Aggressive anti-rental email response from MS

[AnnaKristoff2013]

Another option: abuse/misuse prevention is not easy. Very high level, it requires hiring or developing employees with essentially fraud prevention expertise and developing systems and processes to identify and enforce. Some of these employees might be need to be very highly paid, or the Legal department might need expansion, etc.

All of that requires leadership buy-in that the investment is worth it, whatever that means (financial, reputation, owner experience, etc.). There's risks too, like an exec being deposed or having to testify in a lawsuit.

All this to say that there might be key individuals who have the power to do it and really want to do it, but every time they investigate bringing it to fruition, it's deemed not worth the effort, or maybe even too far out of their current expertise to be comfortable making the call to invest.

---

Anyway, my preferred (albeit aggressive) way to combat this is to cancel reservations 28 days prior to check-in. I like it because it attacks both the supply and the demand.

Only do it to reservations that they're absolutely sure are rentals. Considering the lack of enforcement currently, that's probably pretty easy to identify as renters haven't adapted to enforcement yet.

Wouldn't even need to cancel a lot, just enough to cause pandemonium online and break trust in the system, especially at the guest-renter level. Maybe 10% of a week's 'commercial' rentals to get started?

28 days out is enough time to fill 7-day waitlists and refill occupancy, but also late enough that the guest-renter and the owner-renter would be in a real bind.

As a prospective guest-renter, could you imagine if you knew you had even a slight chance of having your reservation for your Big Trip canceled on you essentially last second, leaving you to deal with the owner-renter/agency to recoup money and also find new lodging? I would totally steer clear as a guest-renter. And I strongly suspect guest-renters are very much Dis-Online and would hear about it from blogs/influencers/friends/etc. Word would spread and "renting's not safe" would be widely known.

And likewise with owner-renters, with having to lose out on future income and having a stay's worth of points in Holding.

After renter adaptation maybe that cancellation rate has to slip to 2-5% to make sure there's no false positives, but that's plenty to deter significant portions of both owner-renters and guest-renters from the market entirely.

What you are describing is basically exactly what Wyndham did (look at Bonnet Creek rentals). It worked very well.

 

[LYSE]

Could they even make significant changes without loosing a lawsuit?

Anyways sounds like one of these anti rental dis board members got hired.

 

[tom1944]

Just jumping in now so I have not read the entire thread.

As someone who just started looking into DVC about 8 months ago I was surprised by the extent of the rental market.

The original exposure I had about rentals was from coworkers that owned DVC and rented to family and friends occasionally.

It was not until I was on a completely different website asking questions that I realized renting was actually a business model.

 

[GoingSince1990]

If anyone on the reservation can check into the room, can't the owner keep their name as the lead as long as they're renting out to a group who won't reach capacity? Like for a Poly Studio that sleeps 5... Leave the owners name on, and rent to a maximum of 4. Otherwise, that charge to change the lead guest will be the "5th person charge" that will be passed on to the renters.

Yes. In order for a restriction on changing the lead guest to be fully effective, Disney would also need to abolish online check-in and require that the lead guest show up in person, with ID, at the resort front desk.

 

[Matty B13]

All DVC has to do it pretend to be a renter through one of these website and book a reservation. DVC then would get the owners name and contract information and just suspend the owners account, they have all the owners information they need to do this. This would be a lot cheaper than hiring a whole fraud unit with lawyers, once an owner uses one of these brokers the transaction becomes a "commercial" use. They do this to 50 to 100 owners, and you will see these websites disappear.

 

[EYL]

If they ever restrict personal renting, that'll cure any add-on-itis I have. One of the reasons I feel comfortable in adding more points is knowing that I can rent it out in the off chance that I can't use them. Don't forget that what we have now is what gives DVC its value. Restricting rentals sounds great on the surface and I'm sure other timeshares do it. But it's also why the value of a DVC timeshare is higher than the others.

 

[sethschroeder]

But I suspect Disney will put things in place to limit renting to once or twice a year per membership or something like that.

Zero ability to enforce something like

Or they could only allow one stay (or whatever number) without an Owner checking in.

No ability to do this as no such requirement in contract.

Disney makes the rules. It doesn't matter what we as owners think the "greater good" is. It matters what is good for the mouse.

Incorrect it all has to be in the contract and then legal as well. Hence why they rolled back various point changes based on people like myself calling them and informing them what they are doing is incorrect.

And I don't think there's a guarantee that courts or an arbitrator will uphold the idea that Disney can control how people use points after they're purchased.

It would hold up the no renting by a commercial entity. No if it holds up John with 200 points renting out some points every couple years who would know. Disney likely would only care about people with tons of rentals or the rental sites themselves.

I think you're focusing on name change needing to be because of rentals which is not the case.

With data analysis you are looking for an inflection point for filtering. Name changes 100% point to that being more likely. The account is just flagged and watched/reviewed if they are trying to crack down on it.

1 name change means nothing but changing it on 20 of the last 25 reservations is something more likely.

My dates are set though so I book whatever I can and waitlist what I want. If the spec rental is released, my waitlist gets filled.

This is way off base. The high season rental by the spec renter isn't getting released until 2 months out. Which eliminates most who are not local.

I suspect you live by Flordia. Think about it this way if you were planning a trip to NYC for this year could you then change all your plans and dates 2 months out when you already locked in time off, airfare, transportation, maybe scooter rental, ect?

Very much leans local benefit.

@Sandisw hit the nail on the head again. Any "fix" that limits what an owner can do with their points will cause worse harm to all members than what we're seeing now.

I never agree with this. There is ZERO ability to causes more harm to everyone.

Just like people saying moving point charts around would harm everyone it's just not true.

Depending on the rule it will impact various people differently including plenty of people not at all.

Example if the rule was zero rentals (never going to happen) it might stop me from renting my points 1 time but it's also likely I get that sought after room 2-3 other times I wouldn't have since it wasnt pulled from inventory for the spec rental by software right at 11 months.

Deal with program creation at work and normally there is always ways to craft it. It would be no different here. Without all the DVC data all we can do though is guess what a rule could be.

Example changing the name on reservations 20 times per contract year wouldn't cause worse harm in the long run if the number of memberships doing this track to possible known rental company owners.

 

[sethschroeder]

But it's also why the value of a DVC timeshare is higher than the others

No......

It's higher because Disney controls 98% of the rooms next to WDW parks and includes perks to those hotels.

Where as I go down to the beach and you have 50 different hotel chains and private rental homes to easily choose from driving the price down.

Renting has some small portion but a majority of the value is based on it being WDW rooms (which is also why I don't want them building traditional timeshare resorts away from WDW).

 

[sethschroeder]

Could they even make significant changes without loosing a lawsuit?

Anyways sounds like one of these anti rental dis board members got hired.

It's written in to the contract you cant rent for commercial benefit. With personal benefit to rent is where the challenge would come in if it ever went to a lawsuit.

On the personal side though anyone not running it for commercial benefit will never be caught unless they call MS and for some reason tell them they are renting then you would be identified.

 

[sethschroeder]

Honestly someone like David's or other rental sites could protect themselves somewhat by making their system like ebay/Amazon.

Davids then doesn't control the rental process and listing but just the money part. They hold the funds and insure the buyer gets what they were supposed to.

 

[tom1944]

If they enforce the no commercial rental clause I would expect downward pressure on resale point prices for some period of time.

At least until excess points are sold to owners wanting to use points for their own vacation

 

[LYSE]

It's written in to the contract you cant rent for commercial benefit. With personal benefit to rent is where the challenge would come in if it ever went to a lawsuit.

On the personal side though anyone not running it for commercial benefit will never be caught unless they call MS and for some reason tell them they are renting then you would be identified.

Oh I know what's there, we are allowed to rent up until a non defined commercial purpose. That's why I wonder how strict they can actually get.

 

[New Mouse]

I'd bet 70% of new VDH sales are for rentals primarily. Look how quickly people got those points up for rent and how they jacked up the price per point to.arguably ridiculous levels.

 

[jimmymc]

People have been renting points for a long time and will continue to do so, just like people do with non-DVC timeshares. And Disney keeps the language intentionally vague so they can enforce things when it violates the intent of a DVC contract, which is for the owner to spend nights at the resort. So if a family rents out a portion of their points every year, DVC probably doesn't care. But if a company uses thousands of points to reserve Christmas week at tough to get resorts, Disney will probably invalidate those reservations.

 

[tjkraz]

If they enforce the no commercial rental clause I would expect downward pressure on resale point prices for some period of time.

At least until excess points are sold to owners wanting to use points for their own vacation

Agree with this. If points are held strictly for rental purposes, and the rental option is removed, the owners basically have two options:
1) Start using the points personally
2) Sell the points

I suspect most would choose option #2. How big of a problem this is depends on the volume of rentals. If just 2-2.5% of all DVC points are held for rentals, we're talking around 2 million points. If 5% of points are rented, that's 4 million points.

That's a lot of points potentially dumped on the resale market. In the short term, a drop in resale values seems unavoidable.

Some have suggested that rentals "cheapen" the value of DVC because they give non-owners a way to experience DVC accommodations without buying. I'm not so sure about that. Many renters don't have the resources or even the willingness to buy into DVC. Just because someone rents points once (or 2x, or 3x) doesn't mean they're willing to spend $20k and commit to 50 years of vacations.

Taking drastic action against renters could lead to an increased supply on the resale side, along with lower demand (people certainly won't be buying resales for rental purposes anymore.) Exactly what that does to prices--both short term and long term--is open to debate.

 

[Phatscott25]

We're talking about hard to get rooms here, right? So while possible they aren't getting waitlisted, I'd think we can both agree it's likely they are. It also doesn't have to be only locals to benefit. Example: I'm similar to the non-local you describe. I book at 11 months. Let's say I can't what I want at 11/7 months. My dates are set though so I book whatever I can and waitlist what I want. If the spec rental is released, my waitlist gets filled. I know it's not that simple but I'm sure you get where I'm going.

This is way off base. The high season rental by the spec renter isn't getting released until 2 months out. Which eliminates most who are not local.

I suspect you live by Flordia. Think about it this way if you were planning a trip to NYC for this year could you then change all your plans and dates 2 months out when you already locked in time off, airfare, transportation, maybe scooter rental, ect?

Very much leans local benefit.

I went ahead and added my full quote that you referenced here because as stated, I'm not local. I have to book my vacations far in advance. I also stated, "My dates are set though so I book whatever I can and waitlist what I want."

What I was getting at is: let's say I wanted that hard to get value/club but couldn't. We'll also say that it's because of a spec rental (which I actually doubt is the reason but we'll roll with that anyway). So instead I book standard or savanna view but waitlist club. The club spec rental doesn't sell for those dates and is released by the owner. It's then picked up by my waitlist and I get it. No date changes, just a room change. I know in reality it may not work out that perfectly but I'm sure (hopefully) you now understand what I was getting at.

 

[we"reofftoneverland]

@Sandisw hit the nail on the head again. Any "fix" that limits what an owner can do with their points will cause worse harm to all members than what we're seeing now.

Zero ability to enforce something like



No ability to do this as no such requirement in contract.



Incorrect it all has to be in the contract and then legal as well. Hence why they rolled back various point changes based on people like myself calling them and informing them what they are doing is incorrect.



It would hold up the no renting by a commercial entity. No if it holds up John with 200 points renting out some points every couple years who would know. Disney likely would only care about people with tons of rentals or the rental sites themselves.



With data analysis you are looking for an inflection point for filtering. Name changes 100% point to that being more likely. The account is just flagged and watched/reviewed if they are trying to crack down on it.

1 name change means nothing but changing it on 20 of the last 25 reservations is something more likely.



This is way off base. The high season rental by the spec renter isn't getting released until 2 months out. Which eliminates most who are not local.

I suspect you live by Flordia. Think about it this way if you were planning a trip to NYC for this year could you then change all your plans and dates 2 months out when you already locked in time off, airfare, transportation, maybe scooter rental, ect?

Very much leans local benefit.



I never agree with this. There is ZERO ability to causes more harm to everyone.

Just like people saying moving point charts around would harm everyone it's just not true.

Depending on the rule it will impact various people differently including plenty of people not at all.

Example if the rule was zero rentals (never going to happen) it might stop me from renting my points 1 time but it's also likely I get that sought after room 2-3 other times I wouldn't have since it wasnt pulled from inventory for the spec rental by software right at 11 months.

Deal with program creation at work and normally there is always ways to craft it. It would be no different here. Without all the DVC data all we can do though is guess what a rule could be.

Example changing the name on reservations 20 times per contract year wouldn't cause worse harm in the long run if the number of memberships doing this track to possible known rental company owners.

They could easily enforce renting to 1-2 times per year by restricting lead name on reservation as many people have discussed.

 

[we"reofftoneverland]

If they ever restrict personal renting, that'll cure any add-on-itis I have. One of the reasons I feel comfortable in adding more points is knowing that I can rent it out in the off chance that I can't use them. Don't forget that what we have now is what gives DVC its value. Restricting rentals sounds great on the surface and I'm sure other timeshares do it. But it's also why the value of a DVC timeshare is higher than the others.

You can rent other timeshares too. This has nothing to do with why the value of Disney is higher.

 

[we"reofftoneverland]

Could they even make significant changes without loosing a lawsuit?

Anyways sounds like one of these anti rental dis board members got hired.

It says in the contract that Disney can limit “commercial” rentals. That could be interpreted as any rental that generates profit.

 

[we"reofftoneverland]

If they enforce the no commercial rental clause I would expect downward pressure on resale point prices for some period of time.

At least until excess points are sold to owners wanting to use points for their own vacation

This is Disney’s goal. ultimately Disney wants to get rid of resale. If they wanted a vibrant resale market they wouldn’t have put in resale restrictions for Riviera, Disneyland Villas…..