2020 Point Charts

[DVC92]

That is my issue. AT VGF, the cost, particularly for studios and 1BRs, has gone up in 21 units while only decreasing in 7. My rough approximation shows the point reallocation for the year dramatically increased. Yet, in my communication to member services, they refuse to tell me the numbers stating that it is proprietary.

 

[tjkraz]

That is my issue. AT VGF, the cost, particularly for studios and 1BRs, has gone up in 21 units while only decreasing in 7. My rough approximation shows the point reallocation for the year dramatically increased. Yet, in my communication to member services, they refuse to tell me the numbers stating that it is proprietary.

If you're properly counting all lockoffs as Two Bedroom Villas, properly accounting for Standard/Lake views and using the same year for comparison, no the costs did not go up by any material amount. Using 2018 calendar as basis for comparison, I came up with the following figures:

2019 VGF Chart: 2,520,532 points to reserve all rooms
2020 VGF Chart: 2,520,792 points to reserve all rooms

There are actually 2,520,800 points at VGF, likely the result of using some different Base Year during DVC's calculation.

The "lockoff premium"--the amount by which Studio + 1B villas are priced higher than a single lockoff 2B--has grown. But language in the POS (see above) gives DVC the right to do that. I'm not saying anyone has to like this sequence of events, but it's not illegal.

 

[Dean]

And what is the maximum?

It's stated in the POS for each resort that you can reserve at least one night for a maximum number of points each size. That, the total points for the non locked off options and the 20% a year seems to me to be the only limitations.

 

[drusba]

Below would appear to be the most relevant text from the VGF Public Offering Statement regarding establishment of point charts and modification rights. Other resort POS's may vary slightly--this just happens to be the most recent I had available. I highlighted a few sections in bold.

My take:

- The idea that the point charts are based upon 2B villas is defined
- The existence of this "lockoff premium" is defined
- DVC's right to increase the "lockoff Premium" is defined
- Each resort has a unique stated rate at which members must be able to book at least 1 night in each villa size; for VGF Studio, the rate stated is 22 points

It kinda sucks...but it's very likely that all of this is legal. The POS language would have passed through many approval stages including the Florida Timeshare Bureau and numerous state licensing agencies. The existence of a lockoff premium should not be in question given that there is more administrative overhead involved in renting a single room to two parties rather than just 1.

I'm going to assume the that some reasonableness standards apply to the lockoff premium. In other words, I wouldn't anticipate DVC being able to charge 30 pts for a Studio + 45 pts for a One Bedroom, yet only 50 pts for the full Lockoff Two Bedroom.

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3.3 Home Resort Vacation Point Reservation Values. A certain number of Home Resort Vacation Points have been or will be established by DVCMC in its sole, absolute and unfettered discretion for the use of each Vacation Home in the Condominium during each Use Day, with variations that will take into account, among other factors, anticipated seasonal and geographical demand factors and the related actual use demand of Club Members experienced in the operation of the Club. The number of Home Resort Vacation Points that a Club Member has with respect to an Ownership Interest will remain fixed and will always be symbolic of the Club Member's Ownership Interest. The Home Resort Vacation Point values established by DVCMC that are symbolic of all Ownership Interests will be based upon the 365 Use Day calendar year containing the minimum number of Fridays and Saturdays distributed through high demand periods (the "Base Year"). 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 in the Condominium; provided, however, that for reservation purposes, DVCMC may assign a premium to the separate use and occupancy of One-Bedroom and Studio Vacation Homes that are part of Two-Bedroom Vacation Homes that are lock-off Vacation Homes such that the total number of Home Resort Vacation Points necessary to separately reserve and occupy both the One-Bedroom and Studio Vacation Homes are more than the number of Home Resort Vacation Points necessary to reserve and occupy a Two-Bedroom Vacation Home (the "Lock-off Premium"). Any excess availability that may exist from time to time shall be subject to the Breakage Period priorities set forth in the Home Resort Rules and Regulations.

In order to meet the Club Members' needs and expectations as evidenced by fluctuations in Use Day demand at the Condominium experienced by DVCMC during a given calendar year, DVCMC may, in its sole, absolute and unfettered discretion, increase or decrease the Home Resort Vacation Point requirements for reservation of a given Use Day within a given Vacation Home (including an increase or decrease in the Lock-off Premium) during the given calendar year by any amount not to exceed twenty percent (20%) of the Home Resort Vacation Points required to reserve that Use Day during the previous calendar year; provided, however, that the total number of Home Resort Vacation Points existing within a given Unit (i.e., the amount of Home Resort Vacation Points representing 100% of the Ownership Interests in a given Unit) at any time may not be increased or decreased because of any such reallocation. The twenty percent (20%) reallocation limitation shall not apply to increases or decreases in Home Resort Vacation Point reservation requirements relating to changes in the Lock-off Premium or special periods of high demand based upon Club Member use patterns and changes in Club Member use demand (including, without limitation, use demand during special or holiday seasons), as determined by DVCMC in its sole, absolute and unfettered discretion.

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 (other than changes in the Lock-off Premium) must be offset by a corresponding decrease or increase for another Use Day or Days. Except as otherwise provided above, adjustments in excess of twenty percent (20%) in any calendar year will require approval of not less than sixty percent (60%) of all then-existing Club Members at the Condominium. The right to reallocate Home Resort Vacation Points is reserved by DVCMC solely for adjusting the Home Resort Reservation Component to accommodate Club Member demand. However, with respect to the Condominium, each Club Member will always be eligible to reserve at the Condominium, subject to availability: at least one (1) Use Day in a Studio Vacation Home for every 22 Home Resort Vacation Points; at least one (1) Use Day in a One-Bedroom Vacation Home for every 45 Home Resort Vacation Points; at least one (1) Use Day in a Two-Bedroom Vacation Home for every 61 Home Resort Vacation Points; or at least one (1) Use Day in a Grand Villa Vacation Home for every 147 Home Resort Vacation Points. A maximum reallocation of Vacation Point reservation requirements could result in a "leveling" of all seasons, such that Home Resort Vacation Point reservation requirements would have no variation based upon seasonality or different times of the year. Similarly, a maximum reallocation of Home Resort Vacation Point reservation requirements could result in a "leveling" of differences in Vacation Point reservation requirements based upon particular Use Days in the week.

Actually, VGF has a significant difference from BWV (have not checked others) which has both dedicated studios and 1BRs besides lock-off 2BRs. There are no "lock-off premium" clauses for BWV. Its total points were determined by applying studio and 1BR per night points to the dedicated studios and 1BRs and 2BR points to the lock-offs with no possible premium addition for the lock-offs because they might be reserved as studios or 1BRs. What you provide appears to possibly indicate that what I mentioned above is the VGF method in that in determining total points applicable to the resort, DVC originally used the studio and 1BR per night points to determine total points for some or perhaps all the lock-off 2BRs.

 

[DVC92]

It's stated in the POS for each resort that you can reserve at least one night for a maximum number of points each size. That, the total points for the non locked off options and the 20% a year seems to me to be the only limitations.

I just got off the phone with DVC, and they refuse to tell me any information. They say I can determine it on my own. Not very ethical on their part.

Looking at POS info posted above, it seems they are capable of raising the studio and 1BR rates ad infinitum, subject to the yearly cap, as long as 1 use day remains at 22 points for the studio and 1 use day remains at 45 points for a 1BR. This allows them to require many more points for reservations after a resort sells out giving them the ability to have more rentals. Not good.

 

[tjkraz]

Actually, VGF has a significant difference from BWV (have not checked others) which has both dedicated studios and 1BRs besides lock-off 2BRs. There are no "lock-off premium" clauses for BWV. Its total points were determined by applying studio and 1BR per night points to the dedicated studios and 1BRs and 2BR points to the lock-offs with no possible premium addition for the lock-offs because they might be reserved as studios or 1BRs.

Agree with this. However, the mere presence of dedicated Studio and/or 1B villas essentially creates its own "lockoff premium." In Adventure Season, a weekday Preferred Studio at BWV is 15 points per weeknight and One Bedroom is 28 points. Combined price is 43 points, which is noticeably higher than the published 34ppn rate for a two bedroom.

These BWV Studio and 1B rates are (theoretically) less arbitrary since dedicated villas bring them into the calculation. But guests staying in lockoffs are still spending more points than those booking a Two bedroom.

What you provide appears to possibly indicate that what I mentioned above is the VGF method in that in determining total points applicable to the resort, DVC originally used the studio and 1BR per night points to determine total points for some or perhaps all the lock-off 2BRs.

Studio and 1B points play no role in the calculation for VGF or SSR. Seemingly other resorts with no dedicated S/1B rooms would be the same.

I was able to reconcile both the 2019 and 2020 rates for VGF with the original declaration to within a couple hundred points. That was done by counting all lockoffs as Two Bedroom villas. With no dedicated S/1B villas at this resort, the Studio and 1B rates appear to be completely arbitrary. Perhaps the result of some internal calculation or system-wide average for an appropriate "lockoff premium."

 

[blacklablover]

We have just returned from staying onsite. As we travel from the U.K. we stay for two weeks every year and have done so for 20 years. On this occasion my daughter bought 220 points direct from Disney so that she could stay for two weeks DVC at Copper Creek. How to sha*ft your customers! The points she purchased no longer cover two weeks in a studio at CC.
If there is such a thing as Karma (which I believe) then the low life’s who have implemented the latest robbery in order to award themselves some bonus or other such benefit will hopefully suffer with some dreadful and painful illness. To say I am bitter is an understatement.

 

[Bing Showei]

We have just returned from staying onsite. As we travel from the U.K. we stay for two weeks every year and have done so for 20 years. On this occasion my daughter bought 220 points direct from Disney so that she could stay for two weeks DVC at Copper Creek. How to sha*ft your customers! The points she purchased no longer cover two weeks in a studio at CC.
If there is such a thing as Karma (which I believe) then the low life’s who have implemented the latest robbery in order to award themselves some bonus or other such benefit will hopefully suffer with some dreadful and painful illness. To say I am bitter is an understatement.

If your daughter is within her 10 day rescission period, I would recommend she rescind the contract and look into getting two Guaranteed Week contracts at CCV for a studio. Those contracts are exempt from reallocations. Moving forward, it's very likely she will find difficulty securing two weeks in a studio during the weeks leading up to Christmas to join you annually.

She will lose any sort of incentives, but in the long term, those few thousand dollars may pay for itself in reduced anxiety over CCV booking during Christmas.

 

[tjkraz]

We have just returned from staying onsite. As we travel from the U.K. we stay for two weeks every year and have done so for 20 years. On this occasion my daughter bought 220 points direct from Disney so that she could stay for two weeks DVC at Copper Creek. How to sha*ft your customers! The points she purchased no longer cover two weeks in a studio at CC.
If there is such a thing as Karma (which I believe) then the low life’s who have implemented the latest robbery in order to award themselves some bonus or other such benefit will hopefully suffer with some dreadful and painful illness. To say I am bitter is an understatement.

If she signed the paperwork less than 10 days ago, the purchase can still be cancelled. Simply reach out to DVC before the rescission period ends.

Depending on the exact impact, banking / borrowing of points may fill the gap to some extent. Other options include shortening the trip by a day or occasionally staying at a cheaper resort.

Periodic adjustments to the charts are to be expected. We've seen both large and small changes to the point charts every single year for the last decade. Anecdotally, many of the changes here seem warranted based upon years of member reports on booking trends, villa availability, etc. However the reasoning behind other aspects is not quite so clear, and we may never know exactly what motivated certain decisions.

 

[Mumof4mice]

We have just returned from staying onsite. As we travel from the U.K. we stay for two weeks every year and have done so for 20 years. On this occasion my daughter bought 220 points direct from Disney so that she could stay for two weeks DVC at Copper Creek. How to sha*ft your customers! The points she purchased no longer cover two weeks in a studio at CC.
If there is such a thing as Karma (which I believe) then the low life’s who have implemented the latest robbery in order to award themselves some bonus or other such benefit will hopefully suffer with some dreadful and painful illness. To say I am bitter is an understatement.

If your daughter is still within the rescission period (10 days), she has the option of contacting DVC straight away to cancel. She could consider guaranteed weeks, both to guarantee availability for the popular period and to guard against furfutre reallocations. If she is planning to walk bookings an October use year is better than December for early December studio bookings. Good luck.

 

[Wakey]

If your daughter is still within the rescission period (10 days), she has the option of contacting DVC straight away to cancel. She could consider guaranteed weeks, both to guarantee availability for the popular period and to guard against furfutre reallocations. If she is planning to walk bookings an October use year is better than December for early December studio bookings. Good luck.

I agree. Many points loaded onto the cabins, and very few studios means getting studios here at the busiest times at 11 months are a major buy fight.
And just wait until there is a points reallocation when it’s sold out and cabin points are loaded back onto those studios.

 

[The Jackal]

Raising the studios and one bedrooms will do one of two things. People will either stay one less night from their normal trip or buy another small 25-50 point contract. Then later down the road there will be even more small contracts being used by people for studios.

 

[zavandor]

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the discussion and Tjkraz in particular. The situation is much clearer to me now.
DVC has decided they want to push members toward larger units. The system as a whole is now much less "friendly" versus people willing to book studios and 1BR. I only book studios. I'll have to evaluate if I still want to keep my contracts or not. I have a vacation planned for September already, then I'll see. Maybe it's time to move on and spend the money I spend with DVC for other vacations.

 

[Dean]

I just got off the phone with DVC, and they refuse to tell me any information. They say I can determine it on my own. Not very ethical on their part.

Looking at POS info posted above, it seems they are capable of raising the studio and 1BR rates ad infinitum, subject to the yearly cap, as long as 1 use day remains at 22 points for the studio and 1 use day remains at 45 points for a 1BR. This allows them to require many more points for reservations after a resort sells out giving them the ability to have more rentals. Not good.

You'll have to go in person to corporate to have a chance of getting this information, even then you may not. I suspect they'll show you the points totals but not the occupancy numbers but can't be certain.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the discussion and Tjkraz in particular. The situation is much clearer to me now.
DVC has decided they want to push members toward larger units. The system as a whole is now much less "friendly" versus people willing to book studios and 1BR. I only book studios. I'll have to evaluate if I still want to keep my contracts or not. I have a vacation planned for September already, then I'll see. Maybe it's time to move on and spend the money I spend with DVC for other vacations.

That's fair but I doubt this is enough of a change to make DVC a bad choice where it was a good choice before. But if one doesn't trust them, there isn't enough savings in the system to justify playing the game.

 

[Networth]

We have just returned from staying onsite. As we travel from the U.K. we stay for two weeks every year and have done so for 20 years. On this occasion my daughter bought 220 points direct from Disney so that she could stay for two weeks DVC at Copper Creek. How to sha*ft your customers! The points she purchased no longer cover two weeks in a studio at CC.
If there is such a thing as Karma (which I believe) then the low life’s who have implemented the latest robbery in order to award themselves some bonus or other such benefit will hopefully suffer with some dreadful and painful illness.

That sounds a little excessive...

 

[Wakey]

That sounds a little excessive...

I'd reserve that for the John Palmer's of the timeshare world (I recommend a book, 'Killing Goldfinger' about him). However, I fully understand OPs outright frustration and feeling of being 'had'.

 

[Dean]

We have just returned from staying onsite. As we travel from the U.K. we stay for two weeks every year and have done so for 20 years. On this occasion my daughter bought 220 points direct from Disney so that she could stay for two weeks DVC at Copper Creek. How to sha*ft your customers! The points she purchased no longer cover two weeks in a studio at CC.
If there is such a thing as Karma (which I believe) then the low life’s who have implemented the latest robbery in order to award themselves some bonus or other such benefit will hopefully suffer with some dreadful and painful illness. To say I am bitter is an understatement.

She should have read the paperwork provided which explained this could happen. While there were some curve balls in the reallocation, an increase in studios should surprise no one. She should cancel if she still can. But it's not sinister, there will be other future changes, as noted, there could be another large change next year.

 

[skier_pete]

Or just any people who purchased DVC for studio stays is probably going to be unhappy. BWV is interesting though since the 2BR's are 100% lockoffs so reducing them and increasing studios and 1BRs is not really computing in my mind.

I'm late to the thread but i realized how this works.

This is a big deal folks.

BWV points are allocated (sold) as dedicated studios and 1-bedrooms, and the 2-bedroom lock offs are allocated as 2-bedrooms. However, because the. 2-bedrooms run out in studios first, that means a lot of 2-bedrooms actually rent for more points than are in the system. By shifting more point value to the studios and 1-bedrooms, Disney creates extra availability across the whole system.

Example: with the old allocation, a 2-bedroom goes for 350 a week during magic season, but the studio and 1-bedroom go for 403 points, which creates an extra 53 points in the system. Shifting it to be 341 and 405 means they now create 64 points instead of 53.

This does two things, it means more availability across the entire system which is good in theory for the member, but it is also means that in the end thats more rooms that Disney can rent out for cash, because they Cantrell them with points because the points do not exist. It's a way for DVC to make more money.

 

[Ben E N]

I'm late to the thread but i realized how this works.

This is a big deal folks.

BWV points are allocated (sold) as dedicated studios and 1-bedrooms, and the 2-bedroom lock offs are allocated as 2-bedrooms. However, because the. 2-bedrooms run out in studios first, that means a lot of 2-bedrooms actually rent for more points than are in the system. By shifting more point value to the studios and 1-bedrooms, Disney creates extra availability across the whole system.

Example: with the old allocation, a 2-bedroom goes for 350 a week during magic season, but the studio and 1-bedroom go for 403 points, which creates an extra 53 points in the system. Shifting it to be 341 and 405 means they now create 64 points instead of 53.

This does two things, it means more availability across the entire system which is good in theory for the member, but it is also means that in the end thats more rooms that Disney can rent out for cash, because they Cantrell them with points because the points do not exist. It's a way for DVC to make more money.

I'm pretty positive the answer is "no, Disney's lawyers got us there." But is there any way for owners to sue for that extra income, or at least part of it, and get it taken out of dues? After all, those renters are using facilities that we are paying to maintain.

 

[skier_pete]

Whoa! I don't own at PVB but just checked the points chart for it. Major changes to the bungalow point requirements!
Looks like all studios went up 1 or 2 points per night and the bungalows went down 6-20 points per night, depending on season.

Oh by the way - this was an OBVIOUS fallout of the overpricing of the bungalows. I would have a hard time tracking down one my posts, but I predicted this several times in the early days of the Poly being for sale. As soon as they had trouble filling the bungalows on points, they would HAVE to re-allocate at this resort, and the fallout would be points going up for all the studios. What I wouldn't have predicted is them doing something similar everywhere.