Point Morphing

[RobDoc]

I agree with Doctor P- that's why members must push MS to be able to use transferred points 11 months ahead at their original home resort- they autoimatically assume the status of the contract into which they were transferred and MS must manually track the original resort in order for the member to make their reservation.

My guess is that these will still have to be manually handled since the software hasn't likely been changed yet. Personally, I don't care how it is accomplished- automatically or manually - as long as it is applied equally and consistently to all members. If it is now too much to handle properly manually, I'd hope DVC will address getting better technology to handle the issue.

I suspect it will just be managed manually with more emphasis placed on training CMs to look at the source for all points in an account before making a reservation for any member. It may add a few seconds (or more) to each transaction to verify the status of the points available in the account.

 

[waltfan1957]

I am looking for a post from anyone who has had points morphed, no matter if they were banked or transferred. Does it still work? Details please.....

I dont think anyone who has managed to do this would be willing to say so

 

[LisaS]

It seems like so many people who talk about points morphing, say it happens after they have been banked, that they THEN are morphed into the other resort's points. So have points previously morphed as soon as they were transferred, or only after they were then banked?

As others have posted, the morphing happens at the time the points are transferred. Where banking comes in is that people have also been able to extend the life of points by banking. Someone buys "distressed" points (points about to expire) from resort XYZ and has them transferred into his/her BCV account. They are now BCV points. If the member has a different UY and can still bank points, he/she banks those transferred points into the next UY. Now the points have not only "morphed" into BCV points, but instead of being close to expiring, they now have a lifetime of 15 months or more, plenty of life left to be used to book at BCV at the 11-month window.

 

[Deb & Bill]

If you only have contracts for BCV and VWL, how could you transfer points into an account for OKW? Wouldn't you have to have an OKW contract to transfer the points into? That's also part of the problem.

 

[Shawn]

What are this groups feelings on the correctness of point morphing?

I'll throw my opinion out there. It seems that point morphing allows resorts to be basically overbooked -- allowing DVC members to hold more points at certain resorts than was originally intended or can be booked at that resort. While I realize this is a great convenience and benefit for lots of DVC'ers, especially for those holding more than one contract at different resorts (which I plan on doing next year), it does contribute to the problem some folks seem to have of booking at their home resort at the 11 month window.

So, I'll state, that if Disney were to fix the system to disallow point morphing, I'd support it. I own a lowly 100 points at VWL. This means that if I transferred 200 points from OKW into my account, they would still be OKW points. I could not use them to book at VWL at the 11 month window, but I I could use them to book VWL at the 7 month window.

Furthermore, to be fair, I'd say that if I transferred 200 OKW points into my account (only owning at VWL), I should also be able to use the 200 points to book OKW at the 11 month window (even though my home is VWL).

I know this would cause headaches for lots of DVC'ers, and I can definitely see both sides of the subject, but the overbooking caused by point morphing would be stopped.

Other opinions on morphing?

 

[Steamboat Bill]

I can definitely see both sides of the subject, but the overbooking caused by point morphing would be stopped.

I think the only FAIR system is to track all points and eliminate point morphing.

With point morphing, there is no reason why someone should pay the inflated annual dues at VB if they can morph lower cost OKW/SSR points and snag a 3 bedroom beachfront cottage at Christmas during the 11 month booking window.

 

[Spine_DR]

I saw on a differnt thread while back that MS uses modifiers after the points in the computer denoting teh orgin of the points, There is no lock in the software stopping MS rep from "morphing the points" they are supppose to see the modifier inform the member they cant use the points at 11 months out.
When there were unlimited tranfers going it was prolly a pain to look at all the modifiers on some people accounts that got points tranfered from many places. I have heard stories of commercial renters amassing 30,000 points or more in a year.

originaly posted by Shawn
It seems that point morphing allows resorts to be basically overbooked

In theory thats what it seems like but resorts cant actually be over booked just booked up to soon(this can be a big prob kind of like line cutting), since home advantage is only early booking rights. All points can be used anywereat 7 months and after.

 

[keys2kingdom]

Other opinions on morphing?

HATE IT!!! Hope they get the situation under control as soon as possible!

 

[RobDoc]

I think the only FAIR system is to track all points and eliminate point morphing.

Transferred points are already tracked - by notation in the account. The issue is that most of the time MS does not take the time to look back at those notations, so the points are treated the same as the account into which they were moved. The fix is pretty simple since they already do this when members insist the transferred points be used for a reservation at their original home resort. The morphing only occurs when MS fails to read the notations - and that seems to be a majority of the time now, but can be changed by taking the time to do so.

 

[Dean]

How does MS allocate points transferred in to a multiple contract owner. If you own 150 at SSR and 75 at BCV, and transferred in 75 OKW points, can you ask for them to go into BCV account? Do they just allocate based on the percentage of points you own (in this example, place 50 in SSR and 25 in BCV)?

The exception to the info you've gotten already is that if you have the same home resort in the master contract you want to transfer to, that is where the points will go.

 

[Happy Birthday Cat]

I dont think anyone who has managed to do this would be willing to say so

It happened to me but it was a few years ago now. When I reported it here, many folks couldn't believe that it could happen. Now it is common knowledge.

The worst part was that I didn't want the points to morph. I rented some BWV (maybe BCV, I don't remember now) points and had them transferred into my master account which was VWL. When I tried to book the BWV I was shocked that they had become VWL points. It took quite a while to fix but MS eventually did it.

HBC

 

[Dean]

I dont think anyone who has managed to do this would be willing to say so

Many have stated it happened to them previously and like HBC, many didn't want it to.

 

[OneMoreTry]

It happened to me but it was a few years ago now. When I reported it here, many folks couldn't believe that it could happen. Now it is common knowledge.

The worst part was that I didn't want the points to morph. I rented some BWV (maybe BCV, I don't remember now) points and had them transferred into my master account which was VWL. When I tried to book the BWV I was shocked that they had become VWL points. It took quite a while to fix but MS eventually did it.

HBC

Did they forget to make a notation of the original resort in the record?

 

[mello]

What are this groups feelings on the correctness of point morphing?

I'll throw my opinion out there. It seems that point morphing allows resorts to be basically overbooked -- allowing DVC members to hold more points at certain resorts than was originally intended or can be booked at that resort. While I realize this is a great convenience and benefit for lots of DVC'ers, especially for those holding more than one contract at different resorts (which I plan on doing next year), it does contribute to the problem some folks seem to have of booking at their home resort at the 11 month window.

So, I'll state, that if Disney were to fix the system to disallow point morphing, I'd support it. I own a lowly 100 points at VWL. This means that if I transferred 200 points from OKW into my account, they would still be OKW points. I could not use them to book at VWL at the 11 month window, but I I could use them to book VWL at the 7 month window.

Furthermore, to be fair, I'd say that if I transferred 200 OKW points into my account (only owning at VWL), I should also be able to use the 200 points to book OKW at the 11 month window (even though my home is VWL).

I know this would cause headaches for lots of DVC'ers, and I can definitely see both sides of the subject, but the overbooking caused by point morphing would be stopped.

Other opinions on morphing?

I think what you are saying makes sense and is fair.

 

[ncseric]

We're relatively new to DVC and I'm glad I found this thread. We were just talking about this subject last night with a friend who owns 150 points at BCV. We have 150 at OKW. We were discussing the possibility of her transferring us BCV points to use for our Dec 2007 anniversary trip so that we could book at the 11 month window. We know that the probability of getting anything at 7 months for the week between Christmas and New Years' is very slim.

In return, she needs to book a 2BR and two studios at OKW for June (which she can't do until November with her own points). So, we would transfer her some OKW points to use to make those reservations now.

We discussed just making reservations for each other using our own points, but then she asked about the possibility of simply transferring our points to each other and then we could make our own reservations. Has anyone ever done this?

Thanks for any help!

 

[Deb & Bill]

We're relatively new to DVC and I'm glad I found this thread. We were just talking about this subject last night with a friend who owns 150 points at BCV. We have 150 at OKW. We were discussing the possibility of her transferring us BCV points to use for our Dec 2007 anniversary trip so that we could book at the 11 month window. We know that the probability of getting anything at 7 months for the week between Christmas and New Years' is very slim.

In return, she needs to book a 2BR and two studios at OKW for June (which she can't do until November with her own points). So, we would transfer her some OKW points to use to make those reservations now.

We discussed just making reservations for each other using our own points, but then she asked about the possibility of simply transferring our points to each other and then we could make our own reservations. Has anyone ever done this?

Thanks for any help!

You'd be transferring both in and out in the same year and they won't let you do that now.

 

[LisaS]

You'd be transferring both in and out in the same year and they won't let you do that now.

I thought it was always the case that you couldn't transfer in and out in the same use year. Even when they allowed multiple transfers per use year, didn't they still have to be in one direction only, all in or all out? So even before the annoucement about "one and you're done", this still would not have been possible.

I think you will need to make reservations for each other, or you take you trip in one use year and wait to transfer points to your friend until your (and her) next use year.

 

[crisi]

I saw on a differnt thread while back that MS uses modifiers after the points in the computer denoting teh orgin of the points, There is no lock in the software stopping MS rep from "morphing the points" they are supppose to see the modifier inform the member they cant use the points at 11 months out.
When there were unlimited tranfers going it was prolly a pain to look at all the modifiers on some people accounts that got points tranfered from many places. I have heard stories of commercial renters amassing 30,000 points or more in a year.

In theory thats what it seems like but resorts cant actually be over booked just booked up to soon(this can be a big prob kind of like line cutting), since home advantage is only early booking rights. All points can be used anywereat 7 months and after.

To the best of my knowledge, no one on this board knows how the DVC system works. We have a bunch of IT people that speculate how it works. I suspect that there is only a manual notation and that there is no way to tell based on the simple account information on the contract where transferred points originated. i.e. My contract currently has 59 banked 2005 points April Use Year, 150 current 2006 points for BWV, April Use Year - they can tell the 2005 points from the 2006 points. But if I transfer in 50 BCV points with a October 2005 Use Year, I suddenly have - as far as the point accounting system is concerned - 200 2006 BWV points with an April Use Year. There is room for manual notations that say "those are originally BCV points that expire September 30, 2006" but tracking that depending on the CM making the transfer adding the notation, and the CM making the reservation checking for notations. In the case of someone doing many transfers a year, you'd have to note which points were used for which reservations and if those points are "legal" to use for that reservation - simply too much manual accounting to do on a simple reservation phone call.

How easy this is to fix depends on what the backend is, how the tables were originally configured, what the user interface looks like, as well as what red tape is involved in getting even a simple systems change in at Disney.

 

[Happy Birthday Cat]

Did they forget to make a notation of the original resort in the record?

It was more because I didn't know how the system worked (see Crisi's comments). I thought they would carry over as what they were. I had them put into my VWL contract not realizing that they assumed that contract's identity. When you make a transfer into your account, you need to specifiy, the actual contract number you want it put under (if you own more than one resort), or Disney will put it in your master contract. Or you need to make sure MS keeps the points as what they were. That is harder than it seems (at least it use to be).

HBC

 

[Steamboat Bill]

any morph reports out there?