It was a pretty big shock.
It had been a very long time since Disney had done any allocation. There were some that theorized an allocation was needed.
I think it was a couple of months after BLT opened and a number of members had points jump up before they had their first stay.
They it did over two years, releasing the first change in mid-Jan 2009 for charts to begin for stays in Jan 2010. The second weekend to weekday point shift was announced Jan 2010, effective Jan 2011. DVD actually did it over two years simply because the total point shift for two years changed the nightly per point requirements more than 20% (up or down) and DVD cannot do a change in any one year that exceeds 20% per any night. That first shift was particularly unfair to the BLT owners. DVD started selling BLT in September 2008, using to make the sale
point charts that existed before releasing the new charts in Jan 2009 with the change to gegin 2010. Many BLT owners bought in reliance on those charts. BLT was not scheduled to open until August 2009. Only a week before releasing the new charts in Jan 2009, DVD made a change that raised the BLT minimum add-on amount to 100 points from 25. Net effect: new BLT owners who bought before mid-Jan 2009 found themselves with too few points for their expected weekday trips, the resort had not even opened yet, and they could no longer correct the problem except by buying at least 100 add-on points. Ultimately, in March, DVD relented on the 100 point add-on requirement and put it back to 25 for BLT, but only after a lot of complaints by BLT owners.
It is those kinds of nightmares that were far too typical during the reign of Darth Vader, a/k/a Jim Lewis, the former President and CEO of DVD, who was eventually fired due to the fiasco of greatly underestimating needed Aulani dues when it orginally went on sale, and who would often start his announcements of any changes with the words: "In response to the feedback from our members, and in order to enhance the
DVC membership experience ...." Whenever you heard those words from him, your immediate reaction was to reach down and check for your wallet to make sure it was still there.
As to rumors of a weekend to weekday shift, members had mentioned it for years as a possibility because the weekend points greatly exceeded weekday with the result that demand was particualrly skewed toward Sun through Thurs trips. In more than one occassion over the years, DVD actually included the possibility in member surveys to see how members would react. Thus, that the shift actually occurred was not a complete surprise but how callously it was handled was unless you were someone who had already been experienceing Darth Vader's usual moves for the years before then.
