Hey guys!
With all the speculation going on about renting/transfers and then with the thread by Jay Foster I felt I needed some peace of mind and some answers.
Those answers, I felt, needed to come from the source and not from specualtion and heresay. With that in mind, I contacted MS and asked to speak with someone in DVC legal about the recent notifications about renting/transfers. It took 5 phone calls and the run aroud to finally get to someone in legal willing to answer all my questions. Here goes what I was told:
First let me say how impressed I was with this gentleman. He was patient, kind, and helpful. He took my concerns seriously and gave me direct and honest answers to my questions. I asked about the email notifications about the transfer limit and about the "pattern of renting for profit" statements. I also told him up front that I do rent my points. At which point he said "lets access your account and see what type of patterns you have." This made me extremely nervous but I agreed, giving him my DVC number. We went through each transaction since my join date in 1992. I explained each one in detail and was very candid with him. He imediuately at the end of this said "there is nothing wrong with how you are using your membership." Boy was I relieved!
I had zero transfers and all transactions where made with MY points.
He then went on to clearly state what DVC is looking for. He told me there are members doing HUNDREDS of transfers each year. They then book up prime weeks limiting availability for members who own all of there points. OWNING the points seemed to be the main focus here. If you rent ressies with your OWN points you have nothing to worry about. Renting is clearly allowed according to the POS was the way he put it. He stated that a member booking with there own points within the appropriate booking windows has nothing to worry about. Members looking to scoop up points and re-rent have a problem. Basically he said I could rent out ALL of my points without a problem. DVC cannot stop that and has no intentions of doing so. Now he said a DVC owner with 500 points that comes up with 5000 points to rent through transfers and the like should be worried. He stated the transfer limits should greatly reduce this problem.
To sum up, I was very happy with what I heard from DVC legal. Basically you can do whatever you wish, within the rules, with your points. You can book peak weeks, rent them all out, whatever. You can also use them all yourself or give them away. DVC does not care what you do with YOUR points. What they do care about is the "commercial renter" creating huge point allotments through transfers and the like and then re-renting them at a profit. He stated that there are renters out there that have hit the 100,000 point total in a given use year. It was simply getting out of control so DVC had to do something. Point "morphing" was something he didn't want to go into by the way. He claimed he didn't know much about that and that wasn't part of the crack down.
I asked about enforcement and was told that nothing has been done to date. The notification was step one and step two will come soon. They haven't decided what course of action to take as of yet. He said it could range from cancelled ressies to a written warning, to suspension of DVC accounts for violating the rules of the POS.
I hope this helps clear up things a little. It sure helped me hearing it from the source as oposed to all the speculations here. Seems most owners will be unaffected by this enforcement.
With all the speculation going on about renting/transfers and then with the thread by Jay Foster I felt I needed some peace of mind and some answers.
Those answers, I felt, needed to come from the source and not from specualtion and heresay. With that in mind, I contacted MS and asked to speak with someone in DVC legal about the recent notifications about renting/transfers. It took 5 phone calls and the run aroud to finally get to someone in legal willing to answer all my questions. Here goes what I was told:
First let me say how impressed I was with this gentleman. He was patient, kind, and helpful. He took my concerns seriously and gave me direct and honest answers to my questions. I asked about the email notifications about the transfer limit and about the "pattern of renting for profit" statements. I also told him up front that I do rent my points. At which point he said "lets access your account and see what type of patterns you have." This made me extremely nervous but I agreed, giving him my DVC number. We went through each transaction since my join date in 1992. I explained each one in detail and was very candid with him. He imediuately at the end of this said "there is nothing wrong with how you are using your membership." Boy was I relieved!
I had zero transfers and all transactions where made with MY points.He then went on to clearly state what DVC is looking for. He told me there are members doing HUNDREDS of transfers each year. They then book up prime weeks limiting availability for members who own all of there points. OWNING the points seemed to be the main focus here. If you rent ressies with your OWN points you have nothing to worry about. Renting is clearly allowed according to the POS was the way he put it. He stated that a member booking with there own points within the appropriate booking windows has nothing to worry about. Members looking to scoop up points and re-rent have a problem. Basically he said I could rent out ALL of my points without a problem. DVC cannot stop that and has no intentions of doing so. Now he said a DVC owner with 500 points that comes up with 5000 points to rent through transfers and the like should be worried. He stated the transfer limits should greatly reduce this problem.
To sum up, I was very happy with what I heard from DVC legal. Basically you can do whatever you wish, within the rules, with your points. You can book peak weeks, rent them all out, whatever. You can also use them all yourself or give them away. DVC does not care what you do with YOUR points. What they do care about is the "commercial renter" creating huge point allotments through transfers and the like and then re-renting them at a profit. He stated that there are renters out there that have hit the 100,000 point total in a given use year. It was simply getting out of control so DVC had to do something. Point "morphing" was something he didn't want to go into by the way. He claimed he didn't know much about that and that wasn't part of the crack down.
I asked about enforcement and was told that nothing has been done to date. The notification was step one and step two will come soon. They haven't decided what course of action to take as of yet. He said it could range from cancelled ressies to a written warning, to suspension of DVC accounts for violating the rules of the POS.
I hope this helps clear up things a little. It sure helped me hearing it from the source as oposed to all the speculations here. Seems most owners will be unaffected by this enforcement.
)
If folks can figure out how to "work" the system by transferring all these distressed points, then DVC CAN figure out how to track the points and fix the problem. IE, no more buying up SS points that expire Sept 06 to make a reservation at BCV for July 07!
