rental concerns

[Philsfan77]

Personally, I don't like walking at 11 months, and I'm not too thrilled with those members who book a sought-after reservation in order to rent it. I have almost zero sympathy for those who cannot get into a popular resort at 7 months.

Even so, I cannot think of a way for DVCMC to legally stop walking without creating negative consequences for other Members, or without creating extra work/cost (in which case "not gonna happen").

So I say, "Better the devil we know than the devil we don't". Be careful what you wish for. We all live under the same booking rules. We'll have to be content with that.

P.S. This topic comes up periodically, and while it's always interesting to read all the various points of view, there truly isn't anything new on the topic. YMMV.

Agreed...I always come back to, the rooms that are most likely to cause issues in either category (renting or walking) make up less than probably 3% of all inventory. Re-inventing the wheel to fix what really amounts to a minor issue in the grand scheme of all of it, isn't going to be worthwhile to all members.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

I did email my concerns with high volume confirmed reservation renters for VGC and got a good reply back. It wasn’t anything super telling, but I felt heard and like they were aware of the problem. I suggested a limit of reservations where the lead guest wasn’t the owner to something like 5 a year. The exact number isn’t super important to me and yes, like always this would affect some “normal people” at times. So is it perfect no. Can you rent to a group of two and keep your name as the lead as a workaround, yes. But it’s something.

What email address did you send this to? It might be helpful for others who want to send a similar email.

 

[DanCali]

If DVC returned to that system, then under the demand that exists now, rooms like BWV standard and AKV value and club level studios would likely be virtually impossible to get by anyone for multiple successive days.

<snip>

Thus, those calling for members to make massive complaints to DVC about walking may want to consider that possibility before leveling such complaints.

Those two sentences are key. A haphazard solution may make things worse unintentionally... Making changes to rental rules, or reservation rules doesn't address the problem directly and will hurt many owners to some degree.

IMO, the only way to accumulate so much scarce inventory is a technological advantage. The rules are actually fine in my view but everyone should be on equal footing. I'm willing to compete with other owners at 8am ET at 11 months out, but I don't have a shot against a computer. Nor do I have 24 hours a day to lurk on the website and pick up scraps from walkers whenever those get dropped. I would much rather see them try to "level the playing field" by combatting potential bots. Get rid of the technological advantage, you get rid of 90% of the problem. Solve that, and then the walking probably doesn't look so bad either.

We also own with Marriott and Vistana (Westin/Sheraton) and, even though I'd consider the IT at those organizations inferior and less reliable vs DVC, they do have some rudimentary systems in place to combat bots/crawlers. If I refresh a search too often while I'm waiting for new inventory to post I will sometimes get a pop-up asking me to verify I am a human. I also get that if I am working with multiple tabs/browsers. That's pretty basic stuff that may not be enough, but more sophisticated solutions might work to address the problem directly.

 

[GoingSince1990]

It's interesting that the number of "renting is a problem, because I see so many reservations available for rent" posts vastly outnumber the "I'm an owner, and I can't get the reservation I want at 11 months" posts. I get the definite impression that most people who are complaining about renters do so because they dislike the fact that renting is happening, as opposed to because they are personally inconvenienced by it, and I suspect this is why Disney seems to be fairly content with the current situation. After all, the ability of the DVC salespeople to tell prospective purchasers that renting is explicitly allowed in the terms of the contracts, and can be very useful when an owner is unable to go to Disney World or wants a change (both of which are true) is a powerful selling point.

 

[Philsfan77]

It's interesting that the number of "renting is a problem, because I see so many reservations available for rent" posts vastly outnumber the "I'm an owner, and I can't get the reservation I want at 11 months" posts. I get the definite impression that most people who are complaining about renters do so because they dislike the fact that renting is happening, as opposed to because they are personally inconvenienced by it, and I suspect this is why Disney seems to be fairly content with the current situation. After all, the ability of the DVC salespeople to tell prospective purchasers that renting is explicitly allowed in the terms of the contracts, and can be very useful when an owner is unable to go to Disney World or wants a change (both of which are true) is a powerful selling point.

Within this thread...I agree...but we are about to head into the dark abyss (November-February) where this group and the facebook group get flooded with owners at the 11-month mark asking why they couldn't get the resort they wanted at the 11-month mark. Most of us will say, because it's busy time for DVC and hundreds of owners want the same dates. This will then inevitably lead to "walkers did it" with a sprinkle of the reservation I wanted is up for a confirmed rental already.

 

[Brian Noble]

IMO, the only way to accumulate so much scarce inventory is a technological advantage. The rules are actually fine in my view but everyone should be on equal footing. I'm willing to compete with other owners at 8am ET at 11 months out, but I don't have a shot against a computer.

I teach large software courses, with several hundreds of students. We hold office hours where we help students debug; we often spend 10-15 minutes with each student/group, and we use an online tool to manage the queue.

This is a group of talented students, so there are a variety of scripts floating around the Department for automatically signing up as soon as the queue opens. I'm told that there is something of a competition between students for who can write the tool that most often lands them in the first spot.

Most of these students are probably angling for a job at a quantitative trading firm.

Rather than forbid using those tools (which we can't enforce) we did something else: We open the queue, leave it open for five minutes, and then randomize the order.

 

[Brian Noble]

I think what annoys me the most about the scripts is that some students aren't willing to share. Very different from the vibe in the department 15-20 years ago. There was one term where I graded them on how fast their solutions ran compared to my "standard" solution--anyone within 2x of mine got full credit. But, if no one got within 2x, then it was anyone within 1.1x of the fastest student.

They were furious with me. "You are making us compete with one another!"

My response: "Are you aware that this class is curved?"

 

[drusba]

DVC could, of course, easily resolve all existing walking and renting complaints by going back to the system of making reservations at 11/7 months out from date of departure, and by simply returning to the reservation method that existed before 2012, when all reservations were done by calling MS.

Yes, I remember that awful time, when DVC had a lot of employees to answer the phone, but a member still sometimes had to wait an ungodly amount of time, such as two to three minutes, for someone to actually answer the phone, and then it could take another awful four to five minutes to determine availability and complete your reservation. The adoption of the online reservation system has proven to be so much "better" than that phone system. You need to wait indefinitely only about 30% of the time to start looking for and starting a reservation due to system being overloaded or out of service. Then you need spend only 10 to 15 minutes trying to find a reservation for a resort and time that you may want. You then get to start the actual reservation process, which ultimately takes only a measly 30 to 40 minutes, which includes going through many pages to provide information and also provide lengthy disclaimers and notes your agreement to all restrictions. Yes, the modern computer system is just so much better than that ungodly awful phone system that existed before.

 

[DonMacGregor]

It's interesting that the number of "renting is a problem, because I see so many reservations available for rent" posts vastly outnumber the "I'm an owner, and I can't get the reservation I want at 11 months" posts.

I think this is a categorically incorrect statement. These boards, other online forums, and multiple Facebook pages are continuously filled with members complaining about the inability to reserve at the 11-month window, and more recently, that they are seeing confirmed reservations for the dates they wanted popping up literally the same day on the rental sites. With the sites pressing harder and harder for confirmed reservations, that's only going to increase.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

It's interesting that the number of "renting is a problem, because I see so many reservations available for rent" posts vastly outnumber the "I'm an owner, and I can't get the reservation I want at 11 months" posts. I get the definite impression that most people who are complaining about renters do so because they dislike the fact that renting is happening, as opposed to because they are personally inconvenienced by it, and I suspect this is why Disney seems to be fairly content with the current situation. After all, the ability of the DVC salespeople to tell prospective purchasers that renting is explicitly allowed in the terms of the contracts, and can be very useful when an owner is unable to go to Disney World or wants a change (both of which are true) is a powerful selling point.

I don't know that that's an accurate barometer of the issue. I would wager that this board skews more towards the types of people who like renting (and I've rented points before too, so I get it), versus the really casual DVC owner who does not read disboards and just uses their points to take their annual family vacation.

 

[DanCali]

DVC could, of course, easily resolve all existing walking and renting complaints by going back to the system of making reservations at 11/7 months out from date of departure, and by simply returning to the reservation method that existed before 2012, when all reservations were done by calling MS.

Yes, I remember that awful time, when DVC had a lot of employees to answer the phone, but a member still sometimes had to wait an ungodly amount of time, such as two to three minutes, for someone to actually answer the phone, and then it could take another awful four to five minutes to determine availability and complete your reservation. The adoption of the online reservation system has proven to be so much "better" than that phone system. You need to wait indefinitely only about 30% of the time to start looking for and starting a reservation due to system being overloaded or out of service. Then you need spend only 10 to 15 minutes trying to find a reservation for a resort and time that you may want. You then get to start the actual reservation process, which ultimately takes only a measly 30 to 40 minutes, which includes going through many pages to provide information and also provide lengthy disclaimers and notes your agreement to all restrictions. Yes, the modern computer system is just so much better than that ungodly awful phone system that existed before.

As much as I hate the occasional glitch (like the one that cost me a AKV concierge studio a couple of weeks ago - grabbed the room, went through the whole confirmation process only to get the dreaded dwarfs on the last page), going back to a phone reservation system would literally be the dark ages. I'd hate to have my ability to obtain a reservation dependent on the tenure, experience and caffeine intake of the random CM who picks up the phone...

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

I think this is a categorically incorrect statement. These boards, other online forums, and multiple Facebook pages are continuously filled with members complaining about the inability to reserve at the 11-month window, and more recently, that they are seeing confirmed reservations for the dates they wanted popping up literally the same day on the rental sites. With the sites pressing harder and harder for confirmed reservations, that's only going to increase.

Also this. And to be clear, I don't really care about most walking, or casual points renting. But the spec-renting of hard to get dates and room types at the 11 month mark by what appear to be mega-renters who are hoovering up everything they can, possibly using automated scripts? Yeah that's a problem.

 

[CarolMN]

As much as I hate the occasional glitch (like the one that cost me a AKV concierge studio a couple of weeks ago - grabbed the room, went through the whole confirmation process only to get the dreaded dwarfs on the last page), going back to a phone reservation system would literally be the dark ages. I'd hate to have my ability to obtain a reservation dependent on the tenure, experience and caffeine intake of the random CM who picks up the phone...

No need to worry about a return to a phone reservation system. DVCMC would have to hire & train & pay a LOT more CMs to handle the load. They would have to do that out of the fee they get from dues and that is set at a fixed percentage in the POS. Labor is expensive! The need for more CMs to handle the load was the reason the online system came about in the first place.

 

[DonMacGregor]

Also this. And to be clear, I don't really care about most walking, or casual points renting. But the spec-renting of hard to get dates and room types at the 11 month mark by what appear to be mega-renters who are hoovering up everything they can, possibly using automated scripts? Yeah that's a problem.

I also have absolutely no problem with walking, or with casual renting. I've done both myself (renting a few times, walking once and I realized later that I didn't even need to). Neither have really affected me, as we only stay in 2BR villas (with the exception of VGC or VDH staycations in studios).

For me, it's just the principle of the thing, and the fascination some have with the 7D chess levels of pretzeled logic required to continuously try to convince themselves (or more importantly others) that there's either absolutely zero or almost negligible spec renting, individual commercial renting, or (grasp those pearls), commercial entities using scripts and multiple contracts owned under LLCs to secure huge numbers of hard/impossible reservations right at 11 months. Because it really is just that grandma from Cleveland desperately trying to rent out those points from that trip they had to cancel last minute that would otherwise go in to holding.

 

[Brian Noble]

They would have to do that out of the fee they get from dues

I was under the impression that this was a direct cost, labelled "DVC Reservation Component" in the resort budgets.

https://dvcnews.com/dvc-program-men...5214-2022-annual-dues-budgets-for-all-resorts

 

[CarolMN]

I was under the impression that this was a direct cost, labelled "DVC Reservation Component" in the resort budgets.

https://dvcnews.com/dvc-program-men...5214-2022-annual-dues-budgets-for-all-resorts

That is a $1 per member fee that funds the BVTC. @drusba explains it better in this post: https://www.disboards.com/threads/disney-debt-on-dvc.3903639/#post-64476765

I obviously oversimplified things, but the cost of making reservations for members comes comes out of the $$ DVCMC gets. They don't get more just because it costs them more to do it.

 

[Sandisw]

I encourage anyone who does not enjoy the current status quo to write and complain to Disney. Rental sites listing hundreds of the hardest to get reservations indicates to me that the system is broken, and will likely only get worse. To the person who hypothesized that the mega renters are using some type of automated system to constantly hit the DVC website to grab these reservations as soon as they appear, I’ll bet that’s not far off the truth (given how hard it is to grab, ro fexample AKL value studios), and also given that we know these types of tools exist, on websites that are rightly blacklisted from this forum.

If Disney gets enough complaints in writing they’ll act. Unhappy owners unable to book hard to get rooms, even at 11 months, because of mega renting companies, means less people buying DVC direct (and I guarantee the mega renting companies aren’t buying DVC direct).

Legally, they can not limit how many hard to get reservations are booked on a membership.

The contract guarantees us the right to book first come, first serve. And, until those rooms have guests that are not owners, there is nothing DVD can or should do. So, if I go on and book one or two night trips for the same room every single week , I am within my rights to do that.

It would be a violation of the contract for DVC to tell me I can’t.

So, until a reservation actually has the name of others on it, and does not have the name of the owner, regardless if whether they are advertised, DVC can not step in since I am allowed to book whatever I want.

Even if someone has figured a way to book faster, using a program, they still have the right to book them and hold them.

So, seeing all the rooms being advertised means nothing because even if DVC looks at the account and sees them all with the owners name, then the owner gets to keep them. It’s only when names are changed that it can trigger a review.

I realize that looking at a site and seeing a lot of the same rooms for certain nights is annoying, but I looked at some recently and they were only single night or two, even for similar dates, and to me, that means someone or groups who has worked very hard to pick up days when they showed up.

I’ll go further to even say I bet they were booked across multiple memberships because even with a program to snag them, the site only allows one to complete the booking one room at a time.

Now, could it be the broker who is renting off several memberships they personally own? Absolutely. Is that enough to trigger a review? Who knows because many of us have multiple members ships and do the same thing, even when not renting.

The only thing DVC has the power to do is define commercial renting but they can never stop an owner for booking as many rooms as they want for a certain room type in their own name for the same dates.

I just personally think that due to the way rentals can be advertised, and the ease in which they can, there has been an increase in owners renting, even casually. And seeing them like we do leads people to know what other owners are doing with their points.

And of course there are some out there who may be coming close to or exceeding the current rules. But, none of us know what DVC does to monitor.

 

[RapunzelRN]

After all, the ability of the DVC salespeople to tell prospective purchasers that renting is explicitly allowed in the terms of the contracts, and can be very useful when an owner is unable to go to Disney World or wants a change (both of which are true) is a powerful selling point.

Wait, so are you suggesting that DVC guides are using “if you can’t go, rent your points” as a sales pitch? Mine always just suggested to bank my points.

 

[DaveNan]

I am guessing all the concern here is about AKV Value and maybe club, BWV Standard, and maybe CCV in Dec. These are the only rooms difficult to get at 11 months. And yes "professional" renters get these and sell existing reservations. And walkers get these and walk them. Both of which make getting one "more" difficult. But they would not be easy to get under any circumstances. Even with any of the proposed rules were in place, getting 1 of the 18 available value studios at AKV would be a contest every morning. The problem is DVC has very limited inventory of highly desirable (cheap) rooms, and a large number of members want them. DVC sells on the "from 7 points per night" and most of us want to get the most number of nights out of whatever points we have.

Would it be easier without renters and walkers, likely yes. Would we all get what we wanted, NO. Having very limited inventory of any booking category leads to this "disappointment".

 

[crisi]

Legally, they can not limit how many hard to get reservations are booked on a membership.

The contract guarantees us the right to book first come, first serve. And, until those rooms have guests that are not owners, there is nothing DVD can or should do. So, if I go on and book one or two night trips for the same room every single week , I am within my rights to do that.
....

DVC does allow for a lottery for rooms - so there is a provision for something other than first come first served. I REALLY doubt they'd put it in (they used it for New Year's 2000 if I remember). I don't think that the way they run the lottery is spelled out in the contract - but it would change things a lot if everyone who wanted SV rooms over F&W had to put in their request twelve months out with "winners" being booked at eleven months.