Changes to DVC Bookings - effective June 2nd

[nickys]

It’s being reported that the terms & conditions for booking reservations have changed with immediate effect.

There is now a check box to attest that the reservation is for personal use…. defined vaguely later in the T&Cs. It says you can let friends or family use your points without you “occasionally”. It also says that it will only be considered personal use if you do not rent or sell reservations, but not how they will determine that.

Disney Vacation Club Issues New Warning Against Commercial Point Rental Activity | DVCNews.com - The essential Disney Vacation Club resource!

When booking a Disney Vacation Club villa with their points, members must now acknowledge a new disclaimer certifying that the reservation is being made for personal use only. The Public Offering

dvcnews.com

 

[DisneyDreamer08]

I’m really interested to see how this affects rental companies that make a living off selling points. I can definitely understand why Disney wants to crack down on this.

 

[RememberWhen]

Interesting. The DVC rental business is booming. Maybe they’re tracking how much folks are booking for people not on the deed? I’m interested to see if they’re going to try to stop it.

We don’t rent out our points, but do occasionally book rooms for friends/family (as a kindness with no fee). I’ll be annoyed if DVC flags those or something.

Let’s see what happens…

 

[nickys]

I’m sure they’ll go after the owners who set up LLCs to own points with the sole purpose of renting.

But then there are good reasons why some people use them, for estate planning reasons for example.

Some brokers presumably own their own points in addition to owners using them as an intermediary.

I’m just not sure what the wording means. If I let DS use our points it’s not in our name. So if he goes every year using most of the points is that “occasional”? Or could they flag it as potentially frequent rental activity?
How will they know who’s using a rental broker?

And …..

What about Disney’s points? They have to follow the rules too. Their 2-3% of points are all being commercially rented to the public making cash bookings.

 

[RememberWhen]

It would be pretty funny if Disney got in trouble for illegally renting out their DVC points.

As far as your son, hopefully you could dispute any issues and that booking a room for your child isn’t the same as renting, even if he throws you some money to cover dues.

 

[lentesta]

I'm trying to identify the downside for Disney that they're trying to prevent.

Let's say my Private Equity company, Amalgamated Evil, buys a bunch of DVC contracts with the sole intent of renting them out.

Disney gets paid for the contracts, same as if they were sold to individuals.

Amalgamated Evil, a for-profit company, has every incentive to rent the points out to make money. So they rent to families far and near.

The families come to Walt Disney World and spend money like usual.

What's the downside to Disney here?

 

[Wes Tacker]

I'm trying to identify the downside for Disney that they're trying to prevent.

Let's say my Private Equity company, Amalgamated Evil, buys a bunch of DVC contracts with the sole intent of renting them out.

Disney gets paid for the contracts, same as if they were sold to individuals.

Amalgamated Evil, a for-profit company, has every incentive to rent the points out to make money. So they rent to families far and near.

The families come to Walt Disney World and spend money like usual.

What's the downside to Disney here?

Frustrated DVC members losing prime reservations to evil corporation.

 

[monothingie]

I'm trying to identify the downside for Disney that they're trying to prevent.

Let's say my Private Equity company, Amalgamated Evil, buys a bunch of DVC contracts with the sole intent of renting them out.

Disney gets paid for the contracts, same as if they were sold to individuals.

Amalgamated Evil, a for-profit company, has every incentive to rent the points out to make money. So they rent to families far and near.

The families come to Walt Disney World and spend money like usual.

What's the downside to Disney here?

Disney isn't getting their cut of the rental transaction, someone else is making money off of their product.

 

[lentesta]

Frustrated DVC members losing prime reservations to evil corporation.

It's ultimately one group of families replacing another, right?

 

[Wes Tacker]

It's ultimately one group of families replacing another, right?

Yes but evil corp is going to be focused 100% of the time on the prime reservations and have the experience to snag them. Denver family may not.

 

[lentesta]

Yes but evil corp is going to be focused 100% of the time on the prime reservations and have the experience to snag them. Denver family may not.

Okay, but it's still the same number of people in the rooms. I'm not even sure that on average, over time, the geographic demographic for Amalgamated Evil is that different from the average DVC owner.

Is there a direct cost to Disney shareholders for Amalgamated Evil to rent points?

 

[WeNamedTheDogIndiana]

Okay, but it's still the same number of people in the rooms. I'm not even sure that on average, over time, the geographic demographic for Amalgamated Evil is that different from the average DVC owner.

Is there a direct cost to Disney shareholders for Amalgamated Evil to rent points?

Maybe Disney is optimistically hoping that a family that can no longer rent will book a regular room through them instead? Happy real DVC members plus a regular room booking seems like Disney's win scenario.

 

[Disstevefan1]

I'm trying to identify the downside for Disney that they're trying to prevent.

Let's say my Private Equity company, Amalgamated Evil, buys a bunch of DVC contracts with the sole intent of renting them out.

Disney gets paid for the contracts, same as if they were sold to individuals.

Amalgamated Evil, a for-profit company, has every incentive to rent the points out to make money. So they rent to families far and near.

The families come to Walt Disney World and spend money like usual.

What's the downside to Disney here?

Does the availability of DVC rentals cut into the sale of contracts? Folks who rent don't buy?

Does the availability of DVC rentals cut into the regular deluxe room stays? Folks rent DVC rooms instead of paying for the regular deluxe rooms?

One thing I think we can agree on is, its about MONEY somehow, NOT the guest experience.

 

[Wes Tacker]

Is there a direct cost to Disney shareholders for Amalgamated Evil to rent points?

If anything, the Evildoers line shareholders pockets with increased DVC sales

 

[ehh]

Okay, but it's still the same number of people in the rooms. I'm not even sure that on average, over time, the geographic demographic for Amalgamated Evil is that different from the average DVC owner.

Is there a direct cost to Disney shareholders for Amalgamated Evil to rent points?

If you’re spending $300/night to occupy a DVC room, Disney would rather you pay them that $300/night to occupy a cash inventory room AND have a DVC member occupy the DVC room.

On top of that, “DVC’s nice but the commercial renters make booking so hard” is bad word of mouth from owners to friends/family/coworkers who are thinking of buying. Even if the commercial renters are just a boogeyman and not actually impacting bookings, a theoretical loss or slowdown of points sales from word of mouth makes it worth it to go through the motions of banning commercial renting.

 

[RememberWhen]

I don’t know whether things have changed, but I do know that bookings have been tricky in the past couple of years. Due to anxiety about not getting rooms we wanted, I’ve walked them out. I don’t know if that’s because people are booking and then renting out those bookings. Or there are just more DVC people than there used to be. Or something else.

@lentesta - DVC and Disney are different entities, right? So if DVC is hearing lots of complaints they might want to cut back on the rentals even if Disney doesn’t care?

 

[Trueblood]

Maybe look at it through a straight "member satisfaction" lens. My friends who own DVC will frequently complain that getting a reservation, even at their home resort, is difficult (this is true of other timeshare companies as well, FWIW). It's more of an issue of longer reservations.

Maybe Disney believes that commercial point renters are a big part of that problem.

 

[Tony the Tigger]

This makes DVC instantly worth less, IMO.

What about people who don’t want to spend every year vacationing at Disney? The, “Oh, you can just rent your points out every other year” thing is off the table. Enjoy Aulani!

Watch for a point dump - further devaluing them.

Makes no sense to me, but every time they change something, I’m more relieved I didn’t buy.

It would take a half price deal on the Cabins at this point.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I’m really interested to see how this affects rental companies that make a living off selling points. I can definitely understand why Disney wants to crack down on this.

Frankly…they never should have existed

 

[DisneyDreamer08]

I used to watch a lot of Disney related vlogs on YouTube. There is one page in particular that pretty much always rents DVC through one particular rental store (they may even work together). At the end of each video, they would always say how much the room would cost if purchased directly through Disney and how much they paid using the DVC rental company. I understand that the rental market is huge but something about promoting rentals over booking directly through Disney just didn’t feel right. It makes sense that Disney would much rather you book your stay directly through them.