DVC Club Level and Home Resort Survey

[Genie+]

I’m gonna take a stab at what Sandisw is saying.

The trust has a million points spread across the resorts. 100,000 of those points are at AKV. At the 11 months window, for deeded owners and 100,000 AKV points, a maximum of 1000 owners could try to book a 100 pt Concierge trip. (All numbers for simplicity sake).

So. However the pool of points is constructed, it cannot let 10,000 owners attempt to book that concierge room (the maximum amounts 1M/100 pt trip.)

If more than 1,000 trust owners are all up in the AKV booking window at 8am, 11months out, DVC has changed the POS for the trust members.

So the trust would have to figure out how to both limit the number of its members at AKV at 11 months AND allow them a mechanism to equally (but not at an advantage) compete for the always walked room.

Those two goals will work against each other.

All the other issues aside, wouldn’t they have to fully balanced their set of availability?

Let’s take a simple resort like BC with 1 room view. 3 room sizes and 7 seasons, around 3mil points total. Say the math works out that all the studios bookable on Jan 17th equal 2000pts. If DVCTrust collectively owns 5% of BCV, that day they should only be able to book 100pts of availability. Bank/borrow? How they’d handle that?

So going back to coveted CL AKV rooms, If the trust owns 5% of AKV then they really shouldn’t be able to exceed more than 5% access to any category on any given day.

 

[Pooh12863]

But a trust owner would still have the same rights as a deeded owner. They can only make a reservation at a resort the trust owns and the trust can only dole out reservations up to the limit of the amount of points the trust owns at that resort. So if the trust owns 50,000 points at RIV, once trust owners have made reservations worth 50,000 at RIV, they can't make anymore. At least not until 7 months when the Exchange Company kicks in. It is still no different than a single person owning points at multiple resorts. Or perhaps even an owner who has their points in a living trust. They can only reserve what their trust owns. The only difference here is that the trust is a land trust.

Currently, multiple people are making reservations at the same time at the same resort. I don't see how adding a layer of a trust changes anything. The trust owns points and would have the right to make reservations using those points. New points aren't being added to the system.

Many timeshare systems created a trust based products after the bulk of their resorts were sold out. Early in those systems, only resorts where the trust owned a lot of inventory had easy availablity for trust owners. However, over time, the trust would slowly acquire inventory at those sold out resorts. ROFR and foreclosures being the driving forces behind that.

It doesn't seem those deeded rights are currently transferable.

"Pursuant to the provisions of the DVC Resort Documents for each DVC Resort, the sale, lease,
and transfer of Ownership Interests are subject to restrictions and controls. For example, no Club
Member may directly rent, exchange, or otherwise use his or her Ownership Interest without making a
prior reservation of an available Vacation Home at a DVC Resort on a first come, first served basis.
Club Members should refer to the component site public offering statement for their Home Resort for
details and additional restrictions and controls."

 

[SpaceMountain77]

The overwhelming majority of DVC resorts are at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. Globally, DVC has a domestic presence in four states. In February 2042, I would be surprised if the presence remains in four states and five locations. It is difficult to compare DVC to other systems as the within-system options are extremely limited and heavily concentrated. We know that as a land lease condominium association, we are prepaying for future vacations. Now, is it more important for most to know that they can visit Walt Disney World annually or can visit annually AND stay at their preferred resort? Personally, I would have never purchased a membership without a home resort advantage because I would rather stay at Port Orleans French Quarter than some of the DVC resorts.

 

[Sandisw]

All the other issues aside, wouldn’t they have to fully balanced their set of availability?

Let’s take a simple resort like BC with 1 room view. 3 room sizes and 7 seasons, around 3mil points total. Say the math works out that all the studios bookable on Jan 17th equal 2000pts. If DVCTrust collectively owns 5% of BCV, that day they should only be able to book 100pts of availability. Bank/borrow? How they’d handle that?

So going back to coveted CL AKV rooms, If the trust owns 5% of AKV then they really shouldn’t be able to exceed more than 5% access to any category on any given day.

All deeded owners have access to 100% of the rooms on any given use day and points put into a trust would be given the same right.

It’s like any of us…if I own 300 points at SSR, when I log in at 11 months, I have access to all rooms in every category, not just a certain %.


The issue that I mentioned earlier is what I think is the problem is in relation to how booking gets set up in a trust situation which has now many members who would all be given access to book rooms with the same set of points at the same time.

How would that be any different than me asking DVC to set up accounts for all my family and friends so they can log on and use my points at the same time I do to book rooms?

Right now, I don’t have the ability to do that when booking and the POS does say DVD must follow the same rules for reservations as all other owners.

Yes, they can have a larger membership, can rent lots of rooms in the commercial sense and even don’t have to have resale rules apply when they take back restricted resorts,,,but for booking, it has to be the same.

That is why I am not convinced that this can just be done within what currently exists.

Again, there are non specific timeshare programs out there that work as described and DVD could move that way with future resorts…and it could be the plan come 2042 and beyond.

 

[mort1331]

And on top of what the trust owns Disney would still need to own at least 2% of their own seperate points.

 

[Genie+]

All deeded owners have access to 100% of the rooms on any given use day and points put into a trust would be given the same right.

It’s like any of us…if I own 300 points at SSR, when I log in at 11 months, I have access to all rooms in every category, not just a certain %.


The issue that I mentioned earlier is what I think is the problem is in relation to how booking gets set up in a trust situation which has now many members who would all be given access to book rooms with the same set of points at the same time.

How would that be any different than me asking DVC to set up accounts for all my family and friends so they can log on and use my points at the same time I do to book rooms?

Right now, I don’t have the ability to do that when booking and the POS does say DVD must follow the same rules for reservations as all other owners.

Yes, they can have a larger membership, can rent lots of rooms in the commercial sense and even don’t have to have resale rules apply when they take back restricted resorts,,,but for booking, it has to be the same.

That is why I am not convinced that this can just be done within what currently exists.

Again, there are non specific timeshare programs out there that work as described and DVD could move that way with future resorts…and it could be the plan come 2042 and beyond.

But wouldn’t they need to do something like that to make the trust work for themselves.

They’d have to balance it out somehow. If everybody takes the best most popular picks asap, pretty quickly other people will be left in the dust. Something would have to be within their system of point usage to protect it..

ETA- maybe they do that by having points valued differently than regular point charts. The regular point charts are used for the trust trading in of course, but the owners within the trust have a different point system so getting BC home priority costs more than something else with higher availability. Example: on the actual DVC point chart, May 11 is 16pts BC and SSR is 15pts or 17pts preferred. The trust adds a premium to the BC home priority ‘rental’ though.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

And why I can see DVC moving that way in 2042...what better way to turn all those resorts into a non specific timeshare plan and just sell RTU access to all the resorts...DVD will own them, and can repackage them nicely, until the renovate and change them.

I can definitely see them expanding the program with OKW especially. I do think that the language they put in the RIV POS about restrictions and options they have down the road was also set up for an exchange type system like this. Resale RIV points are good only at RIV, but owners will be allowed to exchange them for DVC owned points at 7 months for a fee for the other resorts....

You really think they’re surveying now for a plan they are thinking about rolling out in 18 years?

 

[zavandor]

You really think they’re surveying now for a plan they are thinking about rolling out in 18 years?

I don't know if there is a plan. Many other systems have done it and it makes sense from their point of view to explore the idea. I hope it never happens, I cannot see what we could gain.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

I don't know if there is a plan. Many other systems have done it and it makes sense from their point of view to explore the idea. I hope it never happens, I cannot see what we could gain.

People who are interested in purchasing more points on the resale market would have a lot to gain. People who own direct wouldn’t really lose anything except your points would not longer be as “exclusive” vs people buying on the resale market, since trust points would necessarily be able to book at the newer restricted resorts. It also would likely “fix” some of the anticipated problems that come with aging restricted resorts as more and more of the points at that resort become resale-restricted and potentially cause availability problems.

 

[zavandor]

People who are interested in purchasing more points on the resale market would have a lot to gain. People who own direct wouldn’t really lose anything except your points would not longer be as “exclusive” vs people buying on the resale market, since trust points would necessarily be able to book at the newer restricted resorts. It also would likely “fix” some of the anticipated problems that come with aging restricted resorts as more and more of the points at that resort become resale-restricted and potentially cause availability problems.

My perspective is from a grandfathered owner who will never be in the market for more points (I have too many already). If, as someone suggested, they do a 9 months window for Trust bookings, it makes my SAP points completely useless at 7 months.
What you list are reasons for DVC to do it, I agree it makes sense for them. Not for me.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

If, as someone suggested, they do a 9 months window for Trust bookings, it makes my SAP points completely useless at 7 months.

It does not, because this is a misunderstanding of how trust points would work. They can’t change the rules of the existing exchange to give a priority to trust points that aren’t shared by all points. Trust points would still only have home resort priority for those points the trust actually owns. They could further limit it to 9 months instead of 11 months, sure, but the trust would still never be able to book more rooms at 9 months than are represented by points it has home resort priority for. On net, it would not affect availability at 7 months.

 

[zavandor]

It does not, because this is a misunderstanding of how trust points would work. They can’t change the rules of the existing exchange to give a priority to trust points that aren’t shared by all points. Trust points would still only have home resort priority for those points the trust actually owns. They could further limit it to 9 months instead of 11 months, sure, but the trust would still never be able to book more rooms at 9 months than are represented by points it has home resort priority for. On net, it would not affect availability at 7 months.

Since the trust will have a lot of points from resorts that are always available at 7 months, owners will be motivated to book the few rooms available for the trust owners as soon as reservations open. There will be 0% availability at 7 months coming from points from the trust.
In other systems, they have allowed to qualify or migrate existing points to the trust. Owners who want to book other resorts will do it, leaving only owners who want to only book their own resort in the legacy system, hence no room will remain at 7 months.

Of course this is true if it's allowed to have both systems at the same time at existing resorts. I understand the reservations of people who think with the current POS it might not be possible.

 

[Sandisw]

You really think they’re surveying now for a plan they are thinking about rolling out in 18 years?

Sure do. My DD is in marketing and 9 years ago did a professional internship with Parks and Resorts.

They definitely gather data on things that aren’t even a concept being discussed for the near future. They are all the what ifs and maybes. Things she mentioned back then are still not programs in play today.

ETA: It is possible that they start this for newer resorts before 2042, but it would not surprise me that the purpose is to get ideas for the future and not mess with current resorts.

 

[Sandisw]

But wouldn’t they need to do something like that to make the trust work for themselves.

They’d have to balance it out somehow. If everybody takes the best most popular picks asap, pretty quickly other people will be left in the dust. Something would have to be within their system of point usage to protect it..

ETA- maybe they do that by having points valued differently than regular point charts. The regular point charts are used for the trust trading in of course, but the owners within the trust have a different point system so getting BC home priority costs more than something else with higher availability. Example: on the actual DVC point chart, May 11 is 16pts BC and SSR is 15pts or 17pts preferred. The trust adds a premium to the BC home priority ‘rental’ though.

All of what you say is why I believe this type of timeshare system can’t play nice with the way the current system was set up to operate.

There can not be a different home resort points chart. It has to balance against points declared.

It doesn’t matter who the guest is but the rooms and booking itself. Only matter who owns the points

As I have said, there are systems that are non specific timeshare plans in which there is no component site people are deeded to and are set up to operate this way.

And nothing to stop DVD from changing it for future resorts. Just don’t think this is something they are going to try to do wi to current resorts and the structure of them.

 

[Brian Noble]

, I cannot see what we could gain.

Any change would not be motivated by a desire to help existing Members. It would be done because DVD believed it helped them sell more points and/or points at a higher price. It might end up helping existing Members but that would be incidental.

 

[crisi]

Any change would not be motivated by a desire to help existing Members. It would be done because DVD believed it helped them sell more points and/or points at a higher price. It might end up helping existing Members but that would be incidental.

And I suspect most people buying into the trust would end up disappointed by availability, since it doesn't do anything to alleviate the "there are some resorts and some rooms that just disappear fast." So people would pay more to be in the trust, and discover it still doesn't get them their high demand room - but it might get them access to a "disappears at seven months" resort.

Personally, I don't want a trust, nor do I want more concierge rooms. I wouldn't use concierge rooms, and we really bought where we want to stay. As to concierge rooms, the more room types there are, the more availability gets chopped up into pieces as the resort books, making it hard to string a reservation together. But Disney is probably going to do it, because they can sell "trust points" for more money than regular points and because they think they'll be able to get around the "there can't be more points at a resort" restriction by turning some rooms into concierge and selling additional points to cover the "upcharge."

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

and because they think they'll be able to get around the "there can't be more points at a resort" restriction by turning some rooms into concierge and selling additional points to cover the "upcharge."

No, they can't do this for existing, already declared, resorts.

 

[Sandisw]

No, they can't do this for existing, already declared, resorts.

They just have to do what they did with BPK....take hotel rooms and add them as new inventory to the DVC condo association and you know have CL rooms available at the resorts...once rooms are added, it would give them the ability to sell more points.

Its what happened with VGF...they took the BPK rooms, renovated them, and added 2 million points of inventory to the condo association.

 

[NY Pirate Princess]

This system would really be a way for Disney to package undesirable resorts into package and sell it as getting access to something else. Makes me think of what causes the financial crisis when crappy mortgages where bundles together and then magically were supposed to be great.

This concept led me to think about the perfect storm heading Disney's way. I now believe DVD is going to pursue every way possible to sell undesirable resorts, ease the dues burden of HH and VB making the units unsustainable, and enable the company to sell new properties inside a bad economic situation.

As we always say with massive change at WDW, new users don't know what the old system was like so they don't hate the new system.

Couldn't a trust give access to resorts at 6 months instead of 11 or 7? Guests might sign up for it while booking a trip instead of getting a cash room. For just 39.99 more a night you can stay at RIV instead of CBR! Of course they will end up next to me at OKW....

 

[Sandisw]

This concept led me to think about the perfect storm heading Disney's way. I now believe DVD is going to pursue every way possible to sell undesirable resorts, ease the dues burden of HH and VB making the units unsustainable, and enable the company to sell new properties inside a bad economic situation.

As we always say with massive change at WDW, new users don't know what the old system was like so they don't hate the new system.

Couldn't a trust give access to resorts at 6 months instead of 11 or 7? Guests might sign up for it while booking a trip instead of getting a cash room. For just 39.99 more a night you can stay at RIV instead of CBR! Of course they will end up next to me at OKW....

Any points owned by the trust for each resort would automatically have the same booking rights as every other owner because those rules are set by the conteact.

Home resort rules must be the same. Now, I guess technically, DVD could decide to hold their points back and not offer them until later, but it would be a choice not a requirement.

No different than owners who choose not to book until 5 months even when they can book as early as 11 months out.

However, DVD can already achieve that and that is they simply offer discounts on DVC villas for the cash guest. No need to make a complicated system.

Another way is they could simply expand the OTU points program for owners to have access to their points…just raise the limit beyond 24 per UY.

Think of it…For $99/yesr, you can now have access to as many OTU points as you want each year to book that extra trip. Those in the program are only charged $15/pt.

So many things DVD can do to enhance an exchange program that would play well within the current set up.