DVC Point Charts for 2011 - Post chart release discussion begins on Pg 14

[Chuck S]

Not totally related to this thread, but when Members book lockoff units separately, there is an inventory surplus that becomes unbookable: booking a 1BR and studio separately is generally significantly more expensive, point-wise, than booking the lockoff together, and those "extra" points can't be used to book anything else, leaving some inventory open. Who gets control over this inventory---does it go into breakage?

Breakage would be the most obvious result. But I'll bet it also depends on banking/borrowing and how many non-home resort owners may book those rooms. Probably it ultimately creates an overage of rooms somewhere in the system that could take a couple of years to ultimately realize. There are so many variables, but I would assume that at some point it winds up as breakage somewhere.

 

[mikeandkarla]

Many owners vacations are the same or less points in 2011 vs 2010. It totally depends upon how you vacation, and if you stay over any weekend nights.

I would venture a guess that many more were effected negatively. If your vacation is longer than 7 nights, you were on the down side of the reallocation. Especially if you do sun-sat at WDW followed by sun-th at VB in the summer.

 

[mikeandkarla]

I do too, Jean. Honestly this change surprised me. Assuming DVC continues to monitor things, it wouldn't surprise me if they had to undo just a bit of this in a few years (raise weekends a bit while lowering weekdays.)

I absolutely agree, Tim. Members will book what is most advantageous to maximize the value of their points. Now that weekends are only slightly more, they will be in much greater demand. I truly think they over corrected and will have to undo it a bit for 2012.

 

[starbox]

I clicked on the link to the points charts with fear and trembling as the changes last year were very painful - raising of weekday points without significant lowering of weekends.

I was pleasantly surprised! The more even distribution will allow us to take weekend trips during value seasons - before, two weekend nights in a value season would be the same as 5 nights in the summer - and I just could not justify it. We'll be taking at least two long weekend trips in 2011.

 

[Chuck S]

I would venture a guess that many more were effected negatively. If your vacation is longer than 7 nights, you were on the down side of the reallocation. Especially if you do sun-sat at WDW followed by sun-th at VB in the summer.

I do 8 to 10 night vacations. My recent 8 night one bedroom at OKW is the same number of points in 2010 and 2011.

My 8 night OKW studio stay in June is 114 pts in 2010 and 112 pts in 2011. A 2 point difference in my favor for the year.

 

[Brian Noble]

I truly think they over corrected and will have to undo it a bit for 2012.

Perhaps. But, as I wrote earlier, DVC knows at least something about the demand pattern for nearly all of 2010 by now, *and* they know how members reacted to the most recent reallocation by comparing that to the demand pattern for 2009. It's always hard to predict these things perfectly, and behavior is probably non-linear, but they should have a pretty good idea.

 

[pinnocchiosdad]

I do 8 to 10 night vacations. My recent 8 night one bedroom at OKW is the same number of points in 2010 and 2011.

My 8 night OKW studio stay in June is 114 pts in 2010 and 112 pts in 2011. A 2 point difference in my favor for the year.

It goes both ways Chuck. I have 3 upcomming trips planned and they all will cost more points. You are in the lucky boat. Mine has sprung a leak.

 

[RobDoc]

I would venture a guess that many more were effected negatively. If your vacation is longer than 7 nights, you were on the down side of the reallocation. Especially if you do sun-sat at WDW followed by sun-th at VB in the summer.

Many who have stays longer than 7 nights will see a benefit. We usually stay 10/11 nights with 2 weekends (arriving on a Wednesday or Thursday). Our point costs have decreased both in 2010 and will again in 2011 due to the lowering of the Fri/Sat night points.

 

[Dean]

I was told point reallocation is based on the ........drumroll......DVC answer to everything, .....member feedback.

If true and at this point lets say it is, then possibly many have complained about the higher points for weekends. We tend to forget that we DISers are just a little fish in the huge ocean of members.

I also however think they are realigned to try and force members to change their habits of staying S-Th and try to encourage some members to stay on a Friday or Saturday, to stop the resorts from sitting empty or near empty on those days.

To me, that's one and the same. Demand and usage patterns ARE member driven. IF the weekends are sitting empty they need to even out demand and the only ways they have to do so are to reallocate OR to institute a minimum stay that forces weekends.

Lets all not forget that Disney is in this to make $$$$$. The more $$$$$ the happier the DIS shareholders. When you look at it from a business perspective it all makes perfect sense. Charge more points for the peak reservation times, and less for the slow times. Raising point requirements requires owners (us) to go out and buy addons to continue our vacation habits. Those who cannot affors addon will cut days off thier vacations and this opens more rooms up to disney to offer to the cash paying public. During the slow times, less required points means more reservations, which fills otherwise empty hotel rooms. The reallocation of points is designed to put money in Disney's pockets. If it had no purpose of financial gain, why else would the point charts be altered. I wish Disney would follow the principle, "If its not broken, don't fix it".

DVC is different from much of Disney though there are interconnections. IMO, to say this is money driven exhibits a lack of understanding of the forces at work, POS requirements and the basics of the points system in general.

Have you looked at AKV's charts. I did a rough comparison and came up with 403 more points. (That, of course, is not counting the standard view GVs that are not available.)

Am I seeing something wrong? All of the weeks that we usually go are more points per week.

You have to compare points for the entire resort. You have to ignore lockoff points and only use the entire unit and you have to use the Base year for the comparison though they've never released the base year. It's likely they use 1992 as the base year given it was the first full year of DVC. Plus trying to say that it has to be 1000% to the single points is not reasonable nor likely to be justifiable legally.

So...If DVC is going to base the difference in weekday and weekend points based on travel patterns, will every other years points for weekends go up and down if members adjust their travel patterns to maximize their points? In other words, If weekends become booked full for 2012(because it requires less points) and weekdays are sitting with empty rooms, Will DVC increase the weekend points for 2013? Then back down for 2014? and so on... It used to be so simple.

I doubt they want to micromanage year to year, not feasible and too much work/cost to do that. What they'll have to do is get to what they think is best then see what happens.

Does anyone think that with the exhorbitant point increases for BLT and VGC that DVC could be setting the stage for a two tiered system? Bump those points up just before Aulani (Ko Olina) charts get released?

Places that require most people to travel by air that is more expensive rarely have problems with such points systems. For example, I own a resort in MX that works on points and other than Xmas and Easter, they don't worry about length of stay. You could stay 1 day if you like but people rarely do. HI is likely to be the same, the distance, time and expenses getting there is likely to cause a de-facto minimum stay for most people.

Thinking about it a little more, I would love to know the amount of Villa's Disney rents on cash. I am sure it is not the full availability as the cost is so high.

A few years ago it was 75% but the economy was better and there were less rooms. I doubt anyone knows or actually can find out that will tell you but my guess would be roughly 50% or less currently.

Lets also remember that in a "traditional timeshare", you get the same unit (room) every year for the same week. It is always there for you and only annual MF will change. But DVC is a "hybrid" timeshare that allows the flexability of use. This option of flexability is what enticed many of us to buy at Disney.

There are almost no traditional timeshares left anymore. So few in fact that are fixed week/fixed unit that using that model as a comparison has little meaning in 2009.

 

[NewDCLGuy]

For me, this is a big concern. We normally vacation for 6-7 nights ...a couple times a year. I do believe the weekends will be gobbled up. What's the remedy for this issue?

A point chart reallocation.

 

[Dean]

Seeing as how that would violate Florida timeshare law, if you can prove it, you can pretty much name your price from Disney in a class action suit on behalf of the AKV owners.

However, because Disney doesn't like to write "name your price" checks, I'm guessing that points were not created. Just a hunch, though.

Since they are still in active sales, they could alter the points though likely down only instead of up just like they did at BWV where the standard view was created after the resort first opened.

 

[NewDCLGuy]

The 2011 point reallocation has decreased VWL's total booking points by 2,542 points, or a decrease of 0.1293%.

Based on this exercise, I believe that VWL's points have essentially remained the same after the 2011 point reallocation.

Fun stuff. Just to get technical for a minute.... there are never an even number of weeks in a year; you always have leftover days. The five possibilities are

1) One extra weeknight
2) One extra weekend night
3) Two extra weeknights
4) Two extra weekend nights
5) One extra weeknight and one extra weekend night

Both 2010 and 2011 fall into category #2 - an extra weekend night. So the comparison is reasonably fair. But since the reallocation moved points away from weekend nights, it's not surprising the the overall total is a bit lower. If we compare two years with extra weeknights, I'd expect the overall total to be higher. Of course, to really see if the total is up or down, you'd to look at the number of weeknights vs weekend nights in each season.

 

[jimmytammy]

The 1st point re-allocation that we experienced really hit us hard and though we had just purchased an add-on that would allow us a 1 bed every trip(2 teens=need more space)we found ourselves scrambling to make a 2nd trip worth it. So for the 1st time, we will be visiting and staying at Universal in May since we dont have enough points to stay a bit more length at WDW.

Here they go again...and again we find ourselves in the same boat, but we keep losing days and scrambling again for 2011. Dont get me wrong, we are fortunate to vacation as many cant, but when we have paid for something that we feel has been of much value to us, then get penalized to some degree because certain times of year work better to vacation than others, cant help but feeling a little perturbed.

This is the 1st time since owning DVC that I am 2nd guessing the purchase. And I may let my guide know it in hopes it will be passed along to higher ups. Reckon if I mention dollars that would have gone to WDW in May will now be at Universal would have any impact. I know, spilled milk

 

[dianeschlicht]

The 1st point re-allocation that we experienced really hit us hard and though we had just purchased an add-on that would allow us a 1 bed every trip(2 teens=need more space)we found ourselves scrambling to make a 2nd trip worth it. So for the 1st time, we will be visiting and staying at Universal in May since we dont have enough points to stay a bit more length at WDW.

Here they go again...and again we find ourselves in the same boat, but we keep losing days and scrambling again for 2011. Dont get me wrong, we are fortunate to vacation as many cant, but when we have paid for something that we feel has been of much value to us, then get penalized to some degree because certain times of year work better to vacation than others, cant help but feeling a little perturbed.
This is the 1st time since owning DVC that I am 2nd guessing the purchase. And I may let my guide know it in hopes it will be passed along to higher ups. Reckon if I mention dollars that would have gone to WDW in May will now be at Universal would have any impact. I know, spilled milk

The highlighted portion of your post is not something that has changed with the point reallocation though. There have always been times of the year that are different point values than others. You seem to also live close enough to take advantage of different seasons too. I know if I lived in the Carolinas, I'd be driving down for long weekends sometimes, and weekend travelers have definitely taken a benefit from the new allocations.

 

[Robo-Daddy 3000]

I do 8 to 10 night vacations. My recent 8 night one bedroom at OKW is the same number of points in 2010 and 2011.

My 8 night OKW studio stay in June is 114 pts in 2010 and 112 pts in 2011. A 2 point difference in my favor for the year.

Our 6 night stay in a 1 BR at VB in July is 190 points in 2010 and in 2011 it will be exactly the same...190 points.

 

[Robo-Daddy 3000]

So my SSR (2 bedroom) Sun-Thurs night trip in August has gone from 155 points for 5 nights in 2009 to 195 points in 2011.

That is very big jump in points! A 40 point difference from 2009 to 2011 for the same accomodations just doesn't seem right. Of course, the guides will use this as a reason to tell you that you need to buy more points right from the outset. I can remember how our guide told us for Sun-Thu stay you only need x number of points. Two years later and you really need x+40 for the same vacation. In your case you could have bought 160 points to join in 2009 and figured you were good for a 2 br in August every year. Now it looks like you need to do a 40 or 50 point add-on to vacation the same as you did before.

 

[drusba]

As to AKV I sent emails to MS with some questions and thus far have the following responses:

1. In relation to where the the decrease was in weeks to offset the increases -- which for 2BRs (other than value) and concierge is an increase every week of the year and for 1BRs almost every week of the year, and for studios more than 60% of the weeks of the year, I got the following stock response which shows that in fact this year's change was part of a two year plan to lower weekends and raise weekdays, i.e., they knew they were going to do this when they made last year's change but needed two years to avoid the 20% max per year rule:

"We appreciate your feedback regarding the adjustments made to the Vacation Points Charts for 2011. As our Membership has grown, an increasing number of Members have expressed that they would like weekend nights to be more affordable. The changes to the 2011 Vacation Point Charts reflect another step in the effort begun in 2010 to balance the demand throughout the year and the changes in vacationing patterns of our Members making accommodations for all weekends more affordable. In most instances, Sunday through Thursday night Vacation Point requirements are higher. However, this is offset by a reduction in the requirements for Friday and Saturday night stays. While the total numberof Vacation Points for any particular Disney Vacation Club Resort will never change, some Vacation Points totals per week have changed slightly up or down."

2. I also asked about the new category "standard" GVs, since all GVs have savanna view, and asked where and how many there are, and got the following resonse:

"Standard Grand Villas were created for 2011 at Disney's Animal Kingdom Villas in the Kidani Village area only."

I have followed up with a question asking for more specifics on those GVs including how many and where in the resort they are but don't have a response yet.

 

[Chuck S]

Reckon if I mention dollars that would have gone to WDW in May will now be at Universal would have any impact. I know, spilled milk

DVC and WDW are separate entities. DVC can not legally consider the financial impact, good or bad, on WDW for a re-allocation. The only justification for re-allocation, is to balance member demand/usage for rooms.

 

[chalee94]

That is very big jump in points! A 40 point difference from 2009 to 2011 for the same accomodations just doesn't seem right.

except that it is "right." i got hammered by the pt changes also, to the point where i'll just use my every year DVC contract as an every other year DVC contract.

i wanted to take advantage of cheaper weeknights also...but when most members start to buy in to take advantage of cheaper weeknights, the "right" thing for DVC to do is adjust the point charts.

if a significant portion of the membership bought only enough pts to game the system with sun-thursday stays, then DVC simply is forced to make changes. it kicks every one of that "significant portion of the membership" in the gut, but still the reallocation needs to be done.

if a disproportionate number of members start loading up on weekends to leave too much sun-thurs availability...then they'll have to adjust the charts again.

 

[photobob]

It goes both ways Chuck. I have 3 upcoming trips planned and they all will cost more points. You are in the lucky boat. Mine has sprung a leak.

I'm bailing water too! I didn't buy with specific time and accommodation in mind when I bought my points. I bought what I could afford and cater my trips with in the points I have. I have stayed in a 2 bedroom twice, and it is unlikely I'll be doing that anymore. Looks like I'll be taking the lesser accommodation route because of the higher point cost which completely goes against my reasoning for purchasing in the first place! The last two years have me really lowered the value to me of my ownership in DVC.