Question about Room availability

[tman422]

Today I checked into availability for a Studio at the Boardwalk Villa's through a DVC member. They said that nothing was available. I went on Disney.com and did a quote request and it had rooms available. Do they only set aside a certain number of rooms for DVC members? It seems that since this is a DVC property that members would have first choice and general public can use whatever is left. This may be the wrong forum for this, but with some of the expert renters on here, I thought sombody may have a simple explanation for this.


tim

[tjkraz]

There is an explanation, but it may be a little hard to follow.

One of the things that DVC members can do with their points is to redeem them for non-DVC destinations like the Grand Floridian resort or even a Disney Cruise. When a member uses one of those options, DVC acts as the middleman. They make some compensatory transfer to the guest's destination and can then use the points in any manner of their choosing.

For example, let's say that I want to take a cruise and it costs me 460 points for my reservation. DVC accepts my points and (on paper) transfers some funds to the cruise line to cover my reservation.

DVC then has 460 of my points. Coincidentally, it takes exactly 460 points to reserve a preferred view studio for the entire month of September. So, DVC could block off one PV studio for September 1 - 30, 2007. That room gets removed from DVC member inventory and moved to CRO inventory. Any cash guests calling CRO or looking at the website as you did would have the ability to book this room. DVC members CANNOT access the room. Whatever monies are earned in return for this room are Disney's to keep. That's their return compensation for enabling me to book the cruise.

To draw a parallel, think of Disney as a point renter in this situation. Just as you are looking for someone to reserve a DVC room and put it in your name, Disney has already reserved a BWV room and is now trying to "rent" it to someone at their rates.

In the end, the information you saw is likely correct. There is a room available but you must pay Disney's rental prices. DVC members are unable to access that room.

Hope that helps.
Tim

[tman422]

Thanks for clearing That UP. I could not figure out how that worked. I was totally frustrated by that. I am new to all this and am very interested in Buying into the DVC. I have been investigating all the details. I'm big on making Educated Decisions. That situation really had me thinking that DVC members were getting the shaft. I thought that Disney (never passes up an opportunity to make a dime) was saving rooms because they can charge more from the public rather than have DVC members (already paid) stay there.
Your explanation makes sense and seems to be the correct accounting for both divisions of the corp.

Thanks again,

Tim

[mushu]

What dates where you trying for?

[granny]

In addition to tjkraz's explanation, you should know that Disney owns a small percentage of each resorts "points" permanently. Generally, the number I see is around 2% of the resort is kept in Disney ownership and those rooms are available to the public for cash prices.

Why does Disney do this? Well, believe it or not, it's mostly for the benefit of the DVC members. Disney holds about 2% of the rooms so they can do maintenance, repairs, etc of the various villas. If there are no repairs needed, they can sell reservations for cash for these rooms.

They have to do it this way so that they can comply with their contracts with the members. That is, they have to have enough rooms to support the points they've sold, and by holding on to 2% of the rooms, they can make sure they can do some maintenance on a villa without shorting the members.

So all in all, it's a good thing. Also, when I see the rack rates on the door of the room, I really feel like DVC is an even better deal! :)