I can see why that was no fun…although the circumstances were hopefully a one-off.
I think if we were ever to stay at a studio for more than a day or two, I would consider OKW. But admittedly one of the things we like best about SSR is the ability to easily walk to DS, which OKW you have to depend on the boats. Still, seems like a similarly relaxed vibe to SSR.
Yeah. Sounds like a room request gone bad vs a resort issue. Something got lost in translation and it isn’t necessarily OKWs fault. Day of switching rooms is sometimes very tight. And what you want and what they think you want can be 2 different things, lol.
I don’t have anything against OKW besides it’s not attached to a park or Skyliner. The later I hope they resolve when they are ready to renew/ resell contracts. Want to make OKW point worthy? Put it on the Skyliner.
The vibe is similar. If I want that super chill vibe, I’m perfectly fine with POR. There are a lot of tangible features that Riverside and OKW share, but I really like how it’s done at the moderate.
We’re also not the biggest fans of DS, so our proximity to it is not a factor in our decision on where to stay.
Yeah, that was the issue right here. They thought we wanted to be in the same building. My DW was running that weekend, so we wanted to be near HH to get the bus. We could’ve used the internal bus, but really didn’t want to. The first two rooms being not what I wanted (including one that maintenance should’ve put out of rotation) also bugged me.
Worth noting that I just made a booking on the phone and the rep asked me to confirm that this reservation was for my personal use only.
Ooh! That’s great. Probably more effective than a checkbox. People are less prone to lie when asked verbally. Hopefully this effort makes a noticeable difference.
This was alluded to in the article but Len called it out this morning on the Disney Dish. The terms and conditions actually allow WDW to decide what is commercial renting. This is stronger than I thought.
“DVCM reserves the right to interpret personal use and determine if reservations are booked for personal or commercial purposes in its sole discretion.”
Good and Bad I guess. Hopefully they get it right. 
I would hate to hear that some people were mistakenly deemed commercial just because they don’t visit Disney anymore but rather gift out reservations. An associate of mine’s father has around a THOUSAND (yes I said it) points but hasn’t been to the park in 8 years. He can’t travel any longer. So he gifts all his kids and grand kids points and the rest he just gives away to people he meets or may know. I’m still trying to get an introduction!! I have passed my info along in case he’s selling. But a lot of his points are at OKW and BL.
ETA: By gifts points, he makes reservations in their names. He can’t actually gift the points to non DVC owners.
Len also said that the purpose of these changes is NOT to quash the rental market, it’s to target a specific practice that is negatively impacted owners and Disney alike - namely, speculative renting.
He cited @JJT’s analysis about single night rentals at AKL. Len’s point was that these rentals don’t just detract from inventory available for DVC owners - they can also end up in unused nights that Disney doesn’t get a customer for (something about how they can cancel at the last minute that I didn’t quite follow).
So at least in Len’s opinion, it sounds to me like they aren’t going to necessarily target all DVC rental companies - just the ones who are abusing the system. That makes sense to me. And people who occasionally rent shouldn’t feel guilty about saying they are using their points for “personal use” if they aren’t a commercial operation.
I would consider this personal use, not commercial. Especially if he’s not accepting payment. I would be very surprised if Disney disagreed or pursued any action against someone in this situation.
I was a bit confused by this as well. I don’t think Jim/Len are super familiar with how DVC works. I’d be shocked if these rentals are getting canceled within holding windows.
The issue for him though is they might ask him who they are. And although hopefully would be fine with it, it’s still a hassle. And there’s no way to prove he’s not receiving payment.
Whereas before the wording included the word reasonable. Now that’s been dropped.
I’m seriously considering adding my DS to the deeds, to avoid any potential issues. But it isn’t straightforward as an international owner.
I think canceling the reservation would be the biggest concern. Of course he could explain it to Disney after the fact. But if they use any type of technology to “target” reservations with various different names and it cancels it who’s to say they could get that reservation back.
Everyone has every right to be worried about this. But I wouldn’t be if I were the type to rent my points on occasion. I really don’t think Disney is going to hassle legit individual owners.
I think you summarized nicely. They aren’t going after the rental/gifting market.
This person I would imagine would garner a look from WDW under these circumstances but I would expect a letter/phone call first before WDW just started cancelling reservations. I think perhaps they would ask this person to triple confirm that they consider this “personal use” and then go on their way.
I haven’t listened to the podcast yet so I can’t speak to that, but it wouldn’t surprise me if commercial renters do cancel last minute. If you are trying to shill points last minute, you might easily move from one holding reservation to another. See what’s available in the next few weeks, book a confirmed res, and try to sell it. Doesn’t sell at your price, so you cancel and just book the holding points into something else. You could do that on repeat until you either sell the points or hit the use year.
I was recently stalking the booking portal like crazy, trying to get two matching nights in the short term, so I became very familiar with what was popping up within 30 days. Quite a few decent one night-ers here and there. And then I would sometimes see those getting listed on JJT’s search engine (which I was also stalking, of course).
Oooof definitely possible! I would have assumed that they didn’t want to risk holding points but I suppose that process could make money too.
So if points go into holding, and those points are used to make a new reservation and then cancelled, the “hold timer” resets to the 60 days after that cancellation?
No they will always be holding points so need to be booked in the next 30 days. But I could cancel next week’s reservation and make another one for 29 days from now and keep going until the points expire.
My understanding is that points in holding expire with the use year but can only be used for reservations within 60 days. Someone correct me if I am wrong. So yes, you would get a new 60 day time frame from the date of any cancellation or modification—until the end of the use year.