Disney Vacation Club (DVC) Members, it’s time to read some rules, because Disney is cracking down on how members use their points.
DVC has made big strides recently in offering new perks to its members, like new lounges and exclusive Disney vacation offers. Deciding to become a DVC member could be one of the heaviest financial decisions you make in terms of Disney, but also one of the most rewarding if you’re able to use the membership to your advantage. But if you’ve hesitated on becoming a DVC member over the lack of availability for bookings, things may be turning around!
Being a DVC member can certainly have its perks — you use a points system to book your vacations and can choose from a whole collection of Disney Deluxe category hotel villas and Deluxe studios. Not to mention you can also enjoy other perks like discounts on select merchandise and restaurants, occasional gifts offered as you pass by DVC kiosks in the parks or at Disney Springs, and you can even hang out at special lounges like McKim’s Mile House in Magic Kingdom.
Sounds great! To an extent, it is, but buying into Disney’s timeshare program is a MASSIVE investment. Members buy into a set amount of points, which is what you’ll pull from each year when you go to book your Disney World or Disneyland hotel stays. While this might sound fairly easy and straightforward to do (and, it is, in practice, but it takes time), recently, many members have seen a big surge in the lack of availability when booking Disney hotel reservations.
These complaints have been around for some time and most of them have been due to the lack of availability to book their preferred hotel for the entire length of stay they’re vacationing (if you can’t, you have two book two different hotels and do a split stay, which isn’t ideal), or they’re not able to use their points at all during the times they’re able to vacation.
We’ve noticed that in recent years, availability has dwindled for members to book their “home” resorts as early as they could, and has forced members to check back for availability and waitlist future vacations. This means you’re automatically booked after you “waitlist” a stay and it becomes available in the system, but again, that’s not ideal.
This could be due in part to the increase in Disney Vacation Club members “renting” their points out for Disney hotel stays to non-members looking to try out the program (or discount a cash reservation directly from Disney) in exchange for cash value to the DVC member. However, we definitely don’t think that’s the entire cause.
It seems Disney Vacation Club has heard the cries of outrage, and they’re implementing a few changes. Recently, DVC has updated its Terms and Conditions to outline that hotel stays booked with member points should be reserved for personal use. Here’s how they’ve actually outlined this use:
Vague? Yeah, we thought so too, so we called DVC directly in order to find out how they defined point usage going forward. What we learned is that when you’re booking a future hotel DVC hotel stay, they now require you to check a box with your membership points, acknowledging this is for personal use. In short, the supervisor we spoke with strongly advised against booking reservations for profit to the member, as that’s the intent of the update to DVC’s terms and conditions. It’s previously been popular practice for many members to use their points to help someone else out on their next stay and then in turn use the money towards their DVC annual dues, or other types of Disney vacations like Disney Cruise Line or Adventures By Disney trips, but that’s now what DVC is advising you not to do.
DVC will also be cracking down on how many bookings you make with your membership, and if your names are listed as the lead guests on the reservation. While the policy change does outline that occasional or infrequent reservations made to rent or sell points out to someone who is not a current owner will be allowed, they will essentially be keeping tabs on those who are using membership reservations that way, so it’s something you’ll want to keep in mind.
It’s not a perfect system, but it does seem like this is the answer DVC has come up with to discourage and identify those who have purchased memberships with the intent of running them as a for-profit business model. We’re curious to see how these new terms and conditions are received by members and how long (if at all) they’ll have an impact on DVC booking availability. Be sure to stay tuned to AllEars fora ll the latest news!
Is Now a Good Time to Buy Disney Vacation Club?
How do you use your DVC points? Tell us in the comments!
My daughter and I have been DVC members since 2007. We come from the UK and have a total of 390 points between us, for the boardwalk and Animal kingdom. We have stayed in all of the rooms; studios, 1, 2, and 3 bed bed Villas, from 3 to 14 nights. We have been in May, July, August and September. We go approx every other year, and We have never had an issue booking any room. We spend huge amounts of money and as we come from the UK sell some points to cover some of the cost of the dues every year.
It will be interesting to see how Disney will enforce this. Is it a way to get current DVC members to sell there stakes so Disney can buy them up and then resale at a huge profit.
Just a thought.😁
Hello. I will be staying at a DVC studio room this summer. I paid through disney directly this time. I am not DVC and I didnt “borrow” points, will I still have access to the laundry room onsite? I have stayed through borrow points and was able to use the laundry room. Hopefully going through disney will be the same. Thanks in advance.
So we have never rented out our points to others but we have gifted points to family members. How will this work?
And also what does this do to rental agencies like Dave’s that work as the middle man for renting out points?