Disney Cracks Down on DVC Point Rental
When booking resort reservations at Walt Disney World, Disneyland & beyond, DVC is now requiring members certify that the reservation is being made for personal use only. This coupled with updated terms & conditions strongly suggests that Disney Vacation Club is finally cracking down on ownership interests being used for commercial purposes.
This is the latest step in a multi-decade saga that dates back to at least the mid-aughts aimed at reducing abuse and misuse of DVC ownership interests that are detrimental to the membership at large. Frustration among regular ole Disney Vacation Club members who rent out points for personal use seems to have bubbled over in recent years, with angry owners bringing it up at the Annual Condo Association Meeting and in various online forums.
The crux of the issue is that Disney Vacation Club has seen a proliferation of members who only have an ownership as a business venture–never using it for their families or friends. You know that old adage about not viewing DVC as an investment? Well, they do in a very literal sense.
Not only do these commercial renters own thousands of points (perhaps tens of thousands?), but they are incredibly efficient at exploiting loopholes and “maximizing” their ownership interests in ways that enhance its commercial value. Things like walking reservations, min-maxing speculative bookings for higher ROI, and more. (Not going to delve into this because I don’t really want this to be a blueprint for bad behavior.)
Even if these behaviors aren’t technically against the rules, they are against the spirit of the membership. And commercial activity most certainly violates the letter of the DVC ownership documents, too. The Public Offering Statement has reflected this for years, indicating that Disney Vacation Club ownership is for personal use only, and that owners should not engage in any commercial activity related to their interest.
With that said, there’s also ambiguity in what constitutes commercial activity. These documents also state that “Members may rent their Vacation Points. However, the use of your Vacation Points for commercial purposes is expressly prohibited.” There’s nothing that specifically defines commercial use; it’s always been open to interpretation at Disney’s discretion.
The most meaningful policy adjustment DVC has made in years aimed at targeting rentals (they’ve made plenty aimed at restricting resales) came earlier this year. Disney Vacation Club has updated the Terms and Conditions associated with making online reservations using DVC points. Here are the pertinent parts of the changes:
“You agree that any reservations made under your membership are solely for personal use and not for commercial purposes, as required by governing documents for each DVC Resort, including but not limited to the Declaration of Condominium and Membership Agreement. DVCM reserves the right to interpret personal use and determine if reservations are booked for personal or commercial purposes in its sole discretion.”
“Personal use may include enjoying the benefits of a DVC Membership with family or allowing use of any reserved Vacation Home to friends and family on occasion. Additionally, personal use means that the member does not regularly or frequently rent/sell reservations booked using their membership.”
“In addition, Disney reserves the right to cancel or modify a reservation (including after the reservation has been confirmed) if the reservation includes or resulted from a mistake or error of any kind, if Disney confirms that a reservation was made for commercial purpose and not for personal use, or where it appears that a guest has engaged in fraudulent or misleading activity in making the reservation. If a reservation is cancelled by Disney, Disney shall have no responsibility beyond the refund of monies paid to Disney and/or Vacation Points used, for the reservation.”
Along with this, there’s now a checkbox on the DVC Member website during the final stage of the booking flow that requires owners to click a checkbox certifying the following: “I agree to the Disney Vacation Club Terms and Conditions, and I attest that this reservation is for personal use only.”
This is the only new acknowledge of the change that we’ve spotted on DVCMember.com. However, we’ve heard from other members that there’s virtually the same attestation required when booking reservations over the phone.
DVC Member Services also seems to be asking follow-up questions to confirm the relationship of the guest to the member (the member themselves, family, friends, or a rentee). This added specificity is not part of the online booking flow, signaling that more changes might be on the horizon.
Late 2025 Update
The latest update comes courtesy of the 2025 DVC Condo Association Meetings (h/t Disboards & DVCFan), where the topic of commercial renting came up at the BWV meeting. Questions were asked about rental patterns, room inventory, enforcement, etc.
Shannon Sakaske, VP of Member Experiences & Club Management, reportedly reiterated the party line. Disney Vacation Club has increased staffing and resources to monitor bookings, while offering no specifics of who the policy had been targeted towards or the degree to which there had been enforcement of the rules.
In other conversations, including those we’ve had with Disney Vacation Club representatives since summer, it’s clear that there has been some degree of enforcement. It has further been suggested by DVC that this has resulted in action on the part of commercial renters who were being targeted.
Reading between the lines, my assumption here is that high volume owners were blocked from renting and divested their interests–since that’s why they owned the points in the first place. It’s entirely possible this whole policy was narrowly aimed at only a few large-scale institutional market movers, and every individual owner discussing it online was not the intended audience and will not be impacted.
I don’t know that for certain, but that’s the impression I’ve gotten. That DVC had a few offenders in mind for the policy update, but couldn’t take targeted action without an official policy update rolling out to everyone.
Anecdotally, we haven’t noticed much of an increase when we’ve searched for room availability in the last few months. Not that we’d expect a sudden, night and day difference. Whatever the impact, it’s likely at the margins. Given the behavior of commercial renters, I could see it being easier to book certain types of rooms, and a few days later than normal. Those aren’t the types of bookings we’ve tried to make, and our timeline for booking is always tighter. With that said, I’be curious to know whether others have felt a difference–has DVC availability gotten better/easier to book?
Sakaske’s update on the commercial rental crackdown isn’t exactly ‘stop-the-presses’ news. If you’ve attended Moonlight Magic or otherwise had a chance to chat with DVC reps (not guides, but actual management) on the topic, you’ve probably heard very similar sentiment.
More interesting was Sakaske sharing that the biggest commercial renter is actually…Disney! As many members are already aware, a portion of DVC room inventory comes is captured from members exchange them through the Disney Collection for regular hotel stays, Interval International for non-Disney bookings, or the wide variety of exchanges, all of which are a poor use of DVC points.
Disney then rents these rooms out at cash rates, and at inflated prices above their points basis. If you’ve wondered how there’s cash availability despite no point availability, there’s your answer–the inventory gets moved from one bucket to another. This is in addition to undeclared inventory, which is also a thing–especially at resorts like the Island Tower that are still in active sales.
In any case, Sakaske revealed that 20% of all bookings come via Disney utilizing points that it has recaptured and entered into the system as cash bookings. Honestly, I’m not quite sure what I expected this number to be, but definitely lower than 20%. Probably somewhere between the single digits and around 10%, probably?
Twenty percent is a high number, and that alone has a meaningful impact on overall occupancy and availability. It also makes me wonder if part of Disney’s motivation for taking commercial renters off the board was its own self-interest. I’m not sure the mechanics of those points’ utilization once they’re recaptured, but it wouldn’t be the least bit surprising to me if Disney tips the scales in its favor while still technically adhering to the letter of its membership documents. After all, the House of Mouse always wins!
That’s all we have in updates courtesy of the 2025 Disney Vacation Club Condo Association Meetings. Since this is an ongoing issue of concern for DVC members, we figured it was worth passing this along. What follows is our original explanation of the rule change and commentary…
One thing to note is that the recent rule changes do not prohibit the renting of Disney Vacation Club points. We’re thankful this isn’t the case, as one of the strengths of DVC membership is its flexibility. And while we’ve never rented out any points, I could foresee a day when we might need to do so. By contrast, we’ve rented points on several occasions to supplement our own annual allotment (when borrowing has proven insufficient).
What this prohibits is commercial renting of points, which is pattern of behavior. Those who are regularly and repeatedly renting out points for financial gain, and seldom using the ownership interest for their own families are those being targeted. While there’s no bright-line rule (presumably because many of these are sophisticated businesses that would tailor their behavior to fall on the “right” side of that), it should be fairly easy to surmise based on intent and frequency.
If you’re mostly using your DVC points and are only renting them out on rare occasion, you’re likely fine. It’s a smell test type of deal–you should know right now whether or not you’re a commercial renter. (If you somehow don’t know, you probably aren’t.)
Our Commentary
Despite signs that it would, we’re still surprised to see this happen. That’s because this has been a known issue for years. Well over a decade. Maybe since the advent of AOL and online message boards? Over 7 years ago, we first published: Why is Disney Vacation Club Availability So Limited?
That was aimed at addressing a range of questions concerning availability (or lack thereof) at or beyond the 7-month mark, commercial activity, Walt Disney World selling cash rate rooms at Deluxe Villas despite no rooms showing on the DVC engine and countless other complaints. We had heard from a lot of readers about how DVC had become a “scam” due to the lack of availability, and sought to explain the issues–plural–that led to that point. Judging by the 125+ reader comments, it was a hot topic–and continues to be one.
One of those problems was less breakage, and one of the reasons for less breakage was owners renting out their unused Disney Vacation Club points. Other issues included an imbalance in resort/room categories and a pool of points that was less desirable and had lower utilization. Thankfully, this problem has become less pronounced in the years since thanks to dilution (although I do wonder whether the Cabins at Fort Wilderness might reverse that). At the same time, you could easily argue that point rental has worsened.
Given all of that, Disney Vacation Club seemingly had ample incentive to crack down on commercial rental of DVC points. That main reason I believed it wouldn’t happen is, quite simply, because it hadn’t already. This has been a known issue for as long as I can remember–and I could’ve sworn that it was a consideration when we were first debating buying into DVC.
It turns out that was accurate. Back on December 31, 2007, Disney Vacation Club amended the Public Offering Statement to clarify what constitutes commercial renting of points (h/t DVC News). That new commercial use policy made clear that DVC memberships are intended for personal vacation use. It reiterated that using the ownership interest for “commercial purposes,” then defined as a pattern of rental activity or other occupancy that could conclude constitutes a commercial enterprise or activity, is strictly prohibited.
The Public Offering Statement then went on to offer a new guideline that any DVC Member who makes more than 20 reservations in any 12-month period, shall be required to prove that all of those reservations are for the use of accommodations by the DVC Member, the DVC Member’s family and/or the DVC Member’s friends, and not for commercial purposes.
If such a DVC Member is unable to conclusively establish that, all reservations in excess of the first 20 reservations shall be presumed to be the use of Vacation Accommodations for commercial purposes in violation of the Declaration and the Membership Agreement. This was at a time when reservations were made by phone, and DVC Member Services simply would not confirm a reservation absent such a showing. This was then known as the “Multiple Reservation Rule.”
Digging back through contemporaneous forum posts, the reaction to that news back in January 2008 was eerily similar to the reaction to June 2025’s crackdown on commercial renting. It was supposedly a big problem then, and many members were annoyed by how pervasive commercial renting had become. It was a problem that needed to be stopped before it got even more out of hand. (If only those posters could see nearly two decades into the future!)
The only issue? In combing through more posts, I could find exactly zero instances of owners having DVC Member Services refuse to confirm a reservation or cancel a booking. Of course, part of this could be a matter of self-selection, as owners engaging in a pattern of commercial renting probably aren’t going to go into a hostile audience and air their grievances–that might fall on deaf ears.
But I would’ve expected to read or hear at least some reports of this happening over the last couple of decades. After all, there’s a lot of chatter about just how the commercial renters manage their memberships in order to run them like bona fide business investments. Given that, I think it’s fairly safe to say enforcement of that 2007 rule change was minimal, at most.
That’s more or less my reason for skepticism that Disney Vacation Club would or will actually do anything about commercial renting. It stands to reason that they already would have enforced existing policies if there was an appetite to do so. The fact that they haven’t suggests to me that there are legal concerns about enforceability or about the unintended consequences of such a crackdown.
With regard to the former point, I won’t pretend to be an expert in timeshare law, but it strikes me as possible that none of this is legally enforceable. That the original contract language is insufficient for DVC to prevail if this were challenged in court, and all the subsequent guidelines and policy changes are simply a scare tactic. It’s not at all uncommon for lawyers to send toothless cease & desists or demand letters with zero intentions of ever acting upon them.
In this scenario, DVC would be bluffing in the hopes that at least some percentage of commercial renters will be given pause about the change and voluntarily exit the market, and that will have a sufficiently positive impact on availability that members take notice. Conversely, what DVC might be doing is playing 4D chess here, trying to reduce confidence in the DVC rental market among prospective rentees.
This news has already garnered a lot of traction and many Walt Disney World fans are risk averse. I could see a not insignificant number opting against renting DVC points due to the risk and uncertainty introduced by this new policy. If Disney were really smart, they would strategically cancel a handful of reservations and leak word of doing so.
Even if that resulted in litigation from commercial renters, it would arguably be worth it from Disney’s perspective in reducing confidence in the DVC rental market. That’s the cost of doing business, and there’s a decent chance those commercial renters couldn’t afford to take on Disney in court, even if they had a compelling case.
Or maybe this policy is simply being introduced to assuage annoyed members that DVC is making a good faith effort at eliminating commercial renting. So the next time someone inevitably asks this question at the December Condo Association Meeting, DVC leadership can point to this policy and hang up the ole ‘mission accomplished’ banner.
The other possibility is that Disney Vacation Club is concerned about the second order consequences of cracking down on commercial activity. I have no clue how many points are in the hands of for-profit businesses, but I’ll bet DVC has a pretty good idea! And if that number is as high as some rumors suggest, they might have very valid concerns about what happens if those points are suddenly liquidated via the resale market.
After all, resale prices don’t exist in a vacuum. We just discussed the 2025 math of purchasing Disney Vacation Club direct versus the resale market, and it’s a pretty close call once you get past the surface level price disparity. Well, that may cease to be the case if resale prices plummet due to a sudden influx of points. That drop could become even more of a self-fulfilling prophecy if non-commercial 2042 owners see values take a hit, and decide to cash out while the gettin’s good on top of the commercial exodus.
To be very clear, I have no idea whether this would happen in such a crackdown scenario. And I’ll be the first to admit that I have a history of expecting X or Y world event to have an adverse impact on resale prices. Since 2017, we’ve been waiting to time the market and purchase more points. (Huge mistake–but I guess buying during the Great Recession spoiled us.)
I obviously don’t want the type of real world event that would normally trigger plunging prices…but I’ll concede that I’m salivating at the prospect of this new rule causing a ‘correction’ in DVC resale prices. Perhaps this point is purely wishful thinking on my part.
Nevertheless, the point does stand that Disney Vacation Club’s primary goal is to sell more points. Obviously, pesky little things like “member satisfaction” must also be taken into account, but if DVC were concerned the consequences an actual crackdown would have on demand and prices, that would explain a lot.
That might be why they only paid face to prohibiting commercial activity back in 2007, and it could be precisely what’s happening again here. Make regular members feel better that DVC is trying with this new policy, while not actually doing anything on the enforcement side.
Hopefully I’m wrong. Maybe there’s a new legal team that is confident these terms & conditions can withstand scrutiny; perhaps management is more motivated to actually enforce this new policy. Another possibility is that things have gotten so bad that the risk to member satisfaction outweighs the second-order effects of the crackdown.
That DVC essentially had no choice but to act here, as ignoring commercial renting will have even worse unintended consequences in terms of families selling their personal-use points or declining to add on at the Island Tower, Lakeshore Lodge, etc.
Finally, if you’re a prospective rentee and are worried about how this could impact you, the jury is obviously still out on that. The best option is taking a wait and see approach, watching this unfold for a few months.
If I were in the market to rent right now, I would simply stick with the established DVC rental businesses, like David’s Vacation Club Rentals or the others discussed in our Money Saving Guide to Renting DVC Points. That is the safest course of action if you’re wanting to rent in the near-term.
This might seem like an odd recommendation given all of the ink we just spilled about Disney cracking down on commercial renters, but the difference is that those businesses are conduits connecting owners with clients. They are obviously companies, but they are not, themselves, commercial renters. They’re marketplaces.
It’s always possible that some owners who use the third party intermediaries are themselves commercial renters, but we’re skeptical. For one thing, their margins wouldn’t be as high if they’re using David’s or DVC Rental Store or whatever because those companies are taking a slice for themselves. So I would imagine most commercial renters are using social media, forums, and other venues that don’t take a cut.
If you book directly with a commercial renter, you’ll have no recourse if your reservation is cancelled–except hoping they’ll refund your money. If an owner’s reservation is cancelled via David’s (etc), you have the intermediary to issue a refund. Until we see how this unfolds, that’s the safest bet right now. And it may continue to be the case that renting directly via social media and forums is fine, because (as discussed above), this could just be a toothless scare tactic. Time will tell.
If you’re thinking about joining DVC, be sure to read our Ultimate Guide to Disney Vacation Club. This covers the pros & cons, resale v. direct, how much money you’ll save, and other important things to know before taking the plunge. If you still can’t decide whether membership is right for you, “try before you buy” with the recommendations in How to Save BIG on Deluxe Disney Accommodations Renting DVC Points.
YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you think about DVC’s crackdown on commercial renting? Have you had more difficulty in finding DVC availability in the last several years? Have you noticed certain resorts, room categories, or times of the year getting more competitive? Any firsthand experiences you care to share? Any other thoughts or tips to share? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing feedback about your experiences is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
There was a lot of buzz on the forums a few months ago because several of the big commercial renters had put a bunch of contracts up for resale all at once. Speculation was that Disney had somehow communicated they weren’t going to be allowed to do this anymore since it was several different renters who put up numerous contracts all at one time. I’m talking like 75% of all contracts for a resort on the resale market coming from one seller. It was all very intriguing and indicates that this already triggered a sell-off.
Oh wow–I was not aware of that!
As mentioned in the post, Disney undoubtedly already knows who the biggest culprits are when it comes to commercial renting. So if they actually did intend upon doing something about it, going directly to those renters would make complete sense.
What we’re seeing now could be the public-facing side of that, making members feel better about things and/or trying to scare some of the ‘smaller fish’ that would’ve slipped through that net.
How do we ‘know’ who the commercial renters are? People that post a lot of confirmed reservations online? Is Carl Wong one? I see him post things ALL the time. But how would I even know as a renter who is commercial and who isn’t?
I rented points from a friend for a December 2025 trip. Is my stay going to get “magically” canceled since I am not the owner?
Nope! Unless your friend is also commercially renting out thousands of points.
I’ll be curious how this all plays out. We have only rented points when we’ve acquired a new contract and are unable to use the expiring points in the timeframe allowed (twice). Otherwise, I’m pretty sure Disney knows by our friends & family in MDE that it’s all us, all the time, regardless if there are 5-7 rooms each visit. We just always bring folks along!
However, I see some owners who rent hundreds to thousands of points every year. If you’ve ever been on the DISboards you’ll see what I mean. While I don’t know that it’s been an issue for us (we’ve generally gotten all the reservations we wanted, but we’re also flexible) I definitely see more complaints than not on the FB pages. And, normally it feels like entitlement, which makes me ashamed sometimes of how these owner’s act. Tom, you said it well with “One thing to keep in mind is that DVC caters to higher-knowledge, higher-affinity guests. Which means members will have higher standards than the median guest, and be more difficult to satisfy”. I simply wish they’d realize what they signed up for and be better.
It will be interesting to see if people’s reservations from these commercial rentals start getting cancelled. How much notice will Disney give? Will Disney notify the person (assuming the renter) on the reservation as well as the owner? Will they be tracking how many reservations are in other people’s names that are not the owner’s?
I have read about people posting on FB groups about their Magic keys being revoked for reselling merch bought with their Key/AP discount. If Disney can pinpoint that level of accuracy, I have to imagine they know who the big offenders are when it comes to commercial renting of DVC points/ressies. It is just a matter of how far they want to go.
By pressing the button that your reservation is for personal use (whether yourself/friend/fam) vs commercial, that gives Disney’s legal team more leverage especially if one lies just to get the reservation.
Not sure how they can enforce this. Sounds similar to when we bought a new house in a development and had to sign a document stating we planned to live there and did not plan to rent the house out. That lasted awhile but after a year or so you saw plenty of homes in the neighborhood getting rented out.
I’m never one to accuse Disney of playing the long game well, but maybe they added all the resale restrictions a few years ago to pave the way for this crackdown. If the concern is commercial renters dumping their contracts into the resale market, Disney may have offset some of those losses by “encouraging” new DVC owners to have at least one substantial contract that is a direct purchase from Disney. And if there’s a temporary flood of resale contracts and the prices go down, at least Disney shouldn’t have any huge occupancy losses to deal with.
This is a great thought.
I don’t think it’s actually what’s happening, but if it is, that’s quite the long game being played!
I welcome DVC cracking down on the large commercial renters. It remains to be seen how far they go with this. Other timeshare developers have gotten aggressive about cancelling rental reservations to squash the demand for rentals. I guess time will tell how far Disney takes this, and if someone renting out a portion of their 300 points to help pay their dues has anything to worry about. We’ve never rented our points, but I do appreciate that the option exists should we ever need to.
I’m not convinced this has a whole lot to do with appeasing the membership. I feel their main motivation is to combat competition for their own hotel rooms. I doubt they enjoy seeing ads for deluxe hotels at moderate prices.
OK, can someone please dumb this down for me? We’ve rented points 5 or 6 times over the years through either David’s or DVC Rental Store and at the present time have a reservation set for October. What, if any, effect could this have on us? Thank you.
Not likely to have any effect on you. This is, if anything, likelier to affect the businesses who post many and frequent confirmed reservations on Facebook groups and the people who rent from them. Stick with David’s or DVC Rental Store and you should be fine.
Thank you Eric
Tom, What is “reservation walking”?
John, reservation walking is when an owner books well ahead of the prime dates they are trying to secure and then moves that reservation forward as availability opens up.
This is a total BS process that Disney should have put a stop to a long time ago. They need to put a limit on the changes or a tool in place to flag abusers and put a squash to it. If a person starts their booking December 1st to get a Christmas stay at the G-Flo, for example, once they walk it 3 times, Disney needs to say “no more”. Same if a person cancels and rebooks.
Well I booked with point rental a month ago through a broker. It is done so well… we will see. But I do agree, unless I would have more garanties I might not consider it anymore for future bookings.
As someone that has been following this blog for years and dreamed of making a WDW trip happen at least partly via DVC rental, this is potentially heartbreaking. In 2016 when I first started looking at prices, it was possible with shrewd planning between travel time and catching an affordable point rental rate when Animal Kingdom Lodge was around $120 a night. Prices like that existing still were obviously long gone, but this might eliminate private rentals all together and mean only the agencies are able to guarantee a booking at their inflated rates. I had already changed my dreams from a week at AKL to a split-stay between the All Stars or maybe if we were lucky Pop Century with a few days at AKL. Now? Well obviously the trip hasn’t happened yet and it becomes less likely every year. And if it does happen, I’ll consider myself lucky if even the All Stars are affordable by then.
I appreciate though that this brings value to the owners that want to be able to actually book at WDW and I don’t begrudge that.
Just rent from an owner that doesn’t do it commercially and you will be fine. You are well within your rights to just ask them. I have rented my points upon occasion, but I go myself 2-4 times per year, so the vast majority of my bookings are for my family. There are a lot of people like me in facebook groups, just owners who are willing to rent but whose rentals would never be in danger of being cancelled for something like this. If you search and the person appears every week with some new proposition, then its best to avoid them in case there is a crackdown (which I hope there will be) but if you see them posting a rental once every 6 months and engaging in the comments aside from that? Rent from them with confidence (after checking property records to make sure they are truly an owner of course)
I hope it scares some of those commercial renters off-but knowing human nature, that looks likely to only happen if they start to see consequences. I have a friend who always lets me buy 50 points or so off her a year-twice she couldn’t get me a standard view room-at TWO different resorts 11 months out. Yet there were tons to rent out on FB and on various other sites. Made us ask if we really wanted to buy and risk not getting in at our own home resort 11 months out…
I am actually happy to see Disney cracking down on commercial renting. I would like to think Disney is serious, but this action will likely not move the needle much. As you noted, this is probably a move that Disney can now point to when complaints roll in from DVC owners complaining.
My main issue with DVC rental groups (commercial or otherwise) is that as regular 160 point owners we are not on a level playing field w/the big hitters. They are able to use tricks, tools, agents etc. to book rooms that are “highly desirable”… as a AKL DVC there is a slim chance of ever scoring either a value room or concierge (studio) as I don’t have 1000 points to walk a reservation, or fast fingers on an eastern standard time computer (darn living in California!) 🙂
I have personally found the rental market to mostly impacts the ability to get a deluxe studio (one bedrooms are typically available they are just double the points lol).
It is crazy when you look at the pages and pages of “dedicated reservations” and for the most part they are held at the “most wanted” locations. I mean how can anyone say this isn’t commercial renting?
The funny thing is I knew we would never get BW view villa in October as a normal DVC owner (non-home resort). We decided to just go through Disney. I thought about renting but didn’t feel the savings was that great in October and I like being in control of my reservation.
Finally, I don’t blame the DVC rental companies that much as Disney set up the system so it could be gamed. I do find it frustrating however and it has directly impacted our decision to buy more points. So in that respect this crackdown by Disney might be a talking point for them to use w/buyers like myself. Or those who would say… why bother buying when I can rent and knowingly get BW view villa in October 🙂
Thanks for the thoughtful, well written article. I genuinely appreciate all your articles.
This is a great comment, through and through. I especially agree with the last part about blaming Disney for letting the system be exploited. I almost wrote, “don’t hate the player, hate the game” about the commercial renters–but after having similar sentiment that wasn’t so well received with regard to eBay pirates, figured I’d leave that out.
You’re absolutely right about the high-value room categories being toughest. AKL Value Studios, normal BWV Studios–basically anything that’s ~10 points or less with a prime location is very difficult to book and is what they’re clearly targeting based on those confirmed reservations.
I’m not an AK expert, but aren’t there only about 10 of those “value” studios? If so, maybe that is why they are almost never available?
Full disclosure: I scored one ONCE – and less than 7 months out (not my home resort) someone must’ve canceled their reservation at pretty much the exact same moment I searched for mine. Couldn’t believe what I was seeing, and clicked the Book It Button as fast as my finger could move and had an awesome trip.
I’m generally optimistic about this news, but agree we’ll just have to see if they follow through with consequences. However, while I’m all for leveling the playing field by getting rid of these big players and I personally wouldn’t mind if confirmed reservations were completely wiped off the map forever, I’d hate to see the solution hurt worse than the problem. So far, this looks good.
We’re not DVC owners and (despite visiting yearly) don’t see the point of it—the yearly maintenance fees are what make us always decide against it in the end. And honestly articles like these reassure me we’ve made the right call! The constant dissatisfaction about one thing or another I hear from DVC owners in the blogosphere isn’t really a great selling point, and I’ve always wondered if Disney knows (or cares) about it.
I’m not sure where you’re seeing *constant* dissatisfaction. My wife and I are new DVC owners (both resale and direct), after much research and consideration. Sure, there are some complaints, but our experience has been that most DVC owners wish they’d bought sooner and more points. I see little buyer’s remorse, and only a small amount of grumbling about the difficulty of booking studios at the 7 month mark and, depending on the dates, the 11 month mark (for home resorts), which is a consequence of the program’s success, since the idea is to run as close as possible to max capacity. This particular issue, of commercial renting, intersects with this issue, hence some frustrated DVC owners. It remains to be seen whether we’ll see less walking and more availability at 7 months, but there will always be difficulty booking popular resorts at popular dates by virtue of other fact that you are allowed to use your points at other resorts, and a few resorts are more popular than others, creating an imbalance. But, again, I don’t see much complaining about this, as the majority of posts I’ve seen from owners are “buy where you want to stay,” so if you don’t get that resort you wanted to try at 7 months–and the wait list never goes through–you still get to stay at your home resort you booked at 11 months.
Same Hilary, we have visited yearly or bi-yearly since 2017 but ultimately seems like more hoops to jump through
The popularity of Moonlight Magic events, continued strong direct sales, and thousands of posts on internet fora about DVC show that, beyond a few complaints, the program is quite popular.
I would agree with the assessment that DVC member satisfaction is largely quite positive. No inside info on this one, just my gut.
One thing to keep in mind is that DVC caters to higher-knowledge, higher-affinity guests. Which means members will have higher standards than the median guest, and be more difficult to satisfy. You’re going to hear complaints about a variety of little things, but the overall sentiment seems largely positive. Probably not at its highest-ever level, but not negative, either.
We now have two contracts and love DVC. Yes sometimes we have trouble getting the room we want but we have enjoyed every resort we have stayed. We have stayed at most of the resorts the only one we have not is Beach Club and Riveria (no real interest)- but we also have only tried and then stayed at another resort – no big deal. We have used the discounts on the AP’s to reduce our maintenance fees (yes I understand that we are still spending). But the main thing is that we have received our $ worth – are they perfect no – do they make too much $ on us – yes – but so does everyone else. All companies charge to maximize their return.
I agree that if you don’t like the cost go someplace else and enjoy that resort or destination – its a free country. The good news is that Disney is not a necessity – if you believe that they are screwing their customers spend your money elsewhere.
How will this affect those of us who use David’s and DVC Rentals to rent DVC points? Tom, do you think that market will dry up because of this policy change? We are big fans of renting points to book at deluxe Disney resorts, and we have followed your tips and guidance with great results. I wonder, what happens now?
This won’t affect rank and file DVC members at all. It’s geared toward shutting down owners who are clearly using massive amounts of points to rent out confirmed reservations, though again it remains to be seen just how much Disney will follow through with this, if at all.
DVC Fan just posted on YT about it. They all work with DVC Rental store in some fashion, so it’s very informative.
I suspect that Disney’s interest in clamping down on renting will be directly related to how much renting affects their bottom line for hotel room bookings. The price of hotel rooms has outstripped inflation and is one of the reasons that DisneyWorld trips are so expensive. The rack rates for rooms are crazy. However the post lockdown travel boom has probably meant that they have been happy with bookings and so don’t want to rock the boat. Potential customers they have lost to DVC rentals are still visiting WDW, paying for park tickets, food, merchandise etc. If the hotel business is softening, then there will be more interest in clamping down on DVC rentals.
Early in the year it seemed one company was getting out of the Aulani rental business, as they were selling a lot of stripped Aulani contracts all at once.
Interesting perspective.
I’d think the *opposite* would be true. That Walt Disney World has an interest in keeping occupancy high, filling rooms one way or another since they’re a perishable good. But at the same time, they don’t want to discount *too much* because of the perception it creates or precedent it sets. That’s precisely why they (and other) hotel chains offload rooms onto blind booking sites, a practice that was nonexistent during pent-up demand but has returned.
I get what you’re saying, and you very well might be right! But it’s risky for them to assume that squeezing the DVC market pushes those people to direct bookings. It might push them to Universal, vacation rentals, or the beach. I wonder if they have good data on that.
Would love for Disney to really crack down on this behavior but at the end of the day this appears to be mostly a scare tactic. It may have some marginal effect but I think it is mainly a move that allows Disney to say, “we tried”.
I think this is the most likely explanation, but a small part of me does wonder whether the member satisfaction/complaints situation is untenable. There are a lot of issues with reservation walking, scooping up low point bookings, selling confirmed reservations, etc. that comes at the expense of regular members.
I believe it is scare tactic…..just like the one they issued to AP holders who made a living becoming a personal shopper. Disney did not do anything about it, except to maybe a random person or two.
Jokes on Disney, I never have extra points to rent (but have contemplated renting.)
But, I wonder if DVC cranks down on these business renters, would it open up more rooms that they can get cash for, could that be a motive? I don’t know how much money is involved in that.
By cracking down on commercial DVC renters it would make more rooms available for “normal” DVC renters. The high demand resorts will always ‘sell out’ to points owners long before Disney can flip those rooms over to sell for cash. Where it gets confusing sometimes is that Disney always keeps a reserve of rooms in sold out DVC hotels to rent for cash. So people see the rooms listed for cash and think it comes from the DVC inventory, but it does not. Additionally, with the currently selling resorts (Riviera, Cabins at Fort Wilderness etc) not all rooms “belong” to DVC yet as not all of the points have been sold. For those resorts Disney can have a substantial inventory of rooms they can sell for cash.
of course they are… Disney screwing their paying customers over yet again. When are people going to stop giving them money and stop going. They are nothing but a thief company now.
What are you talking about?
What does stopping abuse have to do with screwing over paying customers? When we purchase DVC, we agree to their Ts & Cs, which includes not being able to use our points for a personal business. The same rule needs to be applied to AP holders who are making a living out of shopping and selling Disney merch for a 30% mark-up. Disney said they would go after personal shoppers abusing their AP, but it never happened.