What's happening? No DVC Resort availability December and January

Wish they would do that now. It is an “artificial fee” with NO basis in their actual expenses. If they would waive it Disney would make MORE money, by having more of the EXPENSIVE DVC villas to rent out, and WE would get a bit of relief from the oppressive 3 to 7 month booking scarcity. Sounds like a Win-Win. Are you listening, Disney.

The trade to RCI doesn't let them rent out units, though. It creates units that go to RCI.
 
This is a great point. Which makes me wonder why, given how this is universally accepted as a poor use of points and no real benefit to direct buyers, Disney doesn't allow resale buyers to use points on DCL, ABD, Concierge Collection? Then they would open up the pool of people they could take advantage of. An unintended benefit for owners would be that there may be decreased stress on the system for 7-month bookings. It would be a win/win/kinda-win. The "kinda-win" being the owner who now has the option to leave money on the table.

If people use points for Disney Collection, those points go to DVC to rent DVC rooms for cash. Wouldn't open up more points rooms.
 
If people use points for Disney Collection, those points go to DVC to rent DVC rooms for cash. Wouldn't open up more points rooms.
Doh! OK, so how does DVD determine what gets taken out of the system? Say I have 400 points at CCV and I decide to go into the Disney Collection with 400 points. How does that translate to rooms being held by DVD that goes to CRO? Do they immediately take 400 points worth of cabins? Studios? And how does that play into their 60 day cash offering window?
 


This is a great point. Which makes me wonder why, given how this is universally accepted as a poor use of points and no real benefit to direct buyers, Disney doesn't allow resale buyers to use points on DCL, ABD, Concierge Collection? Then they would open up the pool of people they could take advantage of. An unintended benefit for owners would be that there may be decreased stress on the system for 7-month bookings. It would be a win/win/kinda-win. The "kinda-win" being the owner who now has the option to leave money on the table.
It is a VERY great point; wish I could give it 10 likes! : )
 
Doh! OK, so how does DVD determine what gets taken out of the system? Say I have 400 points at CCV and I decide to go into the Disney Collection with 400 points. How does that translate to rooms being held by DVD that goes to CRO? Do they immediately take 400 points worth of cabins? Studios? And how does that play into their 60 day cash offering window?

The 60 day cash offering ("breakage") only applies if there are still empty villas at 2 months out. If there are, Disney can rent the villas and part of the rental charge is used to offset dues.

No one knows exactly how the sausage gets made with rooms given to CRO to pay for trades out of the system but some of it is discussed in this thread:

https://www.disboards.com/threads/how-dvc-works-internally.3060719/

(Dean's post at #16 in particular.)

I'm sure that they have a fair amount of flexibility in pulling villa inventory that can be rented for cash to pay the Disney Cruise or Resorts division for the trade.

In any event, using points for a cruise still means that points inventory is still taken away and cannot be traded for points a second time. In short, that isn't going to help open up points rooms for trading at 3, or even 7, months out.
 
Last edited:
I don't really think it's "universally known" that using points for DCL/concierge/etc is a poor use of points. Even users here admit they know it's a poor value but still do it anyway.

I have to imagine that enough users use points outside of DVC that they think it's enough of a perk to make available to "direct" owners. One of the direct selling points is that you can use DVC to vacation anywhere. I bet there are more people than not that do not know it's a good value, or simply don't care because it's convenient.
 


When you look at the last minute getaways 60 Days out on the member website. they are usually villas at Aulani. That's a lot of points not being used. So there are your last minute reservations. And not many people want those because they take a lot to get there or take more planning than the people want. Or there isn't any theme park there.
 
I think the utility of point trades for cruising varies.

You just bought Poly or CCV direct? ROI on that trade sucks.

You bought in 1995? Different economic basis.
 
There isn't anything left to book because DVC took inventory to sell for cash to pay for those trips. Give it MINUS 10 Likes.
But we don't know how DVD executes that trade. Do the points get pooled for each resort and then villas get pulled to match the number of points traded out by owners from that resort? Does DVD immediately pull a villa from inventory when the trade occurs or does DVD look at all resorts and take whatever has not been booked by a certain date and choose from all of those villas until all points that have been traded out from all resorts have been satisfied with no regard for the home resort that those points represent?

I know that villas get taken at 60 days out to satisfy breakage points. Are traded points treated in a similar manner? If so, then when members trade out for cruises and the Disney Collection it leaves rooms in inventory well into the 7-month period. That would give other members a better chance of switching to non-home resorts at 7 months because an owner and their points would have been removed from competition but a villa would remain in inventory for a few months before DVD pulls it to give to CRO for a cash reservation.
 
I think the utility of point trades for cruising varies.

You just bought Poly or CCV direct? ROI on that trade sucks.

You bought in 1995? Different economic basis.

Still, it’s lessening your ROI no matter when you bought if you could rent fewer points and pay cash vs turn over more points directly for the trade.
 
I think the utility of point trades for cruising varies.

You just bought Poly or CCV direct? ROI on that trade sucks.

You bought in 1995? Different economic basis.
Is it though? The only way to arrive at a significant value difference is to assign a value based on the buy in cost. The question then becomes, how do you calculate that value? Should inflation and the time value of money play into that? Should all the ADs paid over the past 23 years factor into that calculation? It gets muddy and dovetails into the whole "if you're holding onto your points today, you're saying you value them at today's prices" debate.

If instead you look at the present value of those points, once you're in the system, your point is worth the same as anyone’s on a trade out. Or if considering an alternative transaction, one attempt to assign value is to figure out what one can secure in place of points. If it's the value of an equivalent hotel room (what people will often use to do "break-even" calculations), 2018 OKW is the same as 1995 OKW. If it's what you can rent it for (another measure people use to determine "break-even" calculations), 2018 OKW is again the same as 1995 OKW.

The latter is my measure of choice for value-equivalence. And by that measure, it doesn't matter when you bought in. Trading out for a cruise/ABD is leaving a lot of money on the table.
 
But we don't know how DVD executes that trade. Do the points get pooled for each resort and then villas get pulled to match the number of points traded out by owners from that resort? Does DVD immediately pull a villa from inventory when the trade occurs or does DVD look at all resorts and take whatever has not been booked by a certain date and choose from all of those villas until all points that have been traded out from all resorts have been satisfied with no regard for the home resort that those points represent?

I know that villas get taken at 60 days out to satisfy breakage points. Are traded points treated in a similar manner? If so, then when members trade out for cruises and the Disney Collection it leaves rooms in inventory well into the 7-month period.

we don't know exactly what goes on behind the curtain, but we have some ideas, though. Traded points are not treated in a similar manner as breakage.

https://disboards.com/threads/cash-availability-but-no-dvc-availability.3572183/page-3

tjkraz said:
...We do know that Disney pulls this inventory before the 11 month window. CRO does not just get the leftovers after members have had weeks or months to book.

In the past, random searches of Disney's online booking system suggest that it's a pretty fair representation of all DVC resorts, room types and dates. I would propose that if they were targeting specific dates and accommodations which would maximize return, a SSR 2B in February wouldn't be on the list. (I doubt SSR has much demand at all among cash guests.)

Do some searches for cash DVC rooms for fun. I found a BLT studio available starting April 19, 2019 (i.e. more than 7 months out) on Expedia just checking things at random...

If you look at the description of the DVC-Member Services forum, it suggests that it is the correct place for questions like "Why is there cash availability but not points availability?" I would suggest that it would be a less common question if DVC limited themselves to leftover inventory on short notice.
 
I have a theory.
I'm going to the airport right now and checking in this afternoon at VGF. After 4 nights I'll check in at BCV for 4 nights, one of which is a MM night.
Both resorts weren't available at 7 months, so I waitlisted and was shocked that both waitlists matched a couple of months later, the same day.
Sure, it's September, but what are the chances of two such difficult reservations to come through the same day because of an owner cancelling?
I believe DVC takes rooms out of inventory for points exchanged before the 7 months window opens and then if they cannot book them through CRO they release them later. This would explain also the recent appearance of many rooms at AKL all at the same time.
 
As to what DVC/DVD can do or does with points that it owns or points it controls as a result of a trade-out, one needs to first understand the rules that apply. There are essentially two rules. One is what the official documents say. They say that DVC/DVD can make reservations only under the same rules applicable to all owners. At first glance, one may think that is a favorable rule for DVC members, e.g., DVCMC (the one that controls points traded out) or DVD (the one that retains ownership a certain percentage of the points), can only use points to make reservations beginning 11 months out for resorts to which the points belong or 7 months out for others, and they follow the first come first served rule.

However, that "same as owner" rule means DVC/DVD gets to act just like owners and reserve a room for a specific time as an owner -- and then rent it later. In other words, looking only at the reservation rules, DVC/DVD could, if it wanted to, use many of its VGF points it has to reserve VGF studios for all the holidays and race weekends at 11 months out and then later rent those reservations. Moreover, it gets to bank the points if they can be banked into the next year, and thus points that come to it before the last four months of a use year can be banked and used for an 11 month reservation in the next use year.

The rule that prevents that is legal. DVC/DVD stands in a fiduciary relationship with the members as a whole and as a fiduciary it is required to act in the best interests of the members as a whole. That rule limits its ability to do predatory reserving by seizing control of a significant number of reservations for highly demanded rooms for high demand times, but it still leaves DVC/DVD a lot of leeway in what it can get away with.

Like others, I do not know specifically know what policies DVD/DVC actually follows for rentals of DVC rooms. My sense is that it generally follows a process that cannot be considered predatory reserving. A business factor that likely goes into the process chosen is the probability of being able to rent the points at the best possible price, which might lean toward not reserving rooms before rooms are actually rented to others, particularly if they can banked if no rental occurs. Another business factor is that it may not be a good choice to hold up rooms for a number of the high demand times for DVC, like first two weeks of December, which may not be high demand times for non-DVC owners who will be renting through CRO.
 
Last edited:
This is the first year that UK residents cannot book OKW and SSR more than 11 months out. Until last year the UK website used to open in April reservations for all the following year (so up to 20 months in advance) offering a discount (usually 25%) and free dining.
Starting this year it's possible to book only 11 months out.
What was happening until last year? CRO used to pre-book rooms and then reserving at 11 months using their points knowing exactly what and when to book? If so, it was quite questionable as a practice. And probably someone questioned it.
 
IDK, I feel what many are saying but you really can’t have it both ways. How can you realistically expect to be able book at a non-home resort at 7 months but still want to easily rent your points via broker (getting top dollar for 11 month availability at prime resorts)?

BWYWTS (acronym buy where etc.) is still good advice but even that doesn’t guarantee you a room at the inn. Members and commerical renters are obviously more savvy.

Things changed when SSR entered the market at the 7 month point, it’s gotten progressively more challenging since IMO.

Actually, I think It is a legitimate question. In my opinion, when EVERYONE is needing to plan 7 months in advance, then the system is too tight. People pay a LOT of money for DVC and should really have a little more flexibility in how they can use it. Disney is not honest in their presentations, they don’t fill their commitments well, and we let them get away with it..

I book studios to stretch my points. Forget 7 month concerns, at 11 month window for AKV-J value & BWV-value (especially F&W), it isn’t uncommon to be shut out...ergo the walking phenom.

I’m only half joking when I say we added on to existing AKV to employ that strategy. Hmm maybe that’s why DVC doesn’t shut down the walking

I’m not defending the rental brokers. But what you are actually saying is that we should get rid of the rental Brokers so that a lot of people have to just let their points expire because they can’t use them and they can’t get any value from renting them. That way those rooms will be available for the rest of us. Personally I don’t feel that is fair to them.

Now it is true that with the rise of the rental Brokers, Reservations are probably busier now than they had been in the past, because less points are going to waste, and Disney has not adjusted the availability to account for this. And they are probably STILL not taking it into account for future resorts.

Things sure seem busier, SSR used to be consistently available late in the game.

We were able to book SSR pref studio rather last minute (august) the week after thanksgiving Had to waitlist a day or two, but it populated quickly.

Resale prices are rising, might be the time for many to get out of the market if they aren’t satisfied.
 
Things changed when SSR entered the market at the 7 month point, it’s gotten progressively more challenging since IMO.
Absolutely. It’s a consistent strategy now to buy SSR with the expressed intention of never planning to stay there. Those SSR points end up at BCV, BWV, VGF, etc. at off peak times.

With an increasing number of resale buyers deploying that tactic en masse, and another large contingency paying top non-economically driven prices for BCV, and BWV especially, with the intention of actually staying there, you can guess how much harder those places will be to get into year round. That’s already happening with BCV (hence the $135/pt for a 2042 resort).
 

GET A DISNEY VACATION QUOTE

Dreams Unlimited Travel is committed to providing you with the very best vacation planning experience possible. Our Vacation Planners are experts and will share their honest advice to help you have a magical vacation.

Let us help you with your next Disney Vacation!




Latest posts






Top