The Dark Side of Disney - Leonard Kinsey [7]
Renting points is specific to the Disney Vacation Club Resorts, which is Disney’s fancy name for a timeshare. “Owners” buy a certain number of “points” that they get each year for the life of the contract (for example, The Boardwalk Villas contracts expire in 2042). They pay a certain amount in yearly maintenance fees, depending on the number of points they own. It’s not exactly an inexpensive commitment; normal contracts run in the 10s of thousands, and yearly maintenance fees can be thousands of dollars.
Each owner buys into a home resort on Disney property, many of which are a sub-section of a Deluxe resort (such as Bay Lake Towers at The Contemporary or Kidani Village at Animal Kingdom Lodge). These resorts all offer deluxe amenities, from “suites” that have kitchenettes, to 1-2-bedrooms that have full kitchens, Jacuzzis, and laundry machines. These are definitely a step above the Value or Moderate resorts, and similar accommodations at the Deluxe resorts start at $300/night (if you’re lucky!).
When I went on vacation with my family as a kid, we always stayed at the Value and Moderate resorts, because that’s all we could afford. DVC didn’t even exist yet. I’m certainly not going to deny that my family had some amazing vacations and absolutely loved those resorts, and I’m not trying to tell you that you won’t have a magical vacation at the Values or Moderates. I still have a major soft spot in my heart for The Caribbean Beach. But I have to say, once you go Deluxe, you’ll never want to go back. And why not, when you can get them for the same price, if not cheaper, than a Value? Staying at The Boardwalk or The Beach Club and being able to walk to Epcot during The Food and Wine Festival just can’t be beat, and have you SEEN Stormalong Bay, the “pool” at The Yacht and Beach Club? Calling it a pool is like calling The Grand Canyon a ditch! Or how about waking up in a room at Kidani Village, opening your blinds, and seeing a giraffe staring back at you? While the cheaper resorts are great, they simply don’t offer those sorts of otherworldly experiences, the kind that make memories you brag to your friends about for years.
Now for the boring details. Stay with me here – this is tedious but it’s important to understand DVC in order to fully take advantage of it. The owners of these timeshares, depending on the time of year and the type of room they want, use a certain number of points to reserve their room; more points are required for bigger rooms during busier times of the year. The owners buy a specific number of points to use each year at a particular resort, and they can also use those points for other resorts (although you can book 11 months out at your home resort, as opposed to 7 months at other resorts). So what happens is that people find that they have points left over at the end of the year, and although Disney allows you to bank points into the next year, if you still don’t use them, you lose them.
When people have extra points that they know they won’t be able to use, instead of just letting them expire they can “rent” the points. In short, they’re booking a reservation for someone else. This can work one of two ways: 1) you either contact a DVC owner and have them check on resort availability, hoping that the resort you want is open on the dates you want it, or 2) the owner already has a reservation they can’t use, and it just happens to be during the dates you want at the resort of your choice.
The first way of doing it works best if you can plan 11 months in advance, which is the earliest owners can book at their home resorts. After that the more in demand resorts get booked up quickly, and you’re usually left with the biggest DVC resorts, Old Key West or Saratoga Springs (both of which are very nice, by the way). The best way to book with this method is to go to the DVC Rent/Trade subforum at disboards.com and start contacting people who say they have points for rent. They’ll check availability for you,