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

[wdrl]

BWV was not fully declared into invertory when they decided to create the Standard View. They adjusted the latter declarations to allow for the lower SV points.

Are you saying that when BWV started, DVD allotted 50,000 points to a Unit, but when it rolled out the Standard View category it then allotted lesser points to the same size Unit that were subsequently declared?

Bear with me as I try to digest this information. When BWV was initially proposed, it was going to have (for sake of discussion) 5,400,000 points. Maintenance fees would have been based on that amount. Then, some time before completion, DVD decides to lower BWV's point total to 4,900,000 points. BWV's budget would then have to be absorbed by 500,000 fewer points, resulting in higher MFs. Did BWV's original owners get any relief due to this change? Maybe its inaccurate to compare this situation to Vero Beach, but VB's owners got subsidized MFs when DVD modified the size of the VB resort after sales had begun.

 

[Petraman]

I just thought of something else. This reallocation levels the playing field for small point owners. Before they had to wait and start their vacations on Sunday not having enough points to bridge the Fri and Sat night. Now that the weekend points have been flattened out, they can pretty much start their vacation on whatever day they like +7 for a few more points.
Small point owners were really at a disadvantage to large point owners when the weekend points were almost double.

Actually, the smallpoint owners are even more handicapped every time they "level" the points. If they were waiting for Sun to start because they lacked points, the fact that the weekend points are now lower is irrelevant. Now they pay more for each weekday AND 7+ more for each weekend night, so using the weekend won't save them points, it will cost them at least 7 more per night for those 2 nights PLUS the increased points on the remaining weekdays. It's still cheaper in 2011 to do a 5 day trip all weekdays than to include weekends. Sad part is some folks (like myself) didn't see this type approach coming and bought the amount of points they could afford with a type of trip in mind.

Only answer for smallpoint owners....
1) Go less days
2) Get weaker accomodations
3) Go in lower peak times (although looks like they are balancing this too)

Now on a personal note, I for one am stuck in a quandry.
We could maybe scrimp and buy a few more points, but when will this end? How can we ever tell how many points will be enough, when everyday costs the same? It seems right now the people who are NOT dvc owners and just buy their visits with cash are far more respected and wanted than those who bought in.... Just My Opinion

 

[Petraman]

One more thought I don't think anyone has touched on. It may be an over reaction but does make some sense.

For any of you who have been DL people over the years, you know that the key days you DO NOT want to be in the parks are the weekends. They are extremely crowded because of the amount of locals and season passes they have in comparison to WDW.

The logical reason for the flattening of points is to get more people to come to WDW on the weekends and less on the weekdays, which means the already crowded weekends at WDW are about to get even worse.

If they keep it up, they are going to make WDW the same mess as DL on the weekends

 

[Metsoskil]

It seems right now the people who are NOT dvc owners and just buy their visits with cash are far more respected and wanted than those who bought in.... Just My Opinion

Of course. They have our (DVC owners) money already. No need to work for it or overly concern themselves with keeping us happy. They know we're coming to Disney.

For the others (non-owners), they've got to work a lot harder to get their money.

 

[Metsoskil]

One more thought I don't think anyone has touched on. It may be an over reaction but does make some sense.

For any of you who have been DL people over the years, you know that the key days you DO NOT want to be in the parks are the weekends. They are extremely crowded because of the amount of locals and season passes they have in comparison to WDW.

The logical reason for the flattening of points is to get more people to come to WDW on the weekends and less on the weekdays, which means the already crowded weekends at WDW are about to get even worse.

If they keep it up, they are going to make WDW the same mess as DL on the weekends

Weekends in the parks at WDW are not any more crowded than weekdays. In fact, they may be less crowded. Most visitors to WDW drive or fly, and most stay a week. Saturdays and Sundays are travel days and that keeps attendance in the parks down a bit on those days. I think I heard the number of "day-visitors" or locals visiting the parks on any day is less than 10%. Maybe someone else will have the exact statistic.

 

[JenSop]

Wow - this really sucks! The GV trip at AKV (in 2012) that we've been planning in our heads for awhile now WAS going to be Sunday-Thursday at 92 points a night. Now if we want a Jambo GV for that same time, it's 105 points a night!!!! It went up by 13 points per night!!!!

That's a BIG difference in points. HUGE!

 

[shortypots]

Looks like our big family trips this year are going to be heavily impacted. We have a grand villa in April for 6 nts, and this is costing us 598 pts, in 2011 the same trip will cost us 646 pts!!! 48 pt increase for 6 nights. I am doing the valuations now, and we will not be able to do the trips the way we want to in the future because of the new allocation. We were going to do 2 savannah view 2bd's for 6 nts in magic in the future, which under the old allocations would have been 586 pts, now are 622 pts, so we cannot do it for 2 yrs worth of pts like we had hoped to do. So we will need to re-evaluate how we do things. Although we could switch it to 2 value 2bds and save a huge amount of pts, but DH wants SV. Will make it interesting for us in the future.

 

[tjkraz]

Are you saying that when BWV started, DVD allotted 50,000 points to a Unit, but when it rolled out the Standard View category it then allotted lesser points to the same size Unit that were subsequently declared?

Probably something like that.

When BWV first opened there was only one point level for the entire resort--what we currently know as the Preferred View category. A room which faced the main entrance was charged the same number of points as a BoardWalk view.

Due to early complaints from members, the Standard View was established before the entire resort was declared. It stands to reason that later unit declarations added fewer points to the condo association in order to account for this change.

Bear with me as I try to digest this information. When BWV was initially proposed, it was going to have (for sake of discussion) 5,400,000 points. Maintenance fees would have been based on that amount. Then, some time before completion, DVD decides to lower BWV's point total to 4,900,000 points. BWV's budget would then have to be absorbed by 500,000 fewer points, resulting in higher MFs. Did BWV's original owners get any relief due to this change? Maybe its inaccurate to compare this situation to Vero Beach, but VB's owners got subsidized MFs when DVD modified the size of the VB resort after sales had begun.

In the case of Vero, my understanding is that a certain number of physical units and some resort amenities which were promised were never delivered. That's the reason for the subsidy.

I have never heard of any guarantees made during the sales process regarding the number of points represented by a single unit. Additionally, all owners at BWV can take advantage of the lower-cost Standard View rooms.

With Vero, DVC took away something they had initially promised. I don't really see a parallel with BWV. Sounds similar to what is happening with the Standard View Grand Villa(s) at AKV.

 

[Petraman]

Weekends in the parks at WDW are not any more crowded than weekdays. In fact, they may be less crowded. Most visitors to WDW drive or fly, and most stay a week. Saturdays and Sundays are travel days and that keeps attendance in the parks down a bit on those days. I think I heard the number of "day-visitors" or locals visiting the parks on any day is less than 10%. Maybe someone else will have the exact statistic.

Actually tracking sites like touringplans.com would disagree with you. Their crowd meter show +2 point change on almost every single Saturday except one in a holiday week. Although, it is good to note that these same sites also show Fridays as not being any higher than Thur, so main day that could be adversely affected would only be Saturday.

It's true that Sat/Sun have traditionally been travel days and that is exactly the point.... DVC is trying to make it more desirable to get there for those days and not just weekdays (making it harder and cost more for anyone who does).

That is the figure that I had heard as well concerning the day visitors and changes in DVC points isn't really going to affect day visitors. The real question will be how many DVC folks feel the need to start booking weekends (that aren't now because of the better value on weekdays), and how much will that increase the overloaded Saturdays.

Metsoskil, you make a valid observation about the past, the problem is things are changing, and each time they change, there will changes in our Disney experience...... some good and some bad

i.e. Fastpass = GOOD; Free DDP = good for cash customers, bad for DVC

As I mentioned before, these are only observations that "might " happen IMO... I hope that in the end, DVC folks will just adjust and go when it is more convenient for them rather than feel any pressure to change.

NOTE: I am taking a trip in March that is 1 weekend and 4 weekdays (Sat-Thu). This reservation cost me 10% more than it would have last year and would cost me 9% more next year. That is a pretty hefty change in 2 years...
Oh well, time to sell a child and buy more points

 

[Petraman]

Looks like our big family trips this year are going to be heavily impacted. We have a grand villa in April for 6 nts, and this is costing us 598 pts, in 2011 the same trip will cost us 646 pts!!! 48 pt increase for 6 nights. I am doing the valuations now, and we will not be able to do the trips the way we want to in the future because of the new allocation. We were going to do 2 savannah view 2bd's for 6 nts in magic in the future, which under the old allocations would have been 586 pts, now are 622 pts, so we cannot do it for 2 yrs worth of pts like we had hoped to do. So we will need to re-evaluate how we do things. Although we could switch it to 2 value 2bds and save a huge amount of pts, but DH wants SV. Will make it interesting for us in the future.

I am assuming that your 6 day stay only includes Sat or Fri but not both?

This is the same problem as last year. I ran the number for every single resrot, every season, and every room type and the bottom line was unless you were a person that stays on both weekend nights and minimum of 3 more weekdays, your cost to use DVC went..... every single booking.

And now in 2011 it's going to happen again the same I would imagine. I am not goint to run every scenario again like this year's points.... too depressing.

I guess I should be happy I don't have that many points so it doesn't seem as bad

Still not too happy. I'm afraid the Disney Magic is wearing off a little

 

[Petraman]

Totally agree. I knew that adustments could be made, but when it was presented to me by my guide it was glossed over that slight adjustments could occur. Her example was "say one particular room type goes up by one point an adjustment would be made for another to go a down a point to even out." The last two years haven't been slight adjustments, these are a complete overhaul of what they were. To be fair to my guide, I doubt in 2006 she could foresee such drastic changes since these are unprecedented.

Wow... well said. I am sure we don't have the same guide so they must train them well in their rhetoric.... that's exactly how it was described to me. And I totally agree, I can't really blame my guide. I don't feel ripped off, just disappointed I bought into something on a limited budget that I thought would be a great service to my family and is quickly becoming much less.

Scary part is, where will it end?

 

[disneydreamingdebby]

We are new to DVC through resale. In booking our 2010 trip (1st DVC), I had to figure a way to best use our points. To do this, I found a split stay leaving BCV on Friday to stay at AKV value over weekend (studios) saved 18 points.

With the balance of weekend and weekday points, maybe it will reduce split stays? I don't know if there is a worthwhile advantage to that...less check-out, check-in, fewer bag transfers ...I don't think add up to anything significant. However, I thought I would throw the idea out there.

Overall, for studio families like mine, the points are similar for the week - one point more or less depending on resort.
-Debby

 

[tjkraz]

Scary part is, where will it end?

There isn't a whole lot more they could do.

DVC isn't going to switch directions and make weekends MORE expensive. At least not unless a few years pass and (possibly) show that such an adjustment is necessary.

They could make weekdays and weekends roughly equal in cost, but I doubt member habits would justify that move. Disney's own cash rates demonstrate that weekends have higher demand that weekdays (they now charge more for weekends.) If the points were equal, they would end up with the reverse problem--frequent weekday vacancies.

They could tweak the seasons a bit. I'd put that at 50/50 in the next couple of years. It seems like this reallocation did re-value each season differently so that may have been sufficient for the time being.

Overall I don't see a lot of areas where they could make further adjustments to the charts.

 

[nickspace]

The 2011 point charts seems to be making my vacation planning a challenge for next year. To all the DVC gurus out there, "How can I use the 2011 point chart to my advantage?" I look forward to hearing your sage advice.


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[Petraman]

We are new to DVC through resale. In booking our 2010 trip (1st DVC), I had to figure a way to best use our points. To do this, I found a split stay leaving BCV on Friday to stay at AKV value over weekend (studios) saved 18 points.

With the balance of weekend and weekday points, maybe it will reduce split stays? I don't know if there is a worthwhile advantage to that...less check-out, check-in, fewer bag transfers ...I don't think add up to anything significant. However, I thought I would throw the idea out there.

Overall, for studio families like mine, the points are similar for the week - one point more or less depending on resort.
-Debby

I think once you run the numbers, you are going to find that "usually" (there may be some strange exception) you will still do better doing the split stay than staying at the better resort for a whole week.

I imagine you are like us, we do split stay so we can spend at least some time in a nicer resort, so I ran a simulation for you.

Stay for one week in March staying in a studio...

2010 points: For 5 nights in BCV studio= 80 and 2 nights in AKL val studio = 36. Total = 116

2011 points for same scenario = 120.

2011 stay for full week in same BCV studio =134
stay for full week in same AKL studio =95

So the good news is you still save points by splitting between the 2 with the scenario you described over staying a whole week at BCV. Of course you could save a bunch by staying in Value AKL but you could have done that last year as well.

Hope that clears it up a bit

 

[Inkmahm]

Go to WDW when the points are lower?

 

[edk35]

Well I guess people will go for less days, add discounted cash nights, get a CRO ressie for extra nights, travel in different seasons, borrow, bank and not go as often or ADD ON.

 

[bookwormde]

I may do a CRO 2-3 day stay at the begining, move to a villa for the bulk of the trip and then do 2-3 days at the end in a studio (probably epcot area)

bookwormde

 

[bookwormde]

To cleary the AKV situation if they did change catagories for some rooms, If AKV was fully declared and this came about after a few years of operation then yes the points would stay the same. The issue with AKV Kidani is that if the units are not yet declared and sold then who should take the hit DVD or should all the members have to pay on average more points for the same stay?. Also if an unscupulous developer wanted to on a 2 phase time share they could declare all new rooms the highest catagory to have the most points to sell and then "downgrade them to what they should have been to the detriment of al who had allready purchased.

For future adjustments they raise the studios and lower the 1br since at several resorts the studios book up quickly and the 1br are left.

bookwormde

 

[musical2]

50 points more?!?!?

Please post the date you were planning. I have studied the charts and don't see a 50 point increase. Am I missing something????

We went at the beginning of August last year. Arrived August 2, left August 14. Those 12 days in a 2 Bedroom OKW was 446 points. In 2011, the next time we are going for 12 days, all days being equal, arriving on a Sunday in the summer and leaving 12 days later on a Friday in the summer will equal 496 points.