I wonder if they could just change it by allowing you to book unlimited number of days and not allow you to remove days from the reservation until 12 hours after the 11 month window passed your full booking?
Example:
- Book 9/1 to 9/12 all at the 11 month window for 9/1 - 8AM
- You can add additional rooms to the start or the end of your vacation
- At the 11 month window for 9/13 +12 hours (so 8PM) you can modify to remove days not needed
- If you modified as an example to add 9/13 then your +12 hours would now be from the 11 month window for 9/14 (one day after your reservation ends still)
- You could however cancel the full reservation at anytime
This would return what I see as the reason for the rules that are in place. Also if for instance you really needed to add a day and remove a day the requirement would be to borrow points then, to cancel the full reservation to try again, or run the risk of waiting for the 11 month 8am window to pass.
I find this all interesting more so than seeing an issue as I don't really have experience with it to everyone else's level.
What you suggest would favor heavily those who own a high number of points over those with a lower number of points, while the current system actually treats low and high point ownership equally.
Assume, for example, someone has enough points to book a standard BWV studio for 3 nights and wants 3 nights and someone else has enough to book 7 nights but wants 5. Under your suggested system, if both wanted an Oct 1, 2020 start date, the one with enough points to book three nights could not successfully walk at all and would need to do the reservation on Nov 1, 2019, 11 months out. The one with enough points to do 7 nights and wanted 5, could book Sep 29 to Oct 6, 2020 on Oct 29, 2019 and then "walk" simply by dropping the first two nights on Nov 6 at 8 p.m.
Under the current system, except for the amount of modification work involved, those with a lot of points and those with at least enough to book two weekend nights have the same ability to walk a room reservation to a given date at 11 months out. In the above example, assume the one with enough points for 7 nights who wants 5 begins a walk to Oct 1-6 by reserving Sep 25 to Oct 2, 2020 on Oct 25, 2019. That reservation locks in the first desired night for the room, and, until Nov 2, prevents anyone else from getting Oct 2 and after for the particular room that has been reserved since no one else can get a start date for that room before being able to do a reservation on Nov 2. That member will need to do only one modification, on Nov 1, to drop any dates before Oct 1 and add Oct 2 to 6.
So what happens to the member with enough points to do three nights who wants three nights and an Oct 1 start date? That member can also go on line Oct 25, 2019 and book Sep 25-28, 2020. That reservation effectively prevents anyone else from being able to reserve the room he has for anytime after Sep 27, 2020. On Oct 27, 2019, he modifies the reservation to Sep 27-30, 2020, preventing anyone else from being able to reserve the room he has for any dates after Sep 29. On Oct 29, 2019, he modifies it to Sep 29 to Oct 2, and on Nov 1, 2019, he modifies it to Oct 1-3. Thus, he is able to begin a walk at the same time as the one with a lot of points and get the room he wants for the time he wants.
In essence, the perceived "unfairness" to any member in the current system that allows walking is measured mainly by the personal choice of a member to do walking. If you do not want to walk, you may perceive it as extremely unfair, but you can eliminate that unfairness by simply being willing to walk.
My personal view is that no changes are needed to the current system relating to members who may walk or renters who may do so. The changes being suggested would just create worse systems, not better, and they are actually improper to do unless, as the new DVC has proven and declared, it believes itself not bound by any prior representations it has made in the past. Moreover, to ask the new DVC to make any of the suggested changes in this thread will likely result in something far worse than you ever asked for or expected.
As the above shows the suggested 8 p.m. rule is worse not better than what already exists. The suggestion made by some that fees (penalties) be charged to do modifications is something that DVC would just love to do if it could. Why? Because all those fees would likely just go into the profit-hungry pockets of Disney, and, once created, what we would get is annual or even semi-annual increases in applicable fees to further that profit. Fees are definitely unfair to the significant number of members who need to make modifications of their reservations because circumstances change -- in the past I have had to change reservations because of changes in work schedules, school schedules, changes in available flights, or family health matters. And though I do not engage in walking, I have sometimes made those changes close to 11 months out. Moreover, the most likely reason DVC has never charged fees is because it would not be legal. The governing POS's set up the reservation rights of members and establish a first come first served reservation system and do not establish any fees to make or change a reservation or even reserve the right to create fees in the future. In that situation is likely illegal for DVC to charge fees; its only power is to charge applicable costs in the annual dues payable by all. Even the usually developer-friendly Division of Florida Condominiums, Timeshares, and Mobile Homes, which governs Florida timeshares, takes a dim view of creating new fees to use systems covered by the POS unless such a right is expressly reserved in the documents. Moreover, the suggestion that modifications be prohibited or limited, and only cancellations be allowed, would be equally unfair to those who need to make such modifications.
The suggestion made that DVC should raise the points for high demand rooms that have an 11-month issue such as BWV standard view studios and lower for others, such as pool garden view or larger rooms, leads me to believe that many are just unaware of the events that occurred between late December 2018 and last week of Jan 2019. DVC does actually have a plan for fixing the excess studio demand. Its plan, as it demonstrated when issuing new 2020
point charts in late Dec 2018 is to significantly raise the points needed per night for studios at all resorts year round. For good measure, it also raised the points needed for 1BRs year-round even though demand for those is lower than other rooms. Many complained, including because the POS documents appear to limit DVC to doing point shifts only to rectify seasonal demand changes by raising points for a type of room in one season while lowering them by an equal amount for the same type of room in other seasons. Members even presented DVC with written representations it made at the time of sale of BWV and other resorts also declaring that point changes would be limited to address changes in seasonal demand not type of room demand. DVC at first would not back down, claiming among other things that it is not bound by any of its prior representations, but it eventually withdrew the 2020 charts and issued new ones using the same points structures as the 2019 charts, but admitted no wrongdoing and reserved the right to do it again.
Thus, the last thing most of us ever want to see again is DVC's proposed method of fixing excess studio demand, and no one should be asking the new DVC, which believes itself not bound by prior representations, to rectify any existing 11-month problem that might relate to walking or rentals
Also, the sense I get from some of the posts is that some perceive walkers and renters as persons who are doing wrong and should be dealt with. That focus of acrimony is on the wrong parties and the suggested solutions do not even start to address the main causes of the problem relating to availability of studios at 11 months out. Renting is expressly allowed, as its walking under the current system and thus those members are just doing things they are permitted to do, and they are doing them because it has become necessary to succeed in getting a reservation they need because of the severe 11-month issue that has developed in the last 10 years for a number of rooms, particularly studios, and continues to get worse.
Two of the real main causes of the availability of some rooms at 11 months out, particularly during the Fall season. are (a) DVD's resort development and sales practices in the last 10 years, and (b) DVC's failure to do what it is allowed to do, a seasonal shift of points, when one season has far too high demand in relation to other seasons.
Before 10 years ago, there was no real 11-month issue for any rooms. It existed for AKV club level rooms for some times in the year simply because DVD built only 5 of them, and for the same reason it existed for OKW GV's in the Hospitality House booking category because there were only two of them. Nothing really can rectify the 11-month issue for those rooms; DVD just did not build enough of them. BWV standard and AKV value studios were almost always open at 11 months out 10 years ago, although for first week of December, they could fill fairly quickly, within in a week after the 11- month window opened.
About 10 years ago, during the Great Recession, DVD made one major decision that would forever be the base of all future problems involving studio demand. It lowered the required minimal points purchase for a new purchaser from 160 points to 100, and to 50 at times. Thus, it could sell such minimal points to many purchasers of both new resorts or older resorts, such as BWV, resulting from points gained via the exercise of ROFR and foreclosures. The low point requirements remain today. That was step one, which invited more and more purchasers to make only minimal point purchases that would limit their demand to that for studios. Step 2 was to begin to raise sale prices per point enormously, e.g., the price of BLT, which was mostly sold out by late 2010, increased by close to 50% between late 2010 and early 2012, allowing DVD to sell VGF at a very high price when it went on sale in 2012, while asserting the $150 a point price was a bargain in relation to BLT's price. In the past 10 years, prices per point have increased about 100% despite the Great Recession, stagnant national wage levels for 10 years, and a total inflation rate of about 20%. Adding to that large increase in monetary price, has been the opening of new resorts, such as VGF and Poly with significantly higher point per night requirements than prior resorts, effectively making the real price increase more than the monetary increase. In addition, DVD created many point-ridiculous bungalows and cabins, which allowed it to sell a lot more points for a resort to purchasers who could afford only the number of points needed for smaller rooms, such as studios.
As a result of DVD's resort development and sales practices in the last 10 years, the percentage of purchasers who have purchased only enough points to usually get studios has continuously increased. That effect to "oversell" studios and ultimately create an 11-month issue has not just happened at older resorts like BWV, AKV, and BLT, but also at VGF, and CCV, e.g., CCV studios now have an 11-month issue, particularly at times during the Fall season. Riviera seems prime to have the same studio reservation problem with its high point requirements and high price for points, and then having 24, lower point cost, Tower studios that allow its salesman to convince purchasers to buy the minimum number of required points because they can reserve those low-cost rooms. It has also been mentioned that DVD intends to have a number of additional high-point cabins at the next resort, Reflections. Thus, it does not appear that DVD intends to modify its sales practices in any way to lower the excess studio demand.
DVC could do something major to significantly modify the problem of studio demand at 11 months out and the need to walk. The Fall season is mostly in the second lowest point season with the first two weeks of December in the lowest. DVC could do a seasonal shifting of points, raising the number required during the Fall season for each category of room and lowering them in other seasons for the same rooms. That is actually something it can legally do, unlike its plan to just raise studios and 1BRs year-round. I'm somewhat surprised that it has not done that since the fall season has now long been the one of excess demand and the first two weeks of December have, for some years, been plainly ridiculous for high demand. Nevertheless, I suspect that few who want to reserve those studios that have an 11-month issue, and want walking destroyed, fees charged for changing reservations, and limits on the ability to modify reservations so they might be able to get studios during the Fall season at 11-months out, really want to see DVC do what it actually can do by significantly raising the points needed per night for everything in the Fall.
In any event, that seasonal shifting would likely decrease the problem of getting studios at 11 months out for only a short time because a main cause of the problem, DVD's resort development and sales practices, which continue to increase the percentage of members who want to reserve studios, is not going to be changed.