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

[dianeschlicht]

Just wanted to say I am disapointed with the points reallocation. When I bought in six years ago, I bought enough points for a five day stay sun-thur and now I do not have enough points for even that.

Things change, I know and less points for weekends is also very nice but now that my contract is worth even less days, it's time for me to sell it. I wonder if many other people will do the same. Suddenly, 165 points isn't what it used to be.

Marriott here I come -- I hope.

Yes, but perhaps the fact that DVC allowed the minimum point buy in to be lowered from 230 to 150 might have been the real issue. If that minimum buy it had not been lowered, you would have had plenty of points for a whole WEEK at WDW. I think that was the original plan. I think when they lowered the initial buy in and also raised the weekend points, they set it up for folks to start purchasing those smaller contracts and planning the 5 weekday stays as you did. That is a sure fire way to make imbalances in the occupancy. People will automatically try to stay for the least number of points, so there was all manner of "juggling" of points to get the most nights or days out of fewer points. For some that meant staying only Sun-Fri. or even Sun-Sat and use 6 nights instead of 7. For some it meant going off site for weekends, or even booking a value resort for the weekend.

I think those of us who "assumed" a week and planned for that in purchasing are much less effected by the allocation. At worst, I might change the dates of trips, but I don't see it as significantly changing my membership or lessening its value.

 

[BWV Dreamin]

While all these words sound logical I think in fact you have posted that your "concierge" only AKV purchase is now not worth the points increase and will adjust your stays. That sounds like a major impact to your original plans. Simply changing your plans doesn't negate the true affect.

Yes, but perhaps the fact that DVC allowed the minimum point buy in to be lowered from 230 to 150 might have been the real issue. If that minimum buy it had not been lowered, you would have had plenty of points for a whole WEEK at WDW. I think that was the original plan. I think when they lowered the initial buy in and also raised the weekend points, they set it up for folks to start purchasing those smaller contracts and planning the 5 weekday stays as you did. That is a sure fire way to make imbalances in the occupancy. People will automatically try to stay for the least number of points, so there was all manner of "juggling" of points to get the most nights or days out of fewer points. For some that meant staying only Sun-Fri. or even Sun-Sat and use 6 nights instead of 7. For some it meant going off site for weekends, or even booking a value resort for the weekend.

I think those of us who "assumed" a week and planned for that in purchasing are much less effected by the allocation. At worst, I might change the dates of trips, but I don't see it as significantly changing my membership or lessening its value.

 

[dianeschlicht]

While all these words sound logical I think in fact you have posted that your "concierge" only AKV purchase is now not worth the points increase and will adjust your stays. That sounds like a major impact to your original plans. Simply changing your plans doesn't negate the true affect.

Major, yes, but probably over rated. After our several stays in CL, we no longer find it a must. I loved it at first, but now that we've experienced the savanna view in the run of the house and already have done the special tours available only to CL, we no longer feel as strong a need to be there. I can still do it for a couple of days, and that's likely how my usage of it will be from now on. Frankly, I've decided I'm not as thrilled with the AKV units as I thought I would be, so a few days here and there at AKV are just fine for me. Things change as we experience them.

 

[DVC92]

As I've noted, none of use have that info. You can likely get it but it'll take a trip to Celebration to spend the day with DVC management. As I've said before, there comes a time when DVC doesn't make sense for a given family, sometimes changes may cause that to happen midstream. IF I had that level of distrust I'd likely sell tomorrow. It is interesting to see the DVC membership in the "spurned lover" role.

Yes, I have a level of distrust based upon certain issues over my 18 years in the Club. Management should have been more transparent with the members over the point change. They knew the desired change they were trying to achieve before the 2010 point chart was disclosed. There is no reason they could not have informed us of what the final point chart (assuming 2011 is it) was going to look like prior to starting the process so that members could make appropriate add-on decisions or sell their interests if the Club no longer worked for them.

 

[Chuck S]

Yes, I have a level of distrust based upon certain issues over my 18 years in the Club. Management should have been more transparent with the members over the point change. They knew the desired change they were trying to achieve before the 2010 point chart was disclosed. There is no reason they could not have informed us of what the final point chart (assuming 2011 is it) was going to look like prior to starting the process so that members could make appropriate add-on decisions or sell their interests if the Club no longer worked for them.

Yes, they could have informed membership as you suggest. But historically, including the 1996 reallocation, there has been no such communication...there is no reason to believe that would change now.

The 1996 reallocation was also substantial, it simply didn't get the attention this one is getting. At least I think taking OKW studios from 69 points a week to 80 ponts a week in Adventure Season in 1996 was a substantial change.

 

[Mickey'sApprentice]

Yes, but perhaps the fact that DVC allowed the minimum point buy in to be lowered from 230 to 150 might have been the real issue. If that minimum buy it had not been lowered, you would have had plenty of points for a whole WEEK at WDW. I think that was the original plan. I think when they lowered the initial buy in and also raised the weekend points, they set it up for folks to start purchasing those smaller contracts and planning the 5 weekday stays as you did. That is a sure fire way to make imbalances in the occupancy. People will automatically try to stay for the least number of points, so there was all manner of "juggling" of points to get the most nights or days out of fewer points. For some that meant staying only Sun-Fri. or even Sun-Sat and use 6 nights instead of 7. For some it meant going off site for weekends, or even booking a value resort for the weekend.

I think those of us who "assumed" a week and planned for that in purchasing are much less effected by the allocation. At worst, I might change the dates of trips, but I don't see it as significantly changing my membership or lessening its value.

I agree that owners with 230 points will see no significant effect. If DVC still required owners to purchase 230 points, there would be far fewer owners. I also doubt that Disney could sell points for over $100/pt. with a 230point minimum.

I went into my 100 point purchase with my eyes open. We passed over a 150 point contract through DVC in 2002 for $78/pt. to purchase a 100 pt. resale 4 years later for $84/pt.

I didn't need 150 points then, I don't need 150 points now, and I certainly don't need 230 points.

 

[TSMIII]

I thought the POS does have a limit that states a maximum points that can be "charged" for a particular accommodation. I'd have to pull out the paperwork for certain but that's how I interpreted it. And it wasn't 1,000 so I don't think we have to worry about that. My one question in my head was if it was something about an average but I'm 90% certain is was a maximum number of points.

I think what you are remembering is the guaranteed maximum number of points to reserve a particular type of accommodation for ONE night.

I don't have the documents in front of me but 88 points for an AKV Grand Villa sticks in my head for some reason.

That is to say that the POS states something similar to: "No matter what changes are made to the point allocations for vacation homes you will always be able to reserve at least one night of the year in a Grand Villa for 88 points."

So to take it to the extreme, they could set up the charts such that one single night of the year for a GV is 88 points and all other nights are 1500 points.

 

[Brian Noble]

There are other reasons people avoided the weekends. First and foremost.. crowds.

I'm not sure that holds as true at WDW as it does at, say, Disneyland or your local amusement park, because most visitors travel a fair distance, and many do so over at least one weekend day.

Hunt and Rasulo, back in 2003, gave a presentation to investors where they mentioned that 50% of DLR's gate comes from "locals" and 10% are international visitors. Only 10% of WDW's gate is "local", with 20% international. They didn't say how they defined "local", and that could just be day-trippers. But, still.

http://www.laughingplace.com/News-ID507040.asp

(The numbers above are from the second page, but the whole article is really interesting.)

The Unofficial Guide also has data that suggests weekends aren't particularly worse, and are actually sometimes better, than weekdays, with lower wait times.

Magic Kingdom: http://blog.touringplans.com/category/crowd-blog/page/2/
Other parks: http://blog.touringplans.com/category/crowd-blog/

Sunday is generally almost always an icky day, but Saturday is never worse than "middle", and usually better than that. Friday is better than average everywhere but Studios, where it's pretty bad.

These observations are from 2007, so they use the current "typical" EMH schedule, but do not suffer from the Fantasmic Effect.

 

[Tiger926]

Hubby and I keep discussing it as this thread continues, and for us there are problems with Disney's foresight. When you make a system in which weekends are so much more, how can you not assume that this will make the other nights that are cheaper, more desirable? It's not rocket science, so, why did they let it happen for this long? Of course, by doing this, you are going to have weekdays being harder to book, and then weekends are at less occupancy. Not hard to see that they created a potential imbalance...

As people have pointed out, they've done things along the way in regards to this, yet now, when points are at an all-time high, they make major changes?

As we all know, it's much easier to make corrections in baby steps, but vastly changing things is much harder to deal with.

I have to imagine that DVC has some pretty smart people in charge, so again, I ask, what was their true intention with making weekends so high, and why did they let it go on this far?

We are enjoying this discussion, and learning lots about the little intricacies of DVC that we didn't know a lot about.

Tiger

 

[BWV Dreamin]

2007 data is too old. Many members have joined DVC since then and along with the various "promos" over the past couple of years, the parks have been anything but "light". Even Eisners earnings have confirmed that.

I'm not sure that holds as true at WDW as it does at, say, Disneyland or your local amusement park, because most visitors travel a fair distance, and many do so over at least one weekend day.

Hunt and Rasulo, back in 2003, gave a presentation to investors where they mentioned that 50% of DLR's gate comes from "locals" and 10% are international visitors. Only 10% of WDW's gate is "local", with 20% international. They didn't say how they defined "local", and that could just be day-trippers. But, still.

http://www.laughingplace.com/News-ID507040.asp

(The numbers above are from the second page, but the whole article is really interesting.)

The Unofficial Guide also has data that suggests weekends aren't particularly worse, and are actually sometimes better, than weekdays, with lower wait times.

Magic Kingdom: http://blog.touringplans.com/category/crowd-blog/page/2/
Other parks: http://blog.touringplans.com/category/crowd-blog/

Sunday is generally almost always an icky day, but Saturday is never worse than "middle", and usually better than that. Friday is better than average everywhere but Studios, where it's pretty bad.

These observations are from 2007, so they use the current "typical" EMH schedule, but do not suffer from the Fantasmic Effect.

 

[wdrl]

To get a better comparison of the actual difference in points, you'd be better comparing both using the same calendar year. Even better would be the base year. For fun you might consider comparing year to year with the same point tables.

In essence, my calculations for VWL, BWV, and BLT did use the same calendar year. It just so happens that calendar years 2010 and 2011 have the exact same number of weeknight and weekend days in each season.

 

[wdrl]

BLAME DVC or BLAME THE OWNERS!!!

Well the truth is we need to blame both (at least a little bit).

DVC has been aware of the imbalance of use since early on. In the mid 90's (94-95) DVC was surveying owners as to what affect a weekend/weekday reallocation would have on their plans. In 1998 they advised OKW owners that a change would come unless weekday/weekend usage equaled out. They used examples where they said the average vacant room percentage increased by nearly 25% for OKW for the weekend. One example showed where the resort was sold out for most of the week including Wednesday and Thursday Night only to have over 100 rooms available for Friday and Saturday. So its not like they weren't aware or that its a new problem.

From my own personal observations and from what others have stated it is fairly evident that this imbalance has continued up to date and in fact has likely gotten worse.

It is also apparent that many owners bought in with the intention of solely staying weekdays. In addition many other owners adjusted their normal travel patterns over the years to avoid the weekends as they realized how doing so stretched their points. I myself would be in this second category.

So what are the affects of this usage imbalance??? Well as others have explained the system is designed to run at nearly 100% occupancy. Failure for it to do so results in a logjam of points that are being banked and not used or traded outside the system. DVC's responsibility is to see that the system runs as efficient as possible, and unused points is a sign of inefficiency.

My personal feeling is that DVC has been ignoring this elephant in the room for over ten years. In fact they really weren't ignoring it, they happily continued to feed it by encouraging new owners to utilize the system to their personal advantage by minimizing their purchase for weekday stays only based on the then existing points charts. Additionally they did not make the the point changes which I'm sure they knew were going to be unavoidable.

Further more, we here on the DIS (and other sites) also are to blame as we contributed to this problem by advising potential owners of how they could utilize their points to maximum advantage.

For DVC to now be implementing these changes leads me to believe that they are likely seeing most if not all of the following:

• An extremely high number of unfulfilled longer stay requests (6+ days) due to unavailability of a single weekday or two within the requested period.
• An extremely high number of Banked Points within the system
• An extremely high number of Vacant rooms on the weekends.

It is my opinion that DVC saws these numbers reaching a critical stage and felt they could no longer ignore the "imbalanced use" elephant sitting there and had to make a change.

I sincerely hope that this change will have the desired effect otherwise I would have to agree with what Dean said in regards that there would likely be future changes made such as minimum stay requirements or a longer stay priority booking.

Great post.

 

[White_Sox_Fan]

I think what you are remembering is the guaranteed maximum number of points to reserve a particular type of accommodation for ONE night.

I don't have the documents in front of me but 88 points for an AKV Grand Villa sticks in my head for some reason.

That is to say that the POS states something similar to: "No matter what changes are made to the point allocations for vacation homes you will always be able to reserve at least one night of the year in a Grand Villa for 88 points."

So to take it to the extreme, they could set up the charts such that one single night of the year for a GV is 88 points and all other nights are 1500 points.

I don't believe the POS sets forth a maximum that may be charged for any given accommodation. They do set forth a maximum value for which a use day may be reserved. Here is a section form the SSR POS:

The right to reallocate Home Resort Vacation Points is reserved by DVCMC solely for adjusting the Home Resort Reservation Component to accommodate Club Member demand. However, with respect to the Condominium, each Club Member will always be eligible to reserve at the Condominium, subject to availability: at least one (1) Use Day in a Studio Vacation Home for every (16) Home Resort Vacation Points; at least one (1) Use Day in a One-Bedroom Vacation Home for every (32) Home Resort Vacation Points; at least one (1) Use Day in a Two-Bedroom Vacation Home for every (41) Home Resort Vacation Points; or at least one (1) Use Day in a Grand Villa Vacation Home for every sixty-four (64) Home Resort Vacation Points. A maximum reallocation of Vacation Point reservation requirements could result in a 'leveling' of all seasons, such that Home Resort Vacation Point reservation requirements would have no variation based upon seasonality or different times of the year. Similarly, a maximum reallocation of Home Resort Vacation Point reservation requirements could result in a 'leveling' of differences in Vacation Point reservation requirements based upon particular Use Days in the week.

In other words you must be able to reserve a use day at a SSR studio for no more than 16 points. Obviously there are several opportunities to do so. These point values represent the value of a use day if all nights were equal without regard to day or season.

 

[chalee94]

When you make a system in which weekends are so much more, how can you not assume that this will make the other nights that are cheaper, more desirable? It's not rocket science, so, why did they let it happen for this long? Of course, by doing this, you are going to have weekdays being harder to book, and then weekends are at less occupancy. Not hard to see that they created a potential imbalance...

most people have weekends off. there is naturally more demand for weekends to begin with. DVC originally priced weekends higher to balance demand. finding the point at which a weekend night is as desirable to most as a weeknight is tricky, but in this culture, it will require that weekends be more expensive in order to balance demand - it's just a question of how much more expensive until you cross the line and weekends aren't worth it to most...

here is a link discussing the hilton timeshare system. if you look at the point charts there, the weekend nights cost twice as much as a weeknight. DVC isn't the only one to price weekends much higher.

but apparently, things have changed and they are trying to correct it. (if weekends wind up being too "cheap" and become difficult to book while sun-thursday stays are available a month or 2 in advance, the point chart reallocations will have to reverse direction.)

this thread may also help explain things in more detail.

 

[disneynutz]

Based on our experience with 30 plus trips under our belt, weekends are more crowded and I think that most seasoned members will agree. Sure there are seasonal variations and some parks get an extra boost because of special events that Disney uses to increase attendance even more.

We tend to enjoy and plan for the least crowed periods/days. With all the money that we spend at Disney to have a good time, I am not going to flight the crowds or stand in que for 90 minutes.

Bill

 

[TSMIII]

I don't believe the POS sets forth a maximum that may be charged for any given accommodation. They do set forth a maximum value for which a use day may be reserved. Here is a section form the SSR POS:

The right to reallocate Home Resort Vacation Points is reserved by DVCMC solely for adjusting the Home Resort Reservation Component to accommodate Club Member demand. However, with respect to the Condominium, each Club Member will always be eligible to reserve at the Condominium, subject to availability: at least one (1) Use Day in a Studio Vacation Home for every (16) Home Resort Vacation Points; at least one (1) Use Day in a One-Bedroom Vacation Home for every (32) Home Resort Vacation Points; at least one (1) Use Day in a Two-Bedroom Vacation Home for every (41) Home Resort Vacation Points; or at least one (1) Use Day in a Grand Villa Vacation Home for every sixty-four (64) Home Resort Vacation Points. A maximum reallocation of Vacation Point reservation requirements could result in a 'leveling' of all seasons, such that Home Resort Vacation Point reservation requirements would have no variation based upon seasonality or different times of the year. Similarly, a maximum reallocation of Home Resort Vacation Point reservation requirements could result in a 'leveling' of differences in Vacation Point reservation requirements based upon particular Use Days in the week.

In other words you must be able to reserve a use day at a SSR studio for no more than 16 points. Obviously there are several opportunities to do so. These point values represent the value of a use day if all nights were equal without regard to day or season.

You misunderstood what I was saying. I did not say there was a cap on how many points could be required for an accomodation only that there was a maximum such that one day of the year could be reserved ffor X points.

The guaranteed maximum which I referred to is indeed a maximum by accommodation for ONE use day - though I used "night" instead of "use day". Put another way: At a MINIMUM, there will always be at least one day of the year that the maximum number of points required for a SSR studio wll be 16 points.

As you quoted, one will always be able to reserve a studio, 1BR, 2BR, GV for one use day for X number of points regardless of what that accomodation requires for points any other time of the year - no matter if there is a maximum reallocation or not.

 

[LIFERBABE]

Great post.

Ditto

I agree. I also believe that DVC was getting some heat regarding the lack of availability from members and maybe there were threats of lawsuits or legal action.

Many people think CRO cash availability should be made available when point availability is used up. That's not going to happen. Those points belong to the developer and before they start giving away their share, they will tweak the heck out of the member share to free up availability. So the next time you think DVD should give you a cash room on points please tread lightly!

The membership is to blame as well as DVC. We wanted cheap nights and plenty of them. When it wasnt available we called anyone on speed dial that would listen. This is definitely a case of be careful what you wish for because we definitely got it. Some small point owners couldnt book Fri and Sat night together if they straddled,banked and borrowed.

Yes DVC was wrong for lowering the minimum buy in to as low as 100 points and they are still selling 100 point contracts and letting the small resales pass ROFR.

When several on the DIS said this several years ago, they were labelled elitist and unrealistic (putting it nice)

DVC covered themselves in the paperwork and this current administration is not afraid to hit you over the head with its gavel. I learned years ago (after I finished steaming and threatening to sue and sell) to read my documents and figure out how to make my points work for my family.
It's still working and I still love it. But many people are discovering, just like I did, that the Kool-Aid does not have any sugar in it

 

[Brian Noble]

2007 data is too old. Many members have joined DVC since then and along with the various "promos" over the past couple of years, the parks have been anything but "light". Even Eisners earnings have confirmed that.

Changes in DVC Membership's visit patterns are likely to have minimal impact on park attendance. A quick count suggests there are less than four or five thousand DVC units (vs. about 30 thousand across all Disney-owned resorts). Average daily attendance across the four theme parks in 2008 was approximately 129 thousand guests.

http://www.teaconnect.org/etea/TEAERA2008.pdf

It's easy to forget that the whole World isn't composed of Members, but it isn't.

I do not believe that promotions necessarily bias to weekend stays. Indeed, many of the more popular ones recently (7-for-4, gift card w/ five nights, etc.) have had minimum stays to be effective.

 

[dismedvc]

If the points charts were perfect, theoretically every day and every view would be equally demanded.

As of today 1/26/10, Standard view studios at BLT are not available for 12/26, 12/27 or 12/28 (each of these nights is individually unavailable, even for a 1-night stay). I know that is a busy time and the 2010 points chart still has the lower points for Sun-Thurs, but if a particular type unit is not available more than 11 months out, the points for that unit on that night really did need to be increased.

DVC should maybe even go to a "super premium" season for NYE.

 

[SuzanneSLO]

I'm not sure that holds as true at WDW as it does at, say, Disneyland or your local amusement park, because most visitors travel a fair distance, and many do so over at least one weekend day. [snip]

Disneyland attendance levels have expereinced an interesting phenomenom taht was particually evident in 2009. With so many AP holders blocked out on Saturdays, Saturdays are almost always less busy than Sundays. This is certainly very different than what we experienced back in 2005. -- Suzanne