Why does Expedia have villa inventory?

[Mrs.Milo]

I'm curious. I have a ressie for Oct during Food & Wine, but missing 2 days in the middle, and waitlisted. It's a 2 bedroom @ Boardwalk. I spoke to my SIL today, who's also a member, and also waitlisted, and she found it available on Expedia if you pay, instead of using points.

Now I understand rooms go into an exchange when members trade out. But how does Expedia get those? Because Expedia has rooms available at all the Disney resorts. And does the money that Disney gets from selling those rooms to Expedia help pay for operating expenses? Or do we members pay all the expenses, and Disney gets the profits? I'm just trying to figure out how this works.

 

[MinnieGirl33]

Seperate inventory.

WDCo owns a small percentage of each resort (aside from the trade-outs, etc) that they can do whatever they wish with. If they want to turn rooms over to Expedia so be it. Consolidators get blocks of rooms all the time (AAA, AmEx, US Airways Vacations, Southwest Vacations, etc.), I would expect Expedia to be no different.

 

[chalee94]

Now I understand rooms go into an exchange when members trade out. But how does Expedia get those? Because Expedia has rooms available at all the Disney resorts. And does the money that Disney gets from selling those rooms to Expedia help pay for operating expenses?

in theory, when you trade pts for a cruise, DVC actually owes the disney cruise division cash for your cruise.

in order to get that cash, DVC has to use the pts you traded to make DVC resort reservations...which they make available through a wide variety of outlets, like the wdw website, RCI getaways (or whatever they are called) and expedia...

any excess profit is supposed to defray annual dues, if i recall correctly.

 

[RobDoc]

The bulk of any cash inventory comes from points used by DVC members for the non-DVC options like the Disney Cruise, other WDW resorts, Concierge Collection, Adventurers Collection, etc. DVC does not hold out a block of villas for cash reservations, but does make villas available for cash rental thru DRC, RCI and other outlets.

Any villas unreserved from DVC inventory 60 days out is also made available for cash reservations where income is used to offset annual dues - but that inventory would not yet be in play. DVD does maintain a small ownership (2-4%) at each resort to be used to offset inventory removed for rehab/renovation or otherwise out-of-service.

Without such cash inventory the non-DVC options would not be possible. This availability actually does come from rooms reserved by members - for other DVC options.

 

[Mrs.Milo]

Thanks everyone, for your replies.