Multi-Site POS Revision Dated 01/19/19

[Bing Showei]

Like you and many others, I'm sure they'll try again in 2021. It will be interesting to see how/if DVC changes the roll-out. Doubt it will be just their usual "publish and run", LOL.

Yvonne made it very clear that they felt their biggest misstep was not what many see as a cash grab in the increase in the lockoff premium, but rather the “confusion” it caused the membership. Messaging, they feel, would address most of the concern.

 

[CarolMN]

Yvonne made it very clear that they felt their biggest misstep was not what many see as a cash grab in the increase in the lockoff premium, but rather the “confusion” it caused the membership. Messaging, they feel, would address most of the concern.

Wonder how they are going to address most members' belief that the "number of points required can't change"? Especially since most of their sales guides don't understand it well enough to explain it, either.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Yvonne made it very clear that they felt their biggest misstep was not what many see as a cash grab in the increase in the lockoff premium, but rather the “confusion” it caused the membership. Messaging, they feel, would address most of the concern.

That's perhaps the silliest comment it was reported that she'd made. It's nothing less than saying they didn't come up with a marketing spin to sell it. The other most silly thing is that 1brs are in great demand.

 

[Bing Showei]

That's perhaps the silliest comment it was reported that she'd made. It's nothing less than saying they didn't come up with a marketing spin to sell it. The other most silly thing is that 1brs are in great demand.

But Kathy... the data. It's in the data! [holds up thick binder with lots of pages]

Try banging your head against that wall. I had zero luck.

 

[ljmiii]

That's perhaps the silliest comment it was reported that she'd made. It's nothing less than saying they didn't come up with a marketing spin to sell it. The other most silly thing is that 1brs are in great demand.

But Kathy... the data. It's in the data! [holds up thick binder with lots of pages]

Yup...DVC has just about as many 1BRs that go vacant as they do studios. Probably 29 days out 1BRs are just as 'in demand' as studios. What other data could you possibly care about...;-)

 

[AvidDisReader]

I would like to ask one of the knowledgeable legal eagles if the POS allows Disney to keep all the cash rentals and not give to DVC. It would seem to me that if there is breakage that is above and beyond what Disney owns, the extra rental income should go to DVC and thus reduce all the members dues. Am I totally off base on this?

 

[skier_pete]

Yvonne made it very clear that they felt their biggest misstep was not what many see as a cash grab in the increase in the lockoff premium, but rather the “confusion” it caused the membership. Messaging, they feel, would address most of the concern.

Yup, confusion is the word she used with me several times as well. I very specifically replied "I can't speak for others - but I had no confusion at all at what was going on. I just don't see how this benefits the DVC membership." I also went strong with not arguing that they were wrong about the 1-bedroom data (which I think they are) but instead I argued that what they doing will not solve the problem but only make it worse.

I know the message was "we're going to get the communication out ahead next time" but I still very much wonder if they are going to try this again. I still strongly believe that they realized what they did was borderline illegal and upon further review decided it was not worth the risk. A suit on that could take a look at many of the other reallocations over the years and result in a serious setback for Disney.

Oh well, we are only 8 months now from seeing what shakes out.

 

[skier_pete]

I would like to ask one of the knowledgeable legal eagles if the POS allows Disney to keep all the cash rentals and not give to DVC. It would seem to me that if there is breakage that is above and beyond what Disney owns, the extra rental income should go to DVC and thus reduce all the members dues. Am I totally off base on this?

pretty sure the membership gets X percent, and Disney gets the rest. That's why more breakage actually benefits Disney.

 

[crvetter]

I would like to ask one of the knowledgeable legal eagles if the POS allows Disney to keep all the cash rentals and not give to DVC. It would seem to me that if there is breakage that is above and beyond what Disney owns, the extra rental income should go to DVC and thus reduce all the members dues. Am I totally off base on this?

The way breakage works is any unreserved rooms at 60 days (could be set anywhere between 30-90 but 60 is the current number) is sent to cash, subject to a set of rules that makes sure that no DVC member that wants the room loses out on it. Then the Association gets the Breakage income up to 2.5% of the annual budget for the resort. Any amount above the 2.5% is sent to BVTC to pay for the DVC Reservation Component costs up to 105% of the costs associated with that service. What happens if breakage income exceeds 2.5% of the resort budget and 105% of the actual costs incurred by BVTC is unknown to me, my guess would be DVCMC keeps it then.

I should note we do see a BVTC cost line on our dues but that is a membership fee and our DVC Resort Agreements say that we "agreed" to this profit sharing of sorts to pay for the cost of BVTC. The line item you see on your dues is $1 per club member, except Riviera is slightly different in this regard, and it is to cover the Corporate Membership Fee.

 

[Bing Showei]

I would like to ask one of the knowledgeable legal eagles if the POS allows Disney to keep all the cash rentals and not give to DVC. It would seem to me that if there is breakage that is above and beyond what Disney owns, the extra rental income should go to DVC and thus reduce all the members dues. Am I totally off base on this?

Every year, Disney has maxed out the cap (2.5% of the aggregate of the Condominium Operating Budget and the Capital Reserve Budget) of what the association gets from breakage. After the cap, the rest goes into Disney's pocket.

Interestingly, it's been maxed out across the board at every resort, every year. I've got my tinfoil hat conspiracy theories as to why that is, but as Pete mentioned, I'm sure Disney doesn't want people revisiting SSR Treehouses.

Given all the resorts have maxed out every year, the increased breakage from the retracted 2020 reallocation would've been pure profit.

 

[LAX]

But Kathy... the data. It's in the data! [holds up thick binder with lots of pages]

Try banging your head against that wall. I had zero luck.

Sure! Open up the binder(s) and show me the data. I (we, the members) won't be convinced until I/we see real data. With the current management, I will not give them any benefit of the doubt. Perhaps a lawsuit might force DVD to "open the books" (possible even a can of worms) if they are not backing down.

LAX

 

[CarolMN]

Sure! Open up the binder(s) and show me the data. I (we, the members) won't be convinced until I/we see real data. With the current management, I will not give them any benefit of the doubt. Perhaps a lawsuit might force DVD to "open the books" (possible even a can of worms) if they are not backing down.

LAX

Have you asked them how you could see that data? I really don't think you need lawsuit for that. IIRC, some have been told that they need to come in person to Celebration to see "the books". FWIW, I wouldn't want my business records available to all via the internet and I'm sure most corporations believe the same.

 

[skier_pete]

Have you asked them how you could see that data? I really don't think you need lawsuit for that. IIRC, some have been told that they need to come in person to Celebration to see "the books". FWIW, I wouldn't want my business records available to all via the internet and I'm sure most corporations believe the same.

No - they told us it was proprietary and they can't share it. Makes you really want to trust them, right?

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

No - they told us it was proprietary and they can't share it. Makes you really want to trust them, right?

I wonder how that all works since it's a timeshare/condo association, yes? I don't know of many condo associations that can keep info from the owners.

And proprietary is a farce to hide behind. DVC really is only in competition with themselves. They are it for onsite timeshare. But then they also seemed to think that people were not aware of how many rooms there are in each resort or perhaps units? Something that is gotten from the Orange County filings.

 

[crvetter]

No - they told us it was proprietary and they can't share it. Makes you really want to trust them, right?

I wonder is the data proprietary or is the analysis. I would have to believe the raw data should be view-able by members, at the resorts they own, though I'm sure in a very inconvenient manner, but any software/algorithm they use to do the data analysis or product of that analysis would fall as proprietary, since we have no legal standing to that product. I guess that depends on the question asked, since I didn't ask this in my conversation. Was the question asking for the data that showed 1 bedrooms were in higher demand, because that would be an analysis of the data. Or was the question asked to see the raw occupancy data of DVC, which I suspect they would "accommodate".

 

[freediverdude]

The raw occupancy data would probably just be the number of rooms that went unoccupied each day or month, which doesn't really measure demand in this case. What you would want to see are the bookings at 90 days, 60 days, and 30 days for each vacation home type, which would probably be getting into their analysis software. So it would probably take a court hearing to get them to explain specifically why they thought 1 bedrooms were in higher demand.

 

[crvetter]

The raw occupancy data would probably just be the number of rooms that went unoccupied each day or month, which doesn't really measure demand in this case. What you would want to see are the bookings at 90 days, 60 days, and 30 days for each vacation home type, which would probably be getting into their analysis software. So it would probably take a court hearing to get them to explain specifically why they thought 1 bedrooms were in higher demand.

The booking history of each room throughout the year, to me, is raw data, i.e. objective facts. Their interpretation of that data is what I referring to, i.e. objective conclusions, which the bookings would not be. Simply because that data is collected by booking through their software doesn’t make it an analysis, which would be the conclusions drawn. I also would be less interested in short term booking patterns but more trying to find the patterns of what people want vs what they got, some machine learning might be able to highlight this but DVC likely calibrated, biased their machine learning algorithm analyzing the data. Could have been innocent, could have been intentional I have my views and expressed it to DVC. The fun adage is 90% (or insert other number) of all statistics are made up.

Either way I’m sure they wouldn’t make it easy to see. But it’s more likely the raw data is something that they couldn’t protect under propriety information.

 

[Katie L]

The fun adage is 90% (or insert other number) of all statistics are made up.

Or nowadays - manipulated by the subjective opinion and doctored "analysis" to visualize the outcome that is expected or desired. Depending on the question you ask and the way you ask it, you can almost always interpret the raw data to "validate" that.

 

[crvetter]

Or nowadays - manipulated by the subjective opinion and doctored "analysis" to visualize the outcome that is expected or desired. Depending on the question you ask and the way you ask it, you can almost always interpret the raw data to "validate" that.

Yep was my point, any analysis on data has the risk of being biased based on the views of the group doing the analysis.

 

[dizanimator]

I've read through all 32 pages and I think Disney is pushing too hard. I think that if there weren't so many changes that do not seem to benefit members being announced so often, it wouldn't seem quite as bad, but Disney announces what Disney wants when Disney wants.
I believe Disney could probably change what resorts Riviera and future resorts members can make reservations at, but not the L14. I haven't gone to read the actual documents, but if everyone bought knowing that the trading rules of all future member resorts were to be pretty much the same, then to me all future resorts are to have the same rules with respect to those original resorts. If the rules are that Riviera resale members will only have access to Riviera and the remaining original 14 resorts, but not future DVC resorts, that doesn't materially change the access that members from the current resorts have. I can understand DVD only letting the favored direct members have access to Moonlight Magic and other special experiences, but I don't think that there is any easy way to block access to the reservation component, and Riviera trying to limit access for future club members is different from the existing agreements.