DVC - Free Valet Parking Ends

[MaxsDad]

DVC is dropping the benefit of having valet parking included with your stay because of the price increase for this service property wide. Said increase would have been passed on to the members in the from of increased dues, and they want to avoid this. Since it was the increase that prompted this change, we must have been paying the old rate before out of our dues. Hence, we will no longer be paying any of it under the new policy.

So should this not mean our dues will decrease this year, especially for members with Home resorts that have this service, since we are no longer paying even the old rate?

[slappy magoo]

My guess? DVC members were using the free valet parking. Many other guests weren't, especially in the tumult of this year's economy. So they started scaling back the valet staff. Now there aren't enough attendants at any given time to handle the load. So decrease the load, end free valet parking for DVC members. Now you can have 1 or 2 attendants handle the piddling number of cars paying for the service. Isn't that better?


Here's what I don't get. Let's say for the sake of argument, a valet attendant is paid, by Disney, 200 dollars a day (which they're not). And every day, there are 10 attendants. 2000 a day. And how many resorts ave the valet parking option? I think 5 (AKL, BLT, BCV, BWV & VWL). So 10,000 a day for all the valet parking attendants. For a year, that's 3,650,000 dollars. A not inconsequential amount, and I'm sure they're not paid nearly that much (though once you factor in benefits - IF they get 'em...)

But HOW many DVC members are there, in total? I'd bet, if you raised all dues by a half-penny a point, that'd cover the cost of the staff. I just don't buy the cost as a valid argument.

[worldfanatic]

I, for one, bought DVC so I could stay at high end Disney properties that I otherwise wouldn't be willing to shell out big bucks for.

The discounts and side benefits are nice. But that had no influence at all on why I bought in.

Disney had a reason they eliminated the valet parking perk.
If it saves me even a small amount of dues, right on!!

If all the so called 'DVC perks' were taken away, I'd still be thrilled about being a part of DVC.

[kapeman]

Originally Posted by DisneyChuck

I checked in Sunday morning, and was informed of the policy change. When I asked to speak to someone about it, they just handed me a form letter. Their (weak) explanation is that it was done to keep from increasing maintenance fees for everyone.

It seems like most of the valets are gone, too... Twice in the last 2 days I have had to walk to the desk to get a ticket because there are no valets around. And the valets that are here are naturally upset, since a large chunk of their tips left with this policy change...

Bad business...

I also checked in on 10/11 and we were not notified at all. In fact, the Portable Perks book they had in our check-in pack still listed the valet as free.

I had to hit the web to find out. Good thing I did because we were charged for 2 days worth, which I was able to get back.

Originally Posted by MaxsDad

So should this not mean our dues will decrease this year, especially for members with Home resorts that have this service, since we are no longer paying even the old rate?

You wanna lay odds on that?

What insults me is that they won't even address that, as if we are too dumb to figure it out!!!

[oldkeyw]

Except for maybe Boardwalk, most of the lots actually aren't all that far away. The hotel we're most likely to visit is Wilderness Lodge and that one isn't a bad walk at all. Plus if one person doesn't want to walk, it's easy enough to do drop-off and pick-up. I'm all for keeping dues low if that's the reason.

[worldfanatic]

Originally Posted by oldkeyw

Except for maybe Boardwalk, most of the lots actually aren't all that far away. The hotel we're most likely to visit is Wilderness Lodge and that one isn't a bad walk at all. Plus if one person doesn't want to walk, it's easy enough to do drop-off and pick-up. I'm all for keeping dues low if that's the reason.

The voice of reason!

God Bless you oldkeyw!!!

[Phonedave]

Originally Posted by MaxsDad

DVC is dropping the benefit of having valet parking included with your stay because of the price increase for this service property wide. Said increase would have been passed on to the members in the from of increased dues, and they want to avoid this. Since it was the increase that prompted this change, we must have been paying the old rate before out of our dues. Hence, we will no longer be paying any of it under the new policy.

So should this not mean our dues will decrease this year, especially for members with Home resorts that have this service, since we are no longer paying even the old rate?

NO part of your dues should go to anything except upkeep of the property you own. That is Florida law. Things such as advertising, the sales office, and the perks (which are a sales incentive) are either negotiated between the various departments (i.e. budget transfers) or paid for out of the DVC profits (which come from sales)

Paragraph three of the Receipt for Member Benefits Guide which everyone got and everyone signed says, in part

"No cost(s) of operation, maintenance or repair of any properties or services available as part of or in conjunction with these special programs is passed on to a Purchaser as part of the Purchaser's assessment for common expenses of the condominium"

This is in accordance with Florida Statute 721.025 - Incidental benefits



It is also Florida law that your dues cover the operational and maintenance costs of the facility that you bought - including amoritized project long term major maintenance costs (such as new roofs). If your dues exceede these costs by a certain percentage (if cant recall the amount off the top of my head) then by law Disney MUST reduce your dues. they are not allowed to make any profit off of dues. Dues are only allowed to be used to cover operating costs. Housekeeping is an operating cost (it's in the contract you signed). If they went to one day a week housekeeping, they would have to pass the savings on to you.

You should get a break out each year of where your dues went. You get one for your taxes showing what went to OpEx, Taxes, and CapReserves.

Then you get another one that details what the individual line items under the OpEx and Capital are.

I can't locate my detailed breakout statement right now, but I doubt valet parking was on there. In fact, unless something is very wrong, none of the perks are on there.

[DisneyPhD]

Originally Posted by Phonedave

NO part of your dues should go to anything except upkeep of the property you own. That is Florida law. Things such as advertising, the sales office, and the perks (which are a sales incentive) are either negotiated between the various departments (i.e. budget transfers) or paid for out of the DVC profits (which come from sales)

.

I agree Dave. I think this is another example of the very poor communication skills of DVC. If we are really paying for "perks" through our dues, then these are not really perks. DVC could have said "The cost of Valet parking is increasing and since we don't want to pay any more than we already are for this perk we are discontinuing it as a free perk." Instead they chose to use us "the membership" as the excuse because no one wants an increase in dues when in fact there was no way for them to have this covered in the dues.

[Phonedave]

Originally Posted by DisneyPhD

I agree Dave. I think this is another example of the very poor communication skills of DVC. If we are really paying for "perks" through our dues, then these are not really perks. DVC could have said "The cost of Valet parking is increasing and since we don't want to pay any more than we already are for this perk we are discontinuing it as a free perk." Instead they chose to use us "the membership" as the excuse because no one wants an increase in dues when in fact there was no way for them to have this covered in the dues.

Exactly.

This is my guess at the situation

The vendor that supplies the parking valets pays an hourly wage. They took a look at their operations and decided that they could absorb the extra volume from the DVC without adding any additional valets. So they approached the DVC (or the other way around - most likely at a meeting) and said they could offer free valet. This is a win-win-win. It gets the DVC a perk, the valets make more tips, and the valet service may get more business after non-DVC guests see how easy valet service is.

Now, the free valet service is so popular that the vendor has to start adding additional shifts - at no added benefit to them. So they tell DVC that there will now be a charge to provide this perk. DVC does not want to pay this charge out of their profit (non member dues) so the perk goes away.


For all I know the cost to DVC could be going from 0 to 2 dollars per car, or from 5 to 7. DVC may have though the perk was a good deal at 5 per use (again, paid out of profits not dues). It gets people interested in the DVC, but at $2 more, not worth the price.

-dave

[Tiggerish]

It may also have something to do with the outsourcing of the valet parking service. Previously, I believe the valets were WDW employees. Wasn't it last year that they decided to outsource the valet parking service to an outside vendor?

[Fizbain32]

The official word in the news section of the DVC member site is that it is to prevent an increase in Dues.

[Tiggerish]

That's bull-oney.

According to what Dave wrote above, it's not even legal. We should call them out on it. It's kind of insulting to think that they have so little respect for their membership that they can't tell us the truth.

[worldfanatic]

Hiring valets isn't free. Therefore it costs DVC extra money for the employees needed to handle the cars that DVC members park in valet.
Why wouldn't that extra expense come back to our dues at some point?

Personally I applaud DVC for eliminating free valet parking. I don't want to pay even an extra dollar a year because people are too lazy to walk from the main lot.

If you really want valet, ante up.

[DVC Mike]

Originally Posted by Tiggerish

That's bull-oney.

According to what Dave wrote above, it's not even legal. We should call them out on it.

I see no evidence that DVC did anything illegal.

[Phonedave]

Originally Posted by worldfanatic

Hiring valets isn't free. Therefore it costs DVC extra money for the employees needed to handle the cars that DVC members park in valet.
Why wouldn't that extra expense come back to our dues at some point?

Personally I applaud DVC for eliminating free valet parking. I don't want to pay even an extra dollar a year because people are too lazy to walk from the main lot.

If you really want valet, ante up.

Re-read your contract. Valet parking cannot be included in your dues.


Here is how the DVC works

By law, the DVC makes no money off of dues. Dues are used to cover operating and maintence costs of the resort. it is not used to cover perks. It is also not used to cover the salary and costs of the DVC sales force. All your dues go to is the running of the resort - maintaince, front desk staff, booking staff, housekeeping, etc.

DVC makes it's profit off of the sales of the units. Part of the profit goes back into selling additional units - paying the sales force and other incentives.

One of these sales incentives, that is paid for out of profits are the perks. Others are the free ice cream, the model rooms, the van service, etc. None of our dues go to support those items.

Perks are a sales incentive. DVC pays for them out of it's profits because they are good advertising. However, when the cost of the perk no longer justifies the advertising benefit, then DVC will drop it.

Nobody knows exactly what happend with the Valet parking perk. All we know is that it was costing DVC so many dollars out of their bottom line, and then it went up. DVC decided that the publicity/advertising value of valet parking was not worth the additional cost, and they dropped it.

The only thing "wrong" that DVC did is say they dropped it so dues would not go up. The correct statement is "we dropped it because the hit to our profits was not worth the advertsising value it provided". However, based on the confusion that has been going around, I can see why they made the statement the way they did.

Oh, and that is why a perk can be dropped at any time - because you are not paying for it in your dues. But somthing like housekeeping cannot be dropped without either a reduction in dues, or a member vote. Housekeeping is covered by your dues, and is in your contract.


-dave