DVC point balancing 2022 vs 2021

[CaptainAmerica]

Contract defines base UY as 365 days with the minimum number of Friday and Saturdays...it may use word weekend days..during high demand time.

So, it does not define it as a specific year.

Which would be, what, a non-leap year when January 1 is a Sunday, right?

 

[Sandisw]

Which would be, what, a non-leap year when January 1 is a Sunday, right?

That is the mystery.

 

[jeswins]

I think what could end up happening is Season 5 (for 2022 Apr 24-Apr 30) is eliminated, with those dates moving back up to the more expensive Season 6 with the rest of the March/April dates not counting the week of Easter. Then, I think they will offset that by moving August 16-31 down from Season 4 to Season 3. Since a booking including Apr 24, 2022 as the last day in a stay could be made as early as May 18, 2021, they would have until May 17, 2021 to correct the point charts if the adjustments only effect dates on or after Apr 24, 2022.

 

[ThinkBelieveDream&Dare]

I'd like to add my Thanks to all the experts who have done so much research and published their findings here.
From a selfish POV, I'm wondering about our booking already made for 2022 - if the point charts don't 'agree' with the number of points we've already paid, will Disney adjust up or down accordingly? If our bookings require a higher number of points which we may not have; can the powers that be just cancel our booking.

 

[DisneyMountainWoman]

So through all of this I keep seeing people say on Facebook with this topic saying Disney has to do audits both external and internal and this is not just allowed. But who does the external audits? How many times does it happens? Where are the reports published? I am wondering, if we just allowing the fox to guard they hen house?

 

[Sandisw]

I'd like to add my Thanks to all the experts who have done so much research and published their findings here.
From a selfish POV, I'm wondering about our booking already made for 2022 - if the point charts don't 'agree' with the number of points we've already paid, will Disney adjust up or down accordingly? If our bookings require a higher number of points which we may not have; can the powers that be just cancel our booking.

From the reports here, the adjustments will be for times not yet booked and I think it would be for reasons you mention.
I think the post mentioned they could come out within a few weeks.

 

[superden]

New DVC member here...

Great... I have just enough points transferred to me for 4 weeknights in a 2BR standard in late June of 2022 at AKV. All of this is pretty confusing for me. Does anyone have a guess if the points will go up in the revision (of course, specifically for me that June 11-Aug 31 timeframe)?

I have no idea if I would need to prepare for a pivot or change that requires me to find more points. Thanks for the help y'all!

 

[ThinkBelieveDream&Dare]

From the reports here, the adjustments will be for times not yet booked and I think it would be for reasons you mention.
I think the post mentioned they could come out within a few weeks.

Thank you @Sandisw That puts that particular concern to bed

 

[EM Lawrence]

We've tried to keep things as simple as possible for now and directed folks to this thread if they want to take more of a deep dive down the rabbit hole. Would appreciate any feedback and if you see something you feel needs better clarified or an error let me know.

This will be discussed on next Monday's DVC Show. I thought I rambled for a while which is why I think it's important people read the article and follow up here in this forum for a better understanding. That said, I think we got some of the primary points across while also being respectful of DVC for listening to everyone who has reached out regarding the changes. In the end, we made no real accusations other than a continued call for DVC to be more transparent with this process. We shared some of the facts and data explored here and now just wait and see if DVC acts as they have said they plan to.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1387033307712561155

I can’t wait to hear the episode! I listen every week already.

 

[Leight19]

I think what could end up happening is Season 5 (for 2022 Apr 24-Apr 30) is eliminated, with those dates moving back up to the more expensive Season 6 with the rest of the March/April dates not counting the week of Easter. Then, I think they will offset that by moving August 16-31 down from Season 4 to Season 3. Since a booking including Apr 24, 2022 as the last day in a stay could be made as early as May 18, 2021, they would have until May 17, 2021 to correct the point charts if the adjustments only effect dates on or after Apr 24, 2022.

I think long term they could keep the 7 seasons they just shouldn’t be able to move days from low season to high season based on holiday without moving others from high season to low season or adjusting points per season for neutral point changes. The heart of issue is they moved signicbat number of days to higher point season and claimed its “normal calendar variability” since they claim the season dates are based on Easter.

 

[Drew729]

This thread has been very informative, I appreciate those who have taken the time and effort to do the necessary research.

After reading the entire thread the conclusion I have reached is that...

a) DVC management is not trustworthy or not competent and possibly both as evidenced by the walking back of point charts twice in three years.

b) See above to recognize the need to have ANY discussion by DVC management about future points charts to be done in public and for all members to be notified before any such meeting so that there is some accountability and a record of conversation.

 

[we"reofftoneverland]

The way I see it is they are trying to coverup the fact they are creating points by making it confusing. They confuse people by arguing that they had to create points because of... Easter. Nonsense. If they wanted to raise points at Easter, they should have reduced points elsewhere. But instead, they go on about Easter and calendars, on and on. Easter has nothing to do with it! Do you believe for a moment that they cannot figure out how to balance points? And, if they really are not smart enough to figure it out, then they should not have messed with it. So unprofessional.

 

[Eldon32]

There are multiple posts addressing this earlier in the thread. The short summary is the legal papers authorize one of the management entities to designate seasons, in what very likely is a one-time operation. There is no apparent authority to modify the number of seasons once set. There might be an argument that a right to modify is implied as a necessary tool, but nothing in the papers directly supports it, and everything else is spelled out rather exactly that such an argument by implication is not a clear winner.

The point creation appendix I posted previously shows how point creation works. Disney does define "seasons" in the "base year" that determine how many points each day/unit/room is worth for the purpose of calculating total resort points. The management company is allowed to change the number of points any day requires; within the parameters that another day is offset by the same amount. In fact, they are unilaterally allowed to flatten all of the days to the same amount of points if they wanted to. The fact that they alter "groups" of days and happen to call them "seasons" is marketing puffery.

Thank you for putting this together. The one thing I may have misunderstood from thread but wanted to clarify is how Easter impacts the point charts. Article seems to indicate impact is due to Easter being able to fall in 3 seasons so will add more points if falls in cheaper season vs expensive season.

My understanding was slightly different. I believe impact goes beyond this since dvc season dates are defined by Easter. My understanding is all days from march 1 to Easter week fall in 6th season and days from week after Easter to end of April fall in 5th season. This means when you have early Easter you have more days falling in 5th season and less in 6th. Vice versa when you have late Easter you have more days in 6th season and less in 5th.

For 2021 to 2022, this shifted 13 days between seasons without adjustment elsewhere as “normal calendar variability”. Compared to base year of 2035 (earliest Easter) 2022 would have 23 extra days shifted. Further, the latest Easter in dvc future I can find is 2038 where it will be 25th apr and this would shift 31 days (full month) between season 5 and 6 with no adjustment elsewhere.

If we want to talk about points: Members keep referencing Easter in this thread; and I think people are incorrectly relating what holidays mean to the value of a day. When the resort is created, holidays do attribute value (since that TIME of the year in your "timeshare" has more value). Later though, holidays come and go. People come for different reasons. The Easter conversation I think takes away from the core concern that an increase in one day requires a decrease in the other. The only allowance for points to increase above declared value is due to normal calendar shifts: leap-year. Leap years create more time on the clock; a holiday does not.

If we want to talk about the real underlying issue: Points and holidays don't matter. You didn't buy points when you bought into DVC. You bought a percentage of a unit in a resort. That unit is made up of one or more rooms; which DVD assigned an intrinsic value (called "demand factor" in the POS) for it's location, view, square footage, room types and quantities that make up the unit, among other things. I should note that all this calculation was done BEFORE DVD assigned a single point to the unit; the point creation appendix has an order of operation. (I talk about this more in the email below).

The problem in my mind is that DVD sold 100% of the unit. All of the units in the resort make up 100% of the resort. I think we can all agree on that.

Your points are a representation of the value DVD put on the percentage of ownership you purchased for your unit. That is to say, someone might own 0.01% of a unit that is made up of three 2-bedrooms with a theme park view; and someone else might own 0.01% of a unit made up for 3 studios with a parking lot view. The former may have only 50 points assigned to them while the latter may have 400 points assigned to them - because while the owners both own the same percentage of the unit; the units have a different intrinsic value. DVC points are a way to normalize value and make for easy accounting across the ownership in the resort.

The thing is; the sale of a percentage of a unit (instead of XXXX number of DVC points) is based on all the intrinsic value and all the time value (365 days) of that specific unit as listed on your deed. If DVCMC tried to increase the intrinsic value or the time value of a unit, the owners of that unit still own a percentage and would be entitled to the enjoyment of that increase since percentages are not finite values.

Ok - While I read 38 pages, who wants to give me some CliffNotes?

Paul, I have some of the data that was posted and later removed here - specifically a PDF that outlines all of the points differences by day for every room type and every resort across all of DVC; and outlines the specific areas where points were added/removed. If you're interested in this data, please DM me. Happy to share whatever I can.

There are some posts here that I've expressed my analysis; specifically in an email I referenced in this post but I think it got lost when I quoted it in later posts:

I wanted to provide some more detail in specifically the questions I want to understand; and the logic I've used to come to each conclusion so that we can be as productive as possible during our short phone call. This reading is going to take some time - for that, I apologize.

For reference, I have attached a PDF document which includes the point chart and room counts for every resort under management by DVCMC and compares the total point costs at 100% occupancy between use years 2021 and 2022. Use periods in green represent a point decrease, while use periods in red represent an increase. Starting on page 2 will be most interesting to you all where it breaks it down by resort. The math in the attached PDF will detail the calculation used to determine that Animal Kingdom Villas has increased by about 22K points, Old Key West has increased by about 29K points, Saratoga Springs Resort has increased by about 55K points. Including the remaining resorts results in a total system increase of about 206K points for Walt Disney World properties, and an aggregate total increase of 171K point increase for all resorts in DVCMC's management. The decrease for the aggregate total of all resorts is due to a few non-Disney World properties actually seeing a decrease in point costs year-to-year. If you see anything wrong with the math, please let me know.

I wanted to focus on Animal Kingdom Villas, since that's where I own - but I'll be honest that going back a number of years can get overly complex due to the huge amount of declarations and what appear to have been modified views year-to-year. I'm going to stick with more semantic questions for this resort. For reference, I am using the POS for AVK available here: AKV POS Rev. 12_30_13 (disney.com). Below is my understanding of various sections reflective of how DVCMC is allowed to manage point reallocation. I think this is important to address my question because any point here which I have incorrectly described could be what I am missing.

The two main sections in the above referenced POS I believe cover point increases are:

• PDF page 179: Exhibit "A" - Real Estate Interest and Point Formulation
  • Vacation Ownership Plan Real Estate Interest Formulation
  • Vacation Ownership Plan Home Resort Vacation Point Formulation
• PDF page 193 - 194: III. Operation of the Vacation Ownership Plan
  • Operation of the Home Resort Reservation Component
  • Vacation Points
  • Home Resort Vacation Point Reservation Values.

This is my understanding of: Exhibit "A" - Real Estate Interest and Point Formulation - Vacation Ownership Plan Real Estate Interest Formulation
1. As reiterated in this exhibit, in the POS, and in the deeds. Points are for a convenience of calculation; you could say just as easy that a week stay costs "1%" of Unit 115C - for example.
2. During initial point creation for the resort, DVC created initial "seasons". I don't know what they were, but I'm not sure it affects my question in any way.
3. Each vacation home has a "demand factor" applied to it - this considers the type of vacation home (studio, one-bedroom, ext), if it contains a lock-off, and the view it has (standard, pool, ext). Note: that this is only a DESIRE ranking, not a SIZE ranking. Size of the of the vacation home is accounted for later.
4. The "demand factor" is multiplied by the number of days in each season to give a studio, a one bedroom, and a two bedroom a total number of "demand days" for each season.
5. Total "demand days" for all seasons of each vacation home type are totaled giving a total for the year for each vacation home type.

Note before proceeding, that my understanding is a "unit" is not a vacation home. There may (will?) be multiple vacation homes in a defined unit. For example, you may have a plex of one bedroom, two bedroom, and multiple studios within a single unit. The combination within each unit doesn't matter, since we're going to figure out the value of the unit based on the vacation homes it contains next. It is entirely possible that someone with 200 points owns 3% of unit 110A but another person with 200 points owns 1% of unit 110B because of the types and quantities of vacation homes within the unit, as well as their views (which affect desirability, and thus the demand factor).

6. For each vacation home in a unit (studio, one bedroom, two bedroom) - the quantity of each vacation home type is multiplied by "demand days" for the year - then added together to represent a total number of "demand days" in the entire unit.
7. When you are sold a deed, you are sold a percentage relative to the number of "demand" days in that unit, which are already weighted based on initially defined seasons, views, unit types, and other factors that represent the value of that unit.

This section also says in the very last sentence of the last paragraph of Exhibit A: "In any event, the total number of Home Resort Vacation Points can never exceed the total number of Ownership Interests in Units of which they are symbolic."


This is my understanding of: Exhibit "A" - Real Estate Interest and Point Formulation - Vacation Ownership Plan Home Resort Vacation Point Formulation
1. Again, this section reiterates "points" are only an easier way to account for the percentage of ownership against the "demand days" you purchased.
2. The percentage of "demand days" purchased are multiplied by the square footage in the unit to determine the total square footage owned relative to the unit's total space.
3. The owned square footage is then multiplied by some "constant number" (across the entire resort?) to determine the number of vacation points a "percentage of demand days" for a specific unit are worth.

The page goes on to say that the initial points for each home, on each day will be determined by projected demand and that DVCMC is allowed to reallocate them per the MSA.


This is my understanding of: III. Operation of the Vacation Ownership Plan - Home Resort Vacation Point Reservation Values
1. Earlier on this page, it again states points are a convenience method of accounting.
2. DVCMC established vacation points based on various factors (which I already covered above in greater detail from Exhibit A).
3. Points owned by a club member will be fixed and symbolic of their ownership percentage within a unit.
4. Points were initially crafted based on a 365 day calendar witch special alignment for high-demand periods which would match to what Exhibit A indicated.
5. "During the Base Year the total number of Home Resort Vacation Points required to reserve all Vacation Homes during all Use Days in the Condominium must always equal, and be symbolic of, the total number of Ownership Interests owned by Club Members of the Condominium".
6. Any excess availability (this, I would understand to be ONLY created due to leap year since the 365 day "base year" calendar already includes all days of the year, and therefore all holidays and considerations thereof - but also inclusive of "demand days" not used by membership) will be subject to breakage.
7. DVCMC is allowed to adjust Home Resort Vacation Point requirements on a use day by up to 20% from the previous year, "provided, however, that the total number of Home Resort Vacation Points existing within a given Unit at any time may not be increased or decreased because of such reallocation".
8. DVCMC can do more than a 20% per-day adjustment for special occasions.
9. "Any increase or decrease in the Home Resort Vacation Point reservation requirement for a given Use Day pursuant to DVCMC's right to make this Home Resort Vacation Point Adjustment must be offset by a corresponding decrease or increase for another Use Day or Days".
10. Except for special occasions, more than a 20% per-day adjustment would need a vote of 60% of members.
11. DVCMC could perform maximum leveling to effectively get rid of weekend and seasonal premiums.

Earlier I mentioned how difficult Animal Kingdom Villas was to calculate; Saratoga Springs is a much easier resort to look at because it has significantly fewer room types and declarations over it's life. From public record, SSR appears to have 14,029,212 points sold in it's resort (inclusive of DVD's 2.5% required ownership).

This is what the total bookable points looked over the last few years, for reference:
2019: 14,031,216
2020: 14,071,430 (LEAP YEAR)
2021: 14,041,340
2022: 14,096,212

This is the key takeaways from my readings of the POS, that I want help reconciling:

Exhibit A reads to me that regardless of anything in the MSA to the contrary, total points year to year can *never* increase. It doesn't matter if it's for holidays, seasons or anything - all of this would have to be done via reallocation. Member's points were created by measuring a unit's value based on the number of days it can be used, projected demand (including holidays, seasons), view, vacation home type and quantity, as well as unit square footage. The only exception would be a leap year since then there are additional "demand days" for each unit due to the extra 24 hour period. These go to breakage; that makes sense. The immediate following year, the total bookable points should go back to a normal 365-day total.

Once the ownership interest is created, it would seem to me to be tied to the demand factor used for computing holidays, seasons, and weekends within the base-year forever. This calculation occurs at the ownership interest level, before points are even created. The only thing DVCMC appears to be able do is move points around to accommodate for a holiday moving to another day/week (or for whatever other reason DVCMC determines). In order to create more points, DVCMC would have to increase one of the variables used in calculation. Besides leap year, you don't get more than 365 days in a year. You can't go back and increase the demand factor against a unit to produce more points, because it's a factor against ownership interest ("demand days", not "points"); and since members own a percentage of a unit's total "demand days" - not a fixed quantity, increasing the demand factor by 2x would just translate into members owning the same percentage of that increase.

My main question is: How is DVCMC determining their ability to increase total bookable point requirements year-to-year?

This is the response I received from DVC after that communication:

I spoke with Yvonne @ DVC earlier today and we chatted for about an hour.

I want to indicate that this is my recollection and notes from the conversation; anything quoted may not be a direct quote.

I can say that based on her comments; she likely reads these boards and members emails (at least some of them) as she was able to bring up many of the ideas we've postulated in this thread without prompting, which I appreciated.

At the end of this post is the email I sent to her and her team after reaching contact. Included were attachments of some of the materials that were most interesting to me on this thread, including a points worksheet for each resort (I'm sorry, I don't recall who posted it and a ton of stuff has been taken down by the owners - so I won't repost it here).

We broke the conversation into two parts:

• A: Point creation
• B: Point reallocation

We spoke through for a few minutes on how DVC comes up with a "comfort model" to determine how points are created in a resort, but agreed that much of how points were created (that is base year, square footage, ext) really don't matter to the specific part of reallocation and did not dive into this topic too much past what we already know in appendix A of the POS.

What we focused on specifically was reallocation; my main question being "what determines how points are reallocated, and how does that result in an increase year-to-year?"

Her response was what I initially expected, that holidays and higher demand periods in 2022 caused the increase in points. She indicated 2023 would be a "down point year" and that they in fact have decided to not change allocation at all for 2023. We also talked about how "rounding" can play a role in point increases [to which I replied, might account for maybe several hundred points a year]. Her overall response was that the point reallocation was good for membership.

I indicated I wasn't too concerned about looking forward, until we look back and understand what happened. Specifically around the multiple instances in the POS that indicate point increases coincide with a decrease. If we look at SSR as an example, declared vs 2022 point totals show an overall increase of 67,000 points.

She said DVCM's intent is to not continually increase points.

I brought up that if holidays are to blame; it wouldn't make sense that DVCM could just say "every day is now a high-demand day" and increase the points by any arbitrary amount without reduction anywhere else. Further, I do not see a way that DVCM can increase points year-to-year outside of a leap year due to ownership being a function of (space x time).

She agreed that DVCM could not increase the points to whatever value they wanted arbitrarily and would need to look into it some more.

I also brought up that, outside of points - "percentage of ownership" is really what the membership owns. And, this is a function of (space x time). Point charts are a simplistic way of measuring this ownership - but ultimately outside of point creation, the POS does not address point charts and in-fact addresses each and every day of the year independently.

She agreed that ownership percentage is what is being sold, but the points system is what they have been given/are using and the outcome of the points is just what has happened. She also agreed that the reallocation terms do in-fact not discuss points managed as a chart. She said that had they the ability to go back and do it again, they would have multiplied the number of points (not in a way to reduce value, but in a way to make rounding less of an issue when creating the charts).

I brought up that to membership, the point increase of 67,000 points at a single resort has a retail value at DVC's own one-time-use price of over a million dollars a year; and that in every year up to this point - DVC has met the breakage cap of 7.5% for the capital reserve account meaning that the creation of additional points has no monetary benefit to membership and in-fact decreases their overall leverage in using the resort.

She indicated none of the resorts operate at 100% occupancy and that membership has the opportunity to use breakage within the 60 days just as DVCM does. She did agree to look into if something can be done about the perception of extra revenue being drawn from the point increases.

I also brought up that there may have been no intended malice, but at a minimum - the feeling the ownership takes away - is that DVCM is benefiting. And that if the intent was purely balancing that the ~67,000 points at SSR could reduce the total daily points by ~183. I would like to know why they didn't do this.

We ended the call that she would like to get with her analysists; the team has grown significantly over the years from 5 originally and she did not have all the answers in front of her but said she would present them all the information I sent and get back to me with what has happened in the next few weeks; or at least follow up in 2-3 weeks if she doesn't have a concrete answer.

 

[Tinkermom]

As you know, when the new rate schedules were published this week, there were changes in the points/night across the board and massive changes in the number of nights in travel periods. To keep DVC honest, each year, when the new point schedules come out, I prepare an analysis of the last two year's point requirements to make sure there are no significant changes by resort. I thought I would share it with you.

By taking each accommodation and the two schedules, we can calculate the overall point requirement for 2021 and 2022. According to my analysis, DVC point schedules at DVC resorts accounted for 77,143,499 points in 2021 and 77,314,443 million in 2022. The overall difference was 170,944 points or 0.2%. The detail is on pages 2-6, and you can see for each resort the impact of these changes.

Because there were both changes in points/night and travel periods, I broke out the difference between the impact of rate/night changes and the travel period changes. 126,705 point increase was due rate/night changes and 44,239 for travel period changes.

I know DVC points are not supposed to vary by the resort from year to year, but there may be an acceptable percent targeted. The overall point schedules went up 0.2% year over year. However, almost all resorts total points went up slightly from the previous year.

The analysis color codes the point/night changes in the 2022 rate listings. A green number will indicate that the point charts for that accommodation went down year over year, and a red and underline will mean that the point chart went for that accommodation compared to last year.

For point balancing, Disney counts two-bedroom lock-offs as a single unit and ignores the studios and one-bedrooms that make it up. In this scenario, the studio and one-bedrooms can go up in nightly rate cost but not impact balancing. The initial 2020 point schedule had these unaccounted for increases but was later changed.

I did a second analysis, substituting the studio and one-bedroom accommodations instead of the lock-offs. Using this analysis, the calculated points were 81,390,174 points in 2022 and 81,447,812 in 2021, or a difference of 57,638. There seems to be no repeat of the issues of 2020.

So for availability sake, does this mean they only rent the studio and one bedroom lockoffs as a single unit making them more plentiful but making studios and one bedrooms more scarce as individual units? I know run on sentence.

 

[drusba]

So for availability sake, does this mean they only rent the studio and one bedroom lockoffs as a single unit making them more plentiful but making studios and one bedrooms more scarce as individual units? I know run on sentence.

No. When it comes to total points applicable to all rooms in a resort, all lock-off 2BRs (each of which can be a studio or 1BR) are counted as 2BRs. Thus, in a base year, the total points needed to reserve all rooms for the entire year will use, for the calculation as to 2BR lock-offs, the assumption that they will be reserved only as 2BR lock-offs and thus total points needed to reserve all rooms for the year are actually less than what they would be if 2BR lock-offs were counted as 1BRs and studios.

Total points in a base year and what are needed thereafter to reserve all rooms in any calendar year is an issue that is irrelevant to whether 2BR lock-offs will actually be reserved as 2BRs or instead as studios or 1BRs. As to actual reservation of rooms, that is done on a first come first serve basis and no 2BR lock-offs are held back to be reserved only as 2BRs. That first come first serve rule is what makes reserving BWV 2BRs difficult because all 2BRs are lock-offs. What typically happens there with standard view and at times boardwalk view is that studios get reserved very quickly at 11-months out and then no one can thereafter get a 2BR. The result is that 1BRs, for which demand is much lighter, remain open a significant part of the year beyond even 7-months out.

You can have a total point issue involving studios and 1BRs but it also is not related to the first come first serve rule for reservations. DVC initially issued point charts in 2020 (later withdrawn) that raised points needed for studios and 1BRs at WDW DVC resorts almost year round. Particularly as to resorts without any dedicated studios and 1BRs, this raised an issue as to whether DVC was adding total points to the year without any offsetting decreases by increasing the "lock-off premium" (the higher points needed to reserve 2BR lock-offs only as studios and 1BRs). As jshadd points out in his post, it does not appear DVC's 7-season charts are also recreating that issue.

 

[Brian Noble]

in a base year, the total points needed to reserve all rooms for the entire year will use, for the calculation as to 2BR lock-offs, the assumption that they will be reserved only as 2BR lock-offs and thus total points needed to reserve all rooms for the year are actually less than what they would be if 2BR lock-offs were counted as 1BRs and studios.

I've never understood the basis of the lock-off premium to begin with (or, if you prefer, the combine-units discount). Other systems with which I am familiar are set up so that the cost of booking lock-off units is exactly equal to the cost of booking the constituent rooms separately. In these systems, it is also often the case that the dedicated 2BRs cost less than the lockout 2BRs, but they are also arguably "less valuable" because they don't have a second kitchen/separate entrance and are usually smaller as well.

One example is Wyndham Smoky Mountains. The unit designations, sizes, and point values are:

1BR/partial kitchen (small half of lockout, sleeps 4): ~560 sq ft. 84K pts/wk in prime season
1BR/full kitchen (large half of lockout, sleeps 4): ~900-975 sq ft. 105K pts
2BR Dedicated (sleeps 8): ~1175-1250 sq. ft.: 166K pts
2BR Lockout (sleeps 8): ~1525-1550 sq. ft.: 189K pts

There are a bunch of differences here. One, there are no studios. Even the smallest unit separates the two sleep surfaces with a door, and the partial kitchen is quite a bit more functional than a kitchenette (includes a stovetop and a dishwasher). Two, there are no extreme points differences going between "levels": there is a 25% premium to go from a small 1BR to a large one. It is a ~60% premium to go from a 1BR to a 2BR. Compare that with DVC, in which a 1BR is roughly double the cost of a studio. Three: even If there *were* studios, and they cost 1/2 of a "full" 1BR, the two would collectively be about the same cost as a dedicated 2BR--actually, a little less. (157.5K).

But, most importantly, it is always the case that the points required to fully book the resort is the same, no matter how it is done.

 

[Tiggerette]

Thank you for continuing thoughtful discussion. I do feel critical analysis about any DVC/M policies/communications published by DVC are fair game for public commentary across various media in a respectful, insightful way. I share concern about publishing rumor speculation, but I also think it's okay for "fan communities" and "owner communities" speak to the change they think/feel would be beneficial to owners. In a way, they are providing a possible solution for the problem they perceive to exist.

I thought about the concern that the "Easter Point Bunny Hop" might obfuscate the overall greater issue of point balancing. My response is that I think it's integral to understand the concept of Base Year and the new concept of Minimum Year when discussing the Easter relationship. I think it was a missed opportunity that I didn't include how the calculation and application of Base Year are part of the point inflation equation. I agree it's not about the holiday itself, it's that this holiday moves broadly across the calendar from year to year and the particular year (2035?) chosen to represent the total points required was used a basis instead of other "less mobile"/ "more clear and easily standardized" options.

As always, I welcome clarification if I've misrepresented/misunderstood any aspect of these critical issues.

 

[ckb_nc]

It seems like Disney really wants DVC to go non WDW properties especially Aulani.

The adding of net points at resorts is both strange and wrong. What's to stop a /2% add each year? Creating something from nothing is great but there are contracts in place.

 

[Galun]

My understanding of the situation is that basically DVC picked the worse definition of base year to create inventory out of nowhere for 2022 and people are upset about it.

Well they didn’t have to allow extended banking of points due to covid either, based on my understanding of the contracts. I know of other timesshares that basically said too bad.

There is a huge amount of points inventory that had been banked due to covid, totally messing up normal future demand planning. Limiting future borrowing will help reduce some demand but certainly not enough. I mean, is it really that bad for DVC to massage in some inflated inventory to try to absorb the vastly Inflated points balance? It spreads the pain amongst everybody in a stealthy way that most won’t notice.

The great minds here had figured out the manipulation of base year. I know they tried to pull the lock off premium thing in 2020 and so maybe there is a little bit of lost trust. But I’d reserve judgement for a few years to let DVC work off excess inventory, and see if they consistently make the worse base year decision, before calling it a trend. I see their 2022 point chart in doing whatever they can to absorb excess banked points during covid without rocking the boat.

 

[mdembko]

I had my call with Yvonne today and the tone was encouraging. I will also put in the disclaimer that this is my recollection of the phone conversation.

I kept the discussion simple and just voiced my concern with the large increase in annual points when going from the 5 Season to 7 Travel Period charts. I stuck to PVB, since that is my Home Resort, and brought up the fact that reallocation in the 5 Seasons were always balanced within 100’s of points of the Declared Resort points, and now we are seeing 1,000’s and in 2022 tens of 1.000’s of point increases.

Yvonne mentioned that DVCM has heard this concern from many Members, and they are listening and want to make the member experiences satisfying. She did say that they are working on revising the 2022 charts to reduce the total annual points back down to an acceptable level. She also asked for patience due to the complexity of revising all the charts throughout the 15 resorts at Walt Disney World.

Yvonne also mentioned that their goal was to reduce the large variation of points in future years, I asked if that meant we could expect to see future variations in the 100’s of points (PVB) rather than 1,000’s and she said yes, that is their goal.