"Charging" Guests - how much?

[kindra657]

I guess I am going to sound a bit negative here, but your "guests" are not guests if they are paying for the room, IMHO. Now, if they invited themselves along, and you felt you had no choice, then charge them, or else they will always be inviting themselves and using your points. It all depends upon who invited whom. Generally, my "guests" pay for our food, but if they don't, it's no biggie. I absolutely draw the line at people inviting themselves, so I find it easy to say no. The only exception are my children, who often invite themselves along on our trips, which is OK, since they helped buy the points that are part of my contract.

i have to agree with you completely!! we have invited friends of ours and their children for our trip in sept. we invited them! they did not invite themselves and they are not tag-alongs. we enjoy their company & we love them like family. they are our guests. i have also reserved a studio along with our 2bdrm villa to accomodate the babysitters we decided to bring so that we could have a few nites without the young kids. my friend & i split the cost of bringing them & we split the costs of all the extras we will be doing: tours, special dinners, MNNSHP, etc.

 

[chrisann]

The grand gathering photo in our signature is real......fab 5 rented for 30 minutes and a disney photographer for an hour in front of cindys castle before the park opened.
That was cool. The blowups are awesome. The kids were excited and the adults were teary eyed, myself included. We pulled off a big surprise. That's our payout.

Can you only do that with the grand gathering? What was the cost?(If you don't mind me asking?)

 

[bobbiwoz]

I would not accept money for the use of my points. IF someone insisted to pay, I would show them the rent/trade board, and stay out of it, or accept a transfer of points for the people to use.The benefits for me would be that I would still have the use of all of my points and if anyone backed out, I don't feel the consequence.

If you accepted money from family and friends is it with the understanding that it is non-refundable?

Bobbi

 

[HGD24]

...If you accepted money from family and friends is it with the understanding that it is non-refundable?

Bobbi

In our case, family and friends who ask to use points are made aware of DVC's cancellation policies. We agree in writing on a price and deadline, before which they can cancel. This protects us from losing points due to late cancellations and protects them from not getting money back should they cancel before the deadline.

 

[jdg345]

When we take guests it's under the assumption that we don't want anything in return. If they insist, then we just say buy us a dinner one night. Everyone has to handle this how they feel is best for them.

This is typically how we handle it as well ... they offer to buy some groceries or dinner and a lunch or two ... and we call it even.

 

[mamatojon]

I would not accept money for the use of my points. IF someone insisted to pay, I would show them the rent/trade board, and stay out of it, or accept a transfer of points for the people to use.The benefits for me would be that I would still have the use of all of my points and if anyone backed out, I don't feel the consequence.

If you accepted money from family and friends is it with the understanding that it is non-refundable?

Bobbi

In our case, if we would have ended up accepting money from my BIL and then for some reason he had to cancel, we would not have accepted the money from him (we wouldn't have asked for it before the trip) and he would have most likely felt bad for us losing our points and probably would have tried to make it up to us somehow. Such is life. Luckily we didn't have to deal with any of that though!

I wonder if this is different for inviting family that often goes to disney anyway? Like my BIL, he goes to DL every year or at least every other year, so he counts on a certain $$ spent on hotel - to him this was going to be way less money than he would have normally spent for way nicer rooms... it wasn't necessarily us inviting someone along on our vacation, which would seem to imply that they are your "guest" in the true sense of the word.

 

[lisaviolet]

EDIT: Forget it.

Once again, have fun. I would love to stay in a AKV GV one day.

 

[minnie2]

Here is what we are doing. We originally booked at POR before we became dvc members. So when we were thinking about buying believe it or not we asked our friends if they minded switching hotels and we offered the room. So we went from 2 adjoining rooms to a 2 bedroom suite. The only thing is they are a family of 5 so we said one of their kids (they are 6,6 and 8) would have to all share a bed or we would each bring extra blankets and one kid would hug the floor. Since we are offering the room they decided to buy a air mattress.

Dh originally said they can buy us dinner then I reminded him that we are getting the deluxe dining plan so no need for that! LOL We are very happy to do this for them since they have been friends for yrs and when ever we went back home to visit we stayed with them and they didn't think twice and we just took them to dinner.
Actually we are even joking with our friend that next time they come with us we can do xy and z! LOL

Personally I don't think I would charge a family member or friend if we decided to vacation together.

Though a few yrs ago we were talking about going to WDW and my sil has a timeshare off property and she said she would have to charge us since she was struggling for money an se wouldn't be able to rent out her lock off since we were using it. When we looked into the cost of renting it from her or staying on property we choose to stay on site. She wasn't happy but we would have rather have been on site any way. It had nothing to do with her charging us it was more if we were paying we wanted to choose where we wanted to stay and off property wasn't it.

Good luck and have fun!

 

[spruce]

Chrisann....sent you a pm

 

[kristenrice]

We haven't bought in (yet) but our plan is this...

We've talked to my parents about coming with us and staying in a 2BR at AKV in 2010. IF they come, I will accept nothing from them. If they don't, we'll have the 2BR to ourselves. If we went alone, we'd get a 1BR and have to deal with 50 extra points.

Then, dad has already planned a large (15 people) family trip in 2012. We have a current DVC member who has offered to accommodate us for $12/point. When we buy in, we shouldn't need any extra points since we will be able to use 3 years of our own points, instead of the 200 we'd use for our own trips. Now, Dad is insistent that we don't have to use our points and he is more than willing to pay to rent. I told him that we're planning even-year vacations and if we go with the family in 2012, we won't be doing our own trip so I'd have 200 points to deal with! The only money I would accept from my Dad is the $12/point he is willing to pay to someone else, but ONLY for the 100 points that we'd have to borrow. (Dad wants 5 nights at OKW and 2 2BR's should cost us no more than 300 points!)

I guess what I am trying to say is that we would only feel comfortable "charging" our family members for the points that we wouldn't have used had we gone ourselves. In our case, that amounts to 100 points. If you want to charge them the MF's or the "going rate" for rentals, that is up to you. I would be fine with Dad paying only the MF's, but I know that he will insist on paying more.

 

[nyck]

I will probably get smacked for this, but I have done vacations where I did charge and did charge, and I decided based on ther history of the people I have invited. I friends that are dependable and some that are not, so honestly the people I charge are the NON DEPENDABLE ones, because in the end they are the mostly likely to back out of something they didn't pay for, which is going to cost me money in the end. Now how much I charge is depending on how long they stay and if they are staying in the master w/ private bath or sleeping in the living room. I think one time I charged $500 for a couple who stayed in the master in a 2 bedroom at BCV. I didn't ask them to pay for my dinner or anything else. That is dirt cheap, you can't even stay at Pop Century for that price. So I do not screw anyone over, but if I am getting a bigger room and using my points on unpredictable people, they are coughing up some cash. LOL. I love all my friends, but I have lost some over money before and choose not to have that problem happen anymore.
One time I took someone and they got there and didn't have enough money for everything. Now she knew 11 months prior we were going, plus she had just got a big check for a hospital she sued and bought some big truck with cash a month prior to the trip, and now she gets 1500 miles away to Disney and wants me to help finance this vacation? H*** no! Needless to say is is blacklisted for sure!

 

[jodifla]

When we invite people, we don't charge them anything. I agree with a previous PP, we feel we get so much in return just by the virtue of having our friends and family with us.

Now, that being said, all of our guests insisit on picking up some of the expenses while we are there. They either cook dinner for us, take us out to a nice dinner, something like that.

 

[bobbiwoz]

EDIT: Forget it.

Once again, have fun. I would love to stay in a AKV GV one day.

Me too! I was tempted to book one for the Sunday after our DCL cruise next year, but I "went" with a 2 bedroom in Kidani.

Bobbi

 

[Dumbo76]

I agree with NYCK. It really depends on who you are inviting. If you are inviting someone who you think will flake out, I would ask for some money. My parents may come with us on our upcoming trip (we have a 1 bedroom reserved on DP) and I am not going to charge them anything because we are keeping the same size room no matter what, but I know they are going to offer to pay for stuff while we are down there (even if they were'nt staying with us), but my dad said if we ever got a 2-br for them he would pay for our dining plan (and that we should charge anyone else that ever came the same amount!!! LOL.) I like the sound of the dining plan, as some other posters have said, because it's a nice round amount and it takes care of your OOP expenses and gives you some insurance that your guests aren't going to flake out and waste your points. Also, I think some people are more generous than others, and if you are inviting people at no charge and they don't offer to pick up any tabs at all, I think, just for me anyway, it kind of sours the friendship a bit. (BTW, I'm not talking about people that don't have the money, but people that do, and choose not to spend it). It depends on the situation, but the OP's guests know they are getting charged, that's not really the debate. I would go with the dining plan route, and with so many people going, it wouldn't be very much for them to split.

 

[thebigman79]

If I invite somone to stay with us, it's my baby, I ask for nothing. If they insist, I ask them to pay for the 6-pack that wegoshop gets for us and then share with them. Of course, then it's a 12 pack!!

If they want to stay on our points, then we ask for payment. Inviting yourself to use my money or points require repayment in my book. That is the difference to me. If I offer, then it's all us. If they want to use my points, I am not a bank. You pay back the loan. Usually, they pay the going rent/trade rate. That just seemed fair to me.

 

[crisi]

Its who you are inviting. Its what you would do with the "extra" points if you didn't invite friends. Its how the invitation came about - are you pressing people who wouldn't take this vacation otherwise to go with you, or are people tagging along who did everything but simply inform you they were joining you on vacation (and, given some of the stories here, may have done just that). Its how cash strapped you are at the moment yourself. Its the culture of your family and friends. Frankly, anyone who is lucky enough that they have enough points to invite guests without having to worry about shorting themselves, doesn't have to worry about their relatives flaking out on them or starting to see DVC as their entitlement for being your relative, never has to worry about the dues bill at the end of the year should just consider themselves lucky that they never need to consider these factors when they invite friends and have friends they don't need to worry about treating.

Once you cross over into "we are going to have a paying guest" then there is a number of ways you can determine a fair "price" - it might be dinner one night, it might be rack rate on the room (for those people with a tendancy to invite themselves along), it might be dues, they can pick up the dining plan or the rental car, it might be going rental rate, it might be the nightly cost of a moderate or a value.

Having guests that pay can accomplish a number of things - it reduces the risk of them cancelling. It reduces the amount of hinting (or outright demanding) using of your DVC membership for their vacation. It puts some cash in your pocket to pay for your Disney trip. It means you can probably own a few more points so that you can offer your friends a nice stay - if they are only picking up dues on the points they use, they are still getting a great deal.

 

[stopher1]

Monetary transactions between family and friends are often so tricky... it's defnitely a personal opinion kind of thing - and to each his own.

We haven't personally done this yet with our DVC points, but everytime that my FIL "invites" us along to one his timeshares - he covers any of the costs involved such as food, activities, etc except for our transportation to get there.

A couple of years ago when my SIL "invited" us along to stay with them for a week at their vacation place, they did the same on the food front, but not the activity front - when we all decided while there to go to a local musuem, and then we each paid for our own family expenses for the day.

My folks are coming to our house this fall and we'll be talking with them about joining us at AKV for a week in Jan or Feb 2010 - and we will follow the same concept that my FIL does... but we might also pick up their transportation if it's too much for them. They aren't as well off as some folks of their generation, and we want them to join us...

 

[Mr Man]

I agree with those who say it depends on who is being invited.

My parents or in-laws. I would never ask them to pay.

I have taken clients and their family to WDW and would never ask them to pay.

Family friends, brothers/sisters etc......they generally do pay.....just a nominal amount.....anywhere from $50 - $100 per night. Nothing outrageous and pretty reasonable when you consider what they are getting.

The funny thing is, family & friends usually pay us for the first visit to DVC......and then they get their own contract.

I should get a bonus from DVC. I am one of their most effective salesmen......

 

[TDC Nala]

The way I look at it...I am going anyway. If any friends want to come along and stay in the room, there is an extra bed (or sofabed). I do charge a bit per night - like I said, not much. (MUCH less than a hotel room would have cost)

 

[bluenosemickey]

I would charge the average going rate ($10 ppt) to transfer in the points if you would need to "upsize" your own booking ie. the difference between the 1Bdr and 2 Bdr points.

I have found that to upsize from a 1Bdr to a 2Bdr seems to typically be the same(more or less) no matter what resort. So we pick what resort we would like to stay at, we get the mstr bdr. and they get to stay in the other bdr. My kids sleep in the livingroom and sometimes (most times) so do theirs too!

I don't think my family would expect me to skip any of my own vacations in order to have them stay with us.

IF I didn't have to "upsize" my room, I wouldn't charge. My kids are small right now and so we are doing the 1Bdrs. but very soon we will always book the 2Bdrs and I can see 'offering' up the extra bed to someone if they would like to come.