Thoughts on the upcoming changes to Interval Hub

[noreenkate]

Summer Disney Files arrived with the announcement of the roll out later this year of Interval Hotel Hub…ONLY AVAILABLE TO BENEFIT ELIGIBLE MEMBERS (blue,Y, direct, grandfathered)

Deposit minimum 20 points + cash, for stays at hotels…+ $95 transaction fee.

IMO the mouse has lost his mind!

 

[nomoretslt]

Received ours yesterday but only did a cursory read. I’ll have to read that. Right now when I check around for Sheraton Vistana it’s less than $500 for a week in a one bedroom. It says nothing about a transaction fee or points. Is this something different? I keep toying with the idea of extending our DVC fall trip with Sheraton before our DVC stay. I’m really hesitant though because I’m very spoiled by my DVC.

 

[dioxide45]

Is this something facilitated by Interval International? They have all kinds of programs and a general travel agency. Most that involve trading into hotels using your week or points are a poor value.

 

[dioxide45]

Received ours yesterday but only did a cursory read. I’ll have to read that. Right now when I check around for Sheraton Vistana it’s less than $500 for a week in a one bedroom. It says nothing about a transaction fee or points. Is this something different? I keep toying with the idea of extending our DVC fall trip with Sheraton before our DVC stay. I’m really hesitant though because I’m very spoiled by my DVC.

This is probably something through II Getaways. Those can be a great value and Sheraton Vistana Resort is quite nice. No fancy theming of DVC, but you might like the value that offsite offers and never want to go back to DVC

 

[noreenkate]

T

Is this something facilitated by Interval International? They have all kinds of programs and a general travel agency. Most that involve trading into hotels using your week or points are a poor value.

This was a 2 page spread in the latest edition of the owner magazine-

I don’t think Interval gives 2 s#%^ about resale members and because it will be a restricted benefit- I am thinking it was on the DVC end…

 

[TheHolleys87]

I saw that too. It's just for hotels (the Disney Files article pointed out it could be used for hotels in cities or locations without II timeshares to swap into), and after reading that in addition to the 20 points (minimum) + cash there was a $95 fee, I told DH that I doubt the cost would be any kind of bargain. We agreed it might be something to do if you had a lot of points that you couldn't otherwise use and didn't want to rent them out. I'm looking forward to seeing the actual offers, so that I can do some calculations. Since it's restricted to "DVC Y" (formerly "blue card") members, maybe DVD is subsidizing some of the costs - but again, I'll be quite surprised if this turns out to be a real "benefit."

 

[noreenkate]

I saw that too. It's just for hotels (the Disney Files article pointed out it could be used for hotels in cities or locations without II timeshares to swap into), and after reading that in addition to the 20 points (minimum) + cash there was a $95 fee, I told DH that I doubt the cost would be any kind of bargain. We agreed it might be something to do if you had a lot of points that you couldn't otherwise use and didn't want to rent them out. I'm looking forward to seeing the actual offers, so that I can do some calculations. Since it's restricted to "DVC Y" (formerly "blue card") members, maybe DVD is subsidizing some of the costs - but again, I'll be quite surprised if this turns out to be a real "benefit."

Agreed.

I actually spent some time reading up on the rules and regulations section of DCV II portal-
It seems like it will also have an exchange fee from II in addition to the $95 from MS and the 20 points and the cash for the room.

What I found interesting is the wording that members through DVC are only guaranteed exchanges- not necessarily any of the gold membership benefits, benefits may change at any time and that the program will differ from different II gold memberships.

I am interpreting that as DVC can edit the program as they want…

I am very curious to see how it works out, for example will resale memberships see the same dashboard in the portal.

 

[ljmiii]

So I poked around II today and found the equivalent MVC portal. Though interestingly enough, the basic MVC Corporate portal membership won't do - I can see what is available but to finalize the transaction I would need to upgrade to an Interval Gold or Interval Platinum membership.

You click on "Exchange" and then "Hotel Exchange" and you are presented with the usual sort of options (w/Minimum 3 night stay). I then compared the results to Priceline (which II uses as their Hotel Travel partner for cash reservations). I looked at two different hotels at two different timeframes (one in July and one in January). While all the exchange rates were ruinous, it would appear that the fewer points you use the better the rate. With 1000 points I saw 29.6 and 19.6 cents/point, with 1500 points for the same reservation I saw 22.5 and 15.8 cents/point. (FYI, for those of you unfamiliar with MVC the 2022 MFs were 62.796 cents per point and the exchange rate on MVC's website for things like resort credits is around 33 cents/point).

There might be additional fees on the final exchange screen that I can't see. Or maybe they just think people exchanging more points are more desperate. In any case, *not* a good use of MVC points...and I assume the same will be true for DVC points.