent, usually people I've rented to before. IMO the best and safest option is to deal only with current UY points very early in the UY. Securing a reservation that matches that situation increases one's odds that they will rent something that works in this situation. It does not preclude them offering points for rent, all they'd have to do would be to cancel the existing reservation and use the points for a given rental. Here on DIS I don't believe one could post well ahead of time but there are other locations one can do so.
 
You can't do it here. You could do it and advertise it somewhere else. And you might get better rates. A studio over Christmas at BLT, I can't imagine that not moving on the rental market. And if you can eBay it (I'm not sure what eBay timeshare rental rules are) you could do very well in bidding.

The general feeling used to be that it isn't fair to tie up a room that another member might want because you might rent it later. That booking rooms for speculative renting (which used to happen here) is inconsiderate. Which was why the rules here changed.
 
I'm not sure what eBay timeshare rental rules are

As far as I know it's allowed, BUT there is NO protection for it. Not with ebay or paypal (and I know they are separate companies once again). People think they are protected (renters specifically) but when you really read the rules, it's not one of the protected purchases.
 
You can advertise a confirmed reservation that will begin more than 30 days in the future on the DIS Rent/Trade Board, but you must purchase the PREMIUM R/T Membership Plan to do so.

Thank you Carol. That was what I started to post above but then I couldn't find the info to confirm it! I thought there had been a change that allowed a route to rent a confirmed reservation further out.

Of course, paying for the ability to do that might negate any extra one hoped to get for doing it.
 
Go for it! There are other places then the DIS to sell these reservations and there's no reason you can't do it. You can probably even work with the brokers. (David's currently has a reservation for New Year's on his site. )

I don't get the "it's OK to rent one way but not the other" agrument. If renting is OK then it's even better to go with high demand periods IMHO

Now I have never rented and never will, I figure when I don't want to use my points it's time to sell. I am not in this for a side business :)
 
I would hate to lose out on a reservation because someone did this to me.

Ergo, I would not do it to someone else.

I do not even believe in Karma, or any of that stuff, and I would not do it to make a few extra bucks.


The difference in my mind is huge. My DVC is FOR ME(and friends and family). In the event that I have points that will not be used, I will rent them out to someone looking for a reservation if one is available at the time of inquiry.

If someone wanted a high demand time, I would be willing to go on at 8am, 11 months out and try to get it. I would not do so out of speculation. Which as pp said, is the difference.
 
The difference to me in putting up unused points for rent versus speculative renting is intent. With the former you are helping someone book a trip because you can't use your points.

In speculative you have no one in mind when you book the reservation so you are simply doing it for monetary gain.

It reminds me very much of scalping concert and sporting event tickets. To me there's a huge difference if I buy a ticket to an event and can not use it and try to sell it for what I paid for it and buy tickets to a popular event and then try to re-sell them for profit. Again it's about intent.
 
Last edited:
The difference is "speculation." It's an important distinction, IMHO.
But it really isn't any different, it just feels different. IMO the idea that someone wanting to rent their points should hold back for someone who wants to use them in a different way is simply wrong.
 
Buying points to rent is speculative.
Assuming there's an audience for points at the price you want to went is speculative.

The only difference is the feeling that "I can't get what I want so it's a renters fault." Of course not really different then if the renter contacted the owner 12 months in advance and arranged the rental. Either way the room is gone and to a renter. If you think renting is allowed there's no real diference as Dean points out.
 













New Posts





DIS Facebook DIS youtube DIS Instagram DIS Pinterest DIS Tiktok DIS Twitter DIS Bluesky

Back
Top Bottom