DVC Club Level and Home Resort Survey

[Genie+]

Definitely all speculation at this point. I can certainly understand why you, and likely many others, may feel this way. I'll offer a different thought and perspective. Perhaps DVC has listened to its members on topics like resale restrictions, commercial renting becoming a problem, walking reservations, etc., and sees an opportunity to remedy some of these issues while shifting gears away from a resort-specific sales platform to this new Trust (assuming what is being discussed here is close to accurate) which potentially offers more use flexibility.

Just saying that maybe DVC isn't trying to be devious or playing games.

I’m trying to stay positive and think about how they would need to make this attractive and keep all of DVC attractive.

I wouldn’t begrudge them for trying to cut out middlemen on their own product either, as long as it doesn’t come at a cost to existing members. Like if they created a way to flip resale, kept the commission as their incentive and not really affect much else? Fine.

 

[BeachClub2014]

Yeah, I think the reality of whatever this is might be considerably different than what we fear, and I don’t think DVC is going to suddenly undermine their zillions of existing owners. That said, I do feel like the lack of restrictions on Poly2 does diminish a bit the value of direct points, where some buyers were lead to believe that owning them would be the only way to book new resorts, so I’m not sure I completely trust them either.

What if the new Poly Tower ends up being in the new Trust? That move would be consistent with what was said at the meeting last week. So, not a new association, part of the existing resort, but the points are in the Trust.

 

[Genie+]

Next poll: Do you trust the Trust?

 

[BeachClub2014]

Next poll: Do you trust the Trust?

I'm a big fan of "trust, but verify": believe nothing until you see it in writing from the source.

 

[Jwaire]

I'll also add that I'm not going to get too excited about any of this, positively or negatively, until we actually see something in writing about the Trust from DVC.

Some people sit around to be told what's happening, and other's try to prevent DVC from doing more anti-member things. It's hard to have input after something has been announced.

There are some smart people on this board that should be commended for putting up a big enough fuss and even getting lawyers involved with regard to point reallocations and point chart errors as recently as a few years ago. We all benefited.

Too bad there wasn't enough fuss back in 2016 to prevent the blue/white card system from being established or in 2019 to prevent the restrictions in the first place.

DVC has historically not always been on the side of its membership.

 

[BeachClub2014]

Some people sit around to be told what's happening, and other's try to prevent DVC from doing more anti-member things. It's hard to have input after something has been announced.

There are some smart people on this board that should be commended for putting up a big enough fuss and even getting lawyers involved with regard to point reallocations and point chart errors as recently as a few year ago. We all benefited.

Too bad there wasn't enough fuss back in 2016 to prevent the blue/white card system from being established or in 2019 to prevent the restrictions in the first place.

DVC has historically not always been on the side of its membership.

Oh, I get that. I am not so naive as to believe that the Walt Disney Corporation is looking after my best interest or is on my side. I am clear on that. I am just saying that speculating, debating, and reading other's thoughts and opinions is fun and entertaining, but I'm also not going to get too excited about something that hasn't happened.

Interestingly enough, in the examples you give above, which are awesome, it wasn't until DVC actually did something that the pushback worked, right? That's kinda my point.

 

[DougEMG]

Please elaborate on why you think it would be a “HUGE mistake to convert”?

It would mean the loss of a sense of personal ownership? Worse 7-11 month experience? Loss of overall value?

Image the trust has the following composition of resorts in it.

99% Aluani or 990,000 points
1% BCV or 10,000 points

When all the BCV points are used to book rooms, then everyone will be waiting till the 7 month booking window to use the Aluani points to try and book something at WDW.

Owners of the trust will all be competing with each other at 11 months to get rooms at the most desirable resorts and those are going to be the resorts where the trust owns the least number of points.

A trust like this is nothing more than a way to package unsellable products and pretend they are something else.

 

[DougEMG]

View attachment 816655
No but actually this is me right now.

Now I might be missing somethings, and I’ll tell you what, I’m definitely missing a lot of things, but this sounds like an actual dumpster fire idea for anyone but Disney, right? What am I missing?

Here’s a few off the cuff questions of the 100 or so zooming around my brain right now: Aside from what seems like will be a really stressful 11mo “advantage” at all resorts that are included in the trust, is there any true benefit for buyers? Will the price per point be very low to begin or similar to what it is currently? Do the point charts remain or can they make their own point charts? Do you think, along with the creation of this trust and the resorts that will go into it, they’ll also build resorts that will allow us to purchase deeded interests as we do now? Or once something like this goes live, there’s no going back to the current way of DVC purchases? Why do this at all?

If you can answer any of these, please explain it to me like I’m 5 years old TIA

One way to think of this is that Disney suddenly becomes the biggest renter of points ever. Trust members are paying for the privilege of renting points from Disney at a MF+ level, but lower than current private rental rates.

 

[Genie+]

Interestingly enough, in the examples you give above, which are awesome, it wasn't until DVC actually did something that the pushback worked, right? That's kinda my point.

Not really though, because when DVC doesn’t do something there is no way to know if and when pushback was the reason it didn’t happen.

We see when pushback after the fact works but how are we to see when pushback proactively worked.

 

[BeachClub2014]

Not really though, because when DVC doesn’t do something there is no way to know if and when pushback was the reason it didn’t happen.

We see when pushback after the fact works but how are we to see when pushback proactively worked.

I suppose by celebrating that what you were proactively pushing back on didn't happen.

My point remains that I'm not going to get too upset or excited about the Trust based on what we've actually seen from DVC, which is nothing other than a paperwork filing.

 

[Jimsboy]

I’m a member of a vacation club that does not have maintenance fees or club dues and you don’t not own a deed. I bought into the club for a large sum of money. There are several levels of membership which correspond to the room type. The higher the level of membership the nicer the rooms and the higher the cost of the membership. With the initial buy in you are given a certain number of free weeks and also paid weeks. With the free weeks you can vacation at any resort any time—except Christmas to New Year—up to the level of accommodation you purchased. Paid weeks can be used at any time and you are given a discount off the normal cost of the room. In high demand seasons the discount is low (25%) and in low demand season the discount is high(65%).
The nice part of this system is there are no maintenance fees. I can vacation as much or as little as I want. I don’t have annual dues and I only pay when I vacation. Biggest negative is it’s not deeded property.
Disney could do something similar where there are certain levels of resorts. You could buy into SS and OKW or pay more and be part of the monorail group or pay the most and have access everywhere.

For sure whatever they decide to do will be to intentionally benefit themselves but that doesn’t mean that DVC members will not benefit as well. In my opinion if they make changes that help the owners it will only spur increased sales.

 

[JackosinDIS]

One way to think of this is that Disney suddenly becomes the biggest renter of points ever. Trust members are paying for the privilege of renting points from Disney at a MF+ level, but lower than current private rental rates.

This is a good way to think of it… but with the extra angle that this particular renter also has thousands of rentees simultaneously trying to get the BCV studio… improving the odds massively in favour of ONE of the rentees getting that room as opposed to a single deeded owner!

 

[PinkPixel]

late to conversation, but is this speculating the new dvc Poly tower will have a club level? I would be interested in club level suites with TPV!

 

[Sandisw]

Interesting. It’s not much different than RIV and VDH restrictions today - the direct owner gets all access and their resale buyer is denied access to the BVTC system. Direct Trust owners get all access and their resale buyers is denied access into the multi-home priority system.

Exactly…just like all of us, we are legally entitled to what the POS says within the legal rules of timeshare law…so, I am just not finding anything that would prevent DVD to set up the trust POS with whatever rules they want as long as it doesn't violate any law, or any part of the current program.

And, to me, if they are considering moving this way, my guess is that it is because they think they can sell a non specific timeshare plan better than they can deeded ones moving forward....no matter what they do, I really believe they will set it up that makes it extremely advantageous to buy from them then on the resale market.

 

[Sandisw]

late to conversation, but is this speculating the new dvc Poly tower will have a club level? I would be interested in club level suites with TPV!

I think the survey quesiton about more access to CL is for DVD to have an idea if it would be worth it to consider at more resorts. And, since Poly tower has not yet been finished and no details have been released, they could add a CL lounge as a limited common element and make some rooms eligible for CL services.

 

[Genie+]

Poly2 CL intrigues me but is offset by the idea of a trust diluting access. How could it work better than AKV where resort specific owners already have a challenge. I’m interested to see what they announce. If big changes are coming I’m expecting something tweaked in the existing system too. Need to weigh them altogether.

 

[tidefan]

Poly2 CL intrigues me but is offset by the idea of a trust diluting access. How could it work better than AKV where resort specific owners already have a challenge. I’m interested to see what they announce. If big changes are coming I’m expecting something tweaked in the existing system too. Need to weigh them altogether.

As a Poly1 owner, I would be against a CL in Poly2 if it is the same association as we would never use it and would not want to have to pay extra dues to support it.

 

[Brian Noble]

I'm not sure why everyone is wrapped around the axle about this.

If it were structured the way it is at all of the other timeshares that do this, the trust is a product that is an overlay on individual resort ownership. As points are conveyed to the trust, the trust has "home resort" rights to exactly (and only) the points that have been conveyed. So, (ignoring UY for a minute) if 1,000 BCV points have been conveyed to the trust, and 10,000 SSR points have been conveyed, the trust can sell 11,000 points. Let's say they sell 100 points per person to 110 people. But those 110 owners can only collectively book 1,000 points worth of BCV in the home resort period each year, and up to 10,000 points total worth of SSR in the home period in that same year.

From the point of view of the current reservation system, the trust just looks like a bunch of people who own a bunch of points, just like any other owners who own points. All 110 people might try to reserve 100 points worth of BCV in October, but only ten of them will be successful. That might give them a teeny tiny advantage at the 11-month mark due to additional concurrency, but it's very much at the margins.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

Interesting. It’s not much different than RIV and VDH restrictions today - the direct owner gets all access and their resale buyer is denied access to the BVTC system. Direct Trust owners get all access and their resale buyers is denied access into the multi-home priority system.

I don’t think they could do that, legally. The only “restrictions” I could see them having the ability to put on the trust points to punish resale purchasers would be to add significant junk fees like Marriott does. If they do that, I think that’s not a huge deal, it’ll lower the resale value accordingly and direct more money to DVC, so it’s win win for DVC, since they either collect junk fees, or get to cheaply ROFR the resale contract.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

That's how other systems work. For example, for Wyndham, I would book a single reservation with some number of consecutive nights at a specific resort, and turn those over to Wyndham to rent. They rent all, some, or none of those nights, and pay a percentage of the take for the night(s) that rent. Once even one of the nights are rented, the reservation cannot be pulled back, even if some nights never rent. And, I think there is a minimum number of nights you have to turn over.

It's a pretty bad deal for the owner, TBH.

Of course Disney would then be competing with itself. It’s not like you can book Bonnet Creek directly through the developer like you can a Disney hotel. You can rent it through extra holidays, yes, but extra holidays isn’t competing with T&L cash prices. But yeah, I agree, they could do this.