DVC point balancing 2022 vs 2021

[i<3riviera]

͏

 

[Cabius]

yes, across all the Walt Disney World DVC resorts the points required to book all rooms for 2022 are ~0.5% higher than the points declared; historically there has been variation (especially in leap years where there is an extra day of points) but 2022's variation is far more than it has been (at least since 2008) and is caused by DVCM actively manipulating their base year analysis to pick the worst (for DVC owners) of five possible scenarios

however, there is still a base year that exists for all the resorts where the total points required equals the declared points; so DVCM is following the specific portion of the contract requiring this; so legal, yes in terms of base year analysis; if DVCM is required to legally act in the best interest of DVC owners (not sure they are) I don't see how this is in the best interests of DVC owners

also of note, they didn't try these base year gymnastics in 2021 so what's different now?

But the current allocation would be essentially a 'worst case scenario'? They could not continue to add on 20k points/year indefinitely?

 

[i<3riviera]

͏

 

[i<3riviera]

͏

 

[i<3riviera]

͏

 

[Lorana]

Correct, they are booked out of points that Disney "holds" -- Because there are more points in the chart than they sell. But if maintenance needs go up, and DVC therefore needs to control more points -- Where do those points come from? By adding points to the point chart! Magically, there are now more points! (Let's say they sell 1 million points, and the point chart (when lockoffs are broken apart) has 1,050,000 points... Disney has 50,000 points worth of non-use to do room maintenance, etc. If they increase the point chart (easiest way to do it is to increase the lockoff premium but that doesn't work at PBV).. so increase the point chart to 1,070,000 points... you now have 20,000 more points of non-use.
It doesn't dilute member ownership -- You still own 00.0021% of the resort, of the available rooms, etc. But the resort basically got a tiny bit smaller, a few use-days removed for more maintenance. We can argue about whether that actually does dilute your membership. I'd argue that it doesn't dilute your membership as you're theoretically benefiting from the improved maintenance.

It does actually dilute my membership though. My points are representative of my ownership percentage. If you increase the number of points in the resort to book all rooms, my % ownership likewise decreases.

For example, as just a basic example, if the resort has 100,000 points and I own 100, that’s .1%. If you increase it to 110,000 points, my 100 points is now only .09%.

While there may be variation in total points in a year due to number of weekend days and when holidays fall, they cannot arbitrarily Increase the number of points needed to fully book all rooms without devaluing my ownership.

 

[Lorana]

also of note, they didn't try these base year gymnastics in 2021 so what's different now?

Maybe this is their plan for dealing with all the excess points in the system?

 

[i<3riviera]

͏

 

[New Mouse]

yes, across all the Walt Disney World DVC resorts the points required to book all rooms for 2022 are ~0.5% higher than the points declared; historically there has been variation (especially in leap years where there is an extra day of points) but 2022's variation is far more than it has been (at least since 2008) and is caused by DVCM actively manipulating their base year analysis to pick the worst (for DVC owners) of five possible scenarios

however, there is still a base year that exists for all the resorts where the total points required equals the declared points; so DVCM is following the specific portion of the contract requiring this; so legal, yes in terms of base year analysis; if DVCM is required to legally act in the best interest of DVC owners (not sure they are) I don't see how this is in the best interests of DVC owners

also of note, they didn't try these base year gymnastics in 2021 so what's different now?

Whats different now was their decision to allow all those points to be banked and extended this year. This could have been part of their plan on how to subtly remove all the excess points from 2020 (2019 and 2018 banked). You wouldnt be able to verify that without a few more years worth of data. Regardless though I dont think what they did during the closure was legal, nor does this seem to be. As history has proven, they dont always care what is legal until they get caught.

 

[New Mouse]

good question; an optimistic me would say yes this is short term for 2022

but the pessimistic me thinks they've used spreadsheetery / weaponized mathematics against us (DVC members) and just beat-up the optimistic me

I have this vision of a meeting to review the point charts and a spreadsheet jockey (endearing, self-deprecating term) lays out the options for how to handle 2022 base year in picking one of the five Sun for gregorian easter ...

1. screw over DVC members by adding more points by picking a gregorian easter date that rarely is reality
2. slightly inflate point chart by picking an aggressive date
3. neutral effect
4. slightly reduce point chart
5. give away points

... and the deciders picked #1

it's also weirdly consistent; from 2008-2021 base years were all over the place and different for different resorts (something @sethschroeder learned); for 2022, all resorts (except maybe BCV and AKV) have the exact same base year (1 Jan = Mon, gregorian easter = 25 Mar)

fun fact: between 2022 and 2070 gregorian easter happens on 25 Mar (or earlier) twice ...

• 25 Mar 2036
• 25 Mar 2046
• https://www.assa.org.au/edm
• http://5ko.free.fr/en/easter.php

... so why then would then would DVCM pick that as their gregorian easter Sun of choice?

in fact, gregorian easter can be as earlier as 22 Mar; I bet the only reason they didn't use that because they couldn't defend picking a date that never happens in the life of any existing DVC resort (next one is 2285 http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/1944PA.....52..139W/0000139.000.html)

they could have picked anywhere between 5-11 Apr and would split the average actual date for the same period

or even better fixed the flawed 7 season point chart that allows this manipulation to occur ...

• merge season e (only 7 days!?!?!) into season f so all days around spring break are in the same season and this manipulation can't happen
• while you're at it, merge season a (only 19 days) into season b and simplify back to five seasons
• keep the fall / summer move (to balance availability)
• adjust the points elsewhere to keep chart balanced per base year
• transparent, clean, predictable, not able to be manipulated

more info on gregorian easter dates ...

View attachment 546872
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_for_Easter



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computus

edit: added nerdy info at the bottom

To be fair, I think youre giving way too much credit to think the people you spoke with are smart enough to actually understand all this. Disney doesnt usually get the best talent around.

 

[havoc315]

It does actually dilute my membership though. My points are representative of my ownership percentage. If you increase the number of points in the resort to book all rooms, my % ownership likewise decreases.

For example, as just a basic example, if the resort has 100,000 points and I own 100, that’s .1%. If you increase it to 110,000 points, my 100 points is now only .09%.

While there may be variation in total points in a year due to number of weekend days and when holidays fall, they cannot arbitrarily Increase the number of points needed to fully book all rooms without devaluing my ownership.

As I said, it doesn’t necessarily dilute your ownership, depending on what’s being done with those extra points. Those extra points aren’t being sold to other people.You still own 0.1% of all points sold.
If those extra points are being used in a way that benefits you, your ownership isn’t being diluted.
For example, if the points are being temporarily increased to allow for room refurbishment, you are getting the benefit of that refurbishment.

 

[Minniemoo15]

yes, it's the worst case scenario with the existing (2021 / 2022) point chart structure

unless there is some creative gap we're missing; DVCM cannot change the point charts to add any more points than they already have and still comply with the base year requirement

I truly can’t thank you enough. This is an astonishing amount of work and so appreciated. I knew something wasn’t right but couldn’t figure out what from DVCs basic response. They did mention that if everything in terms of seasons etc stayed the same (and they stressed this was a BIG If due to covid) then the point chart is projected to come down for 2023. So your analysis that 2022 is in effect, worst case scenario, makes sense.

I’m saddened that they chose the worst option when faced with 5. I too am wondering if this was a decision made to deal with all the excess points. If so it might be quite a few more years of DVCM choosing the worst case point charts for us.

 

[foreUT]

Absolutely amazing work, thank you. Any chance this is a maneuver by DVC to recover those banked 2018 points lost during the shutdown, then reimbursed to Members? Perhaps this is part of that, too? I've been a member for almost three decades and if there is a path to money, DVC will find it, I've discovered.

 

[Lorana]

As I said, it doesn’t necessarily dilute your ownership, depending on what’s being done with those extra points. Those extra points aren’t being sold to other people.You still own 0.1% of all points sold.
If those extra points are being used in a way that benefits you, your ownership isn’t being diluted.
For example, if the points are being temporarily increased to allow for room refurbishment, you are getting the benefit of that refurbishment.

I’m not sure I’m following your logic. Those excess points make it so that my ability to book days at the resort is lessened.

My % ownership is represented by points, as it states in my contract. You cannot raise the number of points required to book the resort fully in the year without diluting my ownership, because the total number of points sold for a resort is also representative of the total number of points required to fully book the resort for the year. The two are linked; otherwise the number of points I own would increase if the total number of points to book the resort increases.

I didn’t actually purchase a number of points when I purchased DVC. I purchased a % ownership, which is represented by points.

 

[Lorana]

Thank you for all this amazing work!! It also helps me out when writing to DVC about this.

or even better fixed the flawed 7 season point chart that allows this manipulation to occur ...

These seems a hugely key point right here to bring up (in addition to choosing the worst base chart), since this is how they’re able to make the point charts worse for owners.

 

[sethschroeder]

I’m not sure I’m following your logic. Those excess points make it so that my ability to book days at the resort is lessened.

My % ownership is represented by points, as it states in my contract. You cannot raise the number of points required to book the resort fully in the year without diluting my ownership, because the total number of points sold for a resort is also representative of the total number of points required to fully book the resort for the year. The two are linked; otherwise the number of points I own would increase if the total number of points to book the resort increases.

I didn’t actually purchase a number of points when I purchased DVC. I purchased a % ownership, which is represented by points.

I wanted to add based on what others have said Disney ALWAYS hits the cap on breakage as well. So if renting out the excess rooms (based on not enough points to rent them all) led to lowered MFs then yes I might see it as a potential of being slightly positive but that does not happen.

I don't see how you could defend a position regarding excess rooms being simply for Disney's profit with nothing back to members. Again the breakage income is going to cap out regardless how you do the point chart.

fun fact: between 2022 and 2070 gregorian easter happens on 25 Mar (or earlier) twice ...

I am okay as long as there is a 0.0000000% change in points between years.

 

[Cabius]

As I said, it doesn’t necessarily dilute your ownership, depending on what’s being done with those extra points. Those extra points aren’t being sold to other people.You still own 0.1% of all points sold.
If those extra points are being used in a way that benefits you, your ownership isn’t being diluted.
For example, if the points are being temporarily increased to allow for room refurbishment, you are getting the benefit of that refurbishment.

If the goal is to allow DVC to take more rooms out of inventory, it literally MUST dilute your ownership of the property or it doesn't achieve that goal.

Let's say there is a resort with 10 rooms, and 100,000 points declared, with 10,000 points renting a single room for the entire year. 9 of us own 10,000 points (10%) each, and DVC owns 10,000 points (10%) directly. (Obviously DVC has limits on how many points you can buy, but I want to keep the math simple,)

In this scenario, each of us owners could rent one of the rooms every day of the year -- we own 10%, so we get 10% of capacity -- and DVC can take 10% of capacity out for maintenance, etc.

Now let's say DVC issues a new point chart that requires 110,000 points, but no new points are issued.

Now, I can no longer book a room for 365 days; I only get 331 days. My 10% ownership now only gives me 9.1% of the resort.

But crucially, DVC is in the exact same boat! They still only have 10,000 points too, so their ability to take rooms out of inventory with their points is decreased with the rest of the owners (365 --> 331), not increased!

The only way that DVC would get extra capacity would be to give them more points, which would explicitly dilute our ownership stake; otherwise they suffer along with the rest of us. Generating points on the point chart out of thin air, with nobody to fill it, leaves more room/nights to go to waste.

Now, banking/borrowing does offset this, as capacity for a given year can flex. That may well be their goal, to create an extra 0.5% wiggle room to accommodate the pandemic. Or of course they could be creating more breakage -- if there is 0.5% more capacity than points, they're guaranteed that much more breakage! -- but that is clearly not in the best interests of owners.

To take a more extreme example: if they had 100,000 points declared but 1,000,000 points on the point chart, 90% of the capacity would be wasted, and we "10%" owners would only be able to enjoy 1% of the capacity. Again, DVC would be in the same boat too! 90% of the resort would be totally unavailable to DVC members. That's what is happening here, on a smaller scale.

 

[havoc315]

If the goal is to allow DVC to take more rooms out of inventory, it literally MUST dilute your ownership of the property or it doesn't achieve that goal.

That's simply not true. Let's put it this way.... Imagine there is a property with 10 free standing units, and it's owned equally by 100 people. So each person owns 1% of the property. Based on the number of units, each person can get 36 days of use of a unit.
Now, assume that 1 of those units get torn down in order to make room for a swimming pool!
You now have the added benefit of the swimming pool -- Your ownership hasn't been diluted, You still own 1% of the property. But because there are now fewer units, you now only can get 33 days. You lost 3 days, but gained a swimming pool... the value of your ownership didn't necessarily change.

Same with the DVC.... if the current point allotment doesn't allow for sufficient maintenance, you may be able to book 10 nights in a room with leaking pipes dripping down on to the bed.
By increasing the point chart, letting them take that room out of use for repair... You now may only get 9 nights, but no more leaking pipes dripping down on to your bed!

So your ownership isn't diluted...

Less nights does not mean dilution of ownership -- You may still own the same percentage of the property.

But thus, the question becomes what is being done with those extra nights being taken out of inventory. If those rooms are simply being sold as Disney cash rooms, beyond the 2.5% breakage point, then it is not to the benefit of the DVC owner, and thereby your ownership is being diluted. But if those extra points are being used in a way that benefits DVC owners, then your ownership is not being diluted.

 

[havoc315]

I’m not sure I’m following your logic. Those excess points make it so that my ability to book days at the resort is lessened.

My % ownership is represented by points, as it states in my contract. You cannot raise the number of points required to book the resort fully in the year without diluting my ownership, because the total number of points sold for a resort is also representative of the total number of points required to fully book the resort for the year. The two are linked; otherwise the number of points I own would increase if the total number of points to book the resort increases.

I didn’t actually purchase a number of points when I purchased DVC. I purchased a % ownership, which is represented by points.

Your ownership is represented by a % of points, out of total points sold.
You can raise the number of points required to book a room, but keep the total points sold the same. Thereby, your ownership is still the same.

You are confusing number of nights with percentage of ownership.

Imagine you own a house that you share with 1 other owner. So you and the other owner, each own 50%. Your co-owner plants a huge garden in the backyard, taking away your space where you did your yoga exercises! Your ownership hasn't been changed.. you still own 50% of the property. You've just lost your yoga space, and you still technically own 50% of the garden planted by your co-owner.

Loss of "days" is not loss of ownership -- You still own the same percentage of the resort.

 

[Sandisw]

yes, across all the Walt Disney World DVC resorts the points required to book all rooms for 2022 are ~0.5% higher than the points declared; historically there has been variation (especially in leap years where there is an extra day of points) but 2022's variation is far more than it has been (at least since 2008) and is caused by DVCM actively manipulating their base year analysis to pick the worst (for DVC owners) of five possible scenarios

however, there is still a base year that exists for all the resorts where the total points required equals the declared points; so DVCM is following the specific portion of the contract requiring this; so legal, yes in terms of base year analysis; if DVCM is required to legally act in the best interest of DVC owners (not sure they are) I don't see how this is in the best interests of DVC owners

also of note, they didn't try these base year gymnastics in 2021 so what's different now?

There is a clause in the DVC membership agreement that states that yes, they do need to attempt to do things that are overall in best interest, but that some decisions will not necessarily be seen that way.

One thing I did think of is that maybe the adjustment of dates, which are the same date ranges for 2022, required it to make it work?

The date ranges all stayed the same as 2021, or went back to previous ranges...they just moved travel seasons.

Since DVD retains ownership of a certain % of those points, do those get declared? Because if they are not sold, then there is no reason for them to declare the points but can then use them when creating the chart?