Question about people paying cash

[southtown]

I was talking to a friend about DVC the other day and he asked a question that has had me wondering. We can make reservations 11 months in advance at our home resort which everyone knows. But when can people paying cash make reservations? If you wanted to spend Xmas at the Beach Club Villas will there be less rooms available for DVC members because of cash paying people being able to make reservations before you? I am not too worried about it because I always go when its slow but I did think it was a good question. Then that had me thinking, Where does the money go from the cash paying reservations? Does it help keep our dues down or does it just end up going to Disney? I would hope it would go to our dues but who knows. I f anyone can help out it would be appreicated

 

[CarolMN]

This may take a while to explain, so bear with me -

The inventory of rooms available for cash is completely separate from the inventory available for points.

Points inventory comes solely from the members' ownership interest in the resort. Cash inventory comes from several places.

Disney maintains about a 4% interest in every DVC resort. Those rooms are available to be rented to the general public for cash. Disney gets the money. Any unsold potion of a DVC resort (aka Developer's inventory) is also available to be rented for cash. Again, the money for those goes to the developer. The largest share of the rooms available to be rented for cash are the result of members choosing to use their points for non-DVC options -i.e., non-DVC WDW resort stays, cruises on DCL, and/or choices from the Adventurer's or Conceirge Collection. When that happens, DVC "transfers" the equivalent number of DVC resort room nights into the cash inventory. The money from those rentals goes to pay for the non-DVC options that the members wanted to experience.

Also, points inventory that is unreserved by members at the 60 day mark is made available for cash rental. Money from that goes back to DVC and is used to offset dues (called breakage). Members can still reserve rooms with points during that time, but are competing with those wishing to reserve for cash. Of course, both points and cash rentals are subject to availability.

As far as when the public can make a cash reservation, it just depends on availabiliy of rooms in the cash inventory. There usually isn't all that much available a long way in advance. As members use their points for other options, more becomes available.

HTH.

 

[TheRustyScupper]

1) Cash people can make ressies 50 years in advance. *
2) WDW has a percent to sell, so DVC owners aren't affected.
3) The money goes to WDW, not DVD/DVC.
4) If there are trade-outs, DVC sells rooms to WDW. **
5) Rooms sold to WDW does go to DVD/DVC.


* Disney used to advertise ressies up to 10-years in advance, but they increased that two years ago. They can't quote a daily price that far, so you pay the "rack rate" in effect at that time. (Of course, you may still score a discount as the time nears.)

** Trade-outs can be point banking, cruise trades or trades to II-timeshares. In these cases, there is added capacity and DVC "sells" that capacity to WDW, so WDW can get cash for them. No sense in letting rooms remain open and not generate cash. The wholesale price at which they are sold to WDW (not the price the public actually paid) does go back to the DVC accounts.

 

[southtown]

Ok I think I got it haha. Thanks for the answers to my questions.

 

[dcfromva]

Originally posted by TheRustyScupper
1) Cash people can make ressies 50 years in advance. *
2) WDW has a percent to sell, so DVC owners aren't affected.
3) The money goes to WDW, not DVD/DVC.
4) If there are trade-outs, DVC sells rooms to WDW. **
5) Rooms sold to WDW does go to DVD/DVC.

TheRustyScupper,
I don't have any first hand experience with this, so I could be wrong--but, I read that a couple of different folks (non DVC members) tried to get cash ressies for DVC properties and were told by CRO they could only make these (DVC) ressies 6 months prior. (These folks were stressing out because they didn't want to leave the room ressies up in the air until 6months out).

I thought that made sense to me, because otherwise how would CRO know about the inventory (with banking and borrowing) until 6months out? But... perhaps that isn't the case ?.... (I don't know how that 4% reserve fits into all of this, either).

-DC

 

[jaysue]

Too bad, we can't get those wholesale rates!!! (ha ha)

 

[Cruelladeville]

I often rent weekend nights for cash, usually with my AP, and the rooms at a DVC resort don't begin showing up at CRO until about 6 months before the arrival date. When it's around a peak time like Christmas, those rooms are pretty much impossible to get, so perhaps at really high volume times they reserve more for members. Just speculation--I call daily for Christmas or Easter, and haven't yet found any inventory available for cash, so that's what I am guessing is happening.

 

[CarolMN]

As I posted above, the bulk of the DVC rooms that are available for cash come from members using points for options in the Disney, Conceirge and Adventurer Collections. CRO can't rent out DVC rooms until DVC gives them the specifics.

It's been my understanding that DVC has been very good about NOT giving CRO rooms for times that are popular with members. I believe they usually wait until 6 months out or so to select the dates/rooms to send to CRO to rent to the public for cash. This gives members a decent chance to use the 7 month window to make points reservations, and still allows DVC to recover the cost of the non-DVC member options.

 

[dcfromva]

Carol,
What I wonder about the 4% is: do they keep it on hold in case there are rooms that are taken out of inventory--or is the 4% theirs to do as they like? (I know they have a requirement ot set it aside, but I'm not really sure why they have to keep that 4% set aside).
I was thinking if they have 4% that they can book as they like, there would be no reason why they couldn't book the rooms a long time in advance. (4% doesn't seem like very many rooms, though...) But, I haven't seen where anyone has been able to book a cash ressie further out than 6 months.... So, maybe the 4% comes from what is left over and not off the top?

-DC

 

[CarolMN]

Originally posted by dcfromva
Carol,
What I wonder about the 4% is: do they keep it on hold in case there are rooms that are taken out of inventory--or is the 4% theirs to do as they like? (I know they have a requirement ot set it aside, but I'm not really sure why they have to keep that 4% set aside).
I was thinking if they have 4% that they can book as they like, there would be no reason why they couldn't book the rooms a long time in advance. (4% doesn't seem like very many rooms, though...) But, I haven't seen where anyone has been able to book a cash ressie further out than 6 months.... So, maybe the 4% comes from what is left over and not off the top?

-DC

I don't know the answer to your questions. I do know that Disney has the right to rent their 4% to the general public. A statement to that effect is somewhere in the documents I received at purchase. But as you said, 4% really doesn't equate to all that many room nights.

It has been suggested that Disney does use their 4% to help with rehab or other "emergencies" that may take rooms out of inventory. If that is so, it doesn't make much sense to rent their share out a long time in advance.

My belief (and that is all that this is), is that DVC tries very hard to always operate in the best interests of the members. I don't think that renting out its share to the public a long ways in advance supports that philosophy. That's the real reason CRO doesn't have much to offer before 6 months or so. Isn't it better to let members who want to stay at one of the DVC resorts have first choice of dates & room types? I absolutely believe members should have priority over the general public - especially since waiting until 6 months out to send rooms to CRO is very unlikely to hurt DVC financially. JMHO.