Renting to pay for a cruise--a hassle? when would I be paid?

[Rock'n Robin]

After reading all the cruise/cash posts and checking the points for a 2005 cruise I have questions about renting out points. I did try to rent out points at one time and never received even one response. I would hesitate to use this method to pay for a cruise knowing I may never get any money.
However, the points are ridiculous. We have a family of 5 and have to do when school is out since I'm a teacher. We are thinking of the 2006 Eastern caribbean since we just did the western. I know I had a price of $6200, I think, when I had booked 2 cat. 10s on a western before my parents decided to go and pick up the tab. For 2005 points (which WILL go up) a cat. 4 for us would be 1150 points, and 2 cat. 10s would be 959. We will have 845 available--and that is giving up any WDW time in 2006 or 2007. By 2005 points, we would have to pay cash for our 14 year old and our 8 year old in a cat. 4, or just our 8 year old in the 2 cat. 10s. And who knows, when 2006 points come out more cash may be involved. Do I want 2 inside rooms after 2 cruises with verandahs, esp. with 3 sea days? See, cash looks better and better.
What is the key to renting out points? I will need to use 2007 points to get this 2006 cruise, can I rent them out in 2006 and have the money in 2006? Do I get the money when I rent them out or do I have to wait until the reservation, which could cause cash problems?
Robin M.

 

[bobbiwoz]

I have no experience in renting points. I think, however, that I would try to transfer my points to another member. People speak of a 3 way call to member services to do the transaction. That way you don't have any reservations to make or to worry about canceling, and you have the money to spend yourself.

Have you tried to sell points to transfer?

Bobbi

 

[Mike]

Originally posted by bobbiwoz
I have no experience in renting points. I think, however, that I would try to transfer my points to another member. People speak of a 3 way call to member services to do the transaction. That way you don't have any reservations to make or to worry about canceling, and you have the money to spend yourself.

Have you tried to sell points to transfer?

Bobbi

I agree that this sounds like the easier approach, but I'm curious how payment works with this option. If I'm the one receiving the points, I don't want to pay for them until I know they are in my account. If I'm transferring the points, I don't want to let them go until I have cash in hand. It seems like one party is going to have to trust the other party in order for this to work. Am I correct? Forgive me if I am missing something and this is a stupid question - I am new to all of this.


Thanks,
Mike

 

[RweTHEREyet]

You set the terms when you are renting. If you rented out points, you would work that out with your renter. I have rented once. Asked for a $100 deposit to make the reservation. Half of the balance within 30 days and then the remaining balance 60 days prior to the check-in date. You work things out with your renter when you want to be paid and how you accept payment.

Good luck with renting. My one experience was a good one. I also have rented from someone and that went smoothly, too.

 

[Laurabearz]

We are thinking about doin the same thing for a cruise in 2007.

I hope to go the transfer route for most of the points, but I know I will have to rely on making reservations for people. I just plan on limiting the dates that I will book so all fees will be paid before the final payment for the cruise is needed.

HTH and keep us posted!

 

[Laurabearz]

Originally posted by Mike
If I'm the one receiving the points, I don't want to pay for them until I know they are in my account. If I'm transferring the points, I don't want to let them go until I have cash in hand. It seems like one party is going to have to trust the other party in order for this to work. Am I correct? Forgive me if I am missing something and this is a stupid question - I am new to all of this.
Thanks,
Mike

It does require trust.

I just had points transfered into my account from a fellow DISer, who was wonderful enough to trust me. She transfered the points, I verified, and I electronically sent her a check... all in about 30 mintues time, and chatting in IM"s. Amazing!

I truely feel honored that this DISer trusted me.

I also spent a lot of time researching people on the rent trade board. I read post after post from the renter to get a feel for them. I had a lot of offers.... but nothing felt right until the forementioned DISer popped into the picture. It just clicked.

Trust..... yup. It can work.

 

[Dancind]

I've been through this just this past year. We decided to go on the 10 day cruise this December, and booked a Cat 6 cash reservation when it was first announced in June 2003. We didn't think it would be offered for points, but it has turned out that our reservation would cost over 1000 points, and our cash price was much better. About a 25% savings, if you value your points at $10 per point. So we went to our "prepaid vacation plan" and pretty much liquidated it to pay for the cruise. Yes, I'm talking DVC points, we borrowed some 2005 points too.

I advertised on the rent/trade board, and sold one reservation on Ebay. I didn't hear from any members who wanted to transfer points, but I heard from a lot of folks that wanted me to book them a studio at BCV for a couple of nights for the Wine & Food Festival, two months out! Didn't even bother calling on those. It didn't take long before I heard from a guy that wanted almost two weeks in a 2 BR, who took almost all my points. He paid me half when I made the reservation, and the rest 60 days before. That was very simple, and they had a great stay. In addition to being on this board for a while, I have lots of Ebay feedback, and I tell them about that. Anyway, I figure by renting points to pay cash for the cruise, we have lowered our actual cruise fare by another 30% or so. Almost makes this incredibly expensive cruise seem reasonable!

I'd say it's a good way to do it, it's been good for us. It's OK not to make a reservation for everyone that writes you, and to hold out for the ones that want a chunk of points, or at least seem to be very serious about doing business with you. I also heard from some "shoppers" who would tell me they wanted me to make them a reservation, and then I would see them trying to make a deal with someone else.

 

[dbond]

Be careful planning on transferring points to other DVC members. We have been through this scenario numerous times with DVC member BIL. The only points that can be transferred are original points to the use year and you have to be in the use year to transfer. No borrowed or banked points can be transferred. So if you're planning on using 2 years of pts to try and recoup the cost of a cruise, you have to actually be in the use year that those points are in before you can transfer them to another owner. BIL has a small contract and has been in the baby making mode for the past 5 years. He thought he could bank & then sell 2 years of points to us, once he banked, those points were no longer eligible to transfer and then he had to wait until the next use year for the next year's points to be eligible. He ended up having to rent his points out to someone else because his availability of points didn't jive with when we needed them. Also, once you transfer, the points don't remain in the resort they came from. It is very complex and requires way too much thought for me!

 

[Terry S]

I actually rented points to another member once as well. I had not gone looking to rent my points. It was a member that had posted on this board about a big upcoming family trip and her worry about renting points. I had just had a big family trip scheduled that most of my family members just cancelled on me so when I read her post it kind of tore at my heart and since I had an excess of points, I decided to contact her. The transfer was very easy, but there was some trust involved. She sent me a check for 1/2 of the agreed upon amount and then once the check cleared I transfered the points into her account and then she sent me a check for the other half. It all took about a total of 2 weeks and I had all my money and she had her points. You can only transfer current use year points though.

 

[Dean]

As noted above, you can't transfer banked or borrowed points. Most people would require payment up front for transfers because if something happens, you'd be out of luck, unlike with a rental. That leaves out a lot of people plus limits you to only members. Personally I think it's as easy or easier to rent points than to transfer but maybe it's just me. Good luck.

 

[goofy4dvc]

Wouldn't it be wonderful if DVC provided a service for members who wanted to transfer points to another member? Kind of like a middle-man. Say Dean wanted some extra points and I needed to sell points for a cruise. I would transfer points to DVC who would hold them until they received money from Dean. Then they would transfer the points to Dean and send the money to me. For a fee, of course. But the fee would be well worth it to not have to worry--for both parties!! Any chance this could work?

 

[new_yawka]

We used the rent/trade board. It was a very pleasant experience. Since I rented with plenty of time out, I made the reservation without deposit and asked for 2/3rds payment within 10 days. The renter sent out the check that day! I also asked for the balance 60 days prior to travel. Again, since I am still early in my use year, no great risk for me, as I can always cancel if I don't receive the payment and then bank the points.

In any event, we rented 70 points less than we would have had to use to book the cruise with points and, at $10 per point, still ended up with enough left over money to cover incidentals on the vacation.

Part of my success is having a good renter, but you can tell this pretty quickly based upon the quality of communication. I e-mailed and also insisted on speaking over the phone (I guess I'm just old fashioned

Good Luck!

 

[Dean]

Originally posted by goofy4dvc
Wouldn't it be wonderful if DVC provided a service for members who wanted to transfer points to another member? Kind of like a middle-man. Say Dean wanted some extra points and I needed to sell points for a cruise. I would transfer points to DVC who would hold them until they received money from Dean. Then they would transfer the points to Dean and send the money to me. For a fee, of course. But the fee would be well worth it to not have to worry--for both parties!! Any chance this could work?

Not really, they'd need a license and another department. What's more reasonable is having a rental department where you rent your points through DVC though I don't see this happening either.

 

[goofy4dvc]

Originally posted by Dean
Not really, they'd need a license and another department. What's more reasonable is having a rental department where you rent your points through DVC though I don't see this happening either.

However it would work, I'm all for DVC helping us out and removing some of the risk -- for renter and rentee.

 

[Dean]

Originally posted by goofy4dvc
However it would work, I'm all for DVC helping us out and removing some of the risk -- for renter and rentee.

Don't hold your breath. I own at a resort in Aruba that once had an internal exchange system where owners could deposit their week with the resort and take another one for a fee. They did away with this. They also had a rental program where they took 35% fee. They divided the weeks into Low and High season and everyone got the same rental return averaged over all owners. It's been lucky to cover the fees of $300-400 in the past and the last could of years it hasn't even done that. They just announed they were discontinuing that option as well.

 

[LSchrow]

i rented out some of my 8/04 points earlier this year (new points, not banked ~ note that b/c the points were not yet allocated, DVC had to do a "manual transfer" which takes about 2 days).
a DVCer PMed me after i posted a "renting points" question. she put the $'s in an escrow.com acct, i did the point transfer, then she "released" the funds.
before any dollar or point transfer, we talked on the phone & via e-mail to "iron out details", i wrote up a contract (with help from other DISers ), & we agreed on terms, etc. ( i do have a copy of the contract, if you would like )
all-in-all, a wonderful experience ~ the extra $'s paid for our plane fare (4 ppl can be expensive!) & she was able to plan a family gathering at a reasonable price ~ i would definately do it again!

 

[Peggy Sue]

We've had 5 successful rental transactions at $10. a point. All with people I work with. Didn't take any effort on my part..the people seeking points came to me to see if I could help them out. They were standing next to me when I called MS with the understanding that once the reservations were made it was past the point of no return. All agreed, paid me within 90 days and 3 of them of had wonderful vacations. The other two are going in October. It was a win-win situation, as they all ended up in luxury rooms and saved quite a bit of money over booking a disney package. We will be taking a 14 day cruise later this year. We also retained enough points for our own 5 night trip to WDW in December...that's an annual event we're not ready to give up yet.

Although we are not in the business of renting points, we will not hesitate to see points again in the future when our vacation plans call for cruises or other non-disney vacations.

Good luck.