Official Thread - New commercial use policy published 03/31

[speedyfishy]

I rent a decent amount of reservations, but it seems like I will be within their rules. On the other hand, I have a unique situation where my Great Aunt may get caught up in this. She bought Beach Club in 2002 and 2006. Since then her husband has passed away and she no longer goes to WDW. Hasn’t been in 7 years since my wedding and for that trip she booked 5 studios for our family. She is also older has no MDX account, no online dvc account, doesn’t even have an email address and uses a flip phone. WDW is too complex for her to navigate now. I don’t even want to attempt to explain LL and Genie+. But she can’t bring herself to sell the contract (I have told her she will get more money than she bought it for, but she still has an attachment to it) Every year she will treat some relative to a WDW stay. My siblings have experienced a weekend in a Copper Creek cabin and Poly bungalow. Extended family has gone to Disneyland. I know this is personal use and she does not receive money for these reservations, but she will be super confused if she receives a letter, but she also hasn’t used the contract herself since 2019 and even then she was 1/5 reservations.

 

[Girlstar30]

That is very different than it is now. Sounds like they want to give a little (allow small number of rentals be okay) to dive hard on those doing 11 or more rentals. That seems fair to me.

I really like this and it makes sense to find who is renting for commercial purposes if they consider that the majority of reservations are rentals and not just the amount of reservations because us Cali resort goers are going to probably have a lot more reservations under our names

 

[Tatebeck]

I just counted and we also have 25 reservations. 7 are individual day reservations at VDH to get the free lighting lane on each day lol.

I just knew there would be some members that would be doing that!

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

Hmm. But there is still no way to separate the personal use clause and the updated terms and conditions as they are combined into one box.

A member could rightfully be wanting to agree to the personal use clause but not want to agree to new updated terms that they are not legally required to accept. But they are given no option to do so in order to use their points. Requiring acceptance of the new terms could possibly be considered to not be consent to changes according to the law.

If they separated the two boxes and only made you check the personal box to continue then anyone who accepts the second box would more clearly have been considered to consent to the new terms IMO.

I am not a FL lawyer or a timeshare lawyer, but this principle does not apply to most other kinds of commercial transactions— most vendors are able update their T&Cs as they please and force partners to accept them to do business.

While there appears to be some protection of rental rights in FL, it clearly does not override the pre-existing prohibition on using DVC ownership as a commercial enterprise instead of personal use—so Disney is going to argue (I’d bet successfully) this is just a very reasonable update making clear what kind of behavior/thresholds they can prohibit/penalize as non-personal
use.

 

[Tatebeck]

I am not a FL lawyer or a timeshare lawyer, but this principle does not apply to most other kinds of commercial transactions— most vendors are able update their T&Cs as they please and force partners to accept them to do business.

While there appears to be some protection of rental rights in FL, it clearly does not override the pre-existing prohibition on using DVC ownership as a commercial enterprise instead of personal use—so Disney is going to argue (I’d bet successfully) this is just a very reasonable update making clear what kind of behavior/thresholds they can prohibit/penalize as non-personal
use.

100% agree on this part, I just think they don't need the new terms "accepted" to do so. And it would be somewhere around a coin flip IMO if they counted it as consent. Just because the members have signed a contract that the Florida law says they would need to consent to let DVC override. (If they were trying to put a hard cap on rentals in a certain time period, which it appears they aren't IMO so I guess it's probably irrelevant)

Interesting angle!

 

[VGCgroupie]

Hmm. But there is still no way to separate the personal use clause and the updated terms and conditions as they are combined into one box.

A member could rightfully be wanting to agree to the personal use clause but not want to agree to new updated terms that they are not legally required to accept. But they are given no option to do so in order to use their points. Requiring acceptance of the new terms could possibly be considered to not be consent to changes according to the law.

If they separated the two boxes and only made you check the personal box to continue then anyone who accepts the second box would more clearly have been considered to consent to the new terms IMO.

I just don't think they would rely on that as the gotcha for their argument. It looks more likely to me that they found clever wording around the Florida law and are just more clearly defining more things for us now that could have always been being considered as a possible commercial renting rule offense (as the non-exclusive terms in all the documents/old rules allows them)

Is calling in to make a reservation an option and a way to avoid agreeing? I see that having th ability to make reservation online is one of the consequences.

 

[VGCgroupie]

I just counted and we also have 25 reservations. 7 are individual day reservations at VDH to get the free lighting lane on each day lol.

Niiice! They did that one to themselves TBH

 

[DonMacGregor]

That is very different than it is now. Sounds like they want to give a little (allow small number of rentals be okay) to dive hard on those doing 11 or more rentals. That seems fair to me.

But that's not what it says. It says (emphasis added}:

3. Policy Regarding Use of Vacation Homes for Commercial Purposes: "Commercial purposes" includes a pattern of rental activity or other occupancy by an Owner (other than DVD and its affiliates) that the Board and/or Disney Vacation Club Management, LLC (the "Management Company"), in its reasonable discretion, could conclude constitutes a commercial enterprise or practice.

Without limiting the discretion of the Board and Management Company, the Board and/or Management Company may reasonably conclude that an Owner is using or occupying Vacation Ownership Interests and/or Vacation Homes for commercial purposes based on any one or more of the following activities (which are a non-exhaustive list of examples and without limiting any other possible factors):

• A majority of reservations made by an Owner or individuals identified in the Management Company's system of record as an "associate" or an "affiliate" ("Associate"), or a majority of the aggregate Vacation Points or Ownership Points (as applicable; "Points") owned or controlled by an Owner (which may take into account all Points owned or controlled by an Owner across all Resorts at any given time), in either case, are used by individuals or entities other than the named Owner or Associate, regardless of whether the Owner or Associate is listed as a named guest on the reservation. As used herein "controlled by an Owner" shall include all Points that an Owner possesses discretion and authority to utilize, which authority may be proxy, power of attorney, or other permission from another Owner; or
• A majority of reservations or Points owned or controlled by an Owner (which may take into account all Points owned or controlled by an Owner across all Resorts at any given time) are made or used respectively at Resorts with overlapping room types and/or dates, regardless of whether the Owner or Associate is named as a guest on said reservations; or
• Regular advertising by an Owner, Associate, or someone else at the direction of an Owner (such as an employee, principal, officer, director, contractor, or agent acting on behalf of an Owner; collectively
  "Owner Agent") of the availability of Vacation Ownership Interests and/or Vacation Homes for rental, including but not limited to use of a dedicated website, social media account, page, post, third-party service provider, or on any other media or platform now known or hereafter devised; or
• In any 12-month period more than 20 reservations are made by an Owner and/or its Associate (which may take into account all Points owned or controlled by an Owner across all Resorts at any given time) and a majority of such reservations are not used by the named Owner or Associate; or
• An Owner, Associate, or Owner Agent conducts photography, videotaping, or recording on Resort property that is used to market the availability of Vacation Ownership Interests and/or Vacation Homes for rental activity.

"In any 12-month period more than 20 reservations are made by an Owner and/or its Associate (which may take into account all Points owned or controlled by an Owner across all Resorts at any given time) and a majority of such reservations are not used by the named Owner or Associate..." is just one of the bullet points provided, which is a non-exhaustive list of examples. It clearly states that "any one or more of the following activities" could be the basis for determination that the points are being used for commercial purposes. They can very clearly make that determination based on any of the other bullet points (or other criteria) regardless of how many reservations were made.

 

[FlyingDonut]

A majority of reservations or Points owned or controlled by an Owner

This "Points owned or controlled by an Owner" is what I don't understand. I thought points were fake things that represented an ownership in a resort and we just use points to signify the amount of that ownership.

Does "Points owned or controlled" mean:
-All the points I'm entitled to in one year, assuming no banking / borrowing (this seems the most correct, but I can't prove it)
-All the points currently sitting in my account(s) for my current use year (could include banked points, or I may have "lost control" of points banked to next year or used points)
-All points in my account for this use year + next year I could borrow
-Any of the above + the value of reservations I've booked
-All the points my contract will ever have allocated (consider that I can influence points in far away use years via transfers for things like DCL)

The above considers only the future. Presumably, they'd want to look back some amount on expended points? Otherwise, points I used to make a commercial rental last week that's now done wouldn't count anymore? I feel like I don't control expended points any more, even if they were expended in my current use year. The "majority" math would need to be redone every time a trip completes (or after every night.)

I'm surprised they didn't either do this just based off reservations, or define "Points owned or controlled." Unless that's better defined in a POS somewhere that I missed? I see "owned or controlled" referring to points in the POS only for not having more than 8000 points... So that seems like it means your points allocated in one year.

So here's my scheme-y loophole proposal that has to wrong somehow, I just can't decide how.

1. Assume "Controlled points" = the points you have rights to in any single year, since that seems to be how the POS means it.
2. Bank my points to the next use year
3. Wait until UY anniversary
4. Use all the banked points -1 for rentals. (just under 50% of my points in the current use year are commercial, and none from actually this year.)
5. Let the 1 point go to waste
6. After all rentals are complete, bank all points from this year to next year.
7. Repeat.

Booking + availability might be awkward, but this seems possible?

Please (nicely) throw rocks at this. I must be missing something.