Removing rooms from DVC inventory - WHY?

[DenverVal]

Our family had a trip planned this summer to fly to Spain, board the Magic and sail back to Florida, and then spend some time enjoying WDW. It had to be canceled a week before we were scheduled to leave because my DD14 became seriously ill and spent the next three weeks at the hospital. Once it became clear she would recover, we decided to make plans to go to WDW for some much-needed R&R.

I called up MS to make reservations, and was unable to get anything I asked for without going on a waiting list. At least one day in the middle of the visit was always missing, no matter what time period I tried. We finally were able to get Nov 13-18 in a one bedroom at SSR, so we booked it immediately. When we tried to extend our stay through Thanksgiving, there was NO availability anywhere on points. However, my TA was able to get a studio at the same resort for the same time period for cash without any problem.

It absolutely frosts me that I paid (am paying) a boatload of money for the ability to "own a piece of Disney", and rooms which are absolutely available are being taken out of DVC inventory and for whatever reason, they are "not able to put them back into DVC inventory". I'm being told that they're not available to me as a member, but they are available if I'm willing to pay them even more money. I don't care what the reason is, it's wrong, and I'm really ticked about it. These were sold to me as vacation homes, not hotel rooms. DVC should be catering to their members first and anybody else last. I understand the need to fill an unoccupied room, and that this is being used for advertising to sell yet more DVC memberships, etc. Whatever. A DVC member should not be treated like someone in the general public when I've already paid for this and they haven't!

I'd go give them a piece of my mind at the members' annual meeting, but guess what? I wasn't able to get ressies (on points) for then!

 

[Deb & Bill]

If you do a search on DVC inventory, you'll find hundreds of threads like yours. People complaining that any Tom,Dick or Harry can book a DVC resort for cash, but you can't get yours for points.

Well, that's because there are two sets of inventory. Points inventory that is available for members to book using points and other inventory. Whenever a member decides to use their points for a Disney venture that is not DVC, they have to turn those points over to CRO to sell to recover the costs of the vacation that the member traded for. Disney also keeps about 5% of the inventory to use for maintenance and other problems. So if a room developes a serious mechanical problem, they have another space to put that member.

So when you see DVC reservations available for cash through a travel agent or online at Disney, some member probably used their points to take a DCL trip, or decided to do an Adventure by Disney or chose to stay at the Grand Californian (or other DL hotel).

When you want to go to WDW for Thanksgiving, you need to book that stay at least 8-11 months ahead of time. Even 7 months might not do it. And the first week of Dec? Well, 9-11 months ahead of time is needed for that week.

If DVC decided to do away with Disney trades, like the DCL, Adventures by Disney, DL or WDW non-DVC resorts, you'd see a lot fewer cash reservations available. And you'd probably have a lot more members angry because all they can use their points for is DVC.

 

[keys2kingdom]

I can't understand why this question keeps coming up over and over and over again. It's a simple matter of understanding the product we purchased.

 

[Doctor P]

Our family had a trip planned this summer to fly to Spain, board the Magic and sail back to Florida, and then spend some time enjoying WDW. It had to be canceled a week before we were scheduled to leave because my DD14 became seriously ill and spent the next three weeks at the hospital. Once it became clear she would recover, we decided to make plans to go to WDW for some much-needed R&R.

I called up MS to make reservations, and was unable to get anything I asked for without going on a waiting list. At least one day in the middle of the visit was always missing, no matter what time period I tried. We finally were able to get Nov 13-18 in a one bedroom at SSR, so we booked it immediately. When we tried to extend our stay through Thanksgiving, there was NO availability anywhere on points. However, my TA was able to get a studio at the same resort for the same time period for cash without any problem.

It absolutely frosts me that I paid (am paying) a boatload of money for the ability to "own a piece of Disney", and rooms which are absolutely available are being taken out of DVC inventory and for whatever reason, they are "not able to put them back into DVC inventory". I'm being told that they're not available to me as a member, but they are available if I'm willing to pay them even more money. I don't care what the reason is, it's wrong, and I'm really ticked about it. These were sold to me as vacation homes, not hotel rooms. DVC should be catering to their members first and anybody else last. I understand the need to fill an unoccupied room, and that this is being used for advertising to sell yet more DVC memberships, etc. Whatever. A DVC member should not be treated like someone in the general public when I've already paid for this and they haven't!

I'd go give them a piece of my mind at the members' annual meeting, but guess what? I wasn't able to get ressies (on points) for then!

With due respect, if you are so bent out of shape about this, I would suggest that you don't understand your membership or its operations very well. Most rooms that are turned over to CRO are a result of the normal operation of trading out. Cut out those rooms and you reduce the flexibility of your membership and those of others.

 

[MaryD73]

Please don't shoot me. I understand all that has been said but I am wondering how they choose the dates that will be 'cash'.

Do you think when you trade out your points that there is a formula saying you would have used these points x number of months later? Or is it based on when you reserved your traded points for?

 

[Chuck S]

Please don't shoot me. I understand all that has been said but I am wondering how they choose the dates that will be 'cash'.

Do you think when you trade out your points that there is a formula saying you would have used these points x number of months later? Or is it based on when you reserved your traded points for?

I don't think anyone is privy to the deciding factors as far as the timeframe for the rooms, but is does make sense that DVC would want to rent those rooms used for trades during a period when there is fairly high demand. It is certqainly better to rent rooms for a higher cash price to recover the trade costs rather than during a normally highly discounted travel period.

In truth though, there is almost always some cash rooms available through CRO.

 

[DenverVal]

I can't understand why this question keeps coming up over and over and over again. It's a simple matter of understanding the product we purchased.

With due respect, if you are so bent out of shape about this, I would suggest that you don't understand your membership or its operations very well. Most rooms that are turned over to CRO are a result of the normal operation of trading out. Cut out those rooms and you reduce the flexibility of your membership and those of others.

With the same due respect to both of you, they don't go into the details of how they manage the inventory when they're trying to sell you a membership, and they don't publish those details in any of those glossy brochures they send to us. There is nothing simple about it. Thank you for being condescending.

And yes, I understand how booking Thanksgiving week and the first week of December works. We do it every year, and normally we would book day by day the day it became open to book. We were not able to do that this year. However we couldn't find availability for our trip (consecutive days) in October OR November OR December. We took what we could get and tried to add on either direction. There was plenty of availability for cash for any of those times.

 

[dianeschlicht]

With the same due respect to both of you, they don't go into the details of how they manage the inventory when they're trying to sell you a membership, and they don't publish those details in any of those glossy brochures they send to us. There is nothing simple about it. Thank you for being condescending.

And yes, I understand how booking Thanksgiving week and the first week of December works. We do it every year, and normally we would book day by day the day it became open to book. We were not able to do that this year. However we couldn't find availability for our trip (consecutive days) in October OR November OR December. We took what we could get and tried to add on either direction. There was plenty of availability for cash for any of those times.

So as I understand it, you DID get a reservation for a high capacity time on short notice except for one day? I guess that is better than I would have expected. Was your day by chance a Wednesday? I think a lot of folks book Sun-Fri, so the end of the week and weekends are more open than the middle of the week. I would be super surprised to get that much. I'm betting that night is also a special "party" night too...Maybe at the MK?

 

[DenverVal]

I got accommodations for the week before Thanksgiving week. You be the judge as to whether that's a high capacity time or not. There are 3 MVMCP parties that week, but the weeks without availibility there aren't any. Parties were not a factor in this, and that wasn't the point. Nothing was available for points the first week of November nor the week of Thanksgiving. However, the entire week of Thanksgiving was available for cash.

Perhaps DVC needs to be crystal clear about how things work, and then there wouldn't be hundreds of threads like mine. That equates to a lot of unhappy customers.

 

[DisDaydreamer]

With the same due respect to both of you, they don't go into the details of how they manage the inventory when they're trying to sell you a membership, and they don't publish those details in any of those glossy brochures they send to us. There is nothing simple about it. Thank you for being condescending.

And yes, I understand how booking Thanksgiving week and the first week of December works. We do it every year, and normally we would book day by day the day it became open to book. We were not able to do that this year. However we couldn't find availability for our trip (consecutive days) in October OR November OR December. We took what we could get and tried to add on either direction. There was plenty of availability for cash for any of those times.

Sorry for your problem... However, DVC has not mislead you. Everything that is due you as a member is still due you, but... you ventured outside of the the DVC system and found the cash rooms available.

We have on 2 occasions, booked at the Tanque Verde Ranch and the Grove Park Inn. They are completely out of the DVC ownership, and DVC had to pay CASH (or credit) to those resorts for our stay (we certainly didn't pay a penny). Then DVC had to SELL our points for CASH to recoup the money they paid out. Hence, the CASH inventory... for sale to the public for CASH. If they were to give it up for points they would not recoup the expense.... It can't be any more simple than that.

Sorry, but this is not some slight of hand by DVC.

Not trying to sound snarkey, just is the case.

 

[DisDaydreamer]

Please don't shoot me. I understand all that has been said but I am wondering how they choose the dates that will be 'cash'.

Do you think when you trade out your points that there is a formula saying you would have used these points x number of months later? Or is it based on when you reserved your traded points for?

As chuck said... We don't know..., but, I would hope, and imagine, maybe even expect that legally they only could/would represent those points as what they are in as much as their calendar availability. Otherwise, I think they would be stealing calendar availability from the DVC inventory.

 

[DaveH]

I am sorry for your situation and glad your DD is doing fine. It is aggravating seeing this. We bought in 2001 and our guide told us this could happen and why. He also said the DVC harder to get times are sometimes different due to low point cost and high demand from empty nesters like us. I hope you can have a magical time anyway. I do not know of a better solution. As I under stand it Florida does have very strict laws and enforce them. This could be part of the reason for your and others dilemma.

 

[Kathi OD]

Denverval, I'm sorry that you are having trouble with your ressies.

I know that when we toured DVC our guide explained to us the different types of inventories and that because people do trade their points out of DVC there could possibly be times when there would be no availability on points, but could be for cash. You're right, at the time there wasn't anything simple about it. I didn't really understand everything he was talking about at the time (who could, I was soooooooo excited, to be buying Disney!), but I do know he tried to explain it to us (DH didn't care because he knew he wouldn't be the one handling the ressie part of this). To be honest, at the time I didn't care why the rooms would unavailable, the thing to remember was, the earlier you can make your ressies, the better.

As we began to use our membership, that concept of different inventories became somewhat more clear to me. Somewhere along the line, I also realized that there is more than one company when it came to DVC and the other Disney resorts. On top of that you've got the "collections" of non-Disney resort options. When you trade out your points DVC has to "pay" for your trade. They do that by turning the room over to CRO, hoping that someone will pay cash to cover the cost of the trade. If those rooms were allowed to stay in the member inventory, the cost of the trade would not be covered and then those costs would be passed onto membership in general. Can't say I want to be subsidizing someone else's decision to vacation at a non-DVC property.

 

[Doctor P]

With the same due respect to both of you, they don't go into the details of how they manage the inventory when they're trying to sell you a membership, and they don't publish those details in any of those glossy brochures they send to us. There is nothing simple about it. Thank you for being condescending.

And yes, I understand how booking Thanksgiving week and the first week of December works. We do it every year, and normally we would book day by day the day it became open to book. We were not able to do that this year. However we couldn't find availability for our trip (consecutive days) in October OR November OR December. We took what we could get and tried to add on either direction. There was plenty of availability for cash for any of those times.

I find your response very troubling. All of these aspects ARE disclosed (I went back into my documents to make sure) in the legal documents you signed at the time you bought your contract. These are the only binding statements with respect to one's membership and should be read prior to signing to purchase (or at least during your "cooling off" period). Ignorance of what is in the contract documents you signed is really no defense, but is apparently common given what we read on these boards. I am sorry for your frustration, glad you got a reservation, but I don't think you have any beef.

 

[Dean]

Please don't shoot me. I understand all that has been said but I am wondering how they choose the dates that will be 'cash'.

Do you think when you trade out your points that there is a formula saying you would have used these points x number of months later? Or is it based on when you reserved your traded points for?

There are a number of reasons that rooms may be available on cash and not points. Those include undeclared inventory, breakage inventory (not reserved at 60 days out), points in ROFR repurchases and rooms reserved with points that were traded for cash equivilent options. DVC can even anticipate what is likely to be available and go ahead and transfer it to the cash pool. None of this inventory is available for points and it is unreasonable to expect it to be.

My info suggests that DVC "holds back" on high demand times and tries to spread them out throughout the year otherwise. They tend to book them heavily in off season, likely increasing the costs to those that trade points for cruises, etc.

 

[DenverVal]

I did go back to my documents and re-read what I signed. I also found the product understanding checklist that our guide highlighted in orange as we discussed the details of our purchase. The points discussing exchanges and the types of DVC inventory are completely un-highlighted, which leads me to believe that yes, I read them - at least twice, a number of years ago. The highlighted points stuck. The others didn't. Canceled reservations and holding accounts and cash vs points were never an issue until we had to cancel due to a medical emergency. So, I get it. Thanks.

 

[lisareniff]

My info suggests that DVC "holds back" on high demand times and tries to spread them out throughout the year otherwise. They tend to book them heavily in off season, likely increasing the costs to those that trade points for cruises, etc.

It's good to hear you state this Dean. Too bad DVC wasn't more open with their practices.

 

[Dean]

It's good to hear you state this Dean. Too bad DVC wasn't more open with their practices.

I don't think it's been secretive, just not talked about. Most members likely are even unaware until something like this happens and most likely don't care. It's not the type of thing that lends itself to a simple statement or rule. I'm sure this is a fluid arrangement that will vary from year to year depending on specifics. The bottom line is DVC needs to move certain points and room with cash and also must recoup the $$$ given up for cash equivilent trades. If they reserve rooms that are not rented or end up renting for less than expected, DVC must ultimately shift those extra costs to the members. The only ways to do so are to reserve items that yield a better cash return per point OR charge the members even more points. DVC states the exchange program is to be a break even situation. That is a bit misleading since CRO takes a significant portion of the proceeds off the top. Kind of like when organizations like United Way say they are not for profit, then you look at their payroll and admin costs involved which are like 1/3 or more of the dollars donated.


One thing I note here is that many want to have it both ways. They want low cost exchange options but to have every unit open for the times when THEY want to go. This isn't happening and I think DVC has balanced this issue about as easily as they could do. The one thing I'd like to see them do is to add a reduced price at say 30 days out for units not rented otherwise. Something akin to the CM discount or even less.

 

[crisi]

I did go back to my documents and re-read what I signed. I also found the product understanding checklist that our guide highlighted in orange as we discussed the details of our purchase. The points discussing exchanges and the types of DVC inventory are completely un-highlighted, which leads me to believe that yes, I read them - at least twice, a number of years ago. The highlighted points stuck. The others didn't. Canceled reservations and holding accounts and cash vs points were never an issue until we had to cancel due to a medical emergency. So, I get it. Thanks.

Glossy brochures and sales pitches are unlikely to emphasize the things you'll be disappointed by. Those tend to be in the small print in the contracts.

DVC certainly gives the impression that DVC rooms will only be available to CRO when member's don't want them, but if you listen, they say "when they aren't being used by members." All those rooms moved to CRO inventory are being used by members - they are being used by members to pay for trades.

 

[snyderla]

We all know Disney has to sell some of the rooms for cash sometimes. It's still frustrating when you are the one trying to make the reservations and you have plenty of points, but have to use cash. I wish people could use the boards to vent those frustrations without getting condescending responses from DISers. And the reason issues "keep coming up" is because we don't all have time to read all of the thousands of threads on here to make sure our question/comment is original! And search doesn't always work.

I don't usually respond like this, but I don't like it when people get responses like OP has and I just happen to be feeling like I need to respond to it this time.