DVC Club Level and Home Resort Survey

[Tatebeck]

The only way I can see it working out without major backlash from current owners is if they made the trust a lower cost of entry with slightly less booking time. If they are having trouble selling direct at current prices do they think a trust with a higher point of entry will really sell?

My idea would be to make it cheaper than buying a full contract direct, with an option of buying into a resort for an extra fee per point to pull a contract out of the trust and become a full direct owner of a contract. This would let them try out the system and a couple resorts at a lower cost before deciding on one specific resort contract. They could even have varying lengths of contracts. 5, 10, 15 years, etc. This would lower the down payment or upfront cost that many get sticker shock from, with options to extend the contracts or upgrade to a direct owner contract if they like it.

The key would be a new third booking window. In order to not upset the current owners and make the direct contract upgrade worth it they could add a third booking window just for the trust (ex. 9 months). This would give the direct owners who paid a higher price direct booking first at 11 months at their home resorts since many are locked into 1 resort. Then at 9 months the trust renters could book the trust resorts (up to the total amount of points in the trust for each resort). Then at 7 months everyone competes for sleep around bookings. Thoughts?

 

[Genie+]

Anybody wanna talk about Club Level at Poly2?

Name it E-Ticket Club and I’ll forget every worry ever had about DVC and how $200pp seemed expensive.

 

[BeachClub2014]

The only way I can see it working out without major backlash from current owners is if they made the trust a lower cost of entry with slightly less booking time. If they are having trouble selling direct at current prices do they think a trust with a higher point of entry will really sell?

My idea would be to make it cheaper than buying a full contract direct, with an option of buying into a resort for an extra fee per point to pull a contract out of the trust and become a full direct owner of a contract. This would let them try out the system and a couple resorts at a lower cost before deciding on one specific resort contract. They could even have varying lengths of contracts. 5, 10, 15 years, etc. This would lower the down payment or upfront cost that many get sticker shock from, with options to extend the contracts or upgrade to a direct owner contract if they like it.

The key would be a new third booking window. In order to not upset the current owners and make the direct contract upgrade worth it they could add a third booking window just for the trust (ex. 9 months). This would give the direct owners who paid a higher price direct booking first at 11 months at their home resorts since many are locked into 1 resort. Then at 9 months the trust renters could book the trust resorts (up to the total amount of points in the trust for each resort). Then at 7 months everyone competes for sleep around bookings. Thoughts?

I don't disagree with you, but I suspect that whatever the Trust looks like, 25% of owners will love it, 25% will hate it, 25% will be ambivalent, and 25 % won't even know it happened.

 

[Tatebeck]

I don't disagree with you, but I suspect that whatever the Trust looks like, 25% of owners will love it, 25% will hate it, 25% will be ambivalent, and 25 % won't even know it happened.

I think if the trust booking window is the exact same as direct owners it could have negative consequences on booking and availability to the point that most direct owners could be unhappy. At best it does nothing to availability, at worst it stresses the system and makes more popular rooms even harder to book.

As it is right now, each owner has to take their set of points and choose what to do with them. A long time beach club owner who only has BCV points may use them to go to aulani or even a different Disney World resort once in a while, even if many would say that's not a good use of valuable points. That example opens BCV availability. Disney's trust system would never use valuable points at a home resort like that until they absolutely had to. That effect multiplied over thousands of contracts could make it impossible to get any popular room at 7 months, as they would never trade valuable points for less valuable if they have large enough pool of points to prevent it.

 

[PrinceRaki]

I don't have timeshare experience other than DVC and have no clue how this trust timeshare works. But I haven't read any discution if there is any chance DVC can have its own rental market? They will earn comission as actual brokers do and renters would rather rent from a disney rental site directly.

 

[Tatebeck]

They likely don't want the headache of being the go between of thousands and thousands of renters and owners, or the liability if someone gets scammed or cancels reservations on a renter. They could do it, but they would likely have to change their system so that after the rental agreement is completed, the reservation is put in and is locked by Disney and cannot be cancelled or modified by the contract owner anymore.

 

[Brian Noble]

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.

 

[Genie+]

Big profits are happening on rentals and resales. DVD must be thinking about how to gain control back on some of that action, and how it could help them survive periods of DVC saturation.

I doubt they want to takeover those activities and would rather step in by offering competitive alternatives. When it comes to the trust and restrictions, how can it put the rental and resale ball back in their court.

 

[WilsonFlyer]

They don't care about us anymore. While they never really have, this is a fundamental change in the entire way disney does business now.

 

[GrumpyInPhilly]

1. You'd go from owning an actual deed to owning a promise and air.
2. There's no guarantee that these points would be as generous a structure for these rooms as the other structure existing owners have.
3. You'd be paying dues that will need to cover the costs at the most expensive properties.
4. You're in the soup bidding with everyone else on all the properties in there.
5. Disney wouldn't be exploring this unless they thought it was a better deal for them than the current system.

among other reasons.

This. Agree.

 

[Tatebeck]

For resale, they can just ROFR contracts and lump them into the trust, making more prospective resale buyers become direct buyers.

For rentals, it would be far easier for them if they could just buy a set number of points off of you for the year and then book and sell rooms as cash or even throw the points into the trust for extra home resort booking points for the year if there is high demand at some resorts. Would just use up your transfer for the year or they could authorize an extra transfer if its direct to Disney. Similar to magical beginnings I guess.

 

[Paul Stupin]

I think they’ll also own a lot of Riviera, Poly2 & VDH which will make them attractive.

The thing is, those three resorts just don’t seem to be anywhere near enough of an incentive, even if you throw in Aulani, where the 11 month advantage only means something for June and Christmas bookings. Not sure VDH is a must visit for WDW DVC owners, with few facilities of its own, the dreaded transient tax, and some of the better amenities part of the hotel, with Riviera for many not a beloved DVC property, even though it has vocal supporters.
That leaves Poly2, another small tower, which might be new and cool, but just isn’t enough of a signature property to base an entirely new system around.

These offerings strike me as more of a dubious grab bag, maybe to be offered as a lower cost alternative?

Also, there’s a missing psychological component. I like owning a piece of resorts I know and love.

 

[CaliAdventurer]

As current owners, our “backlash” doesnt mean much. So, we get real mad and sell, Disney buys the contract and beefs the trust or we sell on a diminished resale market. The money is spent, We’re captive and they know it. It’s not unlike C33. You dont like a change? Doesn’t matter. They’ll just get more money from the next guy who doesnt know any better than the current situation. If DVC wants to become the biggest rental broker, we‘re gonna adjust or leave and they know that too. I said in the survey that I would be IRATE if my home resort window was less potent after paying premium buying where I want to stay- Im sure 99.9% of the surveys say that. I’m a Marketing Consultant; you do not do surveys to take the temperature, you do surveys to give you the way forward to do what you were always going to do except now you get to say,”WE HEARD YOU and….”

 

[Jwaire]

Seems like a slap in the face to current DVC 1.0 owners to me.

My family has a land trust. By design, the trust agreement prevents family members that are trustees from selling their individual interests in the trust without 51% approval of the remaining trustees.

What's stoping Disney from doing something similar? They're so desperate to stop the resale market.

One thing is for sure, this was not designed to benefit DVC members. It was designed to to line Disney's pockets or they wouldn't be doing it.

The 4 or 5 resorts at the 11 month booking window is just a carrot on a stick. Buyer beware. The reason DVC has had lasting value is because of its uniqueness to other timeshares.

 

[Tatebeck]

You would think it would make sense to not anger your most loyal and consistent source of income who have committed to coming back year after year and spending money. Hopefully the survey will let them know to be careful offering anything that may impede on current owners promised booking advantages. You would hope that they figure out they can make more money with a new offering that keeps their loyal fans happy while also allowing increased new sales. Especially since their movies have been tanking recently for similar reasons and they have finally acknowledged it.

When people research DVC they should want their new customers to hear about good experiences, not everyone being disgruntled about how Disney has treated them.

 

[MouseEarsMom33]

So how will this work with add ons? I am a new member with 200 points at VGF. We want priority access to monorail, so happy with VGF. But I really like Polynesian as well. We are planning on adding on more points in the future and prefer direct. (Was even considering the tower). If I have the old 200 points, will I be able to consolidate points from the trust? If not, that is a huge disadvantage to members like me who are just starting out.

 

[JackosinDIS]

It’s all pure guesswork at this stage based on the survey that Disney sent out and the fact that they have set up a new Trust (which appears, on the face of it, to be specifically created to hold DVC points). We may well be putting 2 and 2 together and making 5, but isn’t it awful that we as owners (speaking for myself) feel like Disney is playing a game to try and out-manoeuvre owners and stop them using / selling / renting points as they were designed to do!

 

[BeachClub2014]

It’s all pure guesswork at this stage based on the survey that Disney sent out and the fact that they have set up a new Trust (which appears, on the face of it, to be specifically created to hold DVC points). We may well be putting 2 and 2 together and making 5, but isn’t it awful that we as owners (speaking for myself) feel like Disney is playing a game to try and out-manoeuvre owners and stop them using / selling / renting points as they were designed to do!

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.

 

[Paul Stupin]

It’s all pure guesswork at this stage based on the survey that Disney sent out and the fact that they have set up a new Trust (which appears, on the face of it, to be specifically created to hold DVC points). We may well be putting 2 and 2 together and making 5, but isn’t it awful that we as owners (speaking for myself) feel like Disney is playing a game to try and out-manoeuvre owners and stop them using / selling / renting points as they were designed to do!

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 wouldn’t be in their best interest. 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.

 

[BeachClub2014]

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'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.