Spitting Mad at DVC

[bwvBound]

I agree with you but Disney is not completely innocent either.

Disney often pulls undeclared inventory to help first-time buyers make their first DVC reservation.

Customer: "I really am considering buying DVC but only if I can book a week at the Beach Club Villas in 2 months."

Guide: "Please give me a moment while I look into that."

Guide: "No problem, if you sign today, we can book that room for you."

Customer: "Great, where do I sign?"

Many buyers are left with the impression that booking desireable rooms on short notice is easy.

LOL, I used this same approach in reverse to avoid buying a timeshare with Shell Vacation Club. I knew, at the time, that their exchange partner (II) had no exchange locations available in Barcelona, Spain. As my husband and I sat through the presentation in Anaheim, anticipating $100 Disney Dollars "reward," we were happy and enthusiastic about their product spiel. When asked, "Ready to buy?" I responded, "Sure -- with one condition. If you can book a timeshare for us in Barcelona for <such and such dates> -- we will sign." Heh, heh, heh. I guess I should have warned my husband in advance of my "insider knowledge" regarding timeshare options in Barcelona. He kicked me pretty hard under the table ... ouch!

We left on good/happy terms with all involved as they pondered how they missed out on what appeared to be "easy targets."

 

[Dean]

I agree with you but Disney is not completely innocent either.

Disney often pulls undeclared inventory to help first-time buyers make their first DVC reservation.

Customer: "I really am considering buying DVC but only if I can book a week at the Beach Club Villas in 2 months."

Guide: "Please give me a moment while I look into that."

Guide: "No problem, if you sign today, we can book that room for you."

Customer: "Great, where do I sign?"

Many buyers are left with the impression that booking desireable rooms on short notice is easy.

I don't see that as an indictment of DVD nor do I see it as applicable to this situation.

 

[RayJay]

No, I don't want dues to subsidize anything.

I get the rules and structure. Fine, we are stuck with that.

An old friend of mine was in the banking industry. The bank decided to try agricultural lending. They lent a bunch of money to a rancher and took as collateral a number of "cows". Of course the rancher stops paying. The banker goes to the farm to repossess the cows and the farmer says - you don't have any cows. The banker says "but there must be 100 cows in that pen right there" And the farmer says (this is true) "those are my cows, yours all died" The banker says "how do you know mine are the ones that died, and the farmer says "how do you know they aren't"

I feel like the banker - all those cows, but none of them are mine. It's not a question of the legal rights at this point - its the perception.

I'd say we are beating a dead horse so lets just close this one down. Sorry if I offended anyone.

Same thing happened to me this past August staying at AKL. Had to pay cash for additional nights. So we also had to change rooms, this was expected as others mentioned.

What I didn't like was my DVC room on points was in the north forty and my cash room was exactly where we wanted...near the pool. And before anyone chimes in, I know room choice is no guaranteed.

I had a whole separate incident at SSR where cash ressie people (booked two weeks before arrival) were near the pool and I was in north forty again, you would think there would be some benny's for the DVC folks, like prime locations...but there is not.

I don't see the flexibility in DVC as they tout all the time..hence we sold. Glad I won't have dues this January either.

RayJay

 

[MoreTravels]

No, I don't want dues to subsidize anything.

I get the rules and structure. Fine, we are stuck with that.

An old friend of mine was in the banking industry. The bank decided to try agricultural lending. They lent a bunch of money to a rancher and took as collateral a number of "cows". Of course the rancher stops paying. The banker goes to the farm to repossess the cows and the farmer says - you don't have any cows. The banker says "but there must be 100 cows in that pen right there" And the farmer says (this is true) "those are my cows, yours all died" The banker says "how do you know mine are the ones that died, and the farmer says "how do you know they aren't"

I feel like the banker - all those cows, but none of them are mine. It's not a question of the legal rights at this point - its the perception.

I'd say we are beating a dead horse so lets just close this one down. Sorry if I offended anyone.

You obviously just don't get it. Your example makes no sense.

Here is the illustration you try to do:
Your friend owns a cottage at a vacation city. You want to rent that cottage from your friend for specific time. Your friend says: "Sorry, I already rented out my cottage for the dates you want." Then you say: "But there are other units adjacent to yours". Then he says: "I do not own those cottages, my neighbors do." Then you say: "I don't care. It's the identical type of cottage on the same land, built by the same developer. I want you to rent it to me or it's bad customer service. I don't care if you own them or not, give me the key!"

Got it?!

 

[DebbieB]

I stayed at BWV last week. Because of a work conflict, I had to change my dates twice. Around September, no points rooms were available for a studio but they did have cash rates, I got a 35% off AP discount (I really wanted to stay at BWV). I understood that is how DVC works, I wasn't mad. I put in for waitlist and also stalked the member website. I was able to get 4 of the 5 nights online and the last night came through on waitlist about 28 days before. So keep watching, it may come through, especially considering you are 7 months out. I was only 2 months out and it was the last weekend of Food & Wine and Veterans Day weekend.

 

[Breyean]

Sure but consider ...

After they help book a week at BCV in 2 months, how many guides say:

"By the way, you'll have a snowball's chance in hell of ever being able to book a week at Beach Club Villas two months in advance?"



P.S. Please note that I'm agreeing with you but only noting that a DVC guide is ultimately a salesperson who is putting food on a table based on a commission. When anyone is placed in that position, there's a temptation to leave out important details that could jeopardize the sale.

No doubt the guides are salesmen making a buck.

That's why I said it's up to the buyers to learn the rules otherwise they are in for a lot of disappointment in the coming years.

 

[twinsouvenirs]

Outside the box solution--call your guide, tell them you want to add on 10 pts, or 25. If they can get you the Aulani ressie. You still end up paying cash but you can turn around and rent the points to recoup your investment. Also, Aulani is not a DVC resort. It is a Disney resort with a DVC component, like Beach Club, Boardwalk, and pretty much all of the others. Much is straight hotel. You can also book a room for cash and rent your points to recoup the $ or waitlist the reservation, then cancel the cash ressie if it comes through

 

[Minniesgal]

Outside the box solution--call your guide, tell them you want to add on 10 pts, or 25. If they can get you the Aulani ressie. You still end up paying cash but you can turn around and rent the points to recoup your investment. Also, Aulani is not a DVC resort. It is a Disney resort with a DVC component, like Beach Club, Boardwalk, and pretty much all of the others. Much is straight hotel. You can also book a room for cash and rent your points to recoup the $ or waitlist the reservation, then cancel the cash ressie if it comes through

Highly unlikely a guide would go to that trouble to sell 25 points.

 

[rkold]

Highly unlikely a guide would go to that trouble to sell 25 points.

Think about buying more than 25 points?

Personally, I'm really not surprised June is hard to book, Hawaii is a popular wedding destination and June is still one of the most popular months to get married in. Isn't OP trying to use the points for a honeymoon?

 

[Chuck S]

I'm not, NOT asking for something for free, or for "special treatment" (you know, like free meal plans or things). I'm saying "There's available space at a DVC resort. Shouldn't DVC do everything it can to make those rooms available to the Members? Not because they must, not because they have an obligation, but because it creates goodwill for the brand.'

Actually, you are asking for Disney to give you access to rooms that DVC does not own. Much like asking for DVC to give you a room at the Polynesian because the room you want to OKW is not available in the name of goodwill.

Also like saying you are having guests for the holidays, but expecting your neighbor to house them because you don't have room at your house.

DVC type rooms may be available at all resorts for cash and not points, because DVC does not own those rooms. Also if a member trades out from their resort to a Disney Destination other than DVC, that room is turned over to cash...it has to be, to offset the cost of the trade...otherwise there would be no trades.

I understand it can be frustrating, but it is exactly the way the system is designed to work.

 

[crisi]

I'm quite sure that DVC has accurate accounting for all declared and undeclared villas, and can vouch for the fact that owners are receiving the access they are supposed to receive. (To believe otherwise implies that Disney is actively defrauding owners. Let's not go down that road.)

I think most of us are very sympathetic to your circumstances. We've all been there. Whether booking at seven months, one month or somewhere in between, we've all had that experience of not being able to book a desired resort/view/villa size.

But I think you're going to be disappointed in the long run if you expect Disney to sacrifice significant dollars to change some owners' perceptions.

They also have to go through internal and external audit - so they aren't too likely to try since screwing around with this as it could get them into "executives go to jail" sorts of trouble.

The big thing members are not privy to is how DVD and DVC determine which rooms to turn over for cash reservations and when - regardless of how they get their cash status. However, for the benefit of people who do want to cruise, it is important that DVC turns over rooms that have a possibility of selling for cash. Rooms that sit empty because all Disney turns over is SSR in February aren't going to let DVC pay for any cruises or rooms at Disneyland. So there has to be some sort of balance there between individual member needs and the needs of the system.

But if anyone thinks that Disney is engaging in fraud, they need to sell their points and get out now.

 

[tjkraz]

Highly unlikely a guide would go to that trouble to sell 25 points.

They might. Still a pretty easy sale if it just takes a computer search / phone call to "pull some strings."

But it's a pretty expensive route to go. And I'm not sure how useful 25 Aulani points would be going forward.

 

[deploylinux]

A few quick thoughts:

- If you read the DVC timeshare contract, the only resort Disney guarantees any availability for is your home resort. In fact, you can essentially lose all DVC benefits outside the home resort at any time if for some reason your home resort and DVC dissolve their association - which could be prompted by factors outside Disney's control (although extremely unlikely - it is hard to guarantee anything for a contract that can technically last 50 years).
- Second, wait-lists are funny things. If you wait-list for an entire week at a popular resort exactly at the 7 month mark, you have a decent chance of having it come through. Procrastinate a few weeks and try to waitlist for even just a single day, and it becomes much less likely. Early wait-lists are much more effective than later ones.
- When making plans for the year, have a backup plan....your primary goal might be a 7 day summer vacation in Aulani in June, be prepared that all you may get is a week at your home resort in August. Don't make any promises until you have the reservation.
- That said, I find the whole reservation system a little broken for the 7 month window. One shouldn't get an advantage by calling in, and booking exactly when the system starts accepting reservations each morning is unfair to those on the west coast or non east-coast timezones. I really don't want to wake up at 4am to have a chance to get a reservation. Maybe at the 8 month mark, let everyone submit a different type of waitlist request that gets put in a random pile and chosen from on the morning of the 7 month mark. This would probably be a more fair system in that it provides a 30 day window for everyone to have an equal chance to go to a resort other than their home.
- I'd be happier if there were also more perks for staying at ones home resort other than the 11 month reservation. DVC's contract promises nothing more than the home resort, but it's marketing implies you can stay all around the world on points...contract and reality would be greater in sync if the connection with home resorts was more pronounced. Perhaps 2hr later checkout and/or 2hr earlier checkin for home resort owners would be a big plus. Not sure if DVC could wing that. The 11am checkout and 4pm checkin is one of the more annoying DVC limitations.

 

[lovin'fl]

OP could add on to their AKV points, that might be better than 25 points at Aulani. If they added 50 or so AKV points (50 points gets you $3 off/point...100 points gets you $5 off/point), maybe the guide could get them that Aulani room?????? Or they could add 25 at VGF (would be a cheaper option).

 

[Reddog1134]

Perhaps 2hr later checkout and/or 2hr earlier checkin for home resort owners would be a big plus. Not sure if DVC could wing that. The 11am checkout and 4pm checkin is one of the more annoying DVC limitations.

The problem with that is that it would greatly reduce Mousekeepings cleaning time. If a room was booked back-to-back with home bookings, they would only have 1 hour to get the room ready.

 

[Chuck S]

Perhaps 2hr later checkout and/or 2hr earlier checkin for home resort owners would be a big plus. Not sure if DVC could wing that. The 11am checkout and 4pm checkin is one of the more annoying DVC limitations.

That is simply not possible without a substantial rise in dues to triple or quadruple the number of housekeepers that would be required. Imagine cleaning almost every room on a Friday (a busy check-out day) between 1pm and 2 pm. And then again on Sunday, as weekend visitors leave and the Sunday to Friday crowd arrives. Remember, there is still a larger number of owners/renters that do the Sunday to Friday stays because of less expensive points per night.

And then there is the headache of adding a field to the resort computer systems to indicate to resort personnel if you are indeed staying at your home resort or if you own elsewhere. Then you also have to indicate if you are actually staying on points you OWN at that resort, or if you are staying on points you own at another resort. (like those members that have small add-ons at almost every resort, but use points from multiple resorts to book trips.)

 

[Deb & Bill]

Plus housekeepers usually go from villa to villa when they are cleaning. So you have one home resort owner checking in/out and two non-home resort, plus three cash reservations. It would be a nightmare.

- That said, I find the whole reservation system a little broken for the 7 month window. One shouldn't get an advantage by calling in, and booking exactly when the system starts accepting reservations each morning is unfair to those on the west coast or non east-coast timezones. I really don't want to wake up at 4am to have a chance to get a reservation. Maybe at the 8 month mark, let everyone submit a different type of waitlist request that gets put in a random pile and chosen from on the morning of the 7 month mark. This would probably be a more fair system in that it provides a 30 day window for everyone to have an equal chance to go to a resort other than their home.

This is kind of how the Christmas booking used to be. There was a lottery for all the villas. So you might not know if you were getting the villa until later on instead of directly at 11 months out. But they discontinued that about 2000 or so.

But the system is as fair as it can be. If you, living on the west coast, are booking a seven or eight night stay, but arriving the day before me, living in the South Central US, you still got a headstart on me. That's why people "walk" their reservations. In the old days, you booked based on your check out day. So, unless you booked day by day (and kept adding one more day), it was more equal.

I know in the days, I set my alarm for 5:30 so I could be right on the phone to make the call to get CRT when I was competing against that group that used to book up lots of reservations. Now they have multiple character meals and CRT costs so much more with the "package" costs. And I don't need to eat there any more.

 

[jcjen519]

I fully understand that no rules were violated here and it doesn't surprise me. My grandparents bought into dvc the first year and my husband and I bought in several years ago. We have also received a massive number of points from my grandparents. I understand there is a savings with dvc but I don't believe that the savings alone is what disney sells dvc members. The reality is that booking what you want at a dvc resort can be tougher and require more planning than one realizes. Especially if you aren't booking at your home resort and sometimes even if you are. As someone with a ton of okw points and no desire to stay there I get it.

I like dvc enough to keep the points I have but we won't be likely to buy more. I didn't even pay for 90% of my points and I feel this way. No rules have been violated here but it's this type of thing that makes dvc in large part undesirable to me. It's not even the thought that there are some cash only rooms. I understand the reasons behind it and the different entities at play. If I were considering a new membership though I would take note of this. It seems only fair to me that at 7 months out a dvc owner should in theory be able to book what they want. This is often not the case and that's not very appealing to me as a buyer or owner and potential buyer.

Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards

 

[Dean]

A few quick thoughts:

- If you read the DVC timeshare contract, the only resort Disney guarantees any availability for is your home resort. In fact, you can essentially lose all DVC benefits outside the home resort at any time if for some reason your home resort and DVC dissolve their association - which could be prompted by factors outside Disney's control (although extremely unlikely - it is hard to guarantee anything for a contract that can technically last 50 years).
- Second, wait-lists are funny things. If you wait-list for an entire week at a popular resort exactly at the 7 month mark, you have a decent chance of having it come through. Procrastinate a few weeks and try to waitlist for even just a single day, and it becomes much less likely. Early wait-lists are much more effective than later ones.
- When making plans for the year, have a backup plan....your primary goal might be a 7 day summer vacation in Aulani in June, be prepared that all you may get is a week at your home resort in August. Don't make any promises until you have the reservation.
- That said, I find the whole reservation system a little broken for the 7 month window. One shouldn't get an advantage by calling in, and booking exactly when the system starts accepting reservations each morning is unfair to those on the west coast or non east-coast timezones. I really don't want to wake up at 4am to have a chance to get a reservation. Maybe at the 8 month mark, let everyone submit a different type of waitlist request that gets put in a random pile and chosen from on the morning of the 7 month mark. This would probably be a more fair system in that it provides a 30 day window for everyone to have an equal chance to go to a resort other than their home.
- I'd be happier if there were also more perks for staying at ones home resort other than the 11 month reservation. DVC's contract promises nothing more than the home resort, but it's marketing implies you can stay all around the world on points...contract and reality would be greater in sync if the connection with home resorts was more pronounced. Perhaps 2hr later checkout and/or 2hr earlier checkin for home resort owners would be a big plus. Not sure if DVC could wing that. The 11am checkout and 4pm checkin is one of the more annoying DVC limitations.

One get get into the villa earlier very easily, simply reserve the day before and you're all set. Otherwise Disney has gone the other way making checkin AFTER 4 rather than 4 or before. The other thing they likely will do at some point it to change to 10 am checkout rather than 11 am.

No doubt the WL system is chaotic. Personally I wish they'd make 2 changes. One, to allow one to request any unit type of a given size at a single resort and 2, make one commit the points separately from any other reservation for the WL reservation.

I'm always amused when people combine fair and timeshare in the same sentence. I just don't get the timezone complaint. I've gotten up many a time to try to get difficult reservations including every day at 4:30 to 5 am for 6 weeks hoping to secure a specific short notice exchange on 2 different occasions.

 

[Dean]

I fully understand that no rules were violated here and it doesn't surprise me. My grandparents bought into dvc the first year and my husband and I bought in several years ago. We have also received a massive number of points from my grandparents. I understand there is a savings with dvc but I don't believe that the savings alone is what disney sells dvc members. The reality is that booking what you want at a dvc resort can be tougher and require more planning than one realizes. Especially if you aren't booking at your home resort and sometimes even if you are. As someone with a ton of okw points and no desire to stay there I get it.

I like dvc enough to keep the points I have but we won't be likely to buy more. I didn't even pay for 90% of my points and I feel this way. No rules have been violated here but it's this type of thing that makes dvc in large part undesirable to me. It's not even the thought that there are some cash only rooms. I understand the reasons behind it and the different entities at play. If I were considering a new membership though I would take note of this. It seems only fair to me that at 7 months out a dvc owner should in theory be able to book what they want. This is often not the case and that's not very appealing to me as a buyer or owner and potential buyer.

Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards

I think this is the crux of the matter for many similar issues. ALL DVC sells AND ALL we buy, is the right to TRY to make a reservation at our home resort and the ability to maybe try to make a exchange reservation to a sister resort along with the financial responsibilities that go with it. That's it, all the rest is lack of understanding of what one is buying and hype without substance.