The reality is that Feb through April has, for many years, actually been a low to moderate demand season for WDW
DVC resorts when measured by how quickly rooms fill for reservations during that time. Feb 1 to the Thurs before Presidents' Day has long been the lowest DVC demand time of the year, and last week of April has been third lowest (July 7 to 31 has been second lowest). Between Feb and April, there is actually one very high demand time, the Thurs to Sunday of the Princess half-marathon weekend in Feb, and the Star Wars race weekend in April has also been high, but even those do not come near the demand for rooms during the "fall" season, late Sep through marathon weekend in Jan, which has long been the highest DVC demand time of the year, e.g., demand during that time has long made the two Easter weeks look like slow off-seasons, and demand from Feb through April for other than the race weekends has been moderate in comparison to the fall season.
So why does Feb through April have the higher point per night times of the year: it is the effect of history of both DVC and WDW.
When the Disney Vacation Club Resort (now named OKW) opened in 1991, it adopted a
point chart that had five seasons that essentially had points varying to the same degree per season as the annual demand for Disney hotels varied. At the time, fall season except for Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays was a low Disney resort demand season, mid-Feb to April and summer (mid-June to mid-Aug were high demand times and points needed for both were the same (except the Easter weeks were always in the highest season). I personally recall choosing to reserve a Disney hotel for time in October or November at the time because the park crowds were low during those periods in the early 1990s. The Food & Wine festival at Epcot did not exist; started in 1995 but then only for the period from late Sep to late Oct. Halloween was just a two-day event that did not have a lot going on -- Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party did not exist until 1995 and did not become an event that took place for more than two days until the early 2000's. Not much happened at Epcot for Christmas until the creation of the Candlelight Processional in 2001. And though there was a Magic Kingdom Christmas season, it did not start before Thanksgiving time and the Annual Christmas parade did not start until 1995. Moreover, first half of December, as far as rooms went at WDW, was a still a low demand period in the early 1990s, and even the third week of Decmeber was fairly low, while the lowest demand times of the year were Jan and Sep. The original point chart also had weekends (Fri and Sat) at much higher levels than weekday than they are now.
That original form of point chart had only one minor change in 1995 when points were shifted somewhat at OKW between two of the seasons. Thereafter, the same form of five seasonal point chart was chosen for every WDW DVC resort that came into existence before 2009, and the charts were never changed despite both the changes in seasonal demand that occurred over time for WDW hotels, and the changes in demand that occurred for the WDW DVC resorts, which over time diverted from the usual hotel demand patterns, not just because the Fall season became more popular generally at Disney, but because DVC demand developed into large variances that depended on the the total points needed per night -- weekend demand became very weak and the fall season, and from late Sep to marathon weekend in Jan (first such weekend was in 1994) when points needed were lower than other times of year, became the highest demand time.
The first significant change in the WDW
point charts did not occur until 2010 and 2011 when DVC did a major shift of points amounting to a greater than 20% change from weekend (Fri and Sat) to weekdays (Sun through Thurs). That shift took two years to do because the total change of points needed for any given room for any given night cannot change more than 20% (up or down) in any given year.
In the several years thereafter, point changes became almost an annual event for varying resorts but none addressed the overall difference in points needed and demand between the high demand fall season (late Sep to marathon weekend in Jan) and the more moderate season the rest of the year. As new WDW DVC Resorts were added (BLT, VGF, Poly, CCV, Riviera), the same five-season point structure as existed with the earlier resorts was maintained.
For the 2020 point charts, DVC attempted to do something I considered to be illegal under the terms of the POS -- shift points from larger rooms (two bedrooms and GVs) to studios to significantly increase the number of points needed year round for studios. I was one of many who informed DVC of our belief that those point charts were improper, and then, just before reservations could begin for 2020, DVC removed those new point charts and reverted to the prior ones.
Then the major change to a 7-season point chart began with the 2021 point charts, although the first one had to be modified mid-year because the original chart relied heavily on the movement of the Easter date to significantly raise or lower total points needed to reserve all rooms for a year when that total point number is not supposed to rise to any signicant extent from year to year.
Those seven season point charts started, for the first time ever, the shift of points to raise those needed in the high demand fall season. A like shift was made for the 2022 and 2023 WDW DVC resort point charts, while the 2024 point charts remain essentially the same as 2023. However, total points needed annually needs to remain the same except those resulting from natural annual calendar changes, e.g., some years have more weekends in higher point seasons than others, the dates for Easter and Thanksgiving change annually, and, every four years, points needed for Feb 29 are added. What happened over those three years of changes is that the points being added to the fall season were points from the May to August (Sep became a little lower but it was already in the lowest season before). A probable reason is that DVC faced a point shift problem. The Oct to mid-Jan high demand season was much shorter than the Feb to Sep moderate season. Due to the requirement that the total points shifted to one time of the year must equal the total points taken away from other times of year, it is likely a decision was made to leave Feb to April as is because if points had been shifted from the entire Feb through Aug period to the much shorter fall season, the changes to the points made in any of the Feb to Aug period would have been much lower per night than the decrease that actually occurred for the May to Aug season, and thus would not have realistically had much of an impact to possibly change demand for any of the moderate season.
