2020 Point Charts

[tjkraz]

I think it is safe to say that after this point allocation, that "balancing demand" is NOT a requirement. Sept-Dec has high demand and 1 bedrooms have low demand. Did those issues get addressed? I don't think so.

If you look at the illustration that @Kazrak posted for BCV, seems pretty clear that three objectives were accomplished, in this order:

1) Raise costs for studios
2) Raise costs for Adventure, Choice and Premier seasons
3) Lower costs for Dream and Magic seasons

While the dates for seasons themselves did not change, Adventure and Choice are now more expensive across the board. We’ll have to wait a year to see if this is a one-time adjustment or just the beginning of a long term plan to address some inequalities.

 

[Mumof4mice]

Wow, 5 more reallocations like this and those bungalows will be totally affordable. I always knew we were going to be a bungalow family one way or another.

 

[lawboy2001]

To do the math properly, you need to take into account all 365 days of the year (different lengths of each DVC season) and the number of villas of each size.

Yes, I get that, but look at the charts people have posted -- there are many increases in studios and one bedrooms, of several points, across many seasons, and maybe 1 or 2 decreases in larger room categories, of a point or two points, in maybe one season. I don't need to do the complicated math to know that simply doesn't add up....doing the complicated math would tell us just how wonky it is, but it is clearly not right.

 

[JETSDAD]

Yes, I get that, but look at the charts people have posted -- there are many increases in studios and one bedrooms, of several points, across many seasons, and maybe 1 or 2 decreases in larger room categories, of a point or two points, in maybe one season. I don't need to do the complicated math to know that simply doesn't add up....doing the complicated math would tell us just how wonky it is, but it is clearly not right.

A lot of the decreases are in Magic season which is the largest season so a reduction there frees up a lot of increases in other, shorter, seasons.

 

[DebbieB]

I think it is safe to say that after this point allocation, that "balancing demand" is NOT a requirement. Sept-Dec has high demand and 1 bedrooms have low demand. Did those issues get addressed? I don't think so.

I wonder which units Disney rents out for cash the most? Did they go down?

The first thing I always check when the points charts come out is Boardwalk for the first week of December. My main driver for buying DVC 19 years ago. Typically a very hard week to get, one of the hardest of the year (for the first time I'm in the middle of a walk for boardwalk view studio). Still Adventure season, preferred view is the same points. I'm thrilled but how does it make sense? 1 bedrooms are the last to go but they went up?

 

[tjkraz]

Yes, I get that, but look at the charts people have posted -- there are many increases in studios and one bedrooms, of several points, across many seasons, and maybe 1 or 2 decreases in larger room categories, of a point or two points, in maybe one season. I don't need to do the complicated math to know that simply doesn't add up....doing the complicated math would tell us just how wonky it is, but it is clearly not right.

Of course you need to do the math.

BCV only has 36 dedicated studios vs 152 dedicated + lock off Two Bedroom villas. A lot of little additions to a smaller quantity of rooms in shorter seasons can be offset by a bigger reductions to a larger block of rooms in longer season(s).

What I don’t know is exactly how DVC accounted for lockoff 2B villas. Are they all counted as 2Bs? Are some calculated separately as Studio + 1B? That I cannot answer. But this will obviously be under a microscope and it would surprise me if we found out that Disney deliberately tried to defraud its timeshare owners.

 

[DougEMG]

If you look at the illustration that @Kazrak posted for BCV, seems pretty clear that three objectives were accomplished, in this order:

1) Raise costs for studios
2) Raise costs for Adventure, Choice and Premier seasons
3) Lower costs for Dream and Magic seasons

While the dates for seasons themselves did not change, Adventure and Choice are now more expensive across the board. We’ll have to wait a year to see if this is a one-time adjustment or just the beginning of a long term plan to address some inequalities.

I'm looking at BWV and for the studios, ignoring Premier season, Magic had the biggest increase, followed by Dream, then Choice then Adventure. Adventure and Choice are still the cheapest seasons by far. So I would say they did not fix anything in that regard. 1 bedrooms still follow the same pattern as studios for season as well. So a fail in adjusting demand between seasons.

As for raising the point cost for studios, they also raised the point cost for 1 bedrooms. So high demand for studios is not what caused them to raise the point cost as there is no high demand for 1 bedrooms. So a fail in adjusting demand between studios and 1 bedrooms.

 

[DougEMG]

What I don’t know is exactly how DVC accounted for lockoff 2B villas. Are they all counted as 2Bs? Are some calculated separately as Studio + 1B? That I cannot answer. But this will obviously be under a microscope and it would surprise me if we found out that Disney deliberately tried to defraud its timeshare owners.

Aren't all lock-offs counted as 2Bs. 2Bs have always cost less than renting the matching studio and 1B, which to me does not make sense. Here 1+2 != 3.

Is there any restriction on how far out those totals can get?

 

[drusba]

Of course you need to do the math.

BCV only has 36 dedicated studios vs 152 dedicated + lock off Two Bedroom villas. A lot of little additions to a smaller quantity of rooms in shorter seasons can be offset by a bigger reductions to a larger block of rooms in longer season(s).

What I don’t know is exactly how DVC accounted for lockoff 2B villas. Are they all counted as 2Bs? Are some calculated separately as Studio + 1B? That I cannot answer. But this will obviously be under a microscope and it would surprise me if we found out that Disney deliberately tried to defraud its timeshare owners.

I looked into this issue several years back using BWV and AKV for full analysis.What I learned was that total points for the resort were based on what it would take to reserve all rooms for a non-leap year, and for 2BR lock-offs total points to be sold were determined by what it would take to reserve those only as 2 BRs throughout the year. The total points created for studios and 1BRs were the total points it would take to reserve the dedicated studios and 1BRs for a year. I assume the other resorts followed the same pattern. Net effect is that there were not any additional points created based on some assumption that lock-offs would likely be reserved as studios and 1BRs and not 2BRs some percentage of the time.

 

[tjkraz]

I'm looking at BWV and for the studios, ignoring Premier season, Magic had the biggest increase, followed by Dream, then Choice then Adventure. Adventure and Choice are still the cheapest seasons by far. So I would say they did not fix anything in that regard. 1 bedrooms still follow the same pattern as studios for season as well. So a fail in adjusting demand between seasons.

I’m not willing to call this a “fail” solely because an Adventure Season Standard Studio went up 1 point while that same room in Magic season went up 2 points. Anecdotally Studios were due for an increase and both seasons went up in cost.

Neither of us has access to data which would indicate the degree to which Studio demand is lopsided in each individual season. And if they made changes solely based upon historical DVC demand, Adventure season would suddenly be the most expensive season of the year. That’s obviously not appropriate.

As for raising the point cost for studios, they also raised the point cost for 1 bedrooms. So high demand for studios is not what caused them to raise the point cost as there is no high demand for 1 bedrooms. So a fail in adjusting demand between studios and 1 bedrooms.

The BWV changes are very similar to the BCV illustration in this post. Generally, One and Two Bedroom villas are up in Adventure and Choice while the cost decreased in Dream and Magic seasons.

We can generalize and say “one bedroom villas always book last”, but that’s not entirely true. Certainly not equally so across all seasons. Is it truly inconceivable that 1B and 2B villas at the BoardWalk book at a healthy rate throughout the fall months?

 

[Bing Showei]

I'm looking at BWV and for the studios, ignoring Premier season, Magic had the biggest increase, followed by Dream, then Choice then Adventure. Adventure and Choice are still the cheapest seasons by far. So I would say they did not fix anything in that regard. 1 bedrooms still follow the same pattern as studios for season as well. So a fail in adjusting demand between seasons.

As for raising the point cost for studios, they also raised the point cost for 1 bedrooms. So high demand for studios is not what caused them to raise the point cost as there is no high demand for 1 bedrooms. So a fail in adjusting demand between studios and 1 bedrooms.

This is the same observation I made around the seasons. If you look at Tim’s chart on DVCNews, it seems to support this finding as well.

Maybe we’re all looking at this the wrong way. Our view is perhaps too myopic (or more specifically, DVC-centric).

What if word came down from the mothership that DVCMC needs to do its part to dissuade the captive audience of DVC deplorables from adding onto the cash-paying park crush that will be SWGE? By increasing the traditionally more busy seasons (Magic) when families have to travel because of school vacations/summer, it may dissuade member’s from going then... and if not, more points eaten up!

Maybe this is addressing demand, but more big-picture serving the parks, than DVC membership demand, which clearly carries zero weight.

 

[Sammie]

I went through the BCV charts to see the differences.

View attachment 370789

It's interesting - there's only a few times that went down, but weeknights during Magic Season in 2brs dropped massively.

Overall, it looks like they're pushing weekdays over weekends again, and rebalancing to deal with how 'year round' WDW is these days.

Thanks for doing one for BCV. The weekend situation is probably due to so many booking weekends only for Food and Wine that it kept others from being able to book an entire week. Because it seems BCV went up on weekends more than other resorts.

 

[tjkraz]

What if word came down from the mothership that DVCMC needs to do its part to dissuade the captive audience of DVC deplorables from adding onto the cash-paying park crush that will be SWGE? By increasing the traditionally more busy seasons (Magic) when families have to travel because of school vacations/summer, it may dissuade member’s from going then... and if not, more points eaten up!

Well, that's the goal of any variable point timeshare system--charge more when demand is high and less when demand is low. The assumption should be that timeshare rooms will be filled year-round. I don't see these modest changes resulting in empty rooms. What it does is force those who are visiting during more popular times use more points for their stay, or visit for fewer nights. To be blunt, the more it seems to "hurt" members, the more justified it is. So far, this pales in comparison to the great weekday/weekend rebalancing a decade ago--a move that was also sorely needed.

The three primary phenomena I'm seeing appear to be justified: Studios cost more, Adventure/Choice seasons cost more, Magic/Dream seasons cost less. After 15 years of using this board to gauge how/when/where people use their points, I can't argue against the need for those general changes.

Debating the degree to which changes were implemented from one room to another, one season to another (up 1 point here vs 2 points there) seems...problematic.

 

[DVC92]

I did a rough point calculation for VGF comparing 2019 and 2020 points for all units and seasons. Overall, there appear to be many more points allocated in 2020 than in 2019. I believe the point allocation had to remain the same. Something isn't kosher.

 

[zavandor]

If you look at the illustration that @Kazrak posted for BCV, seems pretty clear that three objectives were accomplished, in this order:

1) Raise costs for studios
2) Raise costs for Adventure, Choice and Premier seasons
3) Lower costs for Dream and Magic seasons

While the dates for seasons themselves did not change, Adventure and Choice are now more expensive across the board. We’ll have to wait a year to see if this is a one-time adjustment or just the beginning of a long term plan to address some inequalities.

I do not agree that Adventure season needed a reallocation.
I travel only in January and September, both to take advantage of the low points and low crowds. Even if those have the lowest points charts, I can still easily book all resorts. I got difficult rooms like BWV standard, AKV value, VGF and BCV, all studios. In January only marathon week end is hot and in September only the last week has some issue. The rest of the months are very easy to book.
The herd of elephants in the room are the first two weeks of December. They are clearly not Adventure season anymore and should be put in a higher season. If they incresed cost of Adventure because of the demand of early December it's ridiculus. One point more is not going to change demand at that time with the effect of making January and September even lower demand.

I was prepared to the chance of a reallocation of studios and 1br, I even bought extra points as a cushion. I might have benefited from it if it helped rebalance demand and make studios easier to book. But increasing both studios and 1br and decreasing 2br makes no sense at all.

Tinfoil hat on!
It seems Riviera might have a larger % of studios with the new couple studios, according to rumors. How to create more points to sell? Make studios more expensive. How to make the resort not appear bad when comparing to other resorts? Increase studios everywhere.

 

[Dean]

I think it is safe to say that after this point allocation, that "balancing demand" is NOT a requirement. Sept-Dec has high demand and 1 bedrooms have low demand. Did those issues get addressed? I don't think so.

I wonder which units Disney rents out for cash the most? Did they go down?

We don't have all the data they have to make this judgement. Legally per the POS they are required to rebalance if demand is clearly off in a reproducible fashion but they have to look at the big picture, not just one resort or season.

Of course you need to do the math.

BCV only has 36 dedicated studios vs 152 dedicated + lock off Two Bedroom villas. A lot of little additions to a smaller quantity of rooms in shorter seasons can be offset by a bigger reductions to a larger block of rooms in longer season(s).

What I don’t know is exactly how DVC accounted for lockoff 2B villas. Are they all counted as 2Bs? Are some calculated separately as Studio + 1B? That I cannot answer. But this will obviously be under a microscope and it would surprise me if we found out that Disney deliberately tried to defraud its timeshare owners.

My understanding is they count lockoff's as 2 BR. Thus there is a little flexibility built in.

I looked into this issue several years back using BWV and AKV for full analysis.What I learned was that total points for the resort were based on what it would take to reserve all rooms for a non-leap year, and for 2BR lock-offs total points to be sold were determined by what it would take to reserve those only as 2 BRs throughout the year. The total points created for studios and 1BRs were the total points it would take to reserve the dedicated studios and 1BRs for a year. I assume the other resorts followed the same pattern. Net effect is that there were not any additional points created based on some assumption that lock-offs would likely be reserved as studios and 1BRs and not 2BRs some percentage of the time.

They're based on a specific year, I think it was 1991 or 1992.

I do not agree that Adventure season needed a reallocation.
I travel only in January and September, both to take advantage of the low points and low crowds. Even if those have the lowest points charts, I can still easily book all resorts. I got difficult rooms like BWV standard, AKV value, VGF and BCV, all studios. In January only marathon week end is hot and in September only the last week has some issue. The rest of the months are very easy to book.
The herd of elephants in the room are the first two weeks of December. They are clearly not Adventure season anymore and should be put in a higher season. If they incresed cost of Adventure because of the demand of early December it's ridiculus. One point more is not going to change demand with the effect of making January and September even lower demand.

I was prepared to the chance of a reallocation of studios and 1br, I even bought extra points as a cushion. I might have benefited from it if it helped rebalance demand and make studios easier to book. But increasing both studios and 1br and decreasing 2br makes no sense at all.

Tinfoil hat on!
It seems Riviera might have a larger % of studios with the new couple studios, according to rumors. How to create more points to sell? Make studios more expensive. How to make the resort not appear bad when comparing to other resorts? Increase studios everywhere.

But adventure did need a change for certain times like early Dec. What they likely should have done was change the seasons or even better, do away with adventure and go down to 4 seasons.

 

[drusba]

If you look at the illustration that @Kazrak posted for BCV, seems pretty clear that three objectives were accomplished, in this order:

1) Raise costs for studios
2) Raise costs for Adventure, Choice and Premier seasons
3) Lower costs for Dream and Magic seasons

While the dates for seasons themselves did not change, Adventure and Choice are now more expensive across the board. We’ll have to wait a year to see if this is a one-time adjustment or just the beginning of a long term plan to address some inequalities.

BWV does not have that pattern. Preferred studios stayed the same the same for Adventure season, otherwise both sets of studios went up for all seasons with significant increases in Dream and Magic. Standard 1BRs went up all seasons with significant increases in Dream and Magic. Only 1BR preferred followed the pattern you mention. GVs came down all seasons. Standard 2BRs went down a little in Dream season(actually weekdays went down 1, weekends up 1) but up in all others. The preferred (including boardwalk) 2BR went down in all seasons except up a little in premier. If one were to define BWV's pattern it was one that mainly raised points for studios, 1BRs and standard 2BRs for most of the year while decreasing GV's and preferred 2BRs

 

[MJB62676]

Positive changes at Poly IMO. But, more cuts to Bungalows needed, and to more evenly allocate points, there needs to be more studio categories (Bungalow View, Lake/MK view, Garden View, Pool View, and Value/Parking lot/street) Could even look at points based on which floor level imo. I could see advantages and disadvantages to 1st floor, but that would absolutely not be my preference. Just my 0.02.

 

[tjkraz]

I do not agree that Adventure season needed a reallocation.
I travel only in January and September, both to take advantage of the low points and low crowds. Even if those have the lowest points charts, I can still easily book all resorts. I got difficult rooms like BWV standard, AKV value, VGF and BCV, all studios. In January only marathon week end is hot and in September only the last week has some issue. The rest of the months are very easy to book.

Some availability vs zero availability is not the only barometer. Just because some number of rooms are available at 7 months doesn't give us enough data to measure trends. If BoardWalk 1B villas are booking at a faster pace in September than in May or August, an adjustment is still appropriate.

I agree that demand is not evenly distributed throughout Adventure season and perhaps some modifications to the calendar are warranted. But that's a separate topic for discussion. As the season exists today, the high demand for early December, January rollover from Christmas (varies from year to year), Marathon, MLK weekend and Food & Wine fest / MNSSHP in September have created numerous peaks in demand which belie the slower periods like the end of Jan and beginning of Sept.

Slight increases to nightly costs may not be enough to influence many members' travel habits, but it does reduce their spending power. If a room costs 20 points per night, an owner can stay 10 nights on 200 points. Raise the cost to 22 PPN and the trip must be shortened to 9 nights, freeing up capacity for others. Extrapolate that impact over thousands of DVC guest rooms every night.

BWV does not have that pattern. Preferred studios stayed the same the same for Adventure season, otherwise both sets of studios went up for all seasons with significant increases in Dream and Magic. Standard 1BRs went up all seasons with significant increases in Dream and Magic. Only 1BR preferred followed the pattern you mention. GVs came down all seasons. Standard 2BRs went down a little in Dream season(actually weekdays went down 1, weekends up 1) but up in all others. The preferred (including boardwalk) 2BR went down in all seasons except up a little in premier. If one were to define BWV's pattern it was one that mainly raised points for studios, 1BRs and standard 2BRs for most of the year while decreasing GV's and preferred 2BRs

Thanks. Trying to do quick, side-by-side comparisons is difficult, especially with the Standard/Preferred at BWV. That said, is it really any surprise that Standard room costs went up at the expense of preferred? The Boardwalk View rooms may be popular, but they're lumped in with a larger group of unpopular garden/pool view Preferred villas.

At a macro level, most of these adjustments seem appropriate. Certainly we could debate individual line items, but keeping the charts in balance undoubtedly lead to a few less-than-ideal compromises.

 

[kboo]

Looks like a lot of the studios and 1 bedroom point requirements went up and the 2 bedroom units went down.

Yup. Definitely the case with VGF and BLT where we own.

Or just any people who purchased DVC for studio stays is probably going to be unhappy. BWV is interesting though since the 2BR's are 100% lockoffs so reducing them and increasing studios and 1BRs is not really computing in my mind.

I wonder if it's an attempt to have one's cake and eat it too? Meaning - lower 2BR points means families of 4-5 are now incentivized to book a 2BR - sure it's more points, but now everyone gets a real bed, you don't have to bring extra bedding for #5, and maybe then you'll actually invite some friends (or your kids' friends) along, which means more meals and more $ spent in the parks.

They really went after BLT and VGF 1BR Standard rooms. At VGF, it now runs 21 more points for a week. A week in Magic rose 21 points for a BLT 1 BR. Not very happy!!!

Yup. OUCH. We were all about the BLT 1BR std. At VGF they really narrowed the gap between LV and Std too - not really an issue for us since we planned to have a little cushion anyway, but now if we go to WDW during heavy traffic times and end up spending more time in the villa, I might be more willing to shell out the extra points for LV.
...
eh, still not. Standard view at VGF is pretty terrific, unless you're in 1221.

This was one of my first thoughts as well and we’re just a family of 3. Imagine all the families of 4 and 5 who used to “spread out” in a 1BR.

The smaller that gap gets, the nicer it sounds to have that second bedroom instead of slummin’ it like a peasant in a measly 1BR... I’ll just need more points.

I'm wondering how I can use this to convince DH we need more BLT points. We were leaning toward more BLT points anyway, since those will still be our "sleep around" points and we are likely bringing a grandparent along at least half the time in the next few years. Now it makes it "easier" to spend the points to get a 2Br. Standard.