Third party commercial renters

[Retired2018]

What email did you reach out to? I think if we bombard them with emails concerning this, we may get more attention from on high- the squeaky wheel and all.

There is language in the POS that allows renting, but also clearly states that the board will determine what constitutes commercial renting and the language is broader than “20 rentals”, even if that’s what they’ve said is their current benchmark.

There is also spirit of the law vs letter of the law, and I’m not sure committing fraud by keeping 10 contracts in 10 different names for the sole purpose of circumventing a contractual limitation is a good defense, but I’m no lawyer so I’ll let the actual lawyers speak on that.

member.relations@disneyvacationclub.com

Nowhere in the body of this particular email from DVC did it mention that there was a rolling cap of so many rentals per year. The only thing that was addressed by them, was this interpretation of commercial being viewed as internet.

To address the topic of trying out DVC before making a purchase, Disney does rent DVC rooms on their own website for cash. Oftentimes with lovely discounts and nothing beats sitting down with a great sales rep to discuss the true nuances of ownership. Renting out points giving the impression that it allows others to try DVC before plunking down tens of thousands of dollars is a moot point. Unfortunately too many renters to have access to our points and our rooms with no skin in the game.

On a side note, and maybe this isn't where to ask but just asking here anyway.... are there other DVC member forms that are not sponsored? There doesn't seem to be much conversation on the other websites I have visited, but maybe it is because they have less outreach, or maybe I just haven't landed on a popular one yet I did enjoy the one from years ago that shut itself down. Gosh, it has got to be exhausting monitoring all the responses to be sure nothing goes against what is allowed.

I was on another part of Disboards- not DVC, and was surprised at what was being posted without intervention. Maybe our DVC mods are just more on top of their game.

 

[CastAStone]

When the CFW first allowed booking and it was pointed out here the number of confirmed reservations were being listed for sale, we reached out to DVC and provided websites with the listings

Any confirmed reservation being listed with more than 30 days until the check in date could very reasonably be viewed as a commercial reservation. IMHO.

On a side note, and maybe this isn't where to ask but just asking here anyway.... are there other DVC member forms that are not sponsored? There doesn't seem to be much conversation on the other websites I have visited, but maybe it is because they have less outreach, or maybe I just haven't landed on a popular one yet I did enjoy the one from years ago that shut itself down.

WDWMagic.com and Touringplans.com have some limited DVC forum traffic, but nothing like the depth of conversation here. WDWMagic’s is sponsored by World of DVC as well; TouringPlans is obviously sponsored by TouringPlans, who has no direct stake in DVC.

Reddit, Facebook, and another social media app all have more active groups; most of the large Facebook groups are also sponsored by World of DVC or one of their competitors.

There’s also a couple other sites that exist, can’t link them here. Not a ton of traffic there either comparatively though. So Reddit might be your best bet?

 

[Sandisw]

Any confirmed reservation being listed with more than 30 days until the check in date could very reasonably be viewed as a commercial reservation. IMHO.

WDWMagic.com and Touringplans.com have some limited DVC forum traffic, but nothing like the depth of conversation here. WDWMagic’s is sponsored by World of DVC as well; TouringPlans is obviously sponsored by TouringPlans, who has no direct stake in DVC.

Reddit, Facebook, and another social media app all have more active groups; most of the large Facebook groups are also sponsored by World of DVC or one of their competitors.

There’s also a couple other sites that exist, can’t link them here. Not a ton of traffic there either comparatively though. So Reddit might be your best bet?

While I don’t agree one reservation should ever be considered an owner who is renting for commercial purposes, I could probably live with this change because it’s one that would not impact an owner not renting.

Plus, this strategy of renting confirmed, to the degree it is out there now, is something that has exploded the past few years.

 

[Chuck S]

Any confirmed reservation being listed with more than 30 days until the check in date could very reasonably be viewed as a commercial reservation. IMHO.

The problem with that supposition is what if a member is no longer in their banking window, and because of unforeseen circumstances can not travel or use the reservation? I can see why a member would need to try to rent more than 30 days out...but it is something we don't allow here on the DIS without a hefty premium, and at the very most allow 3 such reservations per year. Most people here, including myself on the rare occasion that I rent, chose to rent points, making reservations at the request of a potential renter based upon availability. We also permit a limited number of existing reservations inside the 30 day window, when cancelling would come with added penalties from DVC.

 

[BuzzLightyr]

My suggestion to Disney to fix this is to reallocate the point charts. Go after the highest return rentals and reallocate points to other room categories.

Animal Kingdom value and Boardwalk Standard View should all be 20% more expensive. Boardwalk pool and garden should be a bit cheaper. Existing owners should be aware of what is happening. Booking a boardwalk studio in May for 11 points vs 9 is still much cheaper than the 15 needed at Bay Lake. And a higher price makes it bookable without a computer script.

Reduce the profit of the commercial renters and you'll see fewer of them.

 

[JackosinDIS]

My suggestion to Disney to fix this is to reallocate the point charts. Go after the highest return rentals and reallocate points to other room categories.

Animal Kingdom value and Boardwalk Standard View should all be 20% more expensive. Boardwalk pool and garden should be a bit cheaper. Existing owners should be aware of what is happening. Booking a boardwalk studio in May for 11 points vs 9 is still much cheaper than the 15 needed at Bay Lake. And a higher price makes it bookable without a computer script.

Reduce the profit of the commercial renters and you'll see fewer of them.

Actually agree with this. If the margins are cut on those prime confirmed reservations, it would at least even things out a bit.

The CFW cabins are going to be a prime example of commercial renting. People can now use their SSR, BLT whatever cheap direct or grandfathered points they have to book a very low point week in the cabins. However, the value to renters is great as they sleep six people.

I am seeing plenty of confirmed reservations being listed for around $28pp already… way above what most other resorts sell for per point. Due to the low points required it still looks like a bargain compared to cash bookings.

If you look at the requests for rentals on the board sponsors site, I’d say 80% of all requests at the moment are for the cabins. Admittedly this could just be because they are new, but it appears on the face of it there is a huge demand for them.

There is a lot of money to be made on these cabins if you are a commercial renter I suspect.

All comes down to the low point requirement, as with AKL and BWV standard. Put the points up and either the demand drops or the profit does.

 

[muppets3d]

Actually agree with this. If the margins are cut on those prime confirmed reservations, it would at least even things out a bit.

The CFW cabins are going to be a prime example of commercial renting. People can now use their SSR, BLT whatever cheap direct or grandfathered points they have to book a very low point week in the cabins. However, the value to renters is great as they sleep six people.

I am seeing plenty of confirmed reservations being listed for around $28pp already… way above what most other resorts sell for per point. Due to the low points required it still looks like a bargain compared to cash bookings.

If you look at the requests for rentals on the board sponsors site, I’d say 80% of all requests at the moment are for the cabins. Admittedly this could just be because they are new, but it appears on the face of it there is a huge demand for them.

There is a lot of money to be made on these cabins if you are a commercial renter I suspect.

All comes down to the low point requirement, as with AKL and BWV standard. Put the points up and either the demand drops or the profit does.

If the commercial renters are renting out those cabins and leaving the AKL club and value studios to owners, then more power to them!

 

[muppets3d]

Has renting exploded in the last few years since Disney has waived ROFR so much, making the resale price of points go down to the point where it made sense for speculators to enter the market en masse?

 

[Chuck S]

Has renting exploded in the last few years since Disney has waived ROFR so much, making the resale price of points go down to the point where it made sense for speculators to enter the market en masse?

I don't think renting itself has exploded, it has been around for ages. But I thinik difference is that were seeing more existing reservations at the 11 month window versus making reservations at the request of renters based on availability (Points for Rent)

 

[Sandisw]

Has renting exploded in the last few years since Disney has waived ROFR so much, making the resale price of points go down to the point where it made sense for speculators to enter the market en masse?

I don’t think that has had a significant impact. Not saying no one out there didn’t pick up more points in order to rent more, but this has been increasing for years.

As I said, I think with how easy it is now to find renters, especially for confirmed reservations, we have access to a lot more than we once did.

 

[DougEMG]

Any rooms still available within 60 days of check in can be pulled for cash stays, for owners to book, or to fill waitlists…or for any other reason DVC wants them.

So, the answer is that yes, any last minute cancelations can then be used toward breakage income, in which we get 2.5% of operational costs credit from it. The rest goes to BVTC and DVC..it is spelled out exactly in the contract.

So in a round about way, it is better for Disney to have commercial sites booking rooms, holding them to the last minute and then releasing them so Disney can use them however they want ?

 

[DougEMG]

The fact that I have never seen a post here or anywhere else where someone says “oops, I went over 20 reservations per year and got a call from Disney” makes me wonder whether they are even enforcing that restriction.

I got a letter back in 2011-2012 when I bought a bunch of loaded contract and rented the points out. At the time I though it was 20 reservations in a year which I made sure to stay under, but it was 20 in a rolling 12 months. I've never since reached that limit.

I suspect that most people that have ever got the letter aren't going to come here and say so, just like most people on the ROFR posting don't tend to post messages about how they "over paid" for a contract.

 

[Sandisw]

So in a round about way, it is better for Disney to have commercial sites booking rooms, holding them to the last minute and then releasing them so Disney can use them however they want ?

Not saying that…was just responding to a question that was asked as to what would happen. And whether Disney could see it as a benefit.

Of course, if someone is holding rooms and and cancels, then it’ doesn’t fall under the renting clause at all, even if the purpose for originally booking was to potentially rent them.

 

[samsp99]

Is this something that can/should be brought up at the annual members meeting?

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

And again I ask, how would you do that, legally, without negatively impacting ALL DVC owners?

Disney doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel here. This is a solved problem, solved by other timeshare developers. They could, for example, do what Wyndham did. Disney has a rule prohibiting commercial renting. Disney could identify quite easily which weeks are being rented out by the largest rental sites, send out a bunch of warning letters, and ultimately cancel some reservations. The resulting fear of god that would put into the rental market would likely partially collapse it and greatly solve the availability problem. No rules changes would be required. They already have a “no commercial renting” rule. While they may have defined that as “more than 20 reservations per owner per use year” they can also unilaterally change that.

And ultimately, if they did something like this, they would bank on the exact same thing that Wyndham did, that they are a very large and rich corporation with excellent in-house attorneys and they would be unlikely to face a real legal challenge. Except compared to T&L (which owns Wyndham), they are magnitudes larger.

I suspect that this is going to happen eventually, not because Disney is really worried about owners, but because the commercial renting sites are starting to compete directly with Disney, and Disney has a hotel occupancy problem right now. At some point an executive is going to see this competition as a problem and we will see action. It may be sooner than we think given the current stories on Disney’s hotel occupancy numbers, which appear to be in five alarm fire mode right now.

 

[Chuck S]

Is this something that can/should be brought up at the annual members meeting?

The annual meetings are pretty much pre-scripted for content.

 

[Sandisw]

Disney doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel here. This is a solved problem, solved by other timeshare developers. They could, for example, do what Wyndham did. Disney has a rule prohibiting commercial renting. Disney could identify quite easily which weeks are being rented out by the largest rental sites, send out a bunch of warning letters, and ultimately cancel some reservations. The resulting fear of god that would put into the rental market would likely partially collapse it and greatly solve the availability problem. No rules changes would be required. They already have a “no commercial renting” rule. While they may have defined that as “more than 20 reservations per owner per use year” they can also unilaterally change that.

And ultimately, if they did something like this, they would bank on the exact same thing that Wyndham did, that they are a very large and rich corporation with excellent in-house attorneys and they would be unlikely to face a real legal challenge. Except compared to T&L (which owns Wyndham), they are magnitudes larger.

I suspect that this is going to happen eventually, not because Disney is really worried about owners, but because the commercial renting sites are starting to compete directly with Disney, and Disney has a hotel occupancy problem right now. At some point an executive is going to see this competition as a problem and we will see action. It may be sooner than we think given the current stories on Disney’s hotel occupancy numbers, which appear to be in five alarm fire mode right now.

What I can say is that if the bulk of confirmated reservations actually belong to the brokers, they are ending up with a lot of holding points, or losing a lot of points in the process. I just checked the sponsor's site, https://dvcrentalstore.com and they have 40 reservations that happen in the next 30 days, and many are just 1 and 2 nights.

I still believe that many of these types of rentals belong to a whole bunch of different owners who now take the chance to rent out even one night with leftover points than ever before. And, no, I am not saying that those that own broker websites to sell don't rent out reservations that they own as well.

But, the number of confirmed reservations that are like this certainly don't appear to be ones booked right at the 11 month window...and maybe that is why, assuming DVC has done no monitoring (which we don't know), that they seem not to care about someone booking a lot of these?

Even if we got word that people are getting letters, and all rentals stopped, the availability problem of hard to get rooms will not go away...the only thing that will is people seeing them for rent....the vast majority of owners will still lose out on your AKV Cl, Value, and BW SV rooms.

 

[CastAStone]

What I can say is that if the bulk of confirmated reservations actually belong to the brokers, they are ending up with a lot of holding points, or losing a lot of points in the process. I just checked the sponsor's site, https://dvcrentalstore.com and they have 40 reservations that happen in the next 30 days, and many are just 1 and 2 nights.

I still believe that many of these types of rentals belong to a whole bunch of different owners who now take the chance to rent out even one night with leftover points than ever before. And, no, I am not saying that those that own broker websites to sell don't rent out reservations that they own as well.

But, the number of confirmed reservations that are like this certainly don't appear to be ones booked right at the 11 month window...and maybe that is why, assuming DVC has done no monitoring (which we don't know), that they seem not to care about someone booking a lot of these?

Even if we got word that people are getting letters, and all rentals stopped, the availability problem of hard to get rooms will not go away...the only thing that will is people seeing them for rent....the vast majority of owners will still lose out on your AKV Cl, Value, and BW SV rooms.

I would consider banning confirmed rentals prior to 60 days from check in. If you’re further out just list your points.

 

[Sandisw]

I would consider banning confirmed rentals prior to 60 days from check in. If you’re further out just list your points.

And, to be honest, that is the one change that I could live with...though I do think there could be reasons that someone is going to need to advertise in advance not to lose points...and not sure that it would hold up to FL timeshare law, which is, from my reading, pretty timeshare owner friendly when it comes to being allowed to rent....as long as it is not a restriction that says name changes can't happen until 60 days out....in that case, that is an issue for owners.

But, the level of enforcement that would be needed for that is huge and the cost to do that would fall on owners receiving reduced MS services. DVCMC gets paid a straight fee and if they have to spend that much time dinging owners who rent confirmed reservations, the cost of that is going to come from reducting the number of CM's who do other things.

It is also why I still go back to my own opinion, that what has exploded in recent years is the number of individual owners who are renting out points, renting small confirmed reservations when they have even a few extra points, and that the number of actual reservations that are owned by brokers (or brokers family, employees, etc.) are a small % of the total number of rentals being advertisted in today's market...

ETA. Remember the actual language of the POS says”renting for commercial purposes” which is why they use the word pattern of rental activity and set the 20 reservation threshold…one or two confirmed reservations in a year on a membership, just not something I see DVC penalizing owners for.

 

[Chuck S]

Not only the level of enforcement needed, but how would they determine, say, if you have more than one room reserved for a group trip, and the primary in the second room had to cancel 6 months out and you wanted to change the primary to another occupant?
Innocent DVCers are really not going to want to put up with that level of scrutiny to change room occupants, if something comes up and they need to change a primary.