How Far in Advance Are You Comfortable Booking DVC?

Hey Everyone,

I’m working on a new post about some nicely priced DVC rentals appearing later in the year (plus something else) - and I’ve been wondering something.

It doesn’t have any real influence on anything I’m writing about - is just a curiosity:

Background
Dedicated DVC rentals are not refundable, although at least sometimes can be changed to another person for a fee.

One site at least links to an Allianz travel insurance policy quote engine suggesting you might get a Cancel Any Time policy. I test priced out an $1,100 6 day DVC rental for my family of 4 - the policy was $188.
So…

What is the furthest in advance would you typically be comfortable booking a dedicated DVC rental from one of the sites?

  • < 2 Weeks
  • < 1 Month
  • < 2 Months
  • < 3 Months
  • < 4 Months
  • < 6 Months
  • < 9 Months
  • Any Old Time SPIN THE WHEEL FATE!

0 voters

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I just noticed the poll re-sorted my options? What the hey?

Anyway, thanks for voting everyone. :slight_smile:

Re-sorted? They are in the seemingly correct order until you show the results…then the results are displayed in the order of most votes.

I didn’t vote. Not really sure how to answer the question, since it would depend on many factors…most importantly whether I was planning a trip in such a time frame. Since we tend to plan our trips more than a year our, it would be hard to find a dedicated reservation that likes up… I have tried in the past, but never really found anything that works.

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Think my brain had a case of the Mondays with the sort - had to be the results view as you said. :smiley:

Sure, factors are factors - but I was just really thinking of this more simply:
If you magically found a rental that fit in with a vacation you wanted to take in all of these time frames, where is your stop line?

What spurred this question is a batch of September rentals that started appearing a few weeks ago - they’re attractively priced, but I keep thinking of all the things that could derail a trip these days, whether I’d go for it and also if there was a general consensus about it around here.

Between the votes here and discussion in chat, it looks like quite a few people would book the 11 months out, then the rest of folks are divided between various shorter time frames. (Small sample size, though.)

I can’t answer the poll, since I would never rent points. Let me explain.

I’m an owner and would always book at 11 months out from our planned trip. But with our points, if we needed to cancel (think Covid, for 2 consecutive years) I can do that and rent the points out.

But I can’t take the risk of losing the money by renting someone else’s points. Too many things can go wrong, especially travelling internationally.

That’s probably why when I started renting my own points out due to Covid and the resulting chaos with the brokers, I gave as good terms as I could and try to be as flexible as I can.

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Supposedly, when you rent points, if you need to back out that owner may have a chance to re-rent to someone else?

I am not an owner but do rent points, and they tell me that sometimes. . . having said that, I only rent a few weeks out for several reasons so I haven’t had to deal with that. Maybe it would come down to whether you are dealing with a kind owner. I also rent directly through a facebook group, so I don’t know what the limitations may be if you rent though a 3rd party site like David’s.

That is the case, sometimes. All points have an expiry date by which they have to be used.

When renting privately you may be able to have some flexibility, but it would depend on the owner’s rental agreement and when those points expire.

In general however you should always approach a rental with the expectation that you cannot cancel or make changes. I think one of the brokers does allow for cancellation but you get a voucher in lieu of a refund, with a final, non-negotiable expiry date. The financial savings come at a price of a lack of flexibility.

But the poll is referring to a dedicated rental through a broker site, not a private rental.