DVC Guaranteed Event Weeks

[ziravan]

I think DVC should consider offering the same flexibility to the 250 or so fixed week owners of Aul, VGF, and PVB.

 

[Ben E N]

I think DVC should consider offering the same flexibility o the 250 or so fixed week owners of Aul, VGF, and PVB.

That's where I wonder if there is concern about selling the CCV points. They seem to be putting a carrot out there just to get some points sold at the one hotel.
I wonder how normal point owners there feel about the fact that some others just got a head start on them in terms of reserving multiple weeks during the year. It would irritate me if others got more than 11 month booking priority at my home resort, considering that only 9% of their rooms are studios to start with.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

That's where I wonder if there is concern about selling the CCV points. They seem to be putting a carrot out there just to get some points sold at the one hotel.
I wonder how normal point owners there feel about the fact that some others just got a head start on them in terms of reserving multiple weeks during the year. It would irritate me if others got more than 11 month booking priority at my home resort, considering that only 9% of their rooms are studios to start with.

I suspect it was more just a marketing idea and legal said they could work it so it could be done. Marketing always wants something new to say.

I'm not certain where you are getting the numbers of 9% for studios at CCV unless it's just what was part of the initial declaration? It will have 35% studios when you look at all villas there including the cabins. That places it into the middle of studio percentages if you look at all WDW resorts. Kidani, OKW, VGF, BLT and OKW all have lower percentages of studios and VWL is virtually identical at 36%.

 

[Ben E N]

I suspect it was more just a marketing idea and legal said they could work it so it could be done. Marketing always wants something new to say.

I'm not certain where you are getting the numbers of 9% for studios at CCV unless it's just what was part of the initial declaration? It will have 35% studios when you look at all villas there including the cabins. That places it into the middle of studio percentages if you look at all WDW resorts. Kidani, OKW, VGF, BLT and OKW all have lower percentages of studios and VWL is virtually identical at 36%.

You're right. The 9% number was wrong. Not sure what body part I pulled that out of but my brain was telling me I had read it before. It looks like the actual number is 22% dedicated and 19% lock off, so supply is not as bad as I had first feared.
Still, it is a bit of a concern that they are flexing the booking rules for one group right now. Once that is done, what is going to stop them from making a rolling dedicated week for anyone who wants, as long as they pay 10% extra for it?

 

[wdrl]

There is also some risk if you are trying to get a certain week. If the race weekend moves your guaranteed week moves as well (as long as the race exists). For example this year Star Wars: Dark Side Half Marathon Weekend is the third weekend of April and next year it's the first weekend of April. In addition, you will have to make sure the deed is for the week you would want if the race is cancelled. Marathon week is usually week 1 or week 2. I was not allowed to choose which week was my guaranteed week; if you bought the marathon week package it was week 1. Also if I read the contact correctly the special events right is non-transferable on resale.

Would the right be transferrable if you make a gratuitous transfer, such as gifting or willing the deed to a family member for free?

I wonder why the right is non-transferrable? I guess this means that once the original owner sells the Special Events GW it then reverts to a standard GW.

 

[LënuSëkahsëni]

Would the right be transferrable if you make a gratuitous transfer, such as gifting or willing the deed to a family member for free?

I wonder why the right is non-transferrable? I guess this means that once the original owner sells the Special Events GW it then reverts to a standard GW.

I didn't ask about gifting or willing when I was talking to Quality Assurance on the phone, but they did mention that the right would be lost via resale.

 

[STA]

I didn't ask about gifting or willing when I was talking to Quality Assurance on the phone, but they did mention that the right would be lost via resale.

May I ask, if you are not only able to pick the start day of booking as well as length, how are points refunded when booking less than 7 nights? If you book any or all of the trip in the 12 month advance period will the 10% overage be used and face value points be placed as floating points? Clearly being able to have advanced booking must incur some cost of points like with the previous iteration of GW.

 

[LënuSëkahsëni]

May I ask, if you are not only able to pick the start day of booking as well as length, how are points refunded when booking less than 7 nights? If you book any or all of the trip in the 12 month advance period will the 10% overage be used and face value points be placed as floating points? Clearly being able to have advanced booking must incur some cost of points like with the previous iteration of GW.

Honestly I don't know how the points will end up. Right now there is just a placeholder in the system for marathon week, with a notation to Member Services to adjust the reservation at the 11 month window.

They may treat this as cancelling the GW and just require the points as listed on the point chart. I guess I'll know more in a couple weeks.

 

[LënuSëkahsëni]

I did receive the following email message from Quality Assurance today:

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I am reaching out to you in regards to your recently purchased Guaranteed Event Week. We are looking forward to welcoming you home during the Walt Disney World Marathon presented by Cigna. Your Disney Vacation Club accommodation has been confirmed to align with the 2019 event. Unless you have already reached out to Member Services, to make modifications to your reservation, your Guaranteed Event Week will be the following dates:

Arrival: Sunday, January 6, 2019
Departure: Sunday, January 13, 2019
Walt Disney World Marathon Dates: Wednesday, January 9 - Sunday, January 13, 2019

If you wish to make any modifications, such as to adjust the arrival or departure to be able to depart later the following week, you will want to do so soon; by January 6, 2018. Otherwise, availability may become limited after the Home Resort Priority booking window opens for other Members for that time period.

To make adjustments to your Guaranteed Event Week reservation, call Member Services at 800-800-9800. They can also help you partially opt-out or fully opt-out, so you can use Vacation Points towards other vacation options throughout that year Use Year or even bank them forward to the following Use Year.

Also, the runDisney event registration process will begin this spring and we will need race participant information in advance. This is so we can email each participant a registration link from runDisney. You will receive the email from runDisney 14 days prior to general registration and you will have 7 days from the date of that email to complete your runDisney race entries.
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I'm guessing they meant to say that modifications need to be done by February 6, 2018, since that would be the start of the 11-month window.

 

[ziravan]

I did receive the following email message from Quality Assurance today:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am reaching out to you in regards to your recently purchased Guaranteed Event Week. We are looking forward to welcoming you home during the Walt Disney World Marathon presented by Cigna. Your Disney Vacation Club accommodation has been confirmed to align with the 2019 event. Unless you have already reached out to Member Services, to make modifications to your reservation, your Guaranteed Event Week will be the following dates:

Arrival: Sunday, January 6, 2019
Departure: Sunday, January 13, 2019
Walt Disney World Marathon Dates: Wednesday, January 9 - Sunday, January 13, 2019

If you wish to make any modifications, such as to adjust the arrival or departure to be able to depart later the following week, you will want to do so soon; by January 6, 2018. Otherwise, availability may become limited after the Home Resort Priority booking window opens for other Members for that time period.

To make adjustments to your Guaranteed Event Week reservation, call Member Services at 800-800-9800. They can also help you partially opt-out or fully opt-out, so you can use Vacation Points towards other vacation options throughout that year Use Year or even bank them forward to the following Use Year.

Also, the runDisney event registration process will begin this spring and we will need race participant information in advance. This is so we can email each participant a registration link from runDisney. You will receive the email from runDisney 14 days prior to general registration and you will have 7 days from the date of that email to complete your runDisney race entries.
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I'm guessing they meant to say that modifications need to be done by February 6, 2018, since that would be the start of the 11-month window.

Wow.

I want the ability to modify the start day of my fixed week and to partially opt out.

 

[Ben E N]

Wow.

I want the ability to modify the start day of my fixed week and to partially opt out.

That's where I am wondering what doors this opens for the sales at future resorts. If this does well, why not just charge people an extra 10-20% to give them a one extra month booking advantage over others? Within limits (only around race time, but for multiple races), that's what this does at CCV. I would not be thrilled if i just paid full direct price to own there only to find out others get to jump ahead in line of me.

 

[LënuSëkahsëni]

Wow.

I want the ability to modify the start day of my fixed week and to partially opt out.

You could buy a runDisney Guaranteed Event Week....haha. All kidding aside, I don't think this offer would appeal to runners without the Special Event Right especially for marathon weekend; many of the runners aren't even done with the race by the time they would need to be out of the room.

That's where I am wondering what doors this opens for the sales at future resorts. If this does well, why not just charge people an extra 10-20% to give them a one extra month booking advantage over others? Within limits (only around race time, but for multiple races), that's what this does at CCV. I would not be thrilled if i just paid full direct price to own there only to find out others get to jump ahead in line of me.

Don't get me wrong I understand what you are saying, but I'm not sure this is opening any doors for future sales since the Special Event Right is documented and disclosed in at least two places. First, it's listed in the Multi-Site Public Offering Statement, under Home Resort Rules and Regulations, Section IV Guaranteed Reservations (Fixed Ownership Interests Only), Items 5-9. (I earlier misquoted where it was located saying Buena Vista Trading Company Disclosure Guide, too many documents all in one little book). Second it was explained in section 5 of the Purchase Agreement "DVD may also sell 'Special Event Rights' which provides the Owner who owns a designated Fixed Ownership Interest the right to reserve Use Days during which a special event, as designated by DVCMC in its sole, absolute and unfettered discretion, occurs in each calendar year"

The revision date on my copy of the Home Resort Rules and Regulations is 11/17/16 and the Purchase Agreement was revised on 12/08/2017. It would be interesting to see if the Special Event Right was added to the documents recently. If this is a new addition it could explain why the runDisney offer was only available at CCV; other than it will boost CCV sales. When I was talking with Member Services they seemed to indicate that this was the first time that deeds have been sold with a Special Event Right.

 

[Dean]

Wow.

I want the ability to modify the start day of my fixed week and to partially opt out.

I'd reach out to MS AND get a new copy of the multi site POS to review. There has to be wording that would allow this in the POS and it's possible that wording would allow it for other fixed week owners as well. If the answer was no, I'd reach out to Legal to ask why not. I suspect there's a good chance you could have that ability going forward.

 

[CarolMN]

That's where I am wondering what doors this opens for the sales at future resorts. If this does well, why not just charge people an extra 10-20% to give them a one extra month booking advantage over others? Within limits (only around race time, but for multiple races), that's what this does at CCV. I would not be thrilled if i just paid full direct price to own there only to find out others get to jump ahead in line of me.

Why would someone pay 10-20% more for something that is not needed? I'm assuming that the fixed week sales would remain capped at 35%, so that leaves at least 65% of the availability for those who would book at 11 months.

I also believe that most of the angst around booking is for the least expensive categories and that the lion's share of that demand is coming from members will relatively small contracts. I doubt those folks are likely to pay an expensive premium for a guarantee of the "cheap" rooms.

I also wonder how many people would choose that time of year for an annual visit if they are not runners. Are there that many runners who keep running annually for 30 to 50 years? Again, would it be worth the premium for a few years of guaranteed early registration for this event? I'm not a runner so I don't know. I just did a quick check and there are still studios available for the second half of December for both CCV and BRV. It doesn't appear that the walkers are out in force for either NYE or Marathon weekend there).

I don't believe there will be enough sales of a fixed week for race weekends to matter to the rest of the CCV owners. We'll see, I guess.

 

[Dean]

Why would someone pay 10-20% more for something that is not needed? I'm assuming that the fixed week sales would remain capped at 35%, so that leaves at least 65% of the availability for those who would book at 11 months.

I also believe that most of the angst around booking is for the least expensive categories and that the lion's share of that demand is coming from members will relatively small contracts. I doubt those folks are likely to pay an expensive premium for a guarantee of the "cheap" rooms.

I also wonder how many people would choose that time of year for an annual visit if they are not runners. Are there that many runners who keep running annually for 30 to 50 years? Again, would it be worth the premium for a few years of guaranteed early registration for this event? I'm not a runner so I don't know. I just did a quick check and there are still studios available for the second half of December for both CCV and BRV. It doesn't appear that the walkers are out in force for either NYE or Marathon weekend there).

I don't believe there will be enough sales of a fixed week for race weekends to matter to the rest of the CCV owners. We'll see, I guess.

The very nature of buying direct means one is willing to pay more for some benefit whether it be real or perceived. IF they have to forego the sales incentives and buy the extra points for the fixed week AND use the fixed week yearly, it will be around 20% more. And $$$ wise it likely will never be worth it. But it does offer a guarantee, something that many are willing to pay for. Of course if they play with the points they can have their cake and eat it too by rolling points forward a year, reserving with points and then taking points on the fixed week which reduces the cost simply to any lost incentives. I think the retail purchase is the big cost here, if one is going to go that route anyway and the event week is important to them, it likely isn't that big of a stretch to buy the fixed week. The other issue that was reported above might be one of the major components if they function doesn't transfer with a sale.

 

[CarolynFH]

We're not in the market for more points, but if we were, and we wanted CCV, this might be tempting. We could buy the Food & Wine Half Marathon event week and have guaranteed booking for that week. We are not runners (but our DD and DSiL are).

 

[LënuSëkahsëni]

Why would someone pay 10-20% more for something that is not needed? I'm assuming that the fixed week sales would remain capped at 35%, so that leaves at least 65% of the availability for those who would book at 11 months.

I also believe that most of the angst around booking is for the least expensive categories and that the lion's share of that demand is coming from members will relatively small contracts. I doubt those folks are likely to pay an expensive premium for a guarantee of the "cheap" rooms.

I also wonder how many people would choose that time of year for an annual visit if they are not runners. Are there that many runners who keep running annually for 30 to 50 years? Again, would it be worth the premium for a few years of guaranteed early registration for this event? I'm not a runner so I don't know. I just did a quick check and there are still studios available for the second half of December for both CCV and BRV. It doesn't appear that the walkers are out in force for either NYE or Marathon weekend there).

I don't believe there will be enough sales of a fixed week for race weekends to matter to the rest of the CCV owners. We'll see, I guess.

I've attended marathon 7 out of the last 8 years and plan to run that race for the foreseeable future, it motivates me to train in the cold weather up north.

Since marathon weekend starts January 9th, it would be interesting to see what availability looks like at that time.

The very nature of buying direct means one is willing to pay more for some benefit whether it be real or perceived. IF they have to forego the sales incentives and buy the extra points for the fixed week AND use the fixed week yearly, it will be around 20% more. And $$$ wise it likely will never be worth it. But it does offer a guarantee, something that many are willing to pay for. Of course if they play with the points they can have their cake and eat it too by rolling points forward a year, reserving with points and then taking points on the fixed week which reduces the cost simply to any lost incentives. I think the retail purchase is the big cost here, if one is going to go that route anyway and the event week is important to them, it likely isn't that big of a stretch to buy the fixed week. The other issue that was reported above might be one of the major components if they function doesn't transfer with a sale.

After getting access to RAT I took a look at room availability for DS (Dark Side) Half Marathon (April) and W&D (Wine & Dine) Half Marathon (November) and the race weekends looked pretty much sold out. To me, the "perceived" benefit is not having to worry about booking a room. Like you said the big cost was buying direct over resale, I didn't qualify for any sales incentives since I didn't purchase at least 150 points so the only additional cost was buying enough points to cover the guaranteed week.

 

[Dean]

After getting access to RAT I took a look at room availability for DS (Dark Side) Half Marathon (April) and W&D (Wine & Dine) Half Marathon (November) and the race weekends looked pretty much sold out. To me, the "perceived" benefit is not having to worry about booking a room. Like you said the big cost was buying direct over resale, I didn't qualify for any sales incentives since I didn't purchase at least 150 points so the only additional cost was buying enough points to cover the guaranteed week.

You could still wait list for points and cancel the fixed week reservation netting an additional 10% bonus in points.

 

[LënuSëkahsëni]

You could still wait list for points and cancel the fixed week reservation netting an additional 10% bonus in points.

The requested modification for my reservation was finally made by MS. Once the reservation was adjusted to be Tuesday to Monday as requested, the GW premium was returned to my account.

 

[STA]

The requested modification for my reservation was finally made by MS. Once the reservation was adjusted to be Tuesday to Monday as requested, the GW premium was returned to my account.

Thanks for that info. A follow up question if you don’t mind:

Were you charged for days used or were you refunded based on days not booked?

In the first case you have absolutely no penalty for using GW. In second, you get points back by shortening a reservation but the 10% premium is still invoked and rolled into reservation point costs.