New DVC Sales Pitch Targets Runners

[DVCNews]

Disney Vacation Club has developed a creative new way to market points to fans of runDisney events.



Disney's Wilderness Lodge

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[KNWVIKING 2.0]

And when Disney determines - for security reasons - that it's safer to move the dates around for the race weekends...........

[wdrl]

I think this is the first proactive marketing that Disney has made for its Guaranteed Week product. Up until now, it seemed like Disney ignored the Guaranteed Week option in its promotional materials and the Guides were reluctant to mention it to prospective buyers.

It will be interesting to see if there is an uptick in the number of Guaranteed Weeks sold for Copper Creek. Through mid-December 2017, Disney has sold 3,281 deeds for Copper Creek, but only 9 of them are Guaranteed Week deeds. Point-wise, Guaranteed Week sales only account for 0.25% of the points sold so far.

I'm not a runner so I don't track the schedules of the different events held at Walt Disney World. But during the big events aren't races held on Saturday and Sunday? If so, the Guaranteed Week option might not appeal to some hard core runners who compete in multiple races during one event. The Guaranteed Week option runs from Sunday to Sunday, so members would have difficulty participating in races on both Saturday and Sunday.

[denlo]

If Disney does change the dates for an event the owner of a guaranteed week can just opt out of the guaranteed week and has the points to use like any other owner during their UY.

[TimK]

If Disney does change the dates for an event the owner of a guaranteed week can just opt out of the guaranteed week and has the points to use like any other owner during their UY.

The formal website is short on details but it sure implies that the buyer’s “Guaranteed Event Week” will follow the respective runDisney event dates annually. “As a Member with a Guaranteed Event Week, you can enjoy outstanding accommodations near your favorite runDisney race, year after year.”

There is a disclaimer which says that the early event registration is not guaranteed, but no fine print which would seem to limit the timeshare ownership to a specific week.

[KNWVIKING 2.0]

The formal website is short on details but it sure implies that the buyer’s “Guaranteed Event Week” will follow the respective runDisney event dates annually. “As a Member with a Guaranteed Event Week, you can enjoy outstanding accommodations near your favorite runDisney race, year after year.”

There is a disclaimer which says that the early event registration is not guaranteed, but no fine print which would seem to limit the timeshare ownership to a specific week.

So your guaranteed week follows an event, regardless of the date? So all Feb is sold out with no Guaranteed Weeks contracts, but January is full of them due to the race. Then the race moves to Feb and the Guaranteed weeks follow the race. Doesn't that over commit points in Feb?

[TimK]

So your guaranteed week follows an event, regardless of the date? So all Feb is sold out with no Guaranteed Weeks contracts, but January is full of them due to the race. Then the race moves to Feb and the Guaranteed weeks follow the race. Doesn't that over commit points in Feb?

Without details, I can only speculate.

Most points aren’t tied to a specific timeframe. Even when it comes to Use Years, there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason as to how points are distributed.

If memory serves, the POS states that up to 35% of the villas for any given day can be sold as Fixed Weeks. The key is “up to” with most weeks having few or zero Fixed weeks sold.

Imagine DVC sells the full 35% for the January Marathon week. Then Disney decides to move the Marathon to a week in February where DVC has sold 15% of Copper Creek rooms as Fixed Weeks. In order to meet their obligations to both groups, suddenly 50% of the rooms are tied to guaranteed bookings. On the surface, that would seem to violate the POS.

But I doubt DVC overlooked this. Either there’s fine print in the agreements to address it or perhaps DVC has received some sort of guarantees that the run weekends will never move.

[wdrl]

Without details, I can only speculate.

Most points aren’t tied to a specific timeframe. Even when it comes to Use Years, there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason as to how points are distributed.

If memory serves, the POS states that up to 35% of the villas for any given day can be sold as Fixed Weeks. The key is “up to” with most weeks having few or zero Fixed weeks sold.

Imagine DVC sells the full 35% for the January Marathon week. Then Disney decides to move the Marathon to a week in February where DVC has sold 15% of Copper Creek rooms as Fixed Weeks. In order to meet their obligations to both groups, suddenly 50% of the rooms are tied to guaranteed bookings. On the surface, that would seem to violate the POS.

But I doubt DVC overlooked this. Either there’s fine print in the agreements to address it or perhaps DVC has received some sort of guarantees that the run weekends will never move.

Disney has sold very few Guaranteed Weeks for the Polynesian Villas & Bungalows. According to the POS, Disney can sell 35% of each accommodation type for each week, which means that the Poly can have 100 Standard View studio GW deeds, 25 Lake View studio GW deeds, and 7 Bungalow GW deeds for each of the 52 calendar weeks. So far, the Poly has only sold a total of 97 GW deeds across all 52 weeks and accommodation types. Sales for the Poly are winding down and I doubt that any more GW deeds will be sold for that resort. With so few GW deeds sold, it would not be that hard to shift the deeds from one week to another.

GW sales have been much slower at Copper Creek than at the Poly. If Disney hadn't started this marketing initiative aimed at runners, I think Copper Creek would have ended up with an even smaller percentage of GW deeds than what we saw at the Poly.

Like the Poly, Disney can sell up to 35% of each accommodation type for each week. I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but I think Copper Creek has 78 studios and 56 one-bedrooms, which means that Disney could sell 27 GW studios and 19 GW one-bedrooms for each week. Unless Disney get a phenomenal response from the runners, its highly unlikely will sell out of its allotment of GW for any week.

Having said that about the numbers, I don't think Disney would shift its race events to other dates. Large running events aren't the sole domain of Disney. There are other organizers that have races throughout the calendar, which means that races aren't moved about that frequently. Keep in mind that the Disney's marathon is celebrating its 25th year and its been held about the same time each year.

[KNWVIKING 2.0]

Keep in mind that the Disney's marathon is celebrating its 25th year and its been held about the same time each year.

DVC is 25 years old.

Never had daily trash pick up.

[Bolebrothers]

DVC is 25 years old.

Never had daily trash pick up.

Still a little irritated over the new policy to "check" villas by emptying trash are we...
I so get that.

G