Davids rental or DVC store

[Cj2017]

Which is a better option Davids or DVC rental store?

We are planning our first trip to Hawaii next year and would love to stay in Aulani. It's out of our budget to pay full price, but if we go through one of the sites it's more affordable. We already have the money to pay off our trip so we are not worried about having to cancel. I see that the DVS store is more expensive, but they offer a two-year credit where David is use it or lose it, but about $500 cheaper. What is your experience with either of the two?

Thanks

 

[CraigInPA]

David's actions during the pandemic were all about David, not the renters, and not the owners. His newest contract puts all the risk onto the owners, and offers a one-time re-booking to renters in the event of force majeure. As an owner, I'd never rent my points through David's.

I have no experience with DVC Rental Store to share.

 

[Best Aunt]

As an owner, I can say that DVC Rental Store strongly encouraged me to make a reservation with my points, and then rent out the confirmed reservation. They have tons and tons of confirmed reservations on their website. David's doesn't have as many confirmed (dedicated) reservations on their site.

If you don't see a confirmed reservation that you want, you might not have success renting. I think both companies have more people who want to rent than they do owners who have points they want to use to make reservations.

 

[nw6675]

I have rented through both. I had great customer service with both and would rent from either again. I usually just do confirmed reservations which makes the process easier.

 

[Cj2017]

So I guess I'm misunderstanding the difference between confirmed reservations and requesting a room. I see that there is availability for my dates on their website. Do I not just request the dates and get them reserved?


Thanks

 

[_auroraborealis_]

So I guess I'm misunderstanding the difference between confirmed reservations and requesting a room. I see that there is availability for my dates on their website. Do I not just request the dates and get them reserved?


Thanks

No site shows live availability. The availability tool only updates once or twice a day, and availability of a room does not mean they have an owner with points to make the booking.

A confirmed booking is an already-made reservation, and is a sure thing. But it cannot be modified.

 

[CarolMN]

So I guess I'm misunderstanding the difference between confirmed reservations and requesting a room. I see that there is availability for my dates on their website. Do I not just request the dates and get them reserved?


Thanks

Yes. If there is availability, and if they have an owner who has points to rent, they will arrange to get you the reservation you request.

If you are booking more than 7 months in advance, they will need an owner who has Aulani points. As mentioned, any availability you see on a broker's website is a snapshot in time and may not be accurate when an actual booking is attempted. (But if it does show availability, that's a good sign)!

 

[Cj2017]

Thank you that makes sense

 

[Best Aunt]

To see the listings of reservations which DVC members already made, and which they want to rent out as is:

On David's website, you hover over DVC Guests and click on Dedicated Reservations for Rent.

On the DVC rental store, you over over Guests and then click on Browse Reservations.

 

[MickeyMice]

if you are somewhat flexible about timing, room size, views etc. you should browse confirmed reservations on both sites to see if one suits your needs. and if one reservation is basically perfect, i would probably grab it regardless of broker.

if you have very specific needs, you can submit a request to either broker and they will try to fill, but there's no guarantee they will.

 

[Jgc014]

As an owner, I can say that DVC Rental Store strongly encouraged me to make a reservation with my points, and then rent out the confirmed reservation. They have tons and tons of confirmed reservations on their website. David's doesn't have as many confirmed (dedicated) reservations on their site.

If you don't see a confirmed reservation that you want, you might not have success renting. I think both companies have more people who want to rent than they do owners who have points they want to use to make reservations.

That’s interesting. I actually thought they would prefer the flexibility to have points that could be used for whatever. Did they say why they were pushing that option?

 

[Best Aunt]

That’s interesting. I actually thought they would prefer the flexibility to have points that could be used for whatever. Did they say why they were pushing that option?

They did not.

But when I glanced at their confirmed listings, I think they have potential to make quite a profit. There is a cap on what they pay owners. The resies are listed at a flat rate price for guests to pay. There isn't a lot of transparency (that I could figure out). It isn't like Guest pays $x per point and Owner gets $y per point so you can figure out what agency gets for these confirmed resies. It seems to be all over the place

 

[DonMacGregor]

As an owner, I can say that DVC Rental Store strongly encouraged me to make a reservation with my points, and then rent out the confirmed reservation. They have tons and tons of confirmed reservations on their website. David's doesn't have as many confirmed (dedicated) reservations on their site.

That's interesting. I've rented out points twice using DVC Rental Store, and was never encouraged to do anything by anyone. It wasn't even mentioned. I simply browsed the list of requests, picked the ones that matched the number of points I wanted to rent out and that were within the 11 month or 7 month window (one was at SSR which I own and rented at 8 months out, the other was at Aulani, which I do not and rented out last month for a Christmas trip this December).

 

[Best Aunt]

That's interesting. I've rented out points twice using DVC Rental Store, and was never encouraged to do anything by anyone. It wasn't even mentioned. I simply browsed the list of requests, picked the ones that matched the number of points I wanted to rent out and that were within the 11 month or 7 month window (one was at SSR which I own and rented at 8 months out, the other was at Aulani, which I do not and rented out last month for a Christmas trip this December).

I had questions so I called before creating an account.

 

[Anthony Vito]

They did not.

But when I glanced at their confirmed listings, I think they have potential to make quite a profit. There is a cap on what they pay owners. The resies are listed at a flat rate price for guests to pay. There isn't a lot of transparency (that I could figure out). It isn't like Guest pays $x per point and Owner gets $y per point so you can figure out what agency gets for these confirmed resies. It seems to be all over the place

I agree, without the points required for that reservation right there, it's much less obvious. I've seen from browsing that what they charge to rent per point now fluctuates, despite not paying owners anything different. As for the confirmed reservations, I definitely agree that they can perhaps make more, plus it allows them to rent it out later when there's no longer availability and charge a premium as such, despite the owner not getting any more money because they made a more coveted reservation. We had reservations for the 50th anniversary and decided not to go. The few confirmed reservations they had were going for about $35-40 per point, if I remember correctly. I called to see about renting the reservation, thinking it might be nice to make some money on it since we were a bit bummed not to be going, and I was going to lose the points for the 9/30 reservation (Oct use year, was too late to cancel and bank). Despite what they were charging, they were not able to give me any more than the normal $14 or so per point. I decided to cancel and save the points for the Oct. nights, and gave the reservation for 9/30 to a family member who lives in Orlando so they could just have a night to stay at Riviera.

 

[huskerfanatic7]

why are DVC Rental Store confirmed reservations so much more expensive than davids? It doesn't make sense financially to book through them in my opinion

 

[Best Aunt]

why are DVC Rental Store confirmed reservations so much more expensive than davids?

Excellent question. Maybe they start high and drop the price over time if necessary?

 

[Noodlez]

why are DVC Rental Store confirmed reservations so much more expensive than davids? It doesn't make sense financially to book through them in my opinion

When I put a confirmed reservation through David's they asked me what I wanted to accept for my points. They then added a fixed amount to this as their profit (currently $5 per point). From what I have read above, it seems like DVC Rental Store instead give the owner a fixed amount and take whatever they can get as their profit. (I've only used David's though, so I don't know this for a fact).

 

[Noodlez]

David's actions during the pandemic were all about David, not the renters, and not the owners. His newest contract puts all the risk onto the owners, and offers a one-time re-booking to renters in the event of force majeure. As an owner, I'd never rent my points through David's.

I have no experience with DVC Rental Store to share.

As David's is one of the largest brokers they definitely got the most complaints on here during the pandemic. Having said that, I looked at others at the time and couldn't find any that treated owners or renters any better! I saw some that allowed renters to rebook but gave a shorter timescale than David's, and others that just said you get nothing without insurance.

For the owners, I really don't see what more they could have done! They allowed everyone to keep the 70% they had already received as well as having all of their points back to rent for more money or use themselves. I had a reservation with them just after reopening and they offered me more money per point if I was willing to change the name but said I had no obligation!

I fully understand that people were upset at the time, but I can't think of any actions that David's took that made them worse than any others, and I personally would be more likely to use them again because of how they behaved. Some people decided they would only rent points directly after this, which is understandable, but as far as rental agencies go this hasn't made me look more favourably on any others.

Obviously, I don't want to open up this subject again, but I think many of us were not unhappy with David's at that time, but we did not want to comment on 'that' thread because people were upset and just wanted the opportunity to rant!

 

[Marionnette]

For the owners, I really don't see what more they could have done! They allowed everyone to keep the 70% they had already received as well as having all of their points back to rent for more money or use themselves

David's wanted owners to refund what they had received, pretty much stuck them with unusable points in spite of a "no refunds policy" and refused to refund cash to the renters when the owners returned their 70%. As a result of the shut down, David's added a force majeure clause to their intermediary agreement that puts the entire risk on the owner in the event of future closures.

You're entitled to your opinions but those are the facts as were reported by a number of owners in "that thread".