DVC points per night going up?

[Cal 14]

I could have sworn during my sales meeting when I purchased in 2002, the DVC rep said that the booking points per night would never increase. From 2002 to 2009, that has held pretty much true. Now, I'm looking at the 2010 points chart and just about everything is increasing.

I saw this on the Canadian version of this website (http://www.disneymagic.ca/dvc.php), under the subheading "How the Points Work":

"If you were to buy points today, the amount of points per night, per resort will never increase for the length that you own your Disney Vacation Club. Make sense? If not, please feel free to post questions on our DisneyMagic Community Forum. Here you will have questions answered by other members that own DVCs."

Does anyone else remember being told this?

Addendum... I just saw that they increased the weekday points, but lowered the weekend points, roughly making the weeks overall similar. That said, considering I pretty much only stay during the weekdays, it is not really a good thing for me.

 

[DisneyJoe]

From http://www.wdwinfo.com/disney-vacation-club/faq.shtml#How does the point system work?

"While the total number of points sold at the resort is a fixed number and cannot be changed, point needs for stays can be changed. However, if points needed for some nights (or room types) are raised, other nights (or room types) must be lowered, as the total points required to stay at the resort for the year cannot be changed. This has occurred only once, in 1996 at OKW, and is likely to happen only if necessary to keep resort utilization in balance for the benefit of DVC members. At that time some nights were raised a few points, some were lowered a few points and most were not changed at all."

Some recent stories I've read, I believe said that while weekday points may be increasing, weekend points may be decreasing......

 

[Kath-n-me]

From what I understood, the points aren't going up technically. Weekend (Fri-Sat) stay will be less, while weekday (Sun-Thurs) stays will be more, but the points for a week stay will be the same, therefore 'never going to change" system. I could be wrong, but that's the way I understood it.

 

[DisneyJoe]

Addendum... I just saw that they increased the weekday points, but lowered the weekend points, roughly making the weeks overall similar. That said, considering I pretty much only stay during the weekdays, it is not really a good thing for me.

They are probably trying to encourage weekend stays....

 

[Lynne M]

The total number of points for the resort CANNOT change, as that would be a violation of our contracts. And it did not, in this recent adjustment. They can increase the points needed for some dates or villa types, but in order to keep the total the same, they must decrease points for some other villa type or date.

And that's what happened with the 2010 charts. In general, they increased point requirements for weekdays, and lowered them for weekends. The consensus was that the higher point costs for weekends were throwing the system out of balance, as members avoided the use of points on weekends.

For some people, especially those who prefer to stay on weeknights, this was a not-so-good change. For other, like me, who have minimal vacation days and need to conserve them, the lower weekend costs are wonderful.

All this is stated clearly in the paperwork you're given to sign when you purchase, but a lot of people don't read it. And the guides tend to oversimplify the explanation, which is unfortunate.

 

[jasondiff]

Lynne hit the nail on the head. The total number of points in the system at each resort can never change. Thus if you calculate the total number of points needed to stay in every room for every night of the year, that number is fixed. They can change the point requirements any given room or any given season but in the end, the total number of points does not and cannot change.

And they are indeed encouraging people to stay on weekends, as the system was fairly unbalanced with low occupancy on weekends. It is in the interest of DVC as a whole (i.e. everyone) to keep the system balanced in order to ensure the most availability. Think of it this way: if more people spend their points on weekends now due to the lower cost, there will be more availability for whichever weeknights you want to go. That is a good thing, even though those weeknights might cost you a couple more points.

 

[ZapperZ]

I could have sworn during my sales meeting when I purchased in 2002, the DVC rep said that the booking points per night would never increase. From 2002 to 2009, that has held pretty much true. Now, I'm looking at the 2010 points chart and just about everything is increasing.

I saw this on the Canadian version of this website (http://www.disneymagic.ca/dvc.php), under the subheading "How the Points Work":

"If you were to buy points today, the amount of points per night, per resort will never increase for the length that you own your Disney Vacation Club. Make sense? If not, please feel free to post questions on our DisneyMagic Community Forum. Here you will have questions answered by other members that own DVCs."

Does anyone else remember being told this?

Addendum... I just saw that they increased the weekday points, but lowered the weekend points, roughly making the weeks overall similar. That said, considering I pretty much only stay during the weekdays, it is not really a good thing for me.

I posted on this already in an earlier thread when the news came out to all DVC members of the points readjustments:

http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=399109

Depending on how you use your vacation points and how it is spread across the week, you could in fact come out ahead when compared to the old points allocation.

Zz.

 

[slappy magoo]

If you wanted to take the point value for every single night and add it up over the course of a year, it should be the same total as any other year that has passed.

Figure it this way, if it helps: Your points represent a teeny tiny percentage of the resort. And your contract/deed/title represents your percentage. For DVC to raise the point totals across the board means you suddenly own LESS of your home resort than your contract stipulates. That's why it's illegal. See the Mel Brook's movie The Producers for better (and funnier) context. The original, funny one from 69, not the musical remake which is a bastardization of all that is good and joyous.

 

[dizzney]

My weekly points when I booked were the same they would have been previously since I book a week at a time, what changed was the 8th night which was now lower as it was a Friday night as it was cheaper than last year, I actually gained!

 

[SMRT-1Michael]

ya im pretty upset about this raising of points. When I purchased membership, they said they would NEVER go up

 

[fredrickr]

Back in February, we stayed in a one bedroom unit at SSR, and our points for the week were 225. Looking at the 2010 points chart, that same week next February will go up to....224. So not everything is going up.

The way it was explained to us when we bought our membership if you look at the points chart for whatever DVC property, the bottom right hand corner, the very last number, this is the maximum of points needed to stay at that resort. That number will never go up (or go down for that matter). the number of points for any given day, week or accommodation type may vary. Disney's objective is to have the maximum number of rooms occupied 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. To do this they use something called 'yield management'. Almost all hotels practice it, and they got it from the airlines who created it. Disney is simply trying to get guests to stay on days when there is less demand for rooms and not stay on days when the demand is high.

 

[slappy magoo]

ya im pretty upset about this raising of points. When I purchased membership, they said they would NEVER go up

And they didn't go up. Maybe they went up for the period of time you would normally go, but they didn't across-the-board raise the amount of points it takes to stay at a DVC resort. To imply otherwise is wrong.

 

[tjkraz]

ya im pretty upset about this raising of points. When I purchased membership, they said they would NEVER go up

Well, the total points at a resort can never go up so I guess it depends on how the statement was qualified. If you were told (for example) that the cost of a Studio at the Beach Club for a weekday in October would never change, then the statement was incorrect. But a more vague comment could still be technically correct.

Regardless, included in the paperwork signed at the time of purchase is a waiver which states that the written documents supercede anything that may have been communicated verbally during the sales process. And the Public Offering Statement is pretty clear that the points can be reallocated.

fredrickr nailed it with his description. DVC not only has the right but the obligation to adjust the points if member usage is becoming severely skewed. If you look at the charts thru 2009, about 40-45% of ALL POINTS are spread over Friday and Saturday nights. There is a ton of anecdotal evidence suggesting that nowhere near 45% of points are actually being used for weekends. So something had to give.

Weekdays have been priced too low for a while now to the point that more and more members bought with the sole intent of economizing with 5-night stays. DVC was forced to shift some capacity to weekdays to help re-balance. In a few years they should look at it again. Maybe the scales will tip in the opposite direction and weekdays will be reduced to a smaller degree. Or they may still have to raise weekday points a bit more. It all depends on how members respond to the changes.

But before that happens I suspect we'll see changes to the booking seasons. Specifically those first two weeks of December have been horribly under-priced for years now. Within the next couple of years I expect to see those weeks moved up a season or two. We don't have any statistics to work from but I suspect October and early-December are the best candidates for a higher-priced season while parts of late-April, May and late-August could stand to be lowered.