Another thread to condemn walkers. Many want to demand that DVC somehow do away with it. Some even suggest a lawsuit although I do not know who you would sue -- if it is not against any rules, suing DVC would be pointless because it is not ignoring any rules by allowing it; maybe you just demand that DVC. sue all the people walking or all professional renters, something DVC would have to spend huge amounts of time and money even to determine who those "evil" walkers are.
The option, of course, is to have huge numbers of members complain to DVC in the hope it will do something to end walking. However, in the past, when DVC has changed things because of a large number of complaints, it has not usually chosen the change requested but instead chooses a solution that costs it little and is often something that itself is worse than what existed.
I mention that because DVC could easily end walking at little to no cost to it. What some may not realize is that the current reservation system, where you can book up to 7 nights at 11-months out from date of arrival, did not exist before June 2008. Under the reservation system that existed before then, a member could book a reservation at 11/7 months out from date of check-out from a DVC room. Since that system has already existed, and thus no one could assert DVC would be acting improperly in returning to it, that is what you would likely get if members overwhelmingly complain to DVC that the current system that results in walking needs to be changed.
There was a form of walking under the old system but it is not one any professional renter would likely want to spend the time doing because a usual result could be that "walking" would not get multiple day reservations for hard-to-get rooms. What some members did was try to make a day-by-day reservation. Example, if a member wanted to reserve Dec 1-8 at 11-months out , the member would reserve, on Jan 2, the night of Dec 1, making Dec 2 the departure date. On Jan 3, if successful in getting the night of Dec 1, the member would attempt to get the night of Dec 2 with a Dec 3 departure date. That day by day reservation attempt would continue with the hope of actually getting 7 nights. The obvious downside to that method is that for any hard-to-get room, on that second day of an attempt, the member would be competing with everyone else who has Dec 3 as a departure date; and that would continue to be the risk for any days to be added thereafter. When the old system was in effect, that "walking" system was generally used only by members seeking GVs, which were the rooms members believed could be booked very fast at 11-months out. Many spoke of their success in doing that "walk". It was later that I found out such success usually had little to do with walking but instead that the existing GVs at the time did not actually book full book right at 11-months out. Much has changed since then, including the evolution of the 11-month booking problem for a group of rooms. If DVC switched to the old system, there would be a lot more members than now who would be unsuccessful in getting desired hard-to-get rooms for multiple day reservations, even in the absence of any professional renters.
