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

[Chuck S]

not opinion FACT, on the UK disney site they are offering 42% off and free dining for DVC resorts, they are using DVC for there own profit as far as I can see

Uhhh...DVC resorts ARE Disney resorts from the standpoint that unused rooms, undeclared rooms, and traded rooms are available for cash from Disney. Just as they can upgrade cash guests from a Value resort to DVC. They may offer them any way they wish. That has always been the case. Nothing has changed.

It actually makes sense to offer that sort of deal to UK guests. They fhave longer more expensive flights, have to go through customs, and usually stay longer than the avarage US based guest, so DVC rooms work better for them than a standard hotel room.

 

[Sandisw]

Let's all face it....we bought and should have all known and understood that things could change. That doesn't make things easier for those that are negatively effected by yet again another point reallocation. With all the smaller add on contracts, there must be many effected. I know I am.

My main concern is that point amounts have changed DRASTICALLY and do not even resemble when I bought:

One Bedroom 2009-30/60, 2010-34/50 and 2011-37/42
Two Bedroom 2009-40/75, 2010-44/65, and 2011-48/55

Whether we travelled during the week or on the weekend, the bottom line is DVC is making extreme changes. What is next....week stay requirements, no banking/borrowing, no staying in other resorts. We could go on and on with this one.

Not sure what to do with my contracts at this point.

But the amount of points needed, in your examples, for a week's stay have not changed since you bought. I 1 bedroom cost 270 points a week when you bought and in 2011, will cost you 269.

The two bedroom, which cost 350 points in 2009, still costs 350 points, in 2011.

When I was adding on my BLT points last year (bought in through resale), my guide told me that what it cost to stay a week would roughly stay the same, plus or minus a few points. He did go on to say that weekdays were cheaper than weekends, and that what some members have been able to do is extend trips and maximize points by eliminating the weekends.

As frustrating as it is, it still comes down to the charts allowing for a weeks stay at relatively the same cost as it has always been. And, since that is the goal of the timeshare system, we all should have realized this needed fixing. And, those that travel only Sun - Thurs may actually find better availability for their trips. I, for one, can now include weekends because the difference is a lot less. While a Sun - Thurs trip will now cost me more points (10), a trip that includes both Fri and Sat, will be 8 points less than in the past.

I really hope that you are able to figure a way out to make your contracts and your trips work.

 

[disneynutz]

OK, I get it. More members were staying weekdays and less on weekend because Disney wanted to charge more points for the weekend.

Now Disney has decided that they want more members staying on weekends so they raised the point requirements for weekdays.

This will cause members to either increase their weekend stays and deal with the crowds that show up every weekend, or use additional points which may be an additional purchase to keep the vacation pattern that they want during the weekdays.

How is this a benefit to the members?

Bill

 

[CarolMN]

How do they know this far in advance, how many rooms will be available, they dont unless they have a magic crystal ball, so how come they can sell for cash what they dont know they will have, please dont tell me about the 4% disney own they are selling much more than that.........

I think they have a very good idea of the number of members who use their points for non-DVC stays and cruising each year. That is where the vast majority of cash availability originates.

DVC has to rent out the equivalent number of room nights to get the cash to pay for those member choices. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, those nights have not been renting for the rack rates and need to be discounted to sell. (Nothing is as perishable as an unused hotel room or an empty airline seat).

As the economy improves and tourists return to Orlando in greater numbers, those deals will disappear.

 

[tjkraz]

This raises an interesting point. When DVC started it had the much higher weekend points versus weekday. But it also had another thing: it required purchasers to acquire a minimum of 240 or 270 points (I cannot remember which), and at OKW that was enough for a week almost all of the year in a 1BR for part the year in a 2BR. In other words, its orginal system was in fact based on the presumption of at least 7 night trips, thus minimizing the problem of weekend vacancy.

I'm not sure I agree with your "presumption of at least 7 night trips." Unless the minimum allowed for a week-long stay in every villa size and season, it's a weak presumption.

I know the minimum was once 230 but I'm not certain about 240 or 270.

The current 160 point minimum is adequate for spending a week in a Studio villa during most seasons at most resorts. One could argue that the lowering of the minimum was more of an acknowledgment that not every member truly wants a 1B or larger. Additionally some people's schedules may be more geared toward a 7d/6n stay rather than a full week in the villa. Some people use banking and borrowing to their advantage and limit their visits to every 2-3 years.

On the other side, there are people who own hundreds of points who chose to stick to weekdays.

Based upon what I have read here, it sounds like some of the original Guides did take the approach of marketing DVC as a week-long stay. But institutionally I'm not sure that has ever been the case. If they really wanted to encourage week-long stays they could have done it via 7-night mandates, preferential booking for longer stays or other concepts that have been floated here.

 

[CarolAnnC]

Whether we travelled during the week or on the weekend, the bottom line is DVC is making extreme changes. What is next....week stay requirements, no banking/borrowing, no staying in other resorts. We could go on and on with this one.

I suppose any of the above could happen. I don't think they would make all of these changes at once, but they are certainly all possibilities.

My guess is that as soon as the economy improves, they will re-implement the higher number of points minimum purchase again. After that, who knows..

 

[tjkraz]

How do they know this far in advance, how many rooms will be available, they dont unless they have a magic crystal ball, so how come they can sell for cash what they dont know they will have, please dont tell me about the 4% disney own they are selling much more than that.

When DVC members trade-out of the program (use points for a Disney Cruise, Adventures by Disney, Disneyland Hotel, etc.) their points are converted into DVC villas which CRO attempts to rent for cash. This has been discussed countless times on the boards so I'm not going to recap the entire sequence of events.

Those rooms are secured by DVC at 11 months and available for booking thru CRO.

Additionally there are dozens of units at Bay Lake Tower, AKV and SSR which are not even declared into inventory. Those all go right to CRO. DVC also has Right of First Refusal on resale transactions involving older resorts and can reacquire points in that manner. Those points can be used for CRO bookings.

 

[Inkmahm]

Wonderful compassion.

I am going during the first 2 weeks of Dec. Allegedly the lowest time. My previous point usage for a 1 BR was 110 for 5 nights (2009).

It is now 140 for 5 nights. Any suggestions now?

So done with this thread.

It was a JOKE to what I thought was a silly question.

Perhaps you didn't see the original question since my answer was dumped into this thread instead of the original one where it was posted so it is now out of order and out of context completely...

 

[Dean]

Whether folks want to admit it or not, this latest reallocation has caused the biggest reason to force people to add on, whether or not it was an intended purpose.

There is no way I am going to play resort shuffle to try and make my points work. I will simply borrow and realize a devaluation of my DVC or be made to add on to continue to vacation as I had previously purchased to do so. Any other scenarios are just covering up what's really going on.

No doubt any reallocation has the potential to change plans if one is too close on points. One options is to buy more points or change habbits. For those who slated S-F only stays (like me), there have been large changes over the past year. Still one should have known it was a risk and that's especially true if they were combining the 3 risk factors of Adventure/Choices seasons, smaller unit, weekday only.

We are looking at a 15 point increase for our dates - we always go for 12-13 nights each year, obviously with weekends in there. Our exact same vacation next year will cost more, just as it did this year. We are at our limit for add-ons. We left a small cushion, and with last year's allocation and this year's it is almost gone. No more adding on for us - we'll just chop one night off, which means less money in Disney's pocket. We can still get 11 nights, but depending upon the view, we aren't left with much cushion, plus I'm a teacher, so I can only travel during a few times each year.

We are glad that the weekends have come down, as we've been paying for weekends for 5.5 years now. We aren't happy that we've seen increases this past year, and next year though. Whether it was necessary or not, it still leaves a bit of an unsettled feeling in our tummies about what might happen next? We bought DVC for stability and the ability to future plan, and the fact that it's being rocked a bit, leaves us with a worried feeling as we've committed a ton of money to DVC for the rest of our lifetimes.

Hope everyone is able to make these new point allocations work out for them, Tiger

But isn't that because you didn't have enough points for your trips to start with and were stretching the points by paying cash for weekends? I'm not complaning, merely stating, and I'd likely have done the same thing in your situation EVEN if I had the points to do so. However, had you been using all points, a 12 or 13 day trips would be only minimally higher, esp the 13 days. It would seem that it's likely these changes are directly aimed at those using ponts S-F which is one of the reasons I wonder if a minimum stay isn't in the near future.

In general those that were aimed at 5 nights either knew or should have known it was a risk. It's interesting the indignant reaction of some of those taking advantage of the system to their advantage. I do know it was the way it was set up at the time so I'l not blaming them for using it that way at the time, only the lack of understanding of the system including the risk and that it was exactly this usage that is very likely the blame for such changes. Also, for every increase, there is another decrease, this is NOT an issue that Disney is using to profit from though there may be secondary gains IF they can even out the usage of the resorts. It is also interesting that when I hear people complaining about sales from many timeshares there are issues and lies that essentially make it where they spent tens of thousands of dollars on something that isn't at all what they thought they were getting but at Disney it's "I know they told me it could happen but I didn't really think it would happen like this".

OK here is my first run on AKV

Methodology, loaded 2010 calendar year (both 2010 and 2011 charts), from past loads I have found no more than .2% variance with this methodology between different loaded years. All 2br lockoffs as 2brs

List is 2010 charts then 2011 charts and the change

Value 158178 135104 -5074
Standard 1051883 1080681 28798
Savanna 6098906 6234114 135208
Club 101635 106415 4780

Totals 7410602 7574314 163712

This equates to 2.21% or about $18,335,744 at $112/pt

Interesting as that is if you change 2 GVs and 42 2brs from
Savanna view to standard view it is very close to the same 160,000 points.

I will let everyone draw his or her own conclusions.

I will double check to entries and algorithm the morning but I am pretty sure it is substantially accurate.

I think it will be interesting to see how quickly they pull the AKV charts down as a measure of how closely they monitor Disboards.

bookwormde

Since you have to include the totals for the resort in this comparison including the change to standard for the 2 GV, your numbers would suggest there is no substantial increase or decrease over the entire resort as mandated by the POS. Did you find out the base year they used for any of the resorts from DVC as it would account for minor changes also. It's likely they used 1992 for OKW and the same for all resorts going forward. By calendar you WILL get minor variations from year to year based on weekends and where season breaks fall in relationship to weekends.

 

[Tiger926]

But isn't that because you didn't have enough points for your trips to start with and were stretching the points by paying cash for weekends? I'm not complaning, merely stating, and I'd likely have done the same thing in your situation EVEN if I had the points to do so. However, had you been using all points, a 12 or 13 day trips would be only minimally higher, esp the 13 days. It would seem that it's likely these changes are directly aimed at those using ponts S-F which is one of the reasons I wonder if a minimum stay isn't in the near future.

In general those that were aimed at 5 nights either knew or should have known it was a risk. It's interesting the indignant reaction of some of those taking advantage of the system to their advantage. I do know it was the way it was set up at the time so I'l not blaming them for using it that way at the time, only the lack of understanding of the system including the risk and that it was exactly this usage that is very likely the blame for such changes. Also, for every increase, there is another decrease, this is NOT an issue that Disney is using to profit from though there may be secondary gains IF they can even out the usage of the resorts. It is also interesting that when I hear people complaining about sales from many timeshares there are issues and lies that essentially make it where they spent tens of thousands of dollars on something that isn't at all what they thought they were getting but at Disney it's "I know they told me it could happen but I didn't really think it would happen like this".

Nope, we've never paid cash for any rooms - we refuse since we've already paid almost $40,000 to DVC. When I said "...paid for weekends," I was referring to the fact that we've always paid the high point costs for weekends. Since I'm a teacher, and can only go during school breaks, we do long trips in July with at least 1 weekend, and some years, we've included 2 weekends.

Although 15 points is only a minimum amount, it is still 15 points - it means a night in a studio, should we take 2 vacations (as we are doing this year), instead of just one super long one, or, it means knocking off 1 night as we will do next year.

Hope this better clarifies what I was talking about, Tiger

 

[Inkmahm]

I'm sure it will lead to some add-ons. But I'm still not convinced that DVC stands to see any net gain from the reallocations.

DVC is no longer the great value it once was for weekday stays. Therefore I have every reason to believe they will consistently lose sales from people who would have become customers (members) if they were still selling the >2009 charts.

Every single person who "loses" under these changes is a testament to the fact that DVC economics are no longer what they were two years ago. That will undeniably have an impact on sales...not just down the road but in the here-and-now.

That said, it's difficult to even bring sales into the equation when the reallocation was so obviously needed. DVC has sold points in hundreds of villas on the presumption of 7-day per week occupancy. When most of those villas are only being filled 5 days per week, they really do have an obligation to correct the problem.

If there were some question of whether the system needed to be changed or not, I'd happily debate DVC's ulterior motives. But in this case there's zero doubt that the weekday/weekend costs were out of balance. Whether they stand to gain or lose sales is truly a moot point.

I don't mean to sound unsympathetic toward folks who are hurt by the changes, but leaving the system as unbalanced and...broken...as it has been would have been far more irresponsible than implementing these changes.

Amen!

 

[Dean]

The only way to deal with the point reallocation is adjust the time of year you go, the size of the unit you stay in, the number of days you stay, or the resort you stay at. Beyond that we are locked into what ever Disney and DVC dictates as far as points per night at each resort. I think it really is that straight forward unfortunately for all of us.

If one can't deal with that then they need to make a decision as to what to do with their DVC investment if it is no longer working for them. That is where we are personally at with our large initial purchase and our smaller add-on.

maminnie

In terms of personal use, I do totally agree that members must now decide if DVC is for them at this time or not. This is their decision, not one Disney can be responsible for or even really consider in their decisions, IMO. However, I would suggest 2 things in response to your first paragraph. Your statements are correct if you assume points only for the days you were using previously but there are MANY other approaches one could use to stretch the points. Granted they will all cost more than using just the points one already owned but not that much more for many. A partial list would include off site stays for part or all of a given trip, cash using other discounts, paying cash for some days, renting or getting transferred points, buying more points, using non DVC timeshares to trade in, etc, etc. And it might be an opportunity to try other things.

The first time this point reallocation happened I was really upset...at this point nothing surprises me from Disney/DVC. I have come to expect the "what is good for the corporation and not necessarily what is good for me and/or us." My husband is convinced this is about getting people to buy more points. (The point re-allocation for our travel time has changed from 40/75 to roughly 48/55. That is huge.) Not sure whether I agree or disagree with him but there is some reason for it and my guess it isn't because Disney/DVC are overly concerned about all of us.

Given DVC has the specified responsibility to run the resort for the good of the members as a whole and that includes balancing usage, I don't think the impact on each individual owner should come into play here. I understand the personal feelings and to a degree, the upset over the timing, but not with the decision itself.

Only one suggestion. Don't let the 2-year olds comments bother you. They are entitled to their opinion, but last I checked, we paid for our points, we were told (in essence) this would not happen, and so we are stuck with few options.

Buy more points
Go less days
reserve smaller units
skip years

All the things we were told would not happen.... Oh well

The name calling aside which I assume is directed at those of us that feel it was appropriate to make the changes, I can't say what you were told, but you were given legal documentation to state otherwise, correct? To me, that caries far more weight. IN general, don't take the statements of a timeshare person as fact if not backed up in writing in a legal format and that includes Disney. My usual approach is represented here. How do you know a timeshare salesperson is lying, ...their lips are moving. Obviously DVC is several cuts above this but the principle has served me well over the years. ASAMOF, we are in Cabo and did a timeshare tour yesterday, the lies pressure were quite amazing.

 

[Inkmahm]

So what's been happening is that--with Disney's blessing--weekend travelers have been subsidizing weekday travelers. I am sorry for those who bought some minimum number of points and now don't find their weekday trips quite so much of a bargain, but am glad I don't have to subsidize their cheap stays.

Watch out, you'll be told you're not sympathetic to those you have been subsidizing!

 

[RobDoc]

The original minimum purchase was 230 points - from 1991 until Spring 1993 when it was lowered to 190 points with the caveat that those purchasing at the minimum might not be able to fully enjoy all benefits of the program. The minimum was later lowered to 160, then 150, then 160 again and some have even been allowed to purchase specific resorts with a minimum 100 point purchase.

When OKW opened in 1991, 230 points could be used in a studio for 10 consecutive nights in Premier Season, 14 in Magic, 15 in Dream, 20 in Choice and 22 in Value. (Those numbers are already different after reallocations for 1996 and 2010 as well as again for 2011).

With Maximum Reallocation and using 230 points- an OKW Studio would allow a consecutive stay of 15 nights. A 1BR would get 7 consecutive nights. A 2BR would get 5 consecutive nights and a GV would get 3 nights.

From the POS:

"A maximum reallocation of Vacation Point reservaton requirements would result in the "levelling" of all seasons, such that Vacation Point reservation requirements would have no variation based on seasonality or different times of the year. Similarly, a maximum reallocation of Vacation Point reservation requirements would result in a "levelling" of differenced in Vacation Point reservation requirements based on particular Use Days in the week."

The POS for each resort should have a section spelling out the effects of a maximum reallocation on each type of villa at that resort.

 

[DVC92]

I'm not sure I agree with your "presumption of at least 7 night trips." Unless the minimum allowed for a week-long stay in every villa size and season, it's a weak presumption.

I know the minimum was once 230 but I'm not certain about 240 or 270.

The minimum was 230 in the beginning and marketed it to us as a 7 day vacation in 1992. The pitch was buy 270 for flexibility, stay in a 1 BR for a week in Magic one year and in a 2 BR during Choice the next. Of course, shorter/longer stays were an option, but the basic premise was for a 1 week stay comparable to a conventional timeshare but with the added flexibility of varying your week.

 

[CarolAnnC]

It was a JOKE to what I thought was a silly question.

Perhaps you didn't see the original question since my answer was dumped into this thread instead of the original one where it was posted so it is now out of order and out of context completely...

Just as we did for last year's Point Chart thread for 2010, we are limiting discussion on this topic to this one thread on our boards. Any other threads that sprout up on the topic are either locked or merged into this one at our discretion.

We would very much like to keep this thread running, but we do have to remind everyone here that DIS Posting Guidelines must be followed.

Name calling, arguments, sarcasm, etc will result in infractions being awarded.

Thank you all and now on with the show....

 

[Starr W.]

Watch out, you'll be told you're not sympathetic to those you have been subsidizing!

. That's the truth.

And also don't admit its costing you less points for your regular trips that include weekends.

 

[Inkmahm]

Just as we did for last year's Point Chart thread for 2010, we are limiting discussion on this topic to this one thread on our boards. Any other threads that sprout up on the topic are either locked or merged into this one at our discretion.

We would very much like to keep this thread running, but we do have to remind everyone here that DIS Posting Guidelines must be followed.

Name calling, arguments, sarcasm, etc will result in infractions being awarded.

Thank you all and now on with the show....

I know the limitation to this one thread, but since I was the second one to post in that other thread I didn't bother to quote the OP as it was obvious who I was replying to. It was much less obvious when the posts were dumped into this thread and there was no way at all to see what I was replying to.

 

[WilsonFlyer]

I got all emotionally involved in the reallocation thread last year and here's the conclusion I finally came to. I had 2 options:

1) Sell my DVC
2) Live with the reallocations as dictated

I decided to live with the reallocations and will likely do the same this year too, although I don't particularly care for them either. I do undertand their necessity over time, though. So far, I can't find that they've violated my POS in any way, just my feelings maybe and some assumptions I may have made that I probably shouldn't have in hindsight.

Would ya'll do me a favor? Let me know if we change anything in the points chart or with DVD/DVC in general in this thread, OK? (j/k)

 

[Inkmahm]

. That's the truth.

And also don't admit its costing you less points for your regular trips that include weekends.

I've already stated that last year AND this year. My vacations, overall, are taking less points than before because we ALWAYS are there for a Friday and Saturda night stay. We will stay anywhere from 4 to 7 nights, but always include both Fri and Sat.

I DO understand the people who are upset that their weekday stays only are now going to cost more points. But I don't understand why they can't see that it is okay for people like Caron to be happy about the reallocation. I don't blame the weekenders for being happy they are no longer paying double the points for their nights as the weekday people. They WERE obviously subsidizing the people who stayed only weekdays.