I was poking around at pricing of things, anticipating our planned two trips in 2020. Something that caught my eye was looking at the number of points various DVC places are in 2019 versus 2020. As seems to always be the case, Disney finds a way to stick it to their guests, apparently. A week DVC that was 194 pts in 2019 is 208 pts in 2020. This means you are paying more money (essentially, if you rent) for the same property, and if you have DVC pts, you are getting LESS for the same pts you bought into.
At such a rate increase in point value, it seems that the “benefit” of DVC (if there is one) diminishes more and more over time. That is, if, when you bought into it with enough points to get like 2 weeks at a resort, then at some point down the line those same points will only really get you a week (unless you decide to use the points at a LESSER property).
This seems wrong to me. Almost false advertising. I would expect point values of various resorts to stay the same over time, but perhaps only the cost per point to go up. In this way, those who are buying into DVC will be paying the new price, but those who invested long ago are getting the same benefit they bought into.
Anyhow, it is making it hard for me to budget properly for this kind of thing. Disney trips are wildly expensive that take years for me to save for. It is even harder to save for a moving target! Sigh
The dues went up as well, but from what I read the one bedrooms went down in most cases and studios went up. Seems like they are trying to shift demand away from the too popular studios.
I’d have to look at the points charts to confirm, but the way I understand it is the total number of points across the year as a whole are the same, but placement of which weeks are in which “season” may be different each year, depending on holidays and such.
There was a long discussion on chat, but like others have said, the points are never worth less. They just may buy a different makeup of room. If your week in a studio went up then a week in a 2 bedroom went down.
Okay. That makes sense. So I went back and checked. For Bay Lake Tower, almost ALL of the points for the rooms went up, EXCEPT the most expensive (such as the 3 bedroom grand villa) which dropped quite a bit. So, basically, they took points from the grand villa and distributed them across the other rooms. Only one other room (the 2 bedroom standard for Sun-Thursday time) went down (and in SOME time periods the 2 bedroom lake view).
Effectively, however, it accomplishes the same end. The rooms you most likely could afford with your points are increasingly inaccessible to you. The most expensive villas remain only accessible to the very wealthy.
Not much can be done about it. But from what I can tell, the price difference for the DVC rentals we hope to get between 2019 and when we go in 2020 will be about $187 more for a total of 8 nights, or roughly $23/night more. That’s not terrible. But it might mean cutting out a dessert party or something.
Also different seasons have different movement in points. In some seasons for example, a 2 bed standard villa at OKW is actually less points than a 1 bed preferred villa for the same time.
There is a fair amount of anger over the reallocation of points this time. There have only been a couple of instances of this in the past, and this time the effects are going to be farther reaching, especially for those who only have a small number of points.
Now, here’s something I just noticed as well. It is SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper (points wise) to rent a 2 bedroom villa and a studio or 1 bedroom than to rent a Grand Villa. In fact, it is cheaper to rent two 2-bedroom villas! Of course, there is no guarantee your rooms would be near one another, but it is funny math, since a Grand Villa is just a 2 bedroom villa with an adjacent studio.
For example, at Boardwalk Villas (depending on the week), you could get two 2-bedroom villas (standard view) for $5400, but a 3-bedroom Grand Villa is $6930. Even if you paid for the upgraded view in the 2-bedroom villas, it would be $6660, or $270 cheaper. So, unless you have a strong need to have everyone in the “same room”, effectively, it doesn’t seem to make sense financially.
It’s always been cheaper to get two 2BR villas than a GV. We’ve still splashed out on GVs a few times, as I certainly don’t think it’s “just a 2 bedroom villa with an adjacent studio”.
I know there’s been a lot of public uproar about the 2020 points reallocation, but I honestly don’t have a problem with it. Some of our stays will work out more expensive, some will work out cheaper. Our DVC membership is still an amazing deal (paid $79 per point for our initial 320 points) and if we didn’t have it there is no way we could afford to spend as much time at WDW as we do.
That’s true. When we went on the Great Disney Adventure in 2016 (30ppl) using our points, it was cheaper points-wise for us to get (4) 2bdr than it would have been to do 2 grand villas and still not have enough beds. I can’t think of a reason ever why a grand villa would work for our family.
Grand villas typically aren’t just a 2 bed plus a studio. Quite the opposite.
They have different layouts, whether over two floors or one, but I don’t think any of them are simply a studio tagged alongside a 2 bed villa.
Most have a HUGE living area, plus a separate dining room, kitchen, master suite. Jambo have a pool table, others have a kinda mezzanine area outside the upstairs bedrooms with a pull-out sofa, as well as the pull-out sofa in the living area (doesn’t change the number of guests you can have, just the bed permutations).
To be honest, if I was to ever visit with by brother and his family of 7, making 11 in total, I would do 2 x 2-beds. The sleeping arrangements would be better, with two master suites for example. But it has never been cheaper to go for a GV.
I went back and looked. My bad entirely. I was looking at the 2 bedroom villas, which are advertised as generally being a 1 bedroom villa plus a studio. I’m not sure why my brain applied that to the Grand Villa!
So, basically, once again, just ignore me.
That isn’t to say that, cost wise, it still will make sense to go with two 2-bedroom or a 2-bedroom and a studio or 1-bedroom villa. But if you plan to spend a lot of time IN the Villa itself with a lot of people, I suppose I could see the advantage of the GV.
Although that may have been many people’s understanding, the points across resorts may have stayed the same, but there has been an overall increase in studios and 1 bedrooms and a decrease in 2 bedrooms in 2020. There also seems to be an overall increase in points in most resorts due to the lock offs (look at that- I wish I understood that).
@ryan1, this thread seems to be perfect for the new DVC category?
Have you been following discussions on other boards? I am curious because a few days ago I began to become concerned that there could be “sides” based on how many points an owner has. I think I began to feel that way reading about “whiny” small contract owners.
I just like to hear other perspectives on the discussion.
I’ve read some but not a lot. I think the people who may have been hit the hardest were the ones who bought exactly what they needed to stay in x accommodation at the same time every year etc, regardless of the amount of points that took (whether it was enough for three days in a SSR Studio in Adventure season or two weeks in a 1BR at BWV during Premier season). That’s not us - we’re very flexible and can go pretty much whenever; we also enjoy staying in different resorts so the point costs of our trips will always vary.
It’s not the first time DVC have done this, and they’ve never made a secret of the fact it’s a possibility at any given time. Since the demand for Studios always seems to be ridiculously high I can see why they thought an adjustment was a good idea.
I’m sure it all comes down to demand - the types of rooms in a given resort that were more in demand had their point costs bumped up, and those that were in less demand saw a reduction.
