Because DVC only has so many rooms whereas the resorts have more. It's one reason why I never bought DVC. Its really difficult to get the low point rooms unless you book far in advance.
That's true of any timeshare--the low supply & high demand locations will disappear first. But the upside is tremendous savings to those who can afford to book that far in advance.
Is it a direct correlation? What I mean is. I use my DVC points to cruise feb 1st-7.
So DVC rents my DVC room for those specific days?
No. Home resorts are recognized--if you use Bay Lake Tower points for a cruise, BLT villa(s) are sold for cash. But the exact villas and dates are roughly equal across the calendar.
Disney doesn't really have a vested interest in promoting certain villa nights over others. They have tens-of-thousands of their own rooms to rent to guests, with thousands of them vacant any given night. And demand for DVC villas isn't tremendously high due to a variety of factors including the availability of 3rd party point rentals.
To a DVC owner, this may seem like a potential area for fraud and abuse. But Disney doesn't view it as anything more than a paper transaction. Simply put, even during F&W Festival time, there aren't dozens of cash guests lining up to pay $600-1000 per night for a DVC villa at BW or BC.
One other question struck me. At what point does the cash room, when unsold, revert back to DVC? Or does it not?
It never goes back to DVC. Rooms acquired by CRO / WDTC via these exchange programs are theirs to do with as they please. In many cases they simply go unused...like the thousands of empty hotel rooms each night.
Some may be used for upgrades but rarely does Disney send people from a cash resort to someplace like OKW or SSR just because there's a villa opening.
Overall, there's a huge number of nights where rooms just sit empty. That's a big part of the reason why it costs so many points to go on a Disney cruise or stay at a non-DVC hotel. The low success rate in selling villas to cash guests means Disney / DVC needs to acquire a lot of points in order to cover the cost of those trade programs.
Let's slow down a bit....
NEVER FORGET that one of the PRINCIPAL owners of all DVC properties is (ta dah) The Disney Corporation.
As legal point owners? They may rent THEIR points just like anyone else
. There is no "secret" - you are seeing a LEGAL POINT OWNER renting their points, as they see fit. They acquire these points thru foreclosures and ROFR. Then, they RENT them - at whatever price they deem appropriate. Worry when the price becomes $0
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While that's true, most of what we're taking about here is due to the exchange programs.
Only Grand Floridian and Aulani are in active sales now. Those are the resorts at which DVC has hundreds-of-thousands (or in the case of Aulani, millions) of unsold points.
DVC keeps some modest inventory of points on-hand for older properties via foreclosures and ROFR. But for the most part, those points merely sit in inventory waiting for a buyer. They aren't converted to hotel rooms.
