Disney Vacation Club’s “Point Pool Problem”
Due to the multi-month closure of DVC resorts and low demand following Walt Disney World’s reopening coupled with banking rules, Disney Vacation Club has a “point pool problem” and limited availability. Here we’ll address DVC’s policies and why availability is so limited for the 50th Anniversary and beyond. (Updated July 12, 2022.)
During the closure, Disney Vacation Club made temporary adjustments to certain policies, adding flexibility to its normal rules. Notably, DVC extended some point expiration windows for one year from the current expiration date and relaxed cancellation rules. Standard policies were long ago reinstated, but the impact of those rule changes plus the closure has resulted in availability challenges that will reverberate for years.
Attempting to remedy this, Disney Vacation Club limited point borrowing. Members who want to borrow points to complete a reservation were temporarily only be able to borrow up to 50% of their future Use Year Points per contract. Doing this has helped manage inventory and accommodate more Members who want to schedule their vacations for the next couple of years.
July 12, 2022 Update: Effective today, Disney Vacation Club has removed the aforementioned borrowing limit. Here’s the email that went out to DVC members:
At Disney Vacation Club, we know that flexibility is top of mind when it comes to planning your vacations with us. From accommodation types and length of stay to planning for multiple trips per year, we know you appreciate a variety of options.
With that in mind, our team is pleased to share that you are once again able to borrow your full allotment of Vacation Points from your next Use Year to this Use Year.
Eligible Members are also able to use their points for Disney Collection exchange experiences such as, Disney Cruise Line, National Geographic Expeditions, Adventures by Disney or Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser.
Now that we’re past the booking window for the popular holiday season at Walt Disney World, this was a logical change to make. While it’s likely that residual effects of the point pool problem will spill over into 2023, the worst of it is likely in the rearview mirror. Most points that could’ve been used during the closure or subsequent early stages of the reopening would be long gone by now–even those that were banked.
With that said, this point pool problem is a bit like the accordion effect with traffic jams. A lack of availability last year led to banking into this year resulting in a lack of availability leading to more banking–and so forth and so on. Of course, there are also the longstanding issues of supply and demand mismatches. (We won’t fixate on that point here, as it’s something covered in our Why is Disney Vacation Club Availability So Limited? post several years ago. Actually, what’s covered here is somewhat of an outgrowth of that discussion. The same ideas apply as there.)
In any case, the worst of the point pool problem has resolved itself, and Disney Vacation Club has restored normal point borrowing policies as a result. That’s really all you need to know for practical purposes, but if you’re wondering how we got to this point, the following explains issue and crunches the numbers of DVC points v. inventory…
If my math is correct, there’s a total of roughly 75.85 million Disney Vacation Club points across all units at all resorts, including the ones outside of Walt Disney World. However, that includes undeclared points, including over 4 million at Disney’s Riviera Resort. That means the actual number in circulation is likely just shy of 70 million points.
It’s important to include the non-WDW resorts like Aulani, Hilton Head Island, Vero Beach, and the Grand Californian in this analysis, as those supplies of points do impact demand at Walt Disney World resorts (VGC much less so than the other three).
Essentially, we have a scenario where the entirety of Disney Vacation Club points represent the water in a pool, and the entire inventory of DVC rooms represent the pool itself. Normally, the water comes pretty close to filling the pool, with a bit of space at the top.
Now imagine lifting up all of that water, losing a bit to splashing, shrinking the size of the physical pool by ~25%, and then attempting to deposit the water back into the pool. You couldn’t. There’s now more water than there is physical space in the pool, meaning over 20% would overflow and be gone forever. (Well, since we’re talking about water, it’d actually evaporate or soak into the ground, but you get the idea.)
If that’s too conceptual, let’s explain with a simplified example. Let’s assume one of the DVC resorts at Walt Disney World has 12 million points (none do–bear with me). Setting aside borrowing and banking rules, which tend to normalize over the course of time, that means 1 million points are available and must be used during each month of the year.
If a resort were closed for two months, the 2 million points of room inventory from that period are gone forever. However, the supply of outstanding points is not. This means that the available unused points for the year exceeds room availability by millions of points.
This is precisely what happened during the closure of Walt Disney World. Compounding that, even when the DVC resorts reopened a few months later, demand did not return. To the contrary, occupancy rates were historically low. Rooms were sitting empty even as the outstanding supply of points didn’t simply evaporate. Hence the pool example, and also why it’s going to be incredibly slim pickins’ for DVC availability the next couple of years.
The closure actually ended up being the smaller of the issues. The significantly larger problem was that Disney Vacation Club resorts were not operating at anywhere close to their normal occupancy rate for many months after reopening, and last minute cancellations become the norm. There were essentially 7 months of low bookings and ample availability at every single resort.
We know this because we were frequently able to book last minute reservations at some of Disney Vacation Club’s most popular resorts and room categories. Options that, in a normal year, would’ve been totally gone at or before the 7 month mark. From Summer 2020 through Spring 2021, there was often wide-open availability only a few days in advance.
Above is a look at availability when we searched for the holidays at the end of last October. You would never see this many options in a normal year only a few weeks before the start of the holiday season. By contrast, if you’re currently searching for availability in the next 3 months–or even in early 2023–there’s very little availability. Thankfully, it’s starting to get better, but still is not back to normal.
In the months after reopening, most DVC resorts were likely lucky to crack 50% occupancy. It improved around Christmas, worsened in January and February 2021, and didn’t really return to normal until Spring Break. Bookings have been sky-high since last summer.
The lack of demand last year followed by off-the-charts demand this year is something that shouldn’t be surprising. After all, we’ve been discussing pent-up demand and “revenge travel” to Walt Disney World for a while, and there still seems to be a lot of pent-up demand thanks to international travel and those who cancelled trips last year, too. Those ideas apply equally to DVC as they do Walt Disney World as a whole. Yet, we didn’t factor that into our original analysis.
Throughout a normal year, Disney Vacation Club resort occupancy is around 95%, which higher than standard hotel rooms at Walt Disney World, and doesn’t fluctuate much at all based upon travel seasons or most external variables. While we don’t know the precise DVC occupancy rate last year, we can say with confidence based upon frequent room availability searches that they almost never came close to that number.
This is because many Disney Vacation Club members opted to bank points and postpone trips with the intent to take them the following year. In particular, Walt Disney World’s 50th Anniversary looks pretty attractive to a lot of members. In a nutshell, this is the problem facing Disney Vacation Club right now–way more demand than there is supply, and a surplus of points from the last couple of years that now need to be used in 2022 before they expire.
This, in turn, is having a ripple effect. Those scrambling to use the surplus of “old” points from the last couple years are grabbing up availability in 2022, which will then cause current points to be banked and used in 2023. Again, think of this as similar to the accordion effect that causes traffic jams to persist on highways long after the underlying condition that caused the initial slowdown has been remedied. (A more timely example would be with supply chain disruptions.)
Editor’s Note: The second half of this post previously contained extensive discussion about how Walt Disney World could “solve” this point pool problem by allowing Disney Vacation Club members to use their points at non-DVC hotels, which were experiencing low occupancy. This commentary has been removed for a couple of reasons.
First, because Disney Vacation Club clearly has no intentions of doing this. Second, because I was wrong–it would not have solved anything. Disney Vacation Club units were not filling up, regardless. By the time DVC demand picked up, so too had hotel demand, so there would have been a significant opportunity cost. To that latter point, hotels are still facing very similar issues, albeit with their own unique wrinkles. See What’s Up with Sold Out Hotels at Walt Disney World? (Which should also indirectly explain why Disney has no interest in offering up non-DVC rooms to fix inventory issues.)
Ultimately, there is no solution to the lack of Disney Vacation Club availability, which is why we repeatedly and strongly encouraged other members to burn as many of their points as possible when the resorts first reopened and not bank points. At this juncture, all you can really do is book as early as possible, be flexible with your travel dates and/or accommodations preferences, and be willing to do split stays. Availability is not going to get any better anytime soon.
This is going to be a problem for the remainder of 2022, and likely into 2023. About the only other “fix” is the status quo, which is essentially to restrict borrowing rules. That helps a little bit, but it does not address the underlying issue of there being more unused points than available rooms. Legally, there’s nothing more they’re required to do. Owners agreed to the rules of the game when buying, and we are the ones positioned to eat the loss. For continued updates in this ongoing DVC point pool saga, subscribe to our free email newsletter.
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
Have you had issues finding availability for trips to Walt Disney World in late 2022 or beyond? Think this is going to be an ongoing issue throughout 2022 and even into 2023? Do you have any ideas as to other possible solutions to this Disney Vacation Club point pool problem? Have you lost points as a result of this? Had trouble finding DVC availability for later this year? Other complaints about Member Services or anything else DVC-related? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? If you’re an existing Member, what do you think? Share any questions, tips, or additional thoughts you have in the comments!
I have a trip booked through the rental store for June 10th. They’ve told me if Disney isn’t reopened, I’ll have 4 month to use the vacation or lose it, no refunds as the owners points will expire. I have no intention on not going on my planned vacation, but thru no fault of mine I can’t go after august. I’ll probably sue if they won’t offer a full refund. Be careful using the rental store. I don’t feel they were very upfront and would do any phone calls. Only text messages.
Not sure what rental store you are referring to as David’s Rentals is NOT taking that approach. They are offering different solutions. Next time go with them. You cannot blame the system when Disney does not want to really help its DVC members who have spent thousands for the membership. Just like them, you signed off on a contract. Not surprised by your sue comment. Me society.
It will be amazing if any of these brokers are still in business by the end of the year. Those vouchers offered by some of the brokers will be worthless. What the result will be is that owners will be able to make a reservation at seven months out once all the renters can’t find an easy rental.
@ Deb C. If demand is there, the brokers will be there too. Not sure why the vouchers will be useless as they will be valid once operations are back up and running. If anything, brokers may have to change their refund policies to reflect the times.
Bill: Those vouchers are more like a Ponzi scheme. With credit card chargebacks being filed against the brokers and owners not trusting the brokers ever again, there aren’t going to be DVC points to offer. Brokers will be out a lot of money, owners won’t offer their points to rent (they’ll do it themselves to take control of the rental or they will be totally turned off – I’ve read about many vowing not to work with these brokers). It’s going to be a very tough year for brokers.
@ DebC. maybe. I have had zero problems dealing with David’s Rentals. People can do charge backs all they want as there is no leg to stand on with a signed and agreed upon legal contract. David’s is in Canada so good luck to US folks trying to sue this and that. I have rented out points for a May 2020 booking that will obviously be cancelled. I have offered the family a re-booking into 2021. I will bank my 2020 points into 2021 and hope for the best. Beyond things I cannot control, I cannot control. Where old brokers die off, new ones will appear. Where there is money to be made, businesses will rise. It is the American way! 😉
Thanks for the post Tom.
My crystal ball tells me that while many will gladly welcome any type of reopening, there will likely be more Disney hotel rooms available than customer demand though this year, at least.
Similar to the cruise line discussion, Disney will have incentive to allow members use points for non-DVC rooms. I did a quick check yesterday. For Marathon weekend, a studio at the Poly is 20 pts/night. The current rate for the same weekend at Port Orleans is 25 points/night. Assuming Coronado, and Caribbean Beach are similar, Disney could offer a better conversion rate for DVC members for the next year or two. (15 points a night is still expensive, but not crazy).
It would be a win, win, win. DVC members could use points and still stay in amazing resorts that we normally wouldn’t. WDW fills up with dining plan, souvenir-crazed consumers, and the hotel employees get a paycheck.
@Tom K
This seems to be the most likely scenario. I’d guess park attendance will be down overall. The challenge for Disney will be how much are they willing to spend to keep their DVC guests happy, as they may not be required to do anything.
Tom,
What do you think this will do to the DVC points rental market?
Or under the circumstances Tom, do you think there should even be one any more?
Why wouldn’t there be one? lol If demand is there, which it clearly is, then of course people will continue to use it.
I think providing an option for all members to convert last year and this year DVC points to a Disney gift card is an option. It could be open for a limited time until enough points have been sucked up. Members can use for park tickets, Disney+, merch, food and beverage or even cash rooms. Some of these are high margin, more fungible resources than hotel rooms too. Can be done at a rate a little higher than maintenance, maybe $8-$10 a point.
This is goodwill toward those losing expired points and will also make sure there isn’t a massive amount of baking making inventory a problem for the next few years.
Who pays for those gift cards? Probably the members with a special assessment.
@DebC
Nah Deb. It’ll either be the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus. Or maybe Unca Scrooge will open up his money bin! BTW my bride noticed that Disney has apparently raised prices on some food items and buffets, even while they are closed!
Any option will require somebody (or some company) to pay for something. Moving inventory from the hotel side of the operation to DVC, there is still a cost to manage/service a room even if it happened to be spoiled inventory. While DVC is a separate entity, it’s intertwined in the Disney corporation and money (fake and real) moves between them.
If DVC does nothing, there is a cost to that too as Tom notes. Loss of spend from those member visits, some of your most loyal customers upset, and perhaps depression of the direct sale market which affects Disney.
For example, it’s probably unlikely DVC is going to return maintenance fee credit to members due to furloughed staff who are not being paid starting soon, so playing a little loose with the rules here is not completely out of the question.
@John
There are plenty of reasonable, logical and even simple ways to deal with this problem that would also favor DVC members, BUT they will all cost the mouse some cheese so they probably won’t happen. Chase the maximum reasonable profit. That’s how it’ll end up.
@Jack. Well it’s America after all so we can expect some lawsuits and the usual. End of the day Disney will pay one way or another. Up to them how much they want to take a hit on social media.
@Bill – Disney will make offers like Buy 100 Riviera or Aulani points and get a one week stay at SSR for free. Or Buy 100 Riviera or Aulani points and get 100 free points for one year. Disney isn’t going to give away free stuff that costs them money unless it makes them money.
For DVC just float 2019 and 2020 points over the next 3 years, most will book normal for remainder of 2020, others will relish knowing they replan over the next 3 years.
DVC points are only good for your current points year, unless you bank them. For those of us who made plans for March, April, and May, but whose point year is this year, you can’t bank points past January, so the points, if not used when you planned to use them–a situation we now find ourselves in with the Pandemic, you lose your points because you neither banked them nor used them. I don’t want to lose my points because Disney is closed for business.
Your comment about not banking past January confuses me. Can you explain?
Having had this exact situation occur for a June trip using some 2019 points that had not been technically banked, they returned the 2019 points as banked into 2020. Just call and ask
Every DVC member has a points year–you have x number of points in a year to use at Disney resorts. Also every year, there is a window where you can bank (or store) your points if you don’t have plans for that years’ points in your 12 month, points year. There is a date by which you either decide to use or bank your points. That date for me was six months into my year–January–that I had to decide to bank or use my annual points total. We chose to use the points–but the date we chose was closer to the end of the twelve month period–which was exactly when the pandemic hit the world. Since i missed the cutoff date to bank this year’s points, Disney says you use them or lose them. My problem is that i CAN”T use them for the dates we chose because of COVID-19, so Disney is (currently) saying too bad–you lost the opportunity to bank them,,,so you lose them. (Please don’t tell me about RCI–I bought my DVC for Disney vacations, not Del Boca Vista vacations)
There might be another advantage to disney increasing their pool of rooms able to be booked with DVC points to non-DVC resorts (besides the goodwill you mentioned). The advantage to Disney would be that some DVC members might choose to spend their points at a value or moderate resort just because they want to experience something new that their points did not allow them before. And by doing that, it frees up a more expensive deluxe room that disney could now sell to a cash customer at a higher price then they would have sold the value or moderate resort for per night. For example, if for an equivalent amount of points, I could stay at POFQ instead of BWV, I might want to do that, even though BWV rooms are more expensive, I have stayed there before, and I might want to try POFQ if I could do so for a similar amount of points. Advantage to Disney (they get to sell the BWV room as cash, so get more cash than a POFQ room, and advantage to members, goodwill so their points aren’t lost, plus get to try some new resorts). I’d love to hear your thoughts on if I am way off base with this thought.
I think that’s a great option for smaller parties who could take advantage of hotel room offerings. It might not work as well for larger parties who need more space though, as they would have to book more than one room each night. Booking two separate DVC studios is usually more expensive per night in points than reserving a single two bedroom unit. That increased cost would transfer to the hotel rooms too.
The other option I saw in the comments that worked for me was allowing members to transfer points to food or theme park admission credits. As someone who also has Club Wyndham (and stays at Bonnet Creek on property), they allow you to do this as standard practice for theme park admissions or even airline tickets. It can be prohibitively expensive though, and is “not a good use of credits” as Tom might say, compared to booking stays. (Two airline tickets might be equal to a week’s worth of reservations, depending on accommodation.) Perhaps Disney can use a more palatable conversion rate for those who have unused expiring points.
Two studios never require more points than a two bedroom villa. Never. Unless you are comparing two OKW studios with a GFV two bedroom. Consider a two bedroom might be booked by booking a studio and a one bedroom. That alone would be more than two studios.
Or you could say it goes down the drain…
Thanks for this post Tom, with my refund of Airline Tickets (from UK to LA and then back from Canada) 4 days at the DL park and a cruise from San Diego to Vancouver refunded (I didn’t take the 125% offer) I thought of putting it into DVC and joining the club…
But then on 23rd March I decided to put it all into shares (Not Disney ones mind) and that seems to have worked out since from that day forward they have gone up. It’s not over yet, but I got that advice from your post about DVC and the Time Value of Money money concept which I really appreciated,
@Millennial
Wise choice. Considering the past several years of what, in my opinion is DVC deterioration, and now this, I wouldn’t buy into DVC at gunpoint!
We have rented points and stayed at Kidani which was nice, got a lovely DVC mug from the gift shop which I use every day, the CM even offered me a DVC discount which I declined,
Hope your staying safe Jack. We will meet at Jiko one day soon.
@Millennial
Glad to hear you and yours are OK. We’re fine, kinda bored but otherwise OK. We prefer Jambo. Like the outside parking better than that disastrous Kidani garage. Working on unwinterizing the motorhome. Got my favorite mug in Key West. Bright yellow with large black letters proclaiming ‘I am a ray of ******* sunshine!” I also have a Grumpy mug I’m fond of. Who woulda thunk it!? Stay safe. Still looking forward to dinner when this silliness is bbn over!
@ Jack. DVC deterioration based on what? Are you a member? Please give us some details. We have been members since 2006 and have never looked back. Bought re-sale at a time when all of the perks were included and continue to be. Used it for cruises, Disney vacations and RCI exchanges. Saved thousands since the steady increases on all things Disney vacation related. Enjoyed the various discounts. Paid cash for the timeshare and did not borrow money for it. Hell, if I went to sell it today, it is worth more than I paid for it. All of the properties continue to be completely refurbished. There was a lull around 2009-2011, but when they booted that management team out, things returned to good and have gotten better. So I am curious what deterioration are you talking about? 😉
While the cruise points value is less than optimal, I would rather use my points on a cruise than lose them all together.
This is just a risk when owning these types of vacation clubs. I own a few timeshares and we have been without weeks due to hurricane’s and now the pandemic. The weeks are a total loss and sure enough it is written that way in the contract. It amazes me that people just invest this large amount of money without knowing the risks overall. No property has enough weeks to cover for those that miss their week due to unforseen circumstances, think about it.
I wonder if we can write these losses of in terms of disaster losses? Gotta check that one. Probably not but still. . . . . . .
@ Angie. What investment isn’t a risk? lol
How about refunding maintenance fees for the points lost? We are losing 50 points at the end of May and I wouldn’t mind at all if Disney refunded our fees.
Probably not. Their argument would be that open or not, the properties still have to be maintained.
My husband and I both agreed we would be ok with having all our points pushed forward one year and having our contract extended by a year. I have no idea how feasible of an idea this is for Disney but we would be willing to travel this year on cash or not at all ( that part was a lie) and push our points forwards to help open up inventory and the rush/pressures of everyone spending in such a short period. But not sure what the remedy would be for paying another years maintenance etc :s hopefully we have answers soon because I have seen several people say they were advised there points are gone! Or at least that being the current response which is building anxiety among many DVC owners
Extending contracts is a possibility, albeit one that kicks the can down the road and creates a windfall for some members if applied universally. I could see the idea floated internally, but I’d be surprised if that’s the solution.
I don’t have my DVC contract language in front of me but I’d be willing to bet there’s a statement to the effect that “acts of God” remove certain DVC corporate responsibilities such as providing room availability where none exists because of things like pandemics.
There’s no legal liability. It’s entirely a question of goodwill and wanting to offer a solid “recovery” option to keep DVC members happy.
Maybe Disney won’t do that, viewing DVC members as something of a captive audience with little recourse. That wouldn’t totally surprise me, but I think it would have negative longterm ramifications for Disney that they’d (selfishly) wish to avoid.
What is the “Aulani Folly”?
With all the reduced demand for cruising, I wonder if Disney Cruises will be offered to DVC members at a better value (I know they have historically been a terrible value). That might help ameliorate the inventory problem (though obviously not for a few months at least–this would be a fix for later in 2020 once cruise ships start running).
I actually also wonder if there will be increased demand for Aulani or Vero Beach later this year because people will feel more comfortable with the “lower crowds” at those resorts as compared to the parks (even though I don’t actually think any kind of resort vacation will be low risk for a while). That may help too.
One last comment: a lot of “regular” non-DVC guests are also facing out-of-pocket losses from this. Our nonrefundable costs for our cancelled Disney vacation are close to $2,000. I think it’s high time people start accepting that coronavirus, not Disney, is to blame here and we are all going to be sucking up some level of financial cost in addition to the disappointment of a cancelled vacation.
Offering a more favorable DCL conversion would also make a ton of sense. I’d imagine Disney Cruise Line will have trouble filling its cabins for a while (personally, I won’t cruise for a while after this).
@MomOTwins
I am very tempted to book Aulani during Thanksgiving week, as there are still rooms and its not my home resort. I’m scheduled for Disneyland at Grand Cal in September, but there is a lot of uncertainty with how (or if) the parks will be operate. As you noted, there are some non DVC related costs to absorb, airfare changes being the big one for us.
I think I am down to banking all my 2020 points or just showing up at the Grand Cal with the idea that Disneyland won’t be open and we’ll just have to go to beaches and any other open southern cali attractions.
That was my idea. Offer a better conversion to DVC. The problem with this- Will DCL want to run ships not at capacity? Will CLIA institute some rule about capacity for a while. Because at the moment a lot of spring cruisers have revoked for the next year, so there aren’t as many cruise rooms as you’d think, either. But it would help.
*rebooked
While the cruise points value is less than optimal, I would rather use my points on a cruise than lose them all together.
I ALMOST had my wife convinced to take a Disney cruise but now, while she had no problem with the parks just before all of this became a public problem, (We were in WDW thru early March.) I now couldn’t get her to go on a cruise with a gun! Can’t say as I blame her. I spent lots of time on.”Bird Farms” and it never bothered me, nor does the idea of hitting WDW in October as scheduled, but a cruise at this time. even a Disney cruise, isn’t high on my hit parade!
As aDVC December use year member it leaves us questioning how screwed we will be. We are booked in August. If something transpires and we get canceled we then only have 3 months to book for 3 months that others already have booked 7-11 months ago. That’s virtually impossible! Or my options are to either lose all my current points along with the ones that I borrowed from next year or use them at a place we have no desire to stay at?! I hope WDW does something because I know I’m not the only one from March that will see this scenario. Yes it’s an investment and yes we know the rules but this is unprecedented and beyond our control. WE shouldn’t have to take the hit. The company has write-off and ways to absolve some of the loss. We’re just people not a company. Here’s to hoping something is done to make it right. All the cash paying people don’t have deadline dates to use by and are receiving deals. Why shouldn’t we?
Borrowed points would go back to the year they were borrowed from this was announced long ago… But that doesn’t help with your current years points. 🙁 We are booked for sept. 2 rooms poly for a week and no borrowed points so as you can see I have a substantial amount of points riding on if the parks are open if Canada/ us border will allow us to cross etc. If that doesn’t pan out I don’t know what to do because I looked and there is literally nothing that could accommodate us in the months to follow! This is an anxious time and I really hope Disney has a clear answer soon. Even if it’s not what I want to hear at least I can sort of plan for it!!
I missed the part the borrowed points will go back. I thought they stayed in the now current use year which puts me losing not only this year but everything I borrowed from next. Guess we’ll have to see what transpires over the next few months. I definitely don’t see any of us that may have to cancel getting anything for the last quarter of the year that’s for sure!
my year ends May 31 and they don’t open until after that, so they told me i will lose my points for this year…so sorry…REALLY?!
I just canceled our vacation for this month through May. Our points expire May 31st. The option we were given was to roll them into an RCI exchange, which would be good through 12/31/22. We chose that over losing our points. That is the only current option for DVC members with points expiring during the closure. But also note that RCI will only roll points in increments of 10s. So With our 134 points, we would either have to lose 4 points or borrow 6 additional points from our current use year. We did the later option as to not lose 4 points. Hope this helps!
That’s your best option – to move your points to RCI. You’ll have 2 years to use them plus you can use them for many DVC properties in Florida – even Aulani!
No reason to “lose” anything!
You can’t use DVC points transferred to RCI in Orlando. You may want to check out the RCI website via the DVC website to see what you might be able to book.
@ Amelia. That is weak move by Disney. The reality is parks are not going to be open until well, well into 2021. DVC are going to have members whose entire use year was not available and perhaps a large portion of another use year as well. They should be offering something else or not charging the fees.
@ Bill. They do NOT charge fees to roll into an RCI account. We already had a 2nd trip in September/October, but nobody know how this will play out. It’s going to be a month by month, week by week situation. I do hate that we had to either lose 4 points, or take 6 points from 2020 since we are trying to save points to go to Aulani in 2021. I also find that it is weak that Disney is offering free dining to cash pay customer, but they are not offering a single thing to DVC members. I guess because they already “have” us and know that we will 100% be coming back. My biggest upset in all of this is missing out on our very first Moonlight Magic events. We were going to MK in April and Epcot in May. That was the hardest thing for me to let go.
And @Cathy, you can not use RCI points for Disney properties. They are excluded. There are off property locations in Orlando, and there are locations in Hawaii, but not at Aulani.
Amelia: This year DVC isn’t charging to roll points over into RCI. It has been maybe this year and maybe the last year when they didn’t charge. But normally there is a charge to transfer and book in RCI.
As for offering free dining, you can book a cash stay and get free dining IF you had a reservation cancelled using points. But you cannot use your points to book your stay. They have always allowed DVC members to book these deals; you just have to pay cash and not use points. Most of the time you are getting a better deal just using your points than paying cash. They usually charge rack rate for these free dining deals, too.
DVD doesn’t make much money off the preexisting properties so there’s strong incentive to do right by the membership – who buy plenty of add-ons – thus preserving some* future sales.
Like you say though, nothing’s really required and the whole thing unfortunately illustrates the downside of prepaying for 40 years of vacations.
* big question: will people actually go back to buying timeshares again in this post-Covid19 world?
Possibly I missed it but you didn’t mention terminating public sales of DVC rooms. Months back we made DVC resort reservations for October at what was originally created as a totally DVC resort. Checking recently, I found that while there was now no DVC availability for that resort, there was plenty of purchasable inventory for those exact dates. Same old same old! Ya gotta love it!
Are you talking about making a reservation using point versus making a reservation paying cash? Those are two different inventories. Whenever a member wants to use their DVC points to book the Disney Collection or the Concierge Collection, they turn the points over to DVC to make the reservation and they get that Disney Cruise (or whatever) booked for their points. DVC has to pay for the cruise, so they turn the points over to Disney Reservation Center to sell so they can pay for the member’s trip. That reservation can never be booked on points, because, technically, it already has been booked on points through the trading system of DVC. Add in the points owned by DVC (about 2.5% of the resort) that is used when villas are taken out of service for renovations, for maintenance, etc. or the points still owned by the builder that haven’t been sold yet (like Aulani or Riviera). And then there are the points taken back by DVC for failure to pay annual fees or for failure to make the mortgage payments.
Technically, only the owners’ points inventory is available for points reservation.
@DebC
Yes, but I was talking about identical rooms at, say, OKW. My understanding is that if the DVC inventory is still unsold 60 days out it defaults to a cash sale basis. A few years back I was told by a cast member that Disney kind of stretches this window in their favor at times but I can’t independently verify this.
Jack: It’s true that unbooked points inventory is turned over to Disney Reservation Center to sell. The money goes into breakage. But if you want to book with points, MS has been known to pull points inventory back. They’ve done it for me.
@DebC
Me as well, but I’ve always had to ASK for that “favor,” and point out that they had available identical inventory on the cash side. IMHO that should be done / offered without asking.
@ Jack. Right, so they need to make more of those “cash” reserved rooms available to DVC members moving forward.
Bill: If those villas represent points used by owners to reserve the Disney Collection and Concierge Collection, they’ve already been booked on points and cannot be booked on points a second time. Disney will need to give up the rooms they own and builder’s inventory for points instead of cash.
Thanks Tom, this is a great post that DVC members should read.
There are a lot of DVC members right now who simply do not understand that points that expire (many from 2019 that were banked) cannot be replaced without major inventory shortages to everyone else in the DVC system. I’d guess there will be anywhere from three to five months of lost inventory that DVC will have to replace (if they chose).
Another remedy not mentioned could be DVC to be more aggressive on exercising their right to buy resale contracts and suspending sales on any current inventory right now, such as what still hasn’t been sold for Riviera, Aulani, etc. They could conceivable hold all these contracts as a way to ‘inject’ more points into the system, though, it wouldn’t solve inventory shortages for popular resorts.
Something else to consider is that the hotels may open up earlier than the parks, as it seems more conceivable that social distancing can be maintained in a hotel/resort environment than a theme park. I’d imagine this wouldn’t excite a lot of people since most of the purpose of staying at most of these resorts is to visit a theme park, but this could help mitigate the lost points.
I just bought my DVC in January for Villas at Grand California. Wish I would have waited :/
I too suspect they will open the hotels before the parks. A week in a Saratoga Springs preferred room will absorb a good number of my points that will expire later this year as well as allow me to try restaurants that I normally wouldn’t. I live in Florida, so no plane is necessary either.
@TomK
From what I’ve read that is how they are now handling Disney Shanghai and Iger is supposedly keeping a close eye on this pattern. Problem is that China being China, they are reportedly requiring testing and IDs now, and while the Chinese are used to this “Your papers please!” type of existence, it may have limited success here. All depends on how paranoid people remain for how long and how badly they want to feel “safe” in Disney.
Oh yeah. Shanghai is going temperature tests.
DVC members should be considered as some of Disney’s most committed and faithful consumers. As such, we shouldn’t be treated by Disney as the least valuable guests with a “too bad, so sad” for the points we paid so dearly for. We paid for those points. They sold us those points. I have not received value for what I paid for, due in no part to anything I did. The seller (Disney) has an obligation to provide the value for those monies paid. I don’t want to hear Disney whining that scheduling the people who couldn’t take vacations with the points they already paid for is “too hard.” Figure it out–do something. I know I don’t want to forever borrow points from next year’s allocation to schedule a vacation later in 2020 because my points year ended in June.
@Mike
I think Disney will do what they can to make this right, but keep in mind, Disney does not have control of the inventory in the DVC units. It is owned by thousands of individuals (myself included). Any point you lost has to be taken from either the DVC units they currently control (which probably isn’t enough to make up the lost points) or other DVC members (which is not possible).
When speaking of value, perhaps DVC can shell out some cash, park tickets, or hotel room vouchers. Not a good situation regardless for any of us in the DVC system. Disney will do what they can to make it right, as soon as they figure out when they can open.
@Dlaw
To some extent they do. They sell DVC rooms inside a 60 day use window. Tale a look at my previous post.
The “Aulani Folly” was the creation of the Hawaii DVC resort. Essentially it is way under used and the associated points are assumed to flood the stateside market. It IS fixable but it would cost the mouse beaucoup cheese so they don’t bother.
Hardly. They already have our money, we don’t usually spend any money on lodging, we might even prepare our own meals and not use Disney Dining. We might not even go to the parks (or we buy APs that spread the cost out over many more days). In the Public Offering Statement, it even states that DVC may still operate as usual, even with no theme parks operating. There is zero guarantee that you will even have a theme park to visit. You bought a timeshare, not a hotel room. Disney doesn’t have to offer anything for DVC members to stay at the DVC resorts. No dining discounts, no ticket offers, no special deals. And if you get disgruntled, you sell your points and let the new owner find out how special they are to Disney.
If your points ended in June, do you have a June UY? That means they actually ended May 31. There is no July UY, so your points couldn’t end on June 30.
@Jack
That is what I suspected. I live on the west coast and bought a resale for Grand California. I noticed that it is still easy to book Aulani at the 7 month window, so I assume it has a lot of unsold inventory still.
Maybe Aulani will absorb a lot of the point inventory if it ends up opening up before the other resorts or theme parks, though, I understand that it is no easy flight from east coast to Hawaii (and expensive).
Fascinating. What is the “Aulani folly”?
Jim Lewis was the President of DVC at the time of Aulani opening. There was a very bad error in determining the cost of annual fees for at least several months of early sales. When the error was discovered, Jim Lewis and a few other execs were fired and all Aulani contracts past that date had recalculated dues. The original contracts sold for a much cheaper cost based on the dues were similar to Vero Beach where the size of the resort was adjusted when they decided VB wasn’t the haven DVC owners were looking for and downsized the resort. It resulted in two types of contracts at both resorts. Subsidized and non-subsidized.
See my last post.
The “Aulani Folly” was the creation of the Hawaii DVC resort. Essentially it is way under used and the associated points are assumed to flood the stateside market. It IS fixable but it would cost the mouse beaucoup cheese so they don’t bother.
I don’t buy into this being the be all end all of DVC room scarcity but it sure doesn’t help!
Great article, as usual, Tom!! Thanks for bringing up the big, and ever growing, elephant in the room!
We used some 2019 points and borrowed some 2020 points to book a big family trip in May. Seeing what was happening in the end of March, we rebooked for September. This was past our 2019 use year, but they cheerfully waived any penalties. Now, I’m concerned about what will happen in September. I’m not sure our kids will want to go if masks have to be worn (try keeping masks on a 2 and 6 year in extreme heat!), and other problems will exist…so if we’re forced to rebook AGAIN what might happen to our 2019 points? We actually called about that, and of course they said the situation is fluid and quite frankly, they don’t know from one month to the next. Hang in there. (I assumed this, but thought I’d bring it up to them.) This really could be a huge mess for them, and I’m hoping talks are already ongoing about the DVC. They don’t want to alienate the people who will help them stay afloat…
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/os-xpm-2011-08-15-os-disney-time-share-trouble-20110815-story.html They really screwed up the initial DVC offering.