Reduced Capacity at DVC

[KaystotheKingdom]

Hey all, hope you are well. I see that availability in November is extremely limited (only 1 or 2 night consecutive stays across nearly all resorts). Are the dvc villas available at a reduced capacity and there is less total inventory? Or are they open fully and this is just the reality of too many people with too many points to use?

note: we have a reservation at wilderness lodge, my mother in law at boardwalk so we will be there come hell or high water. We had hoped to be able to find a resort where we could be together but everything is a waitlist situation- including Saratoga, akl, and okw where we have had success in the past

 

[kes601]

Fully open. Busy time of the year.....

 

[Marionnette]

Fully open. Busy time of the year.....

And I'll add pent up desire to visit, a surplus of points for a lot of members, and guests having a more positive feeling about traveling in general.

 

[KaystotheKingdom]

I will take what I can get and not complain

 

[dizgirl74]

I will take what I can get and not complain

I noticed the same thing for the summer. I've been checking to see if anything has been becoming available and recently what we were looking for is all booked and all waitlists. I am just thinking maybe they are full to capacity to whatever is working for them right now. Best of luck that something will open for you all.

 

[Shellyred8]

Hey all, hope you are well. I see that availability in November is extremely limited (only 1 or 2 night consecutive stays across nearly all resorts). Are the dvc villas available at a reduced capacity and there is less total inventory? Or are they open fully and this is just the reality of too many people with too many points to use?

note: we have a reservation at wilderness lodge, my mother in law at boardwalk so we will be there come hell or high water. We had hoped to be able to find a resort where we could be together but everything is a waitlist situation- including Saratoga, akl, and okw where we have had success in the past

Availability is starting to go back to normal. I really enjoyed these past months where there was lots of availability with short notice. But I think those days are gone.

 

[YourEveryDayAdam]

I think capacity at DVC is going to be MUCH more tight than it was for the next 2-3 years or so. With the WDW DVC resorts being closed for several months. Aulani was closed for about 6 months. And Grand Californian continue to remain closed until May...so 15ish months!

Basically, we are talking tens of millions of points worth of capacity were lost. DVC went out of their way to extend point expiration while the resorts were closed. They have been also extending the baking deadlines and cancellation windows for points going in to holding. And returning borrowed points back to original use years. Basically, eliminating most of the ways that points are "lost" through not being used.

Let's not also forget a lot of overseas DVC owners who still cannot use their points due to travel restrictions or who don't want to travel because the US Coronavirus case numbers are pretty awful compared to most of the rest of the world.

What we have is a VERY large glut of points. As well as not all ways to USE points have been brought back online yet. Once things get back to a semblance of "normal"...whatever the new "normal" is...people are going to have 2 years worth of points they can use. 1 year worth of points they likely HAVE to use without losing it. Everyone has the ability to keep pushing points 1 year of points forward each year if they can't use them all. The number of rooms that are available to book hasn't really changed.

To be honest, I think most nearly everything is going to book up before the 7 month window. With the exception of maybe SSR/OKW one-bedrooms? But even still...if folks have double the points to use, they may go ahead and book those one-bedrooms if there's nothing else to book. So, who knows? It's soon going to be VERY tough to book and probably stay that way for quite some time. At least a couple years.

This is the kind of situation where those folks with guaranteed weeks really have an advantage!

 

[ColonialMouse]

If I were betting, I would bet that as soon as Disney is able to open up more capacity in the parks they would make it easier to trade DVC points for hotel rooms temporarily. If they don’t see cash guests returning to fill the hotels this summer, it would be a good way to goose attendance a bit this summer and increase park revenue. Honestly, the points glut doesn’t cost them anything, but reducing it that way might improve short term revenue if they can’t fill the rooms for cash.

Bruce

 

[Chuck S]

If I were betting, I would bet that as soon as Disney is able to open up more capacity in the parks they would make it easier to trade DVC points for hotel rooms temporarily. If they don’t see cash guests returning to fill the hotels this summer, it would be a good way to goose attendance a bit this summer and increase park revenue. Honestly, the points glut doesn’t cost them anything, but reducing it that way might improve short term revenue if they can’t fill the rooms for cash.

Bruce

The problem with that is in order to pay for regular hotel rooms in the Disney collection, there have to be DVC rooms turned over to Disney for cash reservations to offset the cost of the hotel rooms. Removing DVC rooms from member inventory. So I don’t think we’ll be seeing any rooms made available to DVC for cheaper point prices.

 

[elcapitanJack]

And I'll add pent up desire to visit, a surplus of points for a lot of members, and guests having a more positive feeling about traveling in general.

Agreed

 

[Evita_W]

I have also been seeing a lot of people posting on FB that they have numerous reservations that they are renting out in November. One person had something like 10 reservations for Thanksgiving week all at Riviera.

Yes, I know that if they have the points, they can technically do this, but it irks me that they intentionally booked rooms just to rent them out and hope they will get a taker, which prevents other members from being able to book them. I also would tend to think doing this would violate the rules of the rent/trade board on these forums and rightfully so, I wish other groups would set similar rules.

I would much prefer if people just rented thier points out and booked once they have a renter.

 

[Groucho]

I stopped in here just to check if I was crazy! I'm trying to book one single Sunday in November (21st) and are no studios anywhere and 1BR only at Saratoga. I've never personally seen NO availability at all so I was pretty shocked, especially when booking right on the seven month window.

I used about a year of points for my ticket to a cruise the previous week, which saved me over $2,400 over paying full price for all of us (2 adults, 2 kids), so well worth it! I was figuring we'd swing through WDW afterwards (not going into the parks, just Springs and maybe some hotel visits), but I'm stuck waitlisting it - it's not worth a full 1BR for a single-night stay.

Evita, this used to happen a ton in the 2000s; I remember some of us on here spending some time going through the county records online and finding some of these people who'd rent countless rooms. I specifically remember one who had several memberships that were each maxed out (I thought it was 5,000 points back then; it's 4k now) with slightly different names, one name was even something about how they were making money from it, like "(family name) Family Trust" or something like that. They'd book many rooms during popular weeks at Boardwalk, Beach, etc and put them on eBay. It was not long after that that Disney started getting serious about cracking down on these offenders. It's certainly a lot harder to abuse the system now than it was then, though it certainly can still be done.

 

[mello]

[QUOTE="KaystotheKingdom,
I see that availability in November is extremely limited (only 1 or 2 night consecutive stays across nearly all resorts). Are the dvc villas available at a reduced capacity and there is less total inventory? Or are they open fully and this is just the reality of too many people with too many points to use?
[/QUOTE]

I haven't been on disboards in awhile but came here specifically to ask this same question. Been memebers for about 16 years and have never had such trouble booking rooms at 7 months out. Even at the holidays! We have often booked much closer even. I was trying to figure out if it has to do with restricting numbers due to covid, or pent up demand, or the new high rise (dumping too many people with new points to spend into the system). Probabably some combination of those. This is not normal, in any case. We live in FL, and often book a couple weekend nights quite last minute during the holidays (a month or two out). The way things are looking today for Thanksgiving week, I doubt that will be possible.

 

[Minniesgal]

November has been difficult at 7 months for years

 

[ScubaCat]

restricting numbers due to covid

They can't restrict DVC bookings by owners. It's just a lot of banked points in the system plus people being more comfortable to travel.

 

[starry_solo]

I think it's a ton of banked points and points that have to be used up soon. I had a DVC owner book me at his home resort for early November but he had no points left for the 2nd part of our trip at our preferred location so we waited out til 7 months. he got on exactly at 7 or 8 am Eastern and boom, no rooms available except a 1 bedroom at SSR, which disappeared within the next hour or so.

He waitlisted for us, but then we found out that one of our traveling companions is going to a convention the same time the 2nd half of our trip is scheduled so we ended up booking at the convention hotel for those few nights.

 

[ScubaCat]

I thought it was 5,000 points back then; it's 4k now

It was 2500 at 1 resort and 5000 in total. Now it's 4000 at 1 resort and 8000 in total.

 

[Nabas]

I have also been seeing a lot of people posting on FB that they have numerous reservations that they are renting out in November. One person had something like 10 reservations for Thanksgiving week all at Riviera.

I'm guessing that they have points that are expiring and need to sell them before they lose them.

They paid for the DVC membership and pay the annual Maintenance Fees. If it were me, I'd hate to see all that money go out the window.

 

[Nabas]

The giveaway this year is late August.

Usually, you have some selection in late August. But this year it's pretty tight.

 

[Groucho]

November has been difficult at 7 months for years

Depends on your definitions of years. Last time I was there in November was the tail end of Thanksgiving week (after our first Disney cruise!) in 2016 and there was no issue with availability. In retrospect, I should have booked earlier at my home resort then set up a waitlist, but I didn't expect all studios resort-wide to be gone in the morning of exactly seven months. I've been a member since 2006 and this is the first I've ever seen no studios available for months ahead, period.

It was 2500 at 1 resort and 5000 in total. Now it's 4000 at 1 resort and 8000 in total.

Thanks, I was pretty sure that I remembered 5,000! I'd assume that the thread is still here on the boards here. Ah, here it is. At least one of these people had an estimated $1.3 million dollars in points, and that was at 2006 prices!
https://www.disboards.com/threads/dvc-response-about-ebay-commercial-sellers.1197656/page-26