Room availability issues the last year or so...

[jdkdorn]

I have been a member since 2002 and hve never had the issue getting a reservation as I have had in the last 2 years. I am wondering if anyone thinks this is caused by all the extra one time points that they are handing out with purchases of new points? I have gone through every other reason it could be and that is the only thing that makes sense. We are going in January and we are having to split our stay between 2 resorts because we could not get our whole 9 nights at one resort. January was never a really busy month, except for MLK weekend and Marathon weekend.

 

[chalee94]

some people think aulani owners are using their pts more often at wdw (airfare costs to hawaii, possibly?) and/or that more owners are becoming more savvy and buying at their home resort in order to book there (and doing so within the home resort window).

did you try to book the morning that your 7 month window opened, or did you try later than that? that can also be a factor.

 

[jdkdorn]

We booked at BCV at 11 months and tried to move to AKV-Kidani at 6.5 months out. We need more room this time than the BCV can sleep. With a DS13 and DD20 they can no longer share the sofa sleeper and we are taking my parents with us too. I was shocked that I could not get a room for the whole stay at AKV, so we are 3 nights at SSR and 7 at AKV-K. One of our homes is at SSR so it is not a huge deal but it would be nice not to have to move with all the groceries

Judy

 

[wdrl]

It has very little -- or perhaps nothing -- to do with "one-time points" offered to new buyers. Instead, it has much more to do with the overall growth of the DVC system in the last five years.

BLT, which opened in August 2009, added 5.7 million points to the DVC mix. The Kidani Village portion of AKV, which also opened in 2009, added almost 5.6 million points. To date, VGF has sold over 1.7 million points since sales started in May 2013. Not only has there been a large increase in DVC points in play in the last five years, there have been tens of thousands of new Members added to the mix since the OP first joined 10 years ago. These new Members may stay at their new home resort most of the time, but some will be trying out the old resorts such as BWV, BCV, and OKW. Even if only 10% of these new members try to book an older resort, then it means demand for the old resorts increases. However, the supply of villas can't change, so they will fill up faster.

Keep in mind that the DVC system is designed to be operating at close to 100% capacity all year round. Five years ago, all resorts were filling up, but usually much later in the booking cycle. Nowadays, thanks to the internet, Disney boards like Disboards and DVCNews, the DVC Resort Availability Tool, etc., Members are much more conscious of availability and the need to book early. Thus, the resorts are filling up much earlier than in past years.

Another factor is Disney adding and expanding popular items on the calendar, causing more people to visit WDW at times that were previously slow and off-season. Food and Wine has added more days, Star Wars Weekends has added another weekend, more dates for MNSSHP and MVMCP, more races, etc. Even Universal's addition of Harry Potter is attracting more people to WDW. All these additions attract more people, which translates into higher demand for villas.

Although I don't have any data to support it, my gut feeling is that Aulani is actually relieving some of the booking pressure on the WDW resorts. We just returned from Aulani and we encountered quite a few WDW owners who were using their BCV, BWV, AKV, etc points at Aulani. I'll bet that if we had access to the data, we'd see that a lot more WDW points are flowing to Aulani than Aulani points flowing to WDW.

 

[disneynutz]

some people think aulani owners are using their pts more often at wdw (airfare costs to hawaii, possibly?) and/or that more owners are becoming more savvy and buying at their home resort in order to book there (and doing so within the home resort window).

did you try to book the morning that your 7 month window opened, or did you try later than that? that can also be a factor.

Not just Aulani but every off-site resort. IMO WDW has more to offer and owners at the off-site resorts will most likely visit WDW where WDW owners won't necessary visit the off-site resorts.

With each new DVC resort built the number of owners increases. I have been posting for a couple of years that the best chance of booking success is to buy where you love to stay, and based on the increase in frustration/waitlist posts it seems that booking is becoming more completive.

Bill

 

[Minniesgal]

I have been a member since 2002 and hve never had the issue getting a reservation as I have had in the last 2 years. I am wondering if anyone thinks this is caused by all the extra one time points that they are handing out with purchases of new points? I have gone through every other reason it could be and that is the only thing that makes sense. We are going in January and we are having to split our stay between 2 resorts because we could not get our whole 9 nights at one resort. January was never a really busy month, except for MLK weekend and Marathon weekend.

AKV have got harder to book now thy have finally sold out whereas they ways had capacity before. I haven't seen them give out any one time points and we bought in 2012, 2013 and 2014

 

[Dean]

I have been a member since 2002 and hve never had the issue getting a reservation as I have had in the last 2 years. I am wondering if anyone thinks this is caused by all the extra one time points that they are handing out with purchases of new points? I have gone through every other reason it could be and that is the only thing that makes sense. We are going in January and we are having to split our stay between 2 resorts because we could not get our whole 9 nights at one resort. January was never a really busy month, except for MLK weekend and Marathon weekend.

It's additive but the largest single factor is SSR. Other possible lower demand resorts like AKV & Aulani might have some affect. VB & HH are also a factor but were already in play for a number of years. Other factors are likely online access and that members in general are more aggressive with reservation planning. It's really just getting to where it should have been all along.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

I have been a member since 2002 and hve never had the issue getting a reservation as I have had in the last 2 years. I am wondering if anyone thinks this is caused by all the extra one time points that they are handing out with purchases of new points? I have gone through every other reason it could be and that is the only thing that makes sense. We are going in January and we are having to split our stay between 2 resorts because we could not get our whole 9 nights at one resort. January was never a really busy month, except for MLK weekend and Marathon weekend.

I noticed you posted your dates on another thread about Marathon weekend and that those are the dates you couldn't get at AKV. I think that's the biggest reason you couldn't make the switch for all your dates at 6.5 months out this particular January. So far that Friday of marathon weekend has remained the one and only time I wanted to go to WDW and couldn't get any room at all - and I was open to studio, 1BR and 2BR but was looking to book only 5-6 weeks out. Still, I've done that other times and have always found at least one room somewhere.

 

[x5x5x5x5x5]

I have noticed this as well. While we are still able to get most of what we want at the seven month window, the fact that we use one bedrooms almost exclusively (and not studios) is a big factor in our success. One not so successful story - we booked thanksgiving week at seven months at bwv in a 1 bed standard view but are currently wait listed for the wed and thurs of the week. Obviously this is a very busy time frame but a few years ago I would have been able to get the entire week with no problems. We did manage to snag a studio at blt for those days. Not feeling great about moving twice but blt is super cool so there are way worse things that could happen

 

[CarolMN]

IMO, another contributing factor to the difficulty of getting a reservation at 7 months is the increasing number of rentals that are occurring during the home resort booking period.

It appears to me that more of the general public are willing to commit early to renting points for the near park resorts to get a "bargain" during a popular time. One example of this is the EPCOT resorts during Food & Wine.

I have no data to support my opinion - just anecdotal evidence and a hunch based on reading the DVC boards almost every day.

 

[DebbieB]

I agree about the renting, especially with "safer" avenues like David's.

 

[tjkraz]

Question is whether this is a trend or an isolated occurrence.

Renting has been around for eons...and David has been in business for more than 5 years. SSR has been in the system for more than 10 years and it slowly limped to a sellout over 2.5 years ago. We can speculate that Aulani buyers are using points for WDW...but it's pretty clear that other resort owners are similarly visiting Aulani. With Aulani, Vero and HHI representing less than 10% of all DVC villas, seems unlikely that the park resorts have suddenly become overburdened.

All of these factors may have some cumulative effect on reservations but I don't see anything that would have an immediate impact on one specific set of dates.

Often times there's some external force at work which drives up demand for a specific period. Could be yearly variations in school vacation schedules. Could coincide with the scheduling of some special event at the parks (like WDW marathon.) Earlier this year DVC was giving away one-time-use points with a purchase. Maybe those points had to be used by January 2015.

In this particular case, it could be something like the spring 2014 Premium Annual Pass offer which required that buyers activate their passes by January 2015. Many people probably view that as a drop-dead date by which they need to arrive at WDW so that they don't lose the savings.

 

[DenLo]

I do think many DVC members buy the cheapest resort and then don't stay there. Everyone is trying to stay somewhere other than their home resort. We sometimes stay at resorts that are not our home resorts. That is part of the fun of a DVC membership.

Another problem could be that many members book short trips of 3 to 5 nights. That often leaves gaps in the inventory. You might be able to get a couple of nights here and few at a different resort, but not all 7 (or 10) at the same resort.

 

[Dean]

SSR has been in the system for more than 10 years and it slowly limped to a sellout over 2.5 years ago.

My prediction and expectation was that SSR would reach it's maximum effect at about 2-3 yrs (or was it 3-4 yrs) past sell out. Basically once all new members had a chance to stay there a couple of times.

 

[gzmtlock]

Earlier this year DVC was giving away one-time-use points with a purchase. Maybe those points had to be used by January 2015.

New DVC owner, so can't contribute to past experience. We bought AKL-K in May, got 2013 points that had to be used (can't remember by what date), combined those with 2014 points and booked BWV Dec 26-Jan 2. However, we were within the 7-month window and had to use the new-DVC owner benefit to book ours. I think that means we didn't "take" any inventory from other DVCers?

 

[Dean]

New DVC owner, so can't contribute to past experience. We bought AKL-K in May, got 2013 points that had to be used (can't remember by what date), combined those with 2014 points and booked BWV Dec 26-Jan 2. However, we were within the 7-month window and had to use the new-DVC owner benefit to book ours. I think that means we didn't "take" any inventory from other DVCers?

Other than something very short notice, every reservation takes something from another owner. It's the nature of the system.

 

[Deb & Bill]

I think there were a lot of owners who just let points expire years ago. But with the point brokers, there are more options to rent out points. And the renters are getting more savvy to book their stay seven to eleven months out. Just on top of all the other stuff.

 

[Hollymom1229]

While it is much harder to get what you want at less than 7 months now, I think it's the availability of information on the internet that is causing this. Owners can easily get more information on how to best use their points and if they can't use them, how to rent them. DH and I though have had great luck with WL even this year. We were able to stay CL at AKV, got GFV studio last weekend (later had to cancel), and have a full 8 nights in a 1BDR at WLV the week after Thanksgiving. These are all typically hard to get reservations, whether because of the room type or time of year. Everyone was initially a WL and they came through. The only one made right at 11 months was the CL at AKV (our home resort), which we still had to WL (though it came through quickly).

I think what's really going on is people are getting more savvy about booking what they want for a potential trip. Then if the trip falls through they cancel and WL comes through. It's a result of the number of owners in the system. Yet, except for big crowd times (holidays, marathons) one can generally find a room somewhere in the inventory at about 4 - 5 months out. I had to switch a 1 BDR to a 2 BDR at OKW just four months out for our August trip and was able to do it with no problem and even got one close to the hospitality house.

 

[MarkyMouse]

I think there were a lot of owners who just let points expire years ago. But with the point brokers, there are more options to rent out points. And the renters are getting more savvy to book their stay seven to eleven months out. Just on top of all the other stuff.

This is what I believe in addition to just a LOT more DVC owners now than in the past. Plus don't underestimate the fact the economy is slightly improved over the crash in 09. More are vacationing now than 5 years ago, imo.

 

[dwelty]

Regardless of the reasons, booking early is the key, we have booked at the 7 month window 3 times at GCV and once at HHI during the busy summer months when these resorts are supposed to be the hardest to get. In fact, I have never been denied a reservation anywhere when booking right at 7 months. We have about 18 DVC trips under our belt. Remember as more DVC members are added, more inventory is added at the same time. The system works well overall.