DVC plans to target commercial renters

[eticketplease]

It could be as simple as an automatically triggered email if more than half your reservations are not in your name 2 years in a row. Then the onus would be on you to respond with an explanation.

How would Disney know if you are renting to friends and family or complete strangers?

Certainly not by using the last name. Me and my wife we don’t share the same last name. Only some of my children do.

So @Cyberc1978 is going to have to explain every time his wife has a room booked in her name or in another persons name in his family?

 

[lowlight]

Parents of young children buying DVC and then having to live a bit more frugally or scrounge up some extra cash their college years is a Silver Surfer scenario?

The answer is simple. Lean more towards flexibility and simplicity.

If you don’t like it, then sell your contract.

Yes, it is. I was going to sell my contracts, but you’ve given me the will to fight on and I thank you for that.

 

[Cyberc1978]

If there are 180k owners then 2k people are ~1% of the owners.

As of May 2024 there were 252.705 club members.

 

[tx911]

So @Cyberc1978 is going to have to explain every time his wife has a room booked in her name or in another persons name in his family?

Firstly, idk about him, but my wife's name is on my contracts, so no issue.

Second, and this would literally never happen for me, if someone's name not on the membership were on half your reservations 2 years in a row, you'd get an email. Simply explain why at that point.

 

[tx911]

Enjoyed having DVC for a bunch of years but am all nickel and dimed out…just not a good enough value anymore. Got my money back and that’s all she wrote. Later sk8ers.

As of May 2024 there were 252.705 club members.

Now down to 252,704

 

[eticketplease]

Firstly, idk about him, but my wife's name is on my contracts, so no issue.

Second, and this would literally never happen for me, if someone's name not on the membership were on half your reservations 2 years in a row, you'd get an email. Simply explain why at that point.

Everyone's situation is different though. Perhaps Person A purchased the contract before they were married and that is why the SO is not on the contract.

I think you are giving a lot of faith in Disney IT (Remember MFA that was turned on and then people never got the code) to just send an email explaining the situation.

Then we as members have to pay in our dues for someone to read that explanation as well.

 

[tx911]

Everyone's situation is different though. Perhaps Person A purchased the contract before they were married and that is why the SO is not on the contract.

I think you are giving a lot of faith in Disney IT (Remember MFA that was turned on and then people never got the code) to just send an email explaining the situation.

Then we as members have to pay in our dues for someone to read that explanation as well.

Yes, any solution would likely not be free or painless.
It's possible that a short period of enforcement would cause the misuse to largely die out.

 

[Nabas]

I haven't expended a lot of brain power on thinking about this, so maybe there's a catch I'm missing, but it seems to me that using this method, a commercial renter theoretically can fulfill ANY desired reservation date.

If someone is looking for the specific dates you currently have booked, stop walking and rent it to them. If no one is looking for those dates, walk it forward a day and then check again. Repeat ad nauseum.

That being said, I suspect some (many?) commercial renters might not take the "bird in the hand" approach and rent the reservation UNTIL it gets to a high demand date where they can increase profit. The risk of passing up renting for earlier dates is probably outweighed by the reward of commanding higher prices for harder-to-get reservation dates.

For sure!

But the original question is why is someone/something waiting until about 7:55 AM before walking.

Again, the scenario is: At 7:50 AM at exactly 11 months, the room is available. But by 7:55 AM, that room is no longer available.

It could be a human being is waiting until the last 5 minutes before walking. But this is very risky. There are lots of things that could go wrong that could cause you to miss the 7:59:59 walking deadline. (Because at 8:00, that room becomes available to everyone else.)

Why not walk the day before? Or walk at 7:00 AM? Give yourself some time for the what ifs.

Last year, I saw a pattern where a AKV Value Studio was available 10 minutes before the 8:00 AM window, but disappeared at about 5 minutes before the 8:00 AM window. This happened for about a week.

Someone else reported seeing something similar this year.

I finally snagged the room I was looking for when Disney took the booking tool down at midnight for maintenance, and did not have it running again until about 8:15 AM.

This sure sounds like an automated program that was scheduled to walk at 7:55 AM each day, but then failed when the booking system was down from before 7:55 AM to 8:15 AM.

If you are a truly commercial renter, I don’t think you’re going to be trying to manually book high-margin rooms every day. And you are not going to manually walk a bunch of rooms. Instead, you’re going to create a bot to automate this for you.

This is where we are really getting screwed by commercial renters. They are automating a process that you and I have to do manually.

 

[Genie+]

For rentals and commercial use - pattern of use matters. This wording already exists in every single contract. If I bought a contract that rarely if ever is for personal use… what is it?

When it comes to ‘pattern’ there’s more than one angle DVC can look. Which patterns of use could reasonably apply for crossing the line?

I’m not convinced DVC management must stick with the same methods they used over a decade ago. They are there to oversee the continued performance of a personal use vacation club. Between 2008 and 2025 more resorts, more points and more members were added. Rental impact goes beyond though. The ratio of rentals has increased. The impact has increased. 2010 no longer matters. DVC has to manage things as they stand today. Use the existing contracts to keep the membership from going off the rails.

 

[ShaneDJ]

Once again, literally no one has suggested that renting should be eliminated.

I’d prefer renting to completely disappear.

Ahah! There it is!

 

[Sandisw]

How about 50% or more if your points 2 years in a row? Not necessarily triggering drastic measures, but at least a letter from DVC?

I think, again, any level of pattern like this could very well be used as an appropriate threshold to trigger a review by DVC.

And that is what I am referring to when I say threshold. DVC has to have something that triggers the review.

One example given at the meeting was about not being visit one year so you rent your points to offset dues… they said they understand that.

So, having a multi year review woild certainly be an important element.

You have to wonder if the reason they got rid of the document that used the 20 reservations threshold was because it was easy to get around? And there are more memberships now.

It also could have been the reason behind the language changes in the CFW POS.

The piece that I still have confusion around is what counts as non commercial renting.

 

[eticketplease]

For sure!

But the original question is why is someone/something waiting until about 7:55 AM before walking.

Again, the scenario is: At 7:50 AM at exactly 11 months, the room is available. But by 7:55 AM, that room is no longer available.

It could be a human being is waiting until the last 5 minutes before walking. But this is very risky. There are lots of things that could go wrong that could cause you to miss the 7:59:59 walking deadline. (Because at 8:00, that room becomes available to everyone else.)

Why not walk the day before? Or walk at 7:00 AM? Give yourself some time for the what ifs.

Last year, I saw a pattern where a AKV Value Studio was available 10 minutes before the 8:00 AM window, but disappeared at about 5 minutes before the 8:00 AM window. This happened for about a week.

Someone else reported seeing something similar this year.

I finally snagged the room I was looking for when Disney took the booking tool down at midnight for maintenance, and did not have it running again until about 8:15 AM.

This sure sounds like an automated program that was scheduled to walk at 7:55 AM each day, but then failed when the booking system was down from before 7:55 AM to 8:15 AM.

If you are a truly commercial renter, I don’t think you’re going to be trying to manually book high-margin rooms every day. And you are not going to manually walk a bunch of rooms. Instead, you’re going to create a bot to automate this for you.

This is where we are really getting screwed by commercial renters. They are automating a process that you and I have to do manually.

This happened to myself and @dischris11 for summer bookings at Aulani. Rooms were there and then before or exactly at 8 am they were gone.

 

[Sandisw]

I actually never said this, and don't believe it. I'd rather have some ability to rent when needed. If I had to choose all or nothing, though, mark me down for nothing.

That was really what I meant by my comment. Thst for you, your level of what owners should be allowed to do in the rental umbrella appears very narrow and would be okay if it went away.

 

[Tatebeck]

I personally don’t think commercial necessarily requires turning a profit.
For me it comes down to using your points for vacation or turning them into cash.

I would certainly want the latter to be maintained as an option for owners, now and again, but there is a threshold beyond which you are no longer using the points as intended.

Regarding your last, it’s certainly Disney’s prerogative if they want to allow point use for APs or LL or Dining plans etc. Those are all still non- commercial uses related to vacationing.

Then what difference would it make if a member "trades" in points with Disney to the world collection, cruises, or interval international for a different trip vs doing a rental swap with a third party or doing private rentals where they use the income for a different trip? They all result in the same things, doing something else instead of staying in a DVC villa, and both situations are allowed according to their rules. And both could easily be considered as personal vacation use. Disney has no idea what the member does with the money after the rental, so now they will have to double check that as well? It's not our fault that Disney gives terrible value with their swaps vs renting out our points.

If someone buys in without the intent of using the points for personal usage...then yes. Even if you use 50% of your points per year for personal use....renting out 50% of your points EVERY YEAR would constitute commercial. I think someone renting out points for 8 years in a row would be a commercial.

I get that lots of people buy more points than they want/need and use the rest to finance dues/park tickets etc. But as I said before, I think DVC COULD label that behavior commercial....and don't think they'd be wrong for doing so.

I would think that the member would have to be renting out a VERY large portion (over 50 percent, probably 2/3 or so) of their points every year to even be considered for commercial activity. In order to be considered as making a "profit" on their DVC membership they would have to be bringing in enough money to cover dues for their ENTIRE membership (all of their points) AND the annualized cost per point of their original purchase price.

If someone is renting for around $20 per point or around double the cost of dues, once you add the annualized up front cost for the points, renting around 50% of your points yearly would NOT actually be making ANY profit. You decreased the amount of money you have to pay yearly and paid more than required up front when you bought the points. But you haven't actually made any money until you rent a very large number of points or do a bunch of rentals with crazy high spec rental prices.

If you would have taken that income and bought a car or house to rent out instead, and you rented it out sometimes but bring in LESS money than the entire cost of that car or house per year, you haven't made any profit. But it does now cost you less if/when you wanted to use it for yourself. You would have $0 to report as income, even if you tried to turn it into a business in this case.

Spending less money is not the same as making money or income. Somebody getting a 90% off coupon is not the same as somebody being handed cash.

 

[Sandisw]

I personally don’t think commercial necessarily requires turning a profit.
For me it comes down to using your points for vacation or turning them into cash.

I would certainly want the latter to be maintained as an option for owners, now and again, but there is a threshold beyond which you are no longer using the points as intended.

Regarding your last, it’s certainly Disney’s prerogative if they want to allow point use for APs or LL or Dining plans etc. Those are all still non- commercial uses related to vacationing.

This is probably why we don’t see things the same way.

DVC was created with the right to rent your points, which means turning them into cash.

It could be to offset dues, to pay for a different vacation or any other reason other than to rent enough to turn it into a business.

That is the limitation DVC choose to put into their contracts. They certainly could have made it stricter when they developed the resorts, but they did not.

When an owner trades points for cruises, II, etc and now the AP, you realize that DVC takes a room from other owners and rents it out for you, so they can pay for your trade?

Even trading out of the system creates rentals. Owners doing it on their own to then use for something else is technically no different. A renter is taking a room.

So, where do you feel they should draw the line?

 

[AstroBlasters]

Yes, it is. I was going to sell my contracts, but you’ve given me the will to fight on and I thank you for that.

Address the question:

Why did you state that parents of young children buying DVC and then having to live a bit more frugally or scrounge up some extra cash during their college years is a Silver Surfer scenario?

 

[chicagodisneyguy]

How would Disney know if you are renting to friends and family or complete strangers?

Certainly not by using the last name. Me and my wife we don’t share the same last name. Only some of my children do.

I'm not saying DVC goes nuclear and comes down on people without investigating. If you have 500 points and every year ~250 are in the name of someone else it's very easy to prove they are people you know. If your wife does girls trips or family trips without you....it would be pretty simple to show Disney you know the person.

And I'm not saying they investigate these situations like your example on a one off. I'm saying if a member is consistently showing a pattern of other people using their membership...year in and year out...they could investigate.

 

[Sandisw]

That’s where I’m starting to come down. They want every little thing carved out to say it’s okay to rent consistently. So at this point, I’d prefer renting to completely disappear

Not at all…people who are in this discussion expect the term commercial to be used in the context of DVC and its meaning based on the way it’s defined in the contract.

One can certainly use the word commercial to encompass pretty much all rentals.

But DVC didn’t write the contracts that way and in 2008, they gave insight into what they believed turned out a membership into a commercial enterprise or using for a commercial purpose.

Obviously, DVC can tighten that up but they still need to apply the language of the contract to those decisions.

Before they can even enforce, they have to come up with a way to identify what is and is not allowed when the guest is someone different than the owner.

It’s one of the reasons I believe that 20 reservations limit was set,,,it allowed for a reasonable number of reservations for family and friends but also some rentals before it become a business.

Today, maybe that is no longer a good way to identify pattern, given so many owners have multiple memberships, etc.

Which is why when they were asked about it at the meeting they told owners they are working on ways to ensure owners are renting in what they believe falls under our right to rent.

Only they know what that will look like. And I doubt it will be cut and dry.

 

[chicagodisneyguy]

So @Cyberc1978 is going to have to explain every time his wife has a room booked in her name or in another persons name in his family?

I would think they are in his friends and family list? Pretty easy to cross reference. And I am guessing most members who are renting aren't adding the people they rent to to their friends and family list.

 

[tx911]

So, where do you feel they should draw the line?

I want them to look at how I use my points and make that the gold standard

If one is renting most of their points every single year, I think they are taking advantage of a flexible system rather than using the system as intended (exactly the same way I feel about walking).

What I want enforced first and foremost is the large scale commercial renting that is obvious and has a discernible negative effect on the members.