DVC fails customer service again, be careful with how you use your points canceled due to COVID

@vnovabri we were in the same boat. I called weekly and spoke to a couple supervisors and there was zero bend in any of them. We finally had our July Aulani trip cancelled but it has been maddening to watch DVC slowly cancel things only 1-2 weeks out at a time.



@Sandisw is the first week of that UY for the extension basically "unusable" that you've seen/read? We were hoping to use the extended points to bridge some dates going from August in Sept with a Sept UY

Is this the potential workaround?

Reschedule the trip to as early as possible at Aulani and wait for a cancellation. Would the points then be available? I’m not even sure Aulani is allowing bookings, but I know the WDW resorts were during the closed periods.
 
Is this the potential workaround?

Reschedule the trip to as early as possible at Aulani and wait for a cancellation. Would the points then be available? I’m not even sure Aulani is allowing bookings, but I know the WDW resorts were during the closed periods.

I think if the rule is the last place, it is worth a try if someone isn’t going.
 
It's definitely an interesting theory. If you're already "stuck" with expiring points by end of UY then I guess maybe no harm, no foul? The only part I see backfiring would be switching to AUL and they announce an opening date that doesn't get you cancelled and then you can't find a good reservation back at WDW that works for you based on availability. I was told current cancellations are through July 16th arrivals as of about 2 days ago.
 
It's definitely an interesting theory. If you're already "stuck" with expiring points by end of UY then I guess maybe no harm, no foul? The only part I see backfiring would be switching to AUL and they announce an opening date that doesn't get you cancelled and then you can't find a good reservation back at WDW that works for you based on availability. I was told current cancellations are through July 16th arrivals as of about 2 days ago.

I just took a look and it seems availability is limited but starts for some categories around the 19th. A reservation then could potentially be cancelled as early as the end of the week then.

It’s still a bit of a Hail Mary, but with Hawaii’s quarantine orders just extended to Aug 1, it might be a good bet.
 


Well once again disappointed in DVC and their ability to do the right thing and see things outside a rigid black and white policy. Long story short, we had an April trip that we waited for Disney to cancel to avoid this type of situation. Then because DVC did not provide any feedback for weeks on what would happen to expiring points, we booked a trip the last week of August before our points would expire (SEP UY) to buy as much time as we could. Then DVC emailed that they would extend the points for use until November. We called trying to book a trip in October with our points that we held in the August reservation and they said because we made the intermediary booking, we no longer qualified for the extended period. I really dont see how it is fair we get punished for putting our expiring points into the August placeholder reservation as far out as we could to avoid losing them. And basically now we are left with no recourse except to try and use our points in July or August while everything in Florida is blowing up again. Until all of this took place we had considered buying more DVC points, but with this inability to properly read the situation, and the other issues with DVC, we are more likely to sell than add on.
Not cool. We were in the same boat but decided to just use the points in August. We did not call dvc or try to get them back. I guess it would have been no for us anyway. Good luck.
 
This is the only reason we r trying to go in Jan. Feb use year and have to use them before we loose them. If things are the same as they really now in Florida no way I’m going and dvc can shove them. I really don’t care. I’m ahead of the ballgame at this point for how cheap or resale contract was years ago. It was fun for years but things are more stressful right now and I stressed myself out way way too much to even get tickets to get into the parks this past week. Way too much time lost.
 
This is the only reason we r trying to go in Jan. Feb use year and have to use them before we loose them. If things are the same as they really now in Florida no way I’m going and dvc can shove them. I really don’t care. I’m ahead of the ballgame at this point for how cheap or resale contract was years ago. It was fun for years but things are more stressful right now and I stressed myself out way way too much to even get tickets to get into the parks this past week. Way too much time lost.

sounds similar. We’ve been building a January trip to use points and feeling uncertain it will happen. Also no tickets either. Really a resort only is ok. Still warmer than WV. We have 318 points to use by March 31. So could push it out. We are currently booked Jan 19 to feb 10.

our back up is hopefully a 2 bedroom at HHI early March for how ever many points to use and just telling the kids to drive down for whatever time they want to visit. It’s a 9 hour drive from our state.
 


I have considered using RCI - I have to decide within a couple of weeks.....The 106 lost points will be small potatoes if I end up canceling my March trip using 2 years worth of points.....
 
I assume since you said your points would expire, they must have been 2018 banked points. There was a thread where other members were caught in the same situation, (see below) the most frustrating thing to me is not only is the policy not published, but the unpublished policy seems to have changed "back and forth" several times. If you click on the up arrow below, you will be taken to that thread.

Not necessarily. We had a reservation using our 2019 points for first week of April which was canceled. Our banking window closed end of March. We rescheduled to end of May and that was also canceled so we booked something the last week of July just before our August points expire. They are no longer covered by any extension and the banking window closed right at shutdown. We're in the same boat but are going, trying to make the best of it.
 
We had a similar thing happen with flights to Hawaii. Modified to August when we saw things going down, but now they don't qualify for a refund, just a credit that expires in January. Everyone else who booked in March gets another year to use the credits. It's frustrating and we'll probably be out several hundred dollars.

Edit: Well never mind! I just found out SW extended their dates for the extended points until September. So now we get until 2022 to use them! I still understand your initial frustration though. I felt helpless when I cancelled our August flights and were told 'too bad'.
 
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I have considered using RCI - I have to decide within a couple of weeks.....The 106 lost points will be small potatoes if I end up canceling my March trip using 2 years worth of points.....
As RCI is a notoriously bad use of points.... consider RENTING THE POINTS OUT? DW & I are in the same boat.... WDW will xXXXX points, banked from 2019 to 2020, on 3-31-2021. They have offered no solution, beyond "transfer to RCI". There IS another solution.

We have chosen to become DVC-Owner renters, to accomplish two things:
1) Avoid Point theft, recover cash, while at the same time....
2) Making it more difficult for our thief to rent standard Hotel Rooms, and offer lower cost DVC Rental options to others :).

ETA. Removed details of points..not allowed.
 
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As RCI is a notoriously bad use of points.... consider RENTING THE POINTS OUT? DW & I are in the same boat.... WDW will steal xxxxx points, banked from 2019 to 2020, on 3-31-2021. They have offered no solution, beyond "transfer to RCI". There IS another solution.

We have chosen to become DVC-Owner renters, to accomplish two things:
1) Avoid Point theft, recover cash, while at the same time....
2) Making it more difficult for our thief to rent standard Hotel Rooms, and offer lower cost DVC Rental options to others :).
Who did you use? I may be in the same boat come next week.
 
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Not necessarily. We had a reservation using our 2019 points for first week of April which was canceled. Our banking window closed end of March. We rescheduled to end of May and that was also canceled so we booked something the last week of July just before our August points expire. They are no longer covered by any extension and the banking window closed right at shutdown. We're in the same boat but are going, trying to make the best of it.
OP said they have a Sept UY, so their banking deadline was April 30 for 2019 points, which is why I thought when they referred to expiring points when their April reservation was cancelled they must have been talking about 2018 banked points.

We also have an Aug UY. I think that UY was treated the worst. The banking deadline for Aug UYs was March 31st, and as of that date DVC had not made any announcement about extending the banking deadline for trips cancelled because of resort closures. We cancelled our June trip on March 30th, so we could bank our 2019 points that made up about half the points used for that June trip. The 2018 banked points used for that trip, (we think) will be extended to Nov 30, 2020, but we will not know for sure until we call MS again after Aug 1st.

ETA: I did call MS on June 17th (the RCI deposit deadline) and was told our points would be extended to Nov 30, 2020 but the MS rep I talked to refused to send me any documentation. The MS rep I talked with on June 17th said call back in early Aug, and the person you talk to then will go through the same review I just did in determining if your points are eligible for the extension. Wish I had done chat, so I had a written record of the conversation, but I have seen on other posts, that DVC records all calls to MS. If I get a different answer in Aug, I hope that recording is still available. Hate to be such a cynic, but DVC seems to have changed their unpublished policy about 2018 banked point several times already.
 
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Gotcha. Wish we'd been that fortunate. We rescheduled ours for May, being optimistic that the closure wouldn't last that long. So much for that theory....
 
OP said they have a Sept UY, so their banking deadline was April 30 for 2019 points, which is why I thought when they referred to expiring points when their April reservation was cancelled they must have been talking about 2018 banked points.

Correct, this is out situation. And for what it is worth, I dont think you are being a cynic, this is the situation they have created for members.
 
I think the key here is members. It's Member Services, not Customer Service.

Members are owners and are treated differently, and Disney have different legal obligations around membership than around cash bookings.
 
OP said they have a Sept UY, so their banking deadline was April 30 for 2019 points, which is why I thought when they referred to expiring points when their April reservation was cancelled they must have been talking about 2018 banked points.

We also have an Aug UY. I think that UY was treated the worst. The banking deadline for Aug UYs was March 31st, and as of that date DVC had not made any announcement about extending the banking deadline for trips cancelled because of resort closures. We cancelled our June trip on March 30th, so we could bank our 2019 points that made up about half the points used for that June trip. The 2018 banked points used for that trip, (we think) will be extended to Nov 30, 2020, but we will not know for sure until we call MS again after Aug 1st.

ETA: I did call MS on June 17th (the RCI deposit deadline) and was told our points would be extended to Nov 30, 2020 but the MS rep I talked to refused to send me any documentation. The MS rep I talked with on June 17th said call back in early Aug, and the person you talk to then will go through the same review I just did in determining if your points are eligible for the extension. Wish I had done chat, so I had a written record of the conversation, but I have seen on other posts, that DVC records all calls to MS. If I get a different answer in Aug, I hope that recording is still available. Hate to be such a cynic, but DVC seems to have changed their unpublished policy about 2018 banked point several times already.
If you can email them and that will force them to put in writing what actually is going to happen so it is easier to keep track of the conversation. I was emailing with them instead of sitting on a phone for hours. For our situation it worked out the best it could.
 
All of these people telling you to “try again” I just don’t get. These policies were handed down by DVC Executive leadership. You can call 100 times and speak to every supervisor in the building and are going to get the same answer. Even if these supervisors truly want to help they cannot. If you want change stop calling MS and start contacting the executives.
 
I can not say - got into trouble on this board for mentioning an agent. Sorry :(.

What I CAN suggest? Google "DVC RENTALS". One or two main agencies will stand out.

As long as one uses the link if it you are not sure it is blocked, then that is fine.

What we do not allow is people to mention what they are renting anywhere other than rent/trade.

So, feel free to mention the agency and use the link!
 

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