Irritating Situation

[Ian]

Okay ... someone help me out here ...

I called Sunday to book a Treehouse Villa for August 30th to September 5th. I was told ... Nope. None available. In fact, we only have one night of that whole week available in a treehouse.

Today, my cousin contacts Magical Journeys to get a quote for the same time period to stay in a treehouse and he's told they're available and given a price (he's not a DVC member ... he's paying cash ... ).

Can someone explain to me how this is possible???????????? I'm severely irked.

[VWL Mom]

I feel your pain but cannot offer an answer.

We are booked at VWL for a week in Aug. Tried to see if another resort was available for that time and told the only thing would be SSR (not a treehouse) but for cash they are all available on the WDW site.

Out of curiosity, since you own at SSR why didn't you book it when they opened?

[Tink1]

I can answer!

While the majority of the rooms at any given DVC resort are "owned" by DVC members, each resort has a certain percentage that is retained by Disney for general public reservations.

The rooms retained for sale by DRC and Travel company are usually in the 5% range if I remember correctly.

Nanc

[Ian]

Out of curiosity, since you own at SSR why didn't you book it when they opened?

Because we were actually using incentive points from our BLT purchase and they wouldn't let us count them as SSR points for the purposes of booking a treehouse. Another irritation.

I can answer!

While the majority of the rooms at any given DVC resort are "owned" by DVC members, each resort has a certain percentage that is retained by Disney for general public reservations.

The rooms retained for sale by DRC and Travel company are usually in the 5% range if I remember correctly.

Nanc

Hmmm ... see I must have misunderstood the terms. I thought they only made cash rooms available to the public after they were sure that no DVC members wanted them.

Although, in retrospect I guess that doesn't make much sense because it would be near impossible to determine at what point "no DVC members wanted the rooms."

I still find it pretty annoying that a non-member is going to get my treehouse.

[Tink1]

Cash DVC rooms do release later to the general public than a "normal" resort room.

We may be able to book Polynesian in August of 2008 for a Dec 2009 trip, but we cannot usually book a DVC resort that early.

Nanc

[Ian]

Cash DVC rooms do release later to the general public than a "normal" resort room.

We may be able to book Polynesian in August of 2008 for a Dec 2009 trip, but we cannot usually book a DVC resort that early.

Nanc

Well ... I mean we called the day the treehouses opened for booking to non-SSR owners, so they couldn't have waited all that long.

It would appear they may have waited for the SSR owners only window to pass, but that's it. Cash buyers certainly got in and were able to book at the same time DVC members were.

Even more annoying is that my normally responsive guide has dropped off the face of the Earth and won't answer my emails.

[Tink1]

Your guide would be the one to tell you what the percent of rooms are retained under Disney ownership for Saratoga.

I can see where it would peeve me off if I were an owner!

N

[missalabama]

A lady with MS explained it to me once. she said that something like 5% of timeshare properties must be booked for cash. It is part of the Florida timeshare law. She said if the rooms aren't booked they have to sit empty.....even if DVC members want to book them. It is all a little confusing to me.

[Mousemates]

My understanding (which is very dated and might be ten thousand miles from accurate--because if I was wrong then, I'm surely still wrong now) of the "cash reserve units" has something to do with the requirement that a timeshare never offer any number of timeshare licenses that would cause the total number of licenses offered to exceed a one-to-one, buyerer-to-available accommodation ratio. Doing this (exceeding the ratio) can give purchasers the right to cancel their contract...which times share don't want to ever have happen....therefore, companies will keep a small percentage of rooms on a cash basis to hold in reserve so if they have some kind of issue arise in a particular building or set of units which renders them untenantable...they have some other units available to keep the ratio below the cancellation threshhold.

Hopefully, someone more knowledgeable will chime in.

[Ian]

DW called and spent 60 very frustrating minutes on the phone with Member Services getting basically nowhere.

First she was told that 2% of all the treehouses had to be reserved back for cash under FL law. Okay that was fine.

But then the woman started talking about how they also released some percentage to the general public to book because they weren't all booked by DVC members and that's when DW got a little angry.

We literally called the very first minute that the treehouses were available to non-SSR members and they said they were totally booked. And bear in mind, this is not for a busy time of the year. We're talking early September ... Adventure season.

So DW was like, "Well you obviously didn't wait very long since they were only available to most DVC members to book for about 60 seconds when we called." and the woman was like, "Well you wouldn't want us to be unfair to the poor people who aren't members would you?"

The conversation degenerated from there, for obvious reasons.

To be perfectly honest, this seems like kind of a scam to me. The way I see it, they know the treehouses are going to be popular and that they can get top dollar for them from cash guests. So they're freezing out owners and selling them for as much as they can get for them so they can essentially double dip. They'll shove us in a 2 or 1BR so they can peddle the treehouses to paying guests for 7 grand a pop (that's the real quote my cousin got for his week's package).

And I still haven't heard from my guide ... Ive now progressed from irritated to legitimately angry.

I may be wrong and maybe I have no real reason to be angry, but right now I am. I really feel like we're getting jobbed.

[wildernesslady]

Ian, The situation stinks. The same thing happened to us a couple of years ago. There were cash rooms available at the lodge, but none with points. Even at two weeks out from checking in they would not let me have the room. It's really hard to understand the system sometimes especially when you know no one is using the room. Good luck getting a treehouse in the future. They look like a lot of fun.

[Ian]

Even better, the manager my wife talked to said, "Oh, well you can just waitlist for a treehouse!"

To which my wife responded, "Yeah ... we've seen how well waitlisting works."

The manager professed to be very surprised that anyone was of the opinion that waitlisting was a futile exercise and then followed that up by saying, "Oh nevermind. You can't waitlist with builder points anyway."

Gee ... thanks ....

[princessgirls]

Ian~
I feel bad for you and your family. Disney isn't giving you many reasons to be wanting to visit these days are they??

I hope this situation turns around for you and you get into the Treehouses.

Julie

[Ian]

Eh ... I shouldn't really moan and groan about it, to be honest. I mean we are using 200 points we got for free as incentive for buying into BLT, so I should probably just be grateful we're getting a week's stay in a 2 bedroom villa for nothing.

I'll get over it, but it's just that we really had our heart's set on getting a treehouse and I'm disappointed right now.

[DizneyRox]

You should have waited for the cruise! hehe Just kidding!!!

THis was exactly my point I made about RCI people being able to book into resorts BEFORE DVC members were able to book them. The perception is that DVC membership has no pull when it comes to DVC resorts. You can tell me how I would have never had the opportunity to get there, they were probably builder inventory, etc. The reality is, someone from the outside took a room before I even had a shot. And people obviously get mad over it (you are a prime example).

The whole builder point thing has me peeved too. They are considered home resort points, but can only be used at SSR (or over in DL I think). That's cheesy too!

[Ian]

Well, what actually does irritate me about the builder points is that they force you to use them at SSR (which is fine), but then they won't treat them like SSR points.

So we weren't able to book at the 11 month window, we weren't able to book a treehouse when SSR members were (even though we own there!), etc.

I mean they give you the points, but they sure as heck make them very hard to use.

[DVC Mike]

Many DVC members wonder why they can call Disney CRO and book a villa using cash, when they can’t book a villa with points. Is Disney unfairly holding back rooms to rent via cash? No, this is not the case.

First off, as background, understand that there are two sets of inventory at each DVC resort – those that can only be booked with points and those that can only be booked with cash.

Declared (or Member) inventory can only be reserved with points. These are vacation homes associated with ownership interests that have been purchased by members and declared into the Condominium Association. Declared inventory is available to members to book using points.

The other inventory is the cash inventory. Anyone can book a cash reservation via Disney CRO, and DVC members can book one via DVC MS at a 25% discount, subject to availability.

The following are the sources of inventory for cash reservation:

Exchanges: The number one source of cash rooms is actually from the Member inventory. This occurs when members exchange/trade outside of the DVC resorts. This includes using your points to book the Disney Collection (hotels at the Disney theme parks and the Disney Cruise Line), Concierge Collection, and the Adventurer Collection (but not trading via RCI). When a member trades outside of DVC, the points used to book the outside reservation are assigned to DVD to rent out.

These rooms cannot be booked using points, as they effectively already have been. If I use my points to book a Disney Cruise, DVC has to pay DCL for my trip. They get the money to pay DCL by sending a room to CRO to rent to the general public. If the room was left in DVC inventory for booking by points, where is DVC going to get the money to pay DCL? This room, in a sense, is being used by a member, even though they're not physically there. It's being used to pay for their non-DVC vacation. This is how we're able to get stays at other resorts on our points, so it's a good thing for members. If DVC didn’t do this, we would have to remove the option to use our points at Disney hotels, Disney Cruise Line, Adventures by Disney, etc. Many members appreciate having those options available to them.

Breakage: Another source of cash reservations includes Member inventory that has not been reserved by members using points. Any Member inventory not reserved by members using points is made available to Disney CRO at the 60-day mark for cash reservations by the general public. This is actually beneficial to DVC members, in that the association earns “breakage” income on these rooms rather than letting them sit empty. Otherwise, our dues would go up.

ROFR: Another source of cash reservations is the inventory of declared points owned by DVD. These points are typically acquired by the ROFR process. Since DVD owns the points, they can rent them out, just like we can rent out the points we own.

Undeclared: These are the units that have been built by the developer that has not yet been declared into the condominium association. Since DVD controls these units, they may be rented out for cash reservations.

Unsold: These are the points that have not yet been sold by DVD to members. Since DVD owns the points, they can rent them out, just like we can rent out the points we own. I would guess there are a lot of unsold THV points right now.

[Ian]

Well ... bear in mind there really aren't any THV points ... there are only SSR points. THV's are just a new room category at SSR.

Anyway, your points are all very valid and as I said above it was really more just general disappointment on my part.

Also, that's good info. I didn't realize there were so many ways for a cash room to become available.

[Maleficent's Dad]

Ian,
I feel your pain and hope things work out for you that week.

DVC Mike, thanks for the explanation - very detailed and easy to follow. It still doesn't make us like these situations any better!

[Donald A]

First let me say that, bottom line, what makes the most money for Disney is what will happen.

Legally, I imagine they would say that they have a right to use those rooms for cash because of people like me. We own at SSR and traded out of DVC into the Disney Collection (Grand Floridian) for our 5th Anniversary. So those points are available to Disney to use as they see fit.

I can see how that makes sense, but leave it to the same folks that "reallocate" points around to make more money to decide to use the treehouse villas for people that will pay a pretty penny. That certainly isn't a DVC member. They already have our money. So obviously if Disney has the power to use the points that I gave to them to use at SSR, my home resort, they are not going to pick several studios. They are going to pick a high demand product like a treehouse villa that you and I paid to build for them.