Offering useless insurance is pretty bad. And I think it is a way in which they are not being honest about the real risks. Even the fact that they sell such insurance is misleading, because it leads people to think (quite logically) that they have managed the risk, when in fact they are still exposed to these situations.
Had you know before that their insurance wouldn’t cover this type of situation, would you have still gone with DVC points?
To be honest, the insurance issue isn’t on David’s. It is offered and purchased by a third party and I had several to choose from. I just think to not cover something was widespread like this… Then why did we purchase?
Would I have? Ehhh… To be honest, likely, who really feared a world wide pandemic last October… I could have also read the full policy… So a little bit of responsibility on all fronts. Including my own.
Hasn’t this risk always been priced into the cost of renting points? It’s substantially cheaper than reserving the same room directly from Disney. We have stayed at Bay Lake Tower twice and booked directly with Disney both times. We looked into renting points (and it was much cheaper), but ultimately we decided that for our family, the extra cost was worth the lower risk of an issue where we might lose all the money.
Perhaps it was once, but I do not believe that anymore, what with point rentals approaching $19/20 per point. We had a reservation at the GF last September thru MVT at about $450 per night tax included. Two years earlier we booked a stay at the GF villas thru David’s paying, you guessed it … $450 per night. 5 Days before Hurricane Dorian hit Florida, and MVT gave us the the choice of either canceling or moving our GF reservation. That price was as good as any DVC villa rental there at the time, and certainly more flexible & safe than anything I’d have gotten with a DVC. This spring we stayed at the GF again making the reservation directly with Disney using my AP discount. This time the per night cost was under $450 tax included. I could have cancelled and gotten 100% refund up to 30 days ahead of time, or paid the $200 cancellation fee Disney charges with less than 30 days. Again, better terms than with DVC and certainly cheaper than the added cost of any trip insurance.
I don’t’ mean to unload on DVC rentals. What I’ve learned from experience is that shopping around pays, and risk matters … with everything.
Just got an email from David’s stating that they will be giving renters a travel credit for a future stay thru them. They don’t have any details yet but they said they will contact everyone over the next several weeks. I have rented many many times thru David’s, I am so glad they are doing the right thing.
So am I.
But with the latest news of an indefinite closure, I am wondering if this is sustainable.
That is a good point, hoping they will do it by check in date.
They had to have been anticipating this closure. It was very obvious it was going to happen. I’m sure they planned for at least another month when calculating their credit offerings.
not Davids, but went through DVCRental. Trip was last week of April and decided to reschedule last weekend as things are going crazy (in NJ). We had the “cancel for any reason” insurance. They offered to see if member could reschedule and avoid the $4 per point penalty, but their points expired end of May, so didn’t help. I was going to reschedule through the rental company if they only hit me for the travel insurance and not $4/pt (rep was very responsive and professional), but I couldn’t see throwing more of my money out the window once they confirmed I was still losing the $4/pt. Ended up getting a good deal from Disney since they extended the 25% off for less then they were offering to reschedule for. My real question is who is profiting off of this? In a time when most companies are trying to help people not lose money/income, someone has to be profiting off of these cancelations. My hope is that it is the travel reps and not the rental companies or insurance co.
If anyone is profiting, it is the DVC owners themselves. Everyone else is definitely losing money, including insurance companies (they bank on stuff like this never happening). But even the DVC owner is at best covering their costs, not really profiting. And many of them are voluntarily splitting the cost.
you’re probably right then that they may be getting something but nobody is profiting and the renter throwing up the money is left to dry. Glad I got the insurance but still hurts.
David’s notified me yesterday that 136 of our 142 points were re rented so we will receive a refund for almost all of our original payment. My husband and I were both really surprised people were still booking stays via DVC rental within the next several months. Seems likely that even if places reopen and shelter in place guidelines are dropped for a while there is still a high probability that the virus will have a resurgence in the fall/winter prompting another big shut down. We might make other vacation plans to make up for missing this spring break trip, but for the foreseeable all of those plans will be the type that can be canceled without penalty.
That is great news. I still haven’t heard anything from DVC Rental Store (rented 250+ points) 
DVC Rental Store contacted me a week before my final payment was due for our trip May 19 - 26.
We did not purchase points protection. These are the 2 options they can give (copied from the email).
We understand that you may be concerned, as there are many unknowns at this time. However, as we face uncharted territory together, we are doing our best to serve you, our beloved customer, in this time of trial. That being said, here are your options before you make a payment:
Option 1. You can make your final payment and keep the reservation as it currently exists. As of today, the resorts have only announced that they are closed through April 9th. Unfortunately, that is the only information we have as of right now. If the current closures are extended, that will directly impact your travel dates, we will work with the Member to attempt to rebook an alternative date, just realize that due to DVC point restrictions and limited availability this may not be able to be completed which would result in a loss of both payments. Please see below for payment instructions below if you wish to select this option:
Option 2. You can choose to not make your final payment, which will result in your reservation being cancelled. Although the up front payment would be lost, The DVC Rental Store payment policy has always required ONLY around 60% of payment up front with the final payment being made at 45 days before check in, as opposed to our major competitors that charge 100% up front which doesn’t allow for this to be an option.
Unfortunately with the constraints of DVC, these are the only options we can give at this time. We look forward to hearing from you and hope that you stay safe during this turbulent time.
Please don’t hesitate to let me know if you have any questions - I’m happy to help.
I asked DVC Rental Store to contact the owners about their point expiration dates (we have a split stay with 2 different owners) as this will influence our ability to re-book. I also inquired if any compromise could be reached if the owners were able to cancel the reservation and keep their points.
We are happy to do a no parks vacation. We also understand if we can’t travel due to the COVID-19 situation that’s on us.
This was the reply (text copied again).
The options that were extended to you in the email of March 30th are the only ones we are able to offer. As an intermediary between our guests and their members, the DVC Rental Store wants to help facilitate possible solutions for those guests who choose to not purchase a Points Protection Plan, however any outcome is based solely on your renting members - according to the Rental Agreements that both you and our renting members agreed to, the members have no obligation to complete any requested efforts.
I’ve summarized your options below for your convenience.
Option 1. You can make your final payments and keep your reservations as they currently exists. As of today, the resorts have only announced that they are closed until further notice. Unfortunately, that is the only information we have as of right now. However, we will work with your renting members to attempt to rebook alternative dates for you if you wish, based on DVC availability and the expiration date of your members’ points.
This may create some additional costs if the point amounts are more for your new travel dates versus the travel dates of your original reservations. There would not be a refund if the point amounts of the new reservation were less. Please realize that due to DVC point restrictions and limited availability, alternate dates may not be able to be booked for you which would result in a loss of both payments.
You may use our Availability Tool to see availability at the DVC resorts - this may be helpful in your decision making. Click here, select your arrival and departure dates, and click the “Search”” button. There must be Full Availability (green box) in order to book a reservation. A yellow box means that one or more of the dates you entered do not have availability. (Availability is subject to change.)
If your renting member is willing/successful in rebooking your reservation, any additional cost is due immediately. If your payment is not received within 24 hours of receipt of your new reservation details, your reservation will be cancelled, and all funds received to that point will be forfeited.
In order for us to work with your renting member on attempting to rebooking your dates your reservations must remain secured - we’ll have to receive your final balance payment by your due date of April 4th.
Option 2. You may choose to cancel your trip, by not submitting your final payment by April 4th and you will not be responsible for the remaining balance. If your renting member is willing and if it is feasible under the terms of their DVC Membership, they will cancel your original reservation and attempt to reserve a new reservation for another guest using the returned points. We will make every effort to find a new guest to take over the new reservation. If a new reservation is secured, payment(s) made by you would be refunded, up to the full amount received by us.
Thank you for your post. It doesn’t sound like DVC Rental reached out to the owner?
They did reach out to the owners to ask about their point expiration which was what I asked about in response to the first email regarding the 2 Options. I didn’t explicitly ask DVC Rental Store to contact the Owner and see if they would be willing to cancel and offer a partial refund if they got their points back (yet). So that part is on me… All I said was If possible, we would rather the points go back to the Owner and the payment be refunded (at least part of it). It seem like it would be the least complicated option.
These are the full details:
I received the first email on March 27th, I replied in the evening after business hours. The only thing I directly inquired about in this email was the Use Years.
ME:
I appreciate the email. We want to try to minimize the negative impact on the our reservation’s owners while minimizing our own potential losses. We recently became DVC owners ourselves and we understand the intricacies of the DVC point system. We are leaning towards Option # 2, but I don’t know what the owners Use YEars are and if they had to borrow points to complete our reservations.
The Owners Use Year(s) would be what dictates if and when things could be re-scheduled. I think Disney is waiving the Holding Account for all cancellations due to COVID-19? Actually, we are more than 30 days out so this should be okay either way. However, you need to wait until the resorts are closed during your stay to put back borrowed points to the original Use Year. Right now, our reservation points would return to the UY of the reservation.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I think this is how it works:
For several of the UYs, our reservation points should still be bankable IF the reservation is cancelled ASAP (Sept, Oct, Dec, Feb, Mar, Apr, even Aug if it was cancelled in the next couple of days). Would the reservation actually be able to be cancelled prior to April 4th to bank an August UY’s points?Unfortunately, for June UYs, the banking deadline has passed and there would be limited availability to use the points before they expire.
I have a discussion on March 29 with my parents about Options 1 and 2. While we like the idea of a wait and see approach, we don’t want to lose our entire payment if the accommodations are closed. We rented at total of 159 points and share the cost between the adults attending so our individual loss per household (there are 4 different households) is not financially crippling but still. We paid for accommodations, we know DVC is working with owners affected by point expiration per a DVC operations update that came out on Saturday. My parents definitely don’t like the idea of losing all of our payment if the points are returned to the owner.
I didn’t get a reply until March 30. This delay is totally understandable; obviously, they are overwhelmed at the moment. As stated in previous posts, brokers are small operations that lack the infrastructure to deal with this kind of situation in their usual timely fashion. My original travel adviser unexpectedly resigned from the DVC Rental Store the previous night and I have a new person taking over her account.
Side note, my original travel adviser was great. A big reason I rented from DVC Rental Store instead of David’s (who charges less per point plus) for this years trip was because I had such a great experience working with her last time.
Back to the March 30th email, my new travel adviser (who seems just as friendly and professional as my previous one) replies (omitting the pleasantries for brevity):
I’ll be glad to get an email out to our member management team asking them to contact your renting members for both of your reservations and ask when their points expire. I’ll be back in touch as soon as I hear back from them.
My reply on March 30 (omitting pleasantries again):
I spoke with my parents (who are part of these reservations) this weekend about the WDW situation and our points rental. Ideally, we want to take a wait and see approach. This is also what we would do if we were using our own points. Admittedly, our UY is December so we would definitely have the option of banking if the resorts remain closed during our trip.
We completely understand that we paid for room accommodations and not theme park access. The hotel experience is extremely important to our trips; that’s why we rent points instead of staying at a Value or offsite. My parents would go down and stay at the resorts as long as the resorts are open even if the theme parks are completely closed. (I would too, but I may be restrained due to a backlog at work).
Our major concern is losing our entire payment if the DVC resorts remain closed. In terms of re-scheduling, we can be flexible with dates and resorts, but we do need to accommodate 5 adults which limits our room type options. If possible, we would rather the points go back to the Owner and the payment be refunded (at least part of it). It seem like it would be the least complicated option.
The recent DVC operations update indicates that all points for cancelled reservations due to closure will go back into the current Use Year (no Holding Account). Additionally, DVC is looking into the banking policy and expiration date for points impacted by the resort closure. In addition, some Members may have questions about reservation cancellations involving Points that are set to expire soon. At this time, we are evaluating the banking and expiration policy and the use of certain Points impacted by the closures. As a part of our evaluation process, we need to be considerate of the impact any changes could have on future inventory availability for the Membership overall. A decision will be made when we better understand how long COVID-19 will impact our operations.
The reply I received today is already covered above. Not included were the point expiration dates which are: Boardwalk studio (a total of 91 points, 5 nights): Expiration date Nov 20, 2020 (home resort is BWV)
BLT 1 bedroom (68 points, just doing 2 nights here) Expires January 31, 2020 (home resort BLT)
This expiration date doesn’t make sense. How can the points before our reservation? I asked about this in my reply. Maybe it’s a typo.
Thanks for your detailed answer. It does seem to confirm that when asked, DVC Rental will reach out to owners for options. The family that rented my points have a June reservation, so they have time. I want to make sure I am contacted before final payment if this extends.
Maybe its me :D. I have DVC points I rented June 21 at Wilderness Lodge. No idea what to do until they extend the park closure…
No, I rented to someone at AKL. I hope your owner looks at it the same way as I do. Final payment is due at the end of the month for you?
I went through Dave’s and paid in full about 11 months in advance for a week in a 2 bedroom…