2013 Point Chart Changes

[Tink2312]

On the other hand, I know have a better chance of securing SV rooms (which I don't mind) and even end up with a not so bad view. We love BLT because of the location and not the views, but with this change, it does bring it back into the mix!

I agree. We're BLT owners and although the points required for the vacations we would take have gone up slightly, I'm happy to have the opportunity of a better view when booking SV. Also, knowing point reallocation was a yearly possibility when we bought and that it had happened quite often recently, I'm not surprised. Furthermore, the fact that as members we can bank and borrow our points as well as use them other lower-point resorts/ room types means that such re-allocations do not have a hugely detrimental effect on our ability to take the vacations we want.

 

[tjkraz]

I think this maybe setting a sales trend. Lets think about Grand Flo. Are they going to artifically set the points charts low, then once it sells out in about 2 years or so, reallocate the points chart due to demand (or what ever excuse they want to use)? I see this as being a potentially fraudulent sales tactic if these reallocations repeat themselves with Grand Flo.Its one thing reallocationg once in 15 years, quite another once every other year.

According to my back-of-a-napkin math, for 2013 a Treehouse Villa will cost about 2000 more points than it did in 2012. (2012 year-long cost was 15,100 points and each night went up 10-15%.)

If DVC had set the Treehouse points to their 2013 level when they first began to sell, it would have given them about 120,000 more SSR points to sell. (2000 x 60). At $99 per point, that's nearly $12 million in added revenues that COULD have been generated if the points were set higher from Day One.

Honestly I think you would have a really hard time convincing an impartial third party that Disney committed fraud by intentionally turning its back on $12 million in revenues.

And I suspect they could provide data showing that, with identical costs, demand for the Treehouse Villas has been greater than demand for Two Bedroom villas.

 

[DVC92]

Since the BLT room designations only affected SV and MK views, the point reallocation should only have been altered for those views. The LVs should not have been changed.

 

[BWV Dreamin]

Yes they COULD have generated more revenue, but that assumes sales would have stayed the same. I don't think they would have. They got the sales at $99/pt. and able to stay at the Tree Houses for the price of a two bedroom. Hard to pass that up. Seriously don't think they would have generated the same sales figures if points were like they are today, assuming the THV's were the big selling factor.

According to my back-of-a-napkin math, for 2013 a Treehouse Villa will cost about 2000 more points than it did in 2012. (2012 year-long cost was 15,100 points and each night went up 10-15%.)

If DVC had set the Treehouse points to their 2013 level when they first began to sell, it would have given them about 120,000 more SSR points to sell. (2000 x 60). At $99 per point, that's nearly $12 million in added revenues that COULD have been generated if the points were set higher from Day One.

Honestly I think you would have a really hard time convincing an impartial third party that Disney committed fraud by intentionally turning its back on $12 million in revenues.

And I suspect they could provide data showing that, with identical costs, demand for the Treehouse Villas has been greater than demand for Two Bedroom villas.

 

[bumbershoot]

Is there anyone else out there in California who purchased with the intent of almost exclusively staying in California and using your points at Disneyland Hotels?

I doubt that there are many people who bought DVC with that intention. Does that math even work on that, even with the lower points rates from a year or so ago? Doesn't sound like you bought resale, either, so I'm especially unsure if the math was ever going to work for you.

I'm sorry you're disappointed, but I don't think you're going to find many people out there who bought with the same intentions.

 

[DenLo]

Since the BLT room designations only affected SV and MK views, the point reallocation should only have been altered for those views. The LVs should not have been changed.

I understand what you are saying, but I don't think it would be reasonable for SV to absorb the points for the 10 extra 2 BRs that have been reassigned from TPV. SV was only 10 percent of the rooms at BLT and by adding 10 more villas it's up to about 13% of the total rooms. It would be much less painful to spread those additional points over all the 267 lock off 2 BR villas. If the points had been added only to the SV, the rooms would be excessively overpriced. And TPV was already pushing the maximum for those villas too. So if you added all the points to the remaining TPV villas that too would be a pretty hefty increase. And sharing the increases between the two would still have been the same result.

The idea is to fill up all the rooms equally not leave some views empty because they are way overpriced on the point charts.

 

[wdrl]

Had they been rated higher at the time of introduction (with all else the same at the time) there would have been more points introduced for the same unit types/numbers.

DVD doesn't take booking costs into consideration in determining how many points to allot to a Unit. It is strictly determined by a formula based on the square footage of the underlying real estate interest. This approach is necessary because of the formulas used by the condo associated to distribute operating and maintenance costs in an equitable manner to all owners based on the percentage of real estate ownership in the association.

A BWV Standard View two-bedroom Unit is allotted about 17,340 points, the same as a Boardwalk/Preferred Unit. If DVD were to build and add more Vacation Homes to the BWV condo association that were the same size as the existing Units, then its hands are tied: Those new Vacation Homes will be allotted 17,340 points. It wouldn't matter whether those Vacation Homes were classified as Standard View, Boardwalk View, or given a new category such as Concierge or Dumpster View.

 

[chalee94]

The Guides don't just throw things, they are trained and told what to say and how to say it. The have sales meetings at least once a week and new sales strategies, key points, and what to push are told to the Guides.

That's not a negative thing it's just the sales business.

Bill

what you are talking about is simply "best practices." if a sales pitch works for other guides, it gets shared and focused on.

the point is that the sales side doesn't design the product based on how they'd prefer to sell it - at least in any business that i know of. they are handed a product and have to present it in the best possible light...

 

[tjkraz]

Yes they COULD have generated more revenue, but that assumes sales would have stayed the same. I don't think they would have. They got the sales at $99/pt. and able to stay at the Tree Houses for the price of a two bedroom. Hard to pass that up. Seriously don't think they would have generated the same sales figures if points were like they are today, assuming the THV's were the big selling factor.

Sales may have been negatively impacted but (IMO) not to any degree that would drive Disney to walk away from $12 million.

We're talking about a population who:

1. Was primarily motivated to buy into DVC / SSR due to the existence of the Treehouse Villas, AND
2. Would not have purchased if the points were originally set at these 2013 levels.

That sounds like a pretty small group of people, IMO.

Overall I think we just have a difference of opinion regarding Disney's motivation and intent. I recognize that the variable point charts are part-and-parcel of the DVC product. After 3 changes in 4 years, I can guarantee that this will not be the last. And whether the adjustments are based upon mistakes made during initial usage projections or in response to changing guest trends, they are still equally necessary.

I've come out on the losing end of every one of the 3 changes. We have our second Treehouse Villa stay planned for next month and future ones will obviously cost more. And going back 4-5 years we used points almost exclusively for weekdays.

Still I recognize that DVC has a responsibility to members to keep the charts representative of demand. In fact, my biggest criticism of DVC is that they haven't been aggressive enough in updating the charts. The seasons are still far out of whack (IMO)...and I say that again as someone who is making his third straight early-December stay in 2012.

 

[chalee94]

The seasons are still far out of whack (IMO)...and I say that again as someone who is making his third straight early-December stay in 2012.

(shhhhh!)

 

[wdrl]

Rather than blaming the SSR reallocation on the fact that the THVs are too popular, I think the reverse is true: The real culprit might be that the non-THV SSR Vacation Homes are not achieving the desired occupancy rates.

If the goal is to increase demand for the non-THV SSR Vacation Homes, one way is to reduce the point costs. A Dream Season two-bedroom at SSR is dropping from 285 points to 269 points for the week, a drop of 5.6%. Perhaps such a drop will generate demand for SSR villas which, in turn, will raise the occupancy rates for those Vacation Homes.

The difficulty is that SSR has 792 Vacation Vacation Home (not including 36 Grand Villas) but only 60 THVs. With a ratio of 13.2-to-1, each drop of 1% in point costs for the SSR villas requires a substantially large increase in the THV costs.

If the SSR Vacation Homes had had better occupancy rates, then would there have been a need to reallocate points at SSR?

There are plenty of examples in the DVC system in which specific accommodations are very popular. AKV's Concierge villas and Values are very popular, perhaps as popular as the THVs, if not more so. If "popularity" was the driving factor in reallocations, then AKV should have had a reallocation similar to SSR's 2013 reallocation. However, I suspect that the rest of the AKV categories have acceptable occupancy rates and there is no need to boost the occupancy rates for the Standard or Savanna categories. If, however, AKV begins to experience unacceptable booking rates for its Standard and/or Savanna View villas, I can see AKV Concierge and Value point charges increasing to fund dropping the costs for the underperforming categories.

 

[Brian Noble]

The guessing games about what drove the change are interesting. But, at the end of the day, you have only a couple of choices. One is: you can assume that DVCMC is acting in their fiduciary duty, as they are required to. Under that assumption, while some changes might not benefit you personally, they are for the betterment of the membership overall, and so you can begrudgingly accept them as "right".

Alternatively, you can instead assume that something nefarious must be going on. But, if you go with Door #2, your only real recourse is to live with it or sell. The program has to be audited annually. The auditors repeatedly issue clean bills of health. If they can hide shenanigans from the auditors, they can also hide them from you.

 

[disneynutz]

The guessing games about what drove the change are interesting. But, at the end of the day, you have only a couple of choices. One is: you can assume that DVCMC is acting in their fiduciary duty, as they are required to. Under that assumption, while some changes might not benefit you personally, they are for the betterment of the membership overall, and so you can begrudgingly accept them as "right".

Alternatively, you can instead assume that something nefarious must be going on. But, if you go with Door #2, your only real recourse is to live with it or sell. The program has to be audited annually. The auditors repeatedly issue clean bills of health. If they can hide shenanigans from the auditors, they can also hide them from you.

I think that it is our duty to discuss and ask questions. The Aulani dues issue is just one case in point.

I am sure that the Enron and Madoff employees and customers thought that everything was OK until the end and they apparently passed their audits.

I am not suggesting that Disney is doing anything illegal but the pressure to reach certain goals and benchmarks can sometime cloud peoples better judgment and mistakes do happen.

Bill

 

[Sammie]

I think that it is our duty to discuss and ask questions. The Aulani dues issue is just one case in point.

I am sure that the Enron and Madoff employees and customers thought that everything was OK until the end and they apparently passed their audits.

I am not suggesting that Disney is doing anything illegal but the pressure to reach certain goals and benchmarks can sometime cloud peoples better judgment and mistakes do happen.

Bill

Well something was definitely wrong or Jim Lewis would still be President. He was on the fast track to go to the top and suddenly security is escorting him off the property. Also Al Weiss's sudden and very unexpected early retirement was all part of the package.

 

[DebbieB]

Well something was definitely wrong or Jim Lewis would still be President. He was on the fast track to go to the top and suddenly security is escorting him off the property. Also Al Weiss's sudden and very unexpected early retirement was all part of the package.

Someone recently posted that Jim Lewis was hired back as a consultant.

Found article:

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/the-daily-disney/os-disney-jim-lewis-20111219,0,6596212.story

 

[Brian Noble]

I think that it is our duty to discuss and ask questions.

Ask all the questions you want. But, as far as I know, Aulani's dues issue was not discovered by Members. Neither will anything else that is substantive.

When the THV point charts came out, I think most people were surprised that they were the same point values as the 2BRs, even though they certainly seem to offer "more". Likewise, most people thought it was pretty shaky to call those lower-floor BLT rooms "theme park view," just as people were unhappy about those tiny-strip-of-savannah Savannah View rooms at Kidani. No one disputes that all those were, ultimately, the wrong call. And, they were all eventually "corrected".

But, the question I'm getting at is: were those honest but avoidable mistakes, or did someone intentionally cook the books to gain a few more pennies? Occam's Razor suggests the former is more likely, because the latter requires quite a few people to collude *and* keep the collusion a secret for many years. That's not "simple". But, even if you take the position that they were intentionally done, your only recourse is to live with the fact that the company is crooked, or sell, because the Membership just doesn't have access to the information it needs to uncover other wrongdoings, short of a lawsuit complete with subpoenas.

 

[Brian Noble]

Also Al Weiss's sudden and very unexpected early retirement was all part of the package.

Are you sure about that? The two events were separated by two months. Coincidence is not causality.

 

[Sammie]

Are you sure about that? The two events were separated by two months. Coincidence is not causality.

Yep, sure about that.

 

[Brian Noble]

...because...

 

[Sammie]

...because...

Brian surely you know things that you are privy to because of people you know, it is not such a strange occurrence

Deals are made at Disney just like any other large company. Someone retires early to avoid being asked to leave, someone retires to make way for someone that person has a vested interest in, etc. etc.

It was even mentioned in the Sentinel article about Jim and his consultant position that there was a connection between him and Al.