I guess the term hurt needs defining. While I had the ability to get the second week, the cost was almost $20K and almost $1K per year in maint fees. Those 2 weeks did cost me less than half of what someone who bought retail paid for one week in many cases. Given I've been paring my points down and not up, I too am hoping they don't go that route but I think it would be a mistake from a business standpoint for them not to.
While I think that's true for some, it's not for everyone. I know people who bought for just the perks. I know several that bought between 25 & 50 points to get the discounted passes, obviously not $20-100K but it's not necessary to pay that much to get into DVC. Those I am referring to spent maybe $2-4K, get multiple AP passes for themselves and family (on the deed) and often either use only a couple of days on property OR just reserve a night here and there to have access to pools and a respite during the day while actually staying off property. This is certainly a specialty situation but it does occur. Any change that happens might create other specialty situation.
IMO, any reservation system is already me against the other potential participants. It is my goal to put myself in the position to get the reservation instead of you within the rules that apply. So I see it as already adversarial, the only question then becomes what the rules and opportunities are. Plus the system is already set up so that those with more points and more home resorts are not equal to the rest and have significant advantages that likely outweigh anything that such a system might add given DVC's usual lack of backbone in such matters.
I guess the difference is that I don't see that as a problem, YMMV.
To be honest, I don't. As I said, YMMV. While you may see it as taking away benefits, I see it as a potential opportunity for many including DVC. I can see the threads on the subject and all the upset people here on DIS though. As I stated, it's already the haves and have nots to a large degree based on how many points you own or don't combined with how many home resorts you have within those points. From a business standpoint DVC could combine perks with new purchases and by requiring retail purchases to participate. They can't take away your basic right to reserve your home resort but they can change basically everything else. As for all paying the same dues, that is not really true either. Those with smaller contracts are actually paying less than the cost of their membership and those with more points are paying a higher than their share of the actual costs even though the pp costs are the same. I realize there is no perfect way to figure all costs and I'm not complaining, just explaining that some are already getting a benefit, then the question is who and how is that benefit going to be distrubted. I'd guess the break even point is somewhere in the 250 point range but it could be a little more or less and it would be affected somewhat by how many home resorts and would assume master contracts only.
It was more fun when it was just OKW in many way.
I think it did start at 230 then 210 then 190 then 150. However, my point wasn't a reference to historical purchasing but to the actual cost of managing a given membership. It costs more on average on a per points basis to run a smaller contract than a larger one. I was simply guessing at what the cutoff might be if you looked at the costs for each contract and arrived at an average. I realize it isn't 100% absolute because there are variations even between two owners who own the exact same thing but one can get pretty close to an average or median. To be extreme but make the point look at one who owns only 25 points and one who owns 250 points. Realizing there is an inherent cost to the literature, mailings and just to carry a membership on the books; the actual cost for that member might be $400 but they are only being charged roughly $100. Most of that cost is administrative and little is actually resort maint. The actual cost for the 250 pt member is likely in the $800-1000 if a single resort owner and in the $1000-1200 range if a multiple resort owner with roughly the same admin costs as the 25 point owner but a larger maint portion. If you go to one who owns 1000 points the spread is even larger and the amount of excess money they are generating that supplement those smaller owners is significant. A base amount that represented the actual admin costs plus a smaller per point cost would be a more accurate way to charge fees.
While I agree with the theory behind you point, I think you drastically underestimate the portion of our fees that should be per-point, and overstate the amount that should be per-member.
Realize this is a per point calculation, not a per member calculation presented in the budget. It has not been looked at, or at least published, on a per member basis. There are many items that seem ONLY based on a stay that are not truly such. You've got to add in member admin, legal, annual audit, reservations all as non points based to a large degree. Also, you could consider even a portion of the items that are points based on the surface including front desk, housekeeping, security, etc for 2 reasons. One is that the per member costs are actually more for these items in many situations and the other is that any surplus costs say for non utilization could be argued to be spread over the membership based on number of members rather than number of points. I threw out $400 as a round number but if we want to pin it down, I'd suspect the cost for that 25 point member is in the range of $300-400 and only climbs slowly as the number of points increase at a given resort. There are also likely other breaks where there are decreases in per point costs. I would venture to guess that certain points sized contracts at a given resort tend to correlate to the size unit and or weekend timing that is being utilized. It's unlikely that one who owns 50 points is using a 1 or 2 BR very often but very likely that one who owns 500 points is using larger units, often with little difference in occupancy. One who stays in a studio with 4 people has little different inherent costs other than direct housekeeping and direct unit maint than one who stays in a 2 BR.
