Current owners: Do you feel that renters are impacting resort availability?

[lowlight]

This is the infamous Disboards, “This problem doesn’t affect me so it doesn’t exist” with a peppering of “pull yourself up by your bootstraps”.

 

[CarolMN]

You got “several”. Have you ever got 20, or 30, or 40?

What if I told you that there are LLC’s that have been identified through research at the Comptroller’s office and verified to own thousands of points, and what if I told you that many of those contracts are owned by the same entities that operate rental sites, and what if I told you that there are weeks-long stretches where 80-90% of the value studios at AKL (and other desirable rooms) are being offered for rent by the same entities?

And what if I told you you can find through very little effort, individual people/entities who have, on a rolling basis, 25 to 30 discrete reservations available for rent, a large number of which are for some of the most sought-after rooms and travel periods?

No one is suggesting there aren’t plenty of individuals who, through planning and diligence, manage to secure single digit reservations at peak periods throughout the year. There’s nothing wrong with that. Its the people/entities that have twenty times your “several” reservations that are the issue.

Plus, those “bots with a script” are out there now, in the real world, snagging Stones, Taylor Swift, and Drake tickets, sometimes tens of thousands in the first hour of sales, so grabbing DVC reservations would be a ridiculously simple (and profitable) endeavor. To think someone hasn’t taken a commercially available scraping bot and modified it to search for hotel rooms as if they were concert tickets would be naive.

Curious re bolded lines:

Isn't it still 'book one at a time per membership'? Are the scripts really that fast that they can book multiple rooms before we ordinary folks can get one? Or is it possible to use the same membership to book simultaneous villas with different devices/IP addresses? (I've never tried to do that, so I don't know). I suppose there could be enough 'bot memberships' out there to get most or all of the limited 'desirable' rooms most of the time.

It's probably a case of -

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy".

So why hasn't someone written a script to defeat the bots? I know those that snag the concert tickets to resell are almost universally hated. We hate them, but still buy the ridiculously overpriced tickets they snag with those bots.

 

[smjj]

Yes and no is my response. The average owner who just want to not lose their points and decides to rent them out a big no. However like all things there are those who take advantage of all situations, the professional renter and there are lots of them. I mean the people or entities who buy and buy as many points as possible with the sole purpose of renting them back out at a profit. They book the best times of the year to visit and rent them back out to non-members for profit only...smjj

 

[Chuck S]

Personally, I don't like commercial renting of existing reservations. But the flip side is that every owner has the same opportunity to book reservations, the same booking window, and the same ability to walk a reservation, if needed.

Now I can see this as an increase in competition for studios at the 11 month window...but still that is just how the system works. I doubt it has a lot of impact on one bedroom and larger units.

If commercial renting is someone's primary source of income, it is a lot of work, no matter how automated their systems my be. The advantage for them is that, unlike regular rental properties, there are no unexpected expenses, like plumbing and electrical repairs, paint, exterior upkeep...that is all a set price annually through our DVC dues.

 

[bakerworld]

Yep, runDisney weekend.

Thanks

 

[DonMacGregor]

Isn't it still 'book one at a time per membership'? Are the scripts really that fast that they can book multiple rooms before we ordinary folks can get one? Or is it possible to use the same membership to book simultaneous villas with different devices/IP addresses? (I've never tried to do that, so I don't know). I suppose there could be enough 'bot memberships' out there to get most or all of the limited 'desirable' rooms most of the time.

Yes, but just like "Don MacGregor" has two memberships due to his two Use Years, "Don MacGregor" could have as many as 8 different memberships just by spreading them out across all Use Years, without changing anything else. The computing power to utilize a script to log onto each of those memberships concurrently is negligible. Now, add 8 more memberships under "Donald MacGregor" and 8 more under "DW MacGregor", and now I can have as many as 24 discrete memberships at a single home resort (or multiple, depending on my strategy), all of which can make one reservation at a time each, with the computer and script providing the ability to easily log on to all of them concurrently.

I'm not saying that is exactly what is happening, but it wouldn't take much effort to create a handful of separate legal entities with multiple Use Years providing multiple different memberships and then start grabbing up contracts. Or, conversely, if you wanted to fly under the radar, more entities buying fewer contracts each and utilizing fewer Use Years to avoid getting flagged by DVC. The difference would be the cost in setting up the LLC's ($125 in Florida), but the computer running the script doesn't care because it's all ones and zeros. I mean, for $1,500 and 2 or 3 hours worth of time filling out 12 virtually identical sets of documents, you could set up a discrete LLC for each one of the WDW DVC resorts (including FWC). That's 96 discrete memberships (12 LLC's with 8 Use Year based memberships each).

Here is some info on scalper bots and how they work (and how fast). This isn't a link to bots or where to find them, but discussions/resources to fight them:

Scalper Bots: What They Are and How to Fight Them

Scalping bots: What are they, how do they work & how can you beat them

Just a cursory review of those links (and plenty of others by searching) paints a very clear picture of how easy it is to utilize the bots to go well beyond simply buying Taylor Swift tickets.

** ETA: I'm not a computer guru, but I do know that stock trading bots are limited primarily by connection speed and their performance is measured in microseconds. Even if a scalper/rental bot is a thousand times slower, you're still talking fractions of a second. Now, at the Disney end.... that's a different story.

*** ETAA: A reasonably well-provisioned gaming laptop can probably run 30-40 bots concurrently. A purpose-built desktop unit can actually be assembled rather inexpensively as no sound cards or other peripherals are needed beyond only a basic video card. Just CPU's and RAM in a box. Those can run hundreds of bits at a time.

Again, I’m not saying this is for sure happening, but the concept is cheap, ready accessible, and already in practice in multiple other online interface ecosystems, so if there’s money to be made, someone will do it.

 

[Genie+]

I’m yet convinced that commercial renting does not negatively impact personal use owners or that commercial renting does not come with a slew of advantages over personal use owners. The best argument is some grey area over ‘what’s allowed’, or prediction at ‘cure worse than disease’.

Ultimately DVC/DVD sees more than we do and makes the decisions. We can ask them to clarify what commercial use entails and to please expand on what falls beyond personal use. All I can do is accept as it is for now and avoid surprises by keeping in mind a change may or may not eventually come. By that I mean maybe things get worse and nothing ever done, or something is done and how that may affect use and resale values.

Does anything stop them from putting a check on transferring reservation into MDE that asks if it’s a rental so that person can acknowledge they’ve followed protocol by having a rental contract in place? Hinderance to operating DVC rentals as a business. Doesn’t hurt owners who aren’t crossing any lines with their occasional rental(s) or giving away most or every reservation they own to family/friends.

On some level I do think it’s DVC’s responsibility to enforce personal use (as contracts repeatedly state) when commercial activities are already harming the club with a trajectory of just getting worse an worse over time.

 

[🍀TwinsMom]

I'm not a long-time owner, but to answer OP's question, we haven't had any issues booking what we want at our home resort at 11 months. We tend to travel peak weeks for kids' school vacations and/or cheaper DVC point weeks (early December twice,) and it's fine, but switching at 7 months can be tough. We're open to split stays, so 3-4 days somewhere else is okay, but now we want a solid week somewhere to really settle in, and getting a full week anywhere else is tough.

 

[lowlight]

Walking, bots, LLC’s with large pools of points set up to monopolize certain room types, these all have a certain quality in common. Some claim it never affects them, some don’t believe it’s happening, but the third segment acknowledges it is happening and is ok with that and doesn’t want to see it stopped. Interesting.

All I know is booking for week 48 with my 3 contracts at 11 months this year was a disaster. Like walking, I almost hope this gets worse so average run of the mill Marge and Bill types have to rent their reservation from a big website because they were beaten to reservation at 11 months and couldn’t use their own points for the week they wanted. Once the pain is equally shared, people usually clamor for change. These behaviors will destroy DVC if they are widely adopted.

 

[eandt]

Congratulations on this. If you can always get Boardwalk standard and AKL value studios when you want them, you'll be a unicorn in the DVC world.

I agree that there are those owners, but that hasn't been the point I have been making. The use of technology to secure highly sought-after reservations by rental companies unfairly tilts the odds in their favor. To suggest that this technology is just a "bogeyman" is, at best, naive.

People often have different "pebbles in their shoe," so perhaps not dismissing other "pebbles" would go a long way. Just sayin'.

So what is ‘renting to this place yourself mean’? Are you suggesting that you have danced with the bogeyman to know what it is they ask of you? I haven’t, so admittedly ‘naive’ as you so eloquently put it … but believe there is naivety to go around on this point … jus sayin

Congratulations on this. If you can always get Boardwalk standard and AKL value studios when you want them, you'll be a unicorn in the DVC world.

I agree that there are those owners, but that hasn't been the point I have been making. The use of technology to secure highly sought-after reservations by rental companies unfairly tilts the odds in their favor. To suggest that this technology is just a "bogeyman" is, at best, naive.

People often have different "pebbles in their shoe," so perhaps not dismissing other "pebbles" would go a long way. Just sayin'.

So what is ‘renting to this place yourself mean’? Are you suggesting that you have danced with the bogeyman to know what it is they ask of you? I haven’t, so admittedly ‘naive’ as you so eloquently put it … but believe there is naivety to go around on this point … jus sayin

 

[EpcotPhoenician]

Saying spec rental companies don’t put added demand on hard to get rooms is like saying DAS fakers don’t put added demand on LL. They are finite resources. Of course if there are 100 rooms then that is all that can be rented, but those 100 rooms may fill in 2 minutes and 15 seconds at the 11 month mark without the added rental company demand, and with it they may fill at 0 minutes and 3 seconds at the 11 month mark. It’s the same 100 rooms, the outcome is still being affected.

This is worded much better than my original post - thank you.

The point I'm trying to make is that I realize it will always be difficult to book a full week at popular resorts (even at the 11 month window), but if these rental companies are adding an excessive demand and taking those rooms, in bulk, immediately, it hurts my chances as an average Guest who just wants to get a room for my family.

It just seems odd to me that my chances of securing a room are hindered, even the slightest, by a rental agency... it just doesn't seem like that's who DVC is intended for.

 

[eandt]

Yes, but just like "Don MacGregor" has two memberships due to his two Use Years, "Don MacGregor" could have as many as 8 different memberships just by spreading them out across all Use Years, without changing anything else. The computing power to utilize a script to log onto each of those memberships concurrently is negligible. Now, add 8 more memberships under "Donald MacGregor" and 8 more under "DW MacGregor", and now I can have as many as 24 discrete memberships at a single home resort (or multiple, depending on my strategy), all of which can make one reservation at a time each, with the computer and script providing the ability to easily log on to all of them concurrently.

I'm not saying that is exactly what is happening, but it wouldn't take much effort to create a handful of separate legal entities with multiple Use Years providing multiple different memberships and then start grabbing up contracts. Or, conversely, if you wanted to fly under the radar, more entities buying fewer contracts each and utilizing fewer Use Years to avoid getting flagged by DVC. The difference would be the cost in setting up the LLC's ($125 in Florida), but the computer running the script doesn't care because it's all ones and zeros. I mean, for $1,500 and 2 or 3 hours worth of time filling out 12 virtually identical sets of documents, you could set up a discrete LLC for each one of the WDW DVC resorts (including FWC). That's 96 discrete memberships (12 LLC's with 8 Use Year based memberships each).

Here is some info on scalper bots and how they work (and how fast). This isn't a link to bots or where to find them, but discussions/resources to fight them:

Scalper Bots: What They Are and How to Fight Them

Scalping bots: What are they, how do they work & how can you beat them

Just a cursory review of those links (and plenty of others by searching) paints a very clear picture of how easy it is to utilize the bots to go well beyond simply buying Taylor Swift tickets.

** ETA: I'm not a computer guru, but I do know that stock trading bots are limited primarily by connection speed and their performance is measured in microseconds. Even if a scalper/rental bot is a thousand times slower, you're still talking fractions of a second. Now, at the Disney end.... that's a different story.

*** ETAA: A reasonably well-provisioned gaming laptop can probably run 30-40 bots concurrently. A purpose-built desktop unit can actually be assembled rather inexpensively as no sound cards or other peripherals are needed beyond only a basic video card. Just CPU's and RAM in a box. Those can run hundreds of bits at a time.

Again, I’m not saying this is for sure happening, but the concept is cheap, ready accessible, and already in practice in multiple other online interface ecosystems, so if there’s money to be made, someone will do it.

I don’t begrudge Don Macgregor or even DW Macgregor for having 24 contracts/memberships snd utilizing to the best of his ability his points … I aspire to be like Don/DW

 

[eandt]

Walking, bots, LLC’s with large pools of points set up to monopolize certain room types, these all have a certain quality in common. Some claim it never affects them, some don’t believe it’s happening, but the third segment acknowledges it is happening and is ok with that and doesn’t want to see it stopped. Interesting.

All I know is booking for week 48 with my 3 contracts at 11 months this year was a disaster. Like walking, I almost hope this gets worse so average run of the mill Marge and Bill types have to rent their reservation from a big website because they were beaten to reservation at 11 months and couldn’t use their own points for the week they wanted. Once the pain is equally shared, people usually clamor for change. These behaviors will destroy DVC if they are widely adopted.

I can’t believe that nobody has stated the old DVC argument ender … ‘DVC only sells you a room nothing else is guaranteed’

 

[BeachClub2014]

So what is ‘renting to this place yourself mean’? Are you suggesting that you have danced with the bogeyman to know what it is they ask of you? I haven’t, so admittedly ‘naive’ as you so eloquently put it … but believe there is naivety to go around on this point … jus sayin

So what is ‘renting to this place yourself mean’? Are you suggesting that you have danced with the bogeyman to know what it is they ask of you? I haven’t, so admittedly ‘naive’ as you so eloquently put it … but believe there is naivety to go around on this point … jus sayin

Huh?

 

[eandt]

Huh?

Wait … what

 

[Chuck S]

Personally, I think the stress on the reservation system has a LOT of causes that when combined, gives us the situation being discussed. While there is no doubt commercial renters trying to gobble up reservation will have an impact, other things, like too many people with small point contracts, who of course, are competing for the same studios, people all wanting to travel during holidays and school breaks, are also factors. There is a reason DVCs original buy in was 230 points, so there would not be such a necessity for a studio if they weren't available, giving more people the option of a one bedroom instead. And remember, a two bedroom lock-off reservation also takes a stuudio out of inventory. And DVC/DIisney can estimate demand, and pull some of the untits for cash inventory...plus membersa that trade out for a cruise or adv. by Disney, can also pull units out of inventory and send them to cash reservations. You can not simply point to one single factor and say it solely is responsible if you can't book your desired studio.

 

[tx911]

Personally, I think the stress on the reservation system has a LOT of causes that when combined, gives us the situation being discussed. While there is no doubt commercial renters trying to gobble up reservation will have an impact, other things, like too many people with small point contracts, who of course, are competing for the same studios, people all wanting to travel during holidays and school breaks, are also factors. There is a reason DVCs original buy in was 230 points, so there would not be such a necessity for a studio if they weren't available, giving more people the option of a one bedroom instead. And remember, a two bedroom lock-off reservation also takes a stuudio out of inventory. And DVC/DIisney can estimate demand, and pull some of the untits for cash inventory...plus membersa that trade out for a cruise or adv. by Disney, can also pull units out of inventory and send them to cash reservations. You can not simply point to one single factor and say it solely is responsible if you can't book your desired studio.

You forgot walking

That there are various causes making certain room types harder to book doesn't excuse abuses of the system.

 

[Chuck S]

You forgot walking

That there are various causes making certain room types harder to book doesn't excuse abuses of the system.

True, but I can see walking if it is an extremely limited room type that is necessary because of special needs, like an HA GV at OKW, there are only 3 of those, and that is the only time I've walked a reservation, when I needed an HA GV over Thanksgiving week a few years back. I would never have walked if we could have made do with a standard GV. And part of that is a design issue at OKW having elevators in only 3 buildings. And only one GV that enters on the ground floor. Plus two HA GVs in an elevator building that enters from the 2nd floor.

 

[tx911]

True, but I can see walking if it is an extremely limited room type that is necessary because of special needs, like an HA GV at OKW, there are only 3 of those, and that is the only time I've walked a reservation, when I need an HA GV over Thanksgiving week a few years back. I would never have walked if we could have made do with a standard GV. And part of that is a design issue at OKW having elevators in only 3 buildings. And only one GV that enters on the ground floor. Plus two HA GVs in an elevator building that enters from the 2nd floor.

I don't begrudge you at all for doing that to get a necessary room type in that circumstance. I think you have to use the system as it exists, and walking is unfortunately a part of it.

 

[eandt]

I don't begrudge you at all for doing that to get a necessary room type in that circumstance. I think you have to use the system as it exists, and walking is unfortunately a part of it.

Walking was explained to us by MS during our on boarding call … I had heard about it here before we purchased and thought of it as a loophole but when MS told us what it was and how to do it i no longer thought of it as a loophole. We didn’t ask, they volunteered the info.