Updated Home Resort Rules

[drusba]

Last November, DVD said it was going to update the Home Resort Rules and Regulations and said it would put them up on line December 13. The last update we had was from January 2011. December 13 came and went and nothing appeared on the members' site.

Since I have not seen it mentioned yet, this is to let you know the updated rules are now on the members' site (and have apparently been there at least a week). Go to the member site, sign on, and then hit tab near top called Vacation Planning, scroll to and click Making Reservations, then scroll down to bottom of page and click on Home Resort Rules and Regulations (I know, typical DVD site logic to find something).

The new version is dated 11/2011 and thus, as usual for DVD, went into effect only 2 months before you were entitled to see them so if you find something in them that is new which you have violated in the last two months, you will undoubtedly be tied and quartered.

My review indicates nothing significant has been added that was unknown. DVD has added in the reservation section that you can now do on-line reserving. It has also added (or at least I think it might be new), a bold paragraph to the Member Benefits clause (applicable to discretionary benefits such as the Disney Collections) which states that DVD can grant benefits to those who purchase from DVD while withholding them from those members who have not (thus just adding words for something DVD already did for the first time last year when it took certain of the Collections away from resale purchasers).

 

[childsplay]

Thanks for the update. I do appreciate your efforts, because
I must admit, over the years I have lost the steam to keep up with the changes to the regulations/rules of use. Before whenever they sent/announced a possible change I would scour the fine print to see how it would affect my membership, my attitude lately has been "I guess if it affects my membership I'll find out when I try to book something"

 

[Kidanifan08]

. . . DVD can grant benefits to those who purchase from DVD while withholding them from those members who have not (thus just adding words for something DVD already did for the first time last year when it took certain of the Collections away from resale purchasers).

So this statement makes it sound like from this point forward, DVC has free reign to institute new restrictions for resale contracts without having to grandfather those owners who purchased their resale contract prior to the restriction being announced, vis a vis the 3/20/11 restrictions. Hmmm . . .

 

[Dean]

So this statement makes it sound like from this point forward, DVC has free reign to institute new restrictions for resale contracts without having to grandfather those owners who purchased their resale contract prior to the restriction being announced, vis a vis the 3/20/11 restrictions. Hmmm . . .

I think they did already, this is just their way of letting people know. Those benefits aren't tied to the ownership itself.

 

[lugnut33]

I would guess this is the lead up to to the rule that anybody who bought resale will only be able to reserve rooms at their home resort. You got to know it's coming some day because there cant' be this huge difference between new and resale prices without there being a huge difference in benefits.

 

[Caren90]

I don't think Disney will take away the ability to book other Disney resorts. They may change the booking windows but not the opportunity to book at a different location. Too much money to be lost with this, and the ability to book other resorts is a huge selling point. I get that it could be a huge selling point for direct buyers to be the only ones given this perk but to then tell those buyers that if you sell, the next owner loses that option, would cause buyers to rethink their purchase. And DVC does not want another reason not to buy.

I believe the new language was put in place to help delineate owners into groups for the upcoming tiered benefits that everyone is talking about.
Stephen

 

[nuts]

I don't think Disney will take away the ability to book other Disney resorts. They may change the booking windows but not the opportunity to book at a different location. Too much money to be lost with this, and the ability to book other resorts is a huge selling point. I get that it could be a huge selling point for direct buyers to be the only ones given this perk but to then tell those buyers that if you sell, the next owner loses that option, would cause buyers to rethink their purchase. And DVC does not want another reason not to buy.

I believe the new language was put in place to help delineate owners into groups for the upcoming tiered benefits that everyone is talking about.
Stephen

I am thinking they need to keep the cross-resort bookings to keep points in balance.

 

[Dean]

I would guess this is the lead up to to the rule that anybody who bought resale will only be able to reserve rooms at their home resort. You got to know it's coming some day because there cant' be this huge difference between new and resale prices without there being a huge difference in benefits.

They really can't take away bookings to current resorts without removing the resorts from the DVC system so that's not a feasible concern. There's really little DVC/DVD could do to separate qualified vs non qualified points for the current DVC resorts. About all they might be able to do would be a wait list priority. There's lots they could do in other areas both in adding value to qualified and in removing options from non qualified points.

I am thinking they need to keep the cross-resort bookings to keep points in balance.

Points are always in balance within reason. However, demand is often out of balance hence the need for rebalancing.

 

[Sandisw]

They really can't take away bookings to current resorts without removing the resorts from the DVC system so that's not a feasible concern. There's really little DVC/DVD could do to separate qualified vs non qualified points for the current DVC resorts. About all they might be able to do would be a wait list priority. There's lots they could do in other areas both in adding value to qualified and in removing options from non qualified points.

Points are always in balance within reason. However, demand is often out of balance hence the need for rebalancing.

I have to agree with you that it would be really tough to get around the POS in terms of limiting resale buyers to home resort.

I think the only change they could make that people might feel was a big one was changing the home resort booking advantage for resale owners.

I believe that the POS says that owners are entitled to a 1 month advantage of non-resort owners so they could give resale buyers only that one month and direct buyers more than that since technically, it wouldn't violate anything.

However, this just seems like it would be a nightmare for DVC and I doubt it would happen.

 

[Dean]

I have to agree with you that it would be really tough to get around the POS in terms of limiting resale buyers to home resort.

I think the only change they could make that people might feel was a big one was changing the home resort booking advantage for resale owners.

I believe that the POS says that owners are entitled to a 1 month advantage of non-resort owners so they could give resale buyers only that one month and direct buyers more than that since technically, it wouldn't violate anything.

However, this just seems like it would be a nightmare for DVC and I doubt it would happen.

I don't think there's really anything they could do directly that would limit non home resort usage either for current club resorts. All they could do would be to establish a new timeshare system with new resorts with a crossover related to this issue. They might be able to play with wait list options but that's about it. I do not believe they could legally say 11 months out for home resort, 10 months for qualified and 7 months for non qualified for the current Disney Vacation Club.