They added that extra higher week at Easter in 2022? The podcast seemed to say that there is nothing they can do about the April bookings so they will need to decrease some points with the new charts May-December.
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I just really don’t get this. Maybe I’ve just been fiscally deranged for so long, or perhaps it’s because from 2010-present there were few if any annual points allocation adjustments compared to 1994-2010, when they were reliably annual. I have a very large binder with the full prospectus and all the DVC rules from when I last bought points in 2010, and points reallocation is spelled out in exhaustive detail. There is nothing duplicitous or “illegal” about it.
Purely by coincidence, I know two of the managing partners of the accounting firm that audits DVC, and both say they’re an excellent client, because their books are always in order and they don’t to skate through ambiguity. Florida gets its richly deserved share of jokes at its own expense, but our condo association laws are basically a gold standard, and our still-strong open government laws mean just about anyone can see the books for him- or herself.
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I honestly don’t think it is mismanagement . I think it is all an unintended consequence of adding “seasons”.
I love traveling in April and did not think anything about the change around Easter.
exactly!
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I don’t think that what they are doing is illegal, but it is misleading. When it takes more points for me to travel in 2022 vs 2010 at the same time of year in the same accommodation, and it’s not cheaper at a different time of year, that’s not the sales pitch I was given. They are not diluting our points, meaning that the total % ownership I have remains unchanged, but it’s no longer giving me the same reach as it did when I bought.
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and also, I’m sure DVC is an amazing client, but the firm is probably not even looking at the points charts. As a CPA that audits non profits, governments and co-ops, I would be very surprised if they were analyzing the points charts. Their job is to make sure the financial statements are reasonably stated. Member usage and points charts are outside the scope of a financial statement audit.
Next time I see either one of them, I’ll ask.
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that would be lovely! I’m really interested to know
And the alternative is that the majority of owners go into the 2021 use year with way more banked points than in an average use year, but no place to use them. That will generate its own kind of backlash and attendant shrieking. When DVCD releases its own inventory, its revenues decrease, because points-for-cash are additional income. Now they’re actually money losers, as DVCD needs to pay maintenance and taxes to the condo association the same as every individual owner, without any revenue to show for it. And no, they can’t arbitrarily make up for it by raising management fees and passing that along to the condo association. Any condo board that approved that would be served with a class action lawsuit so fast their personal and collective heads would spin.
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yes I agree. Now that you mention it, this whole thing is probably part of their solution to all those points coming into this year that they let members keep. I don’t envy them and this balancing act they have to do. If they were a little more upfront and transparent about it though, I think people would be understanding.
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This is interesting, I think (because I was not an owner then, I did not realize they did this. Which they definitely did not have to do, and it is definitely a money loser for them with no way of recouping.
I think I am figuring this out. Can you all confirm that this simplified scenario is the way it works?
Say there are 1200 available DVC rooms in any given year.
At the “baseline” year, where they establish the core point values, each room cost a DVC owner an average of 1 point, and 1000 points have been sold for that resort.
In this “baseline”: DVC owners get 1000 rooms and Disney gets 200 rooms for breakage.
In a different year, because of where the Easter Holiday sits, the points chart shifts so there are more weeks in the costly season. This now means that on average each room costs a DVC owner, say 1.2 points.
In this scenario, DVC owners get 833 rooms (because there are still only 1000 points sold) and their points do not buy as much. Disney gets 367 rooms for breakage. (Except right now, because there are so many extra points in the system, Disney probably would not get all 367 rooms)
Is that correct? It definitely would help the glut of points in the system, and for DVCD to break even.
After they figure out this year, I think they just need to choose a base year where Easter is in the middle and not at the extreme. Then some years Disney will win and other years owners will win.
I am totally with you!
I do try to understand the basics of things like this and the lock-off premium. But I can only follow the analysis so far, and my eyes and brain start to hurt trying to follow it all.
So I take the view that I’m sure DVC don’t actually break the rules, they may push them and it may annoy / anger a lot of people. But I don’t subscribe to the idea of legal action because it means we all pay for that through dues.
Am I annoyed because I can only really travel in the highest seasons? Of course. But I’m not going to lose sleep over it.
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I thought a piece of this was that DVC only received 2.5% of the cash value of the rooms and therefore they are not really doing what is in “the best interest” of owners?
Did I get that wrong?
I made the mistake of going back to the DISboards “source” via the linked piece, and was immediately reminded why I stopped reading DISboards years ago, and used to pray to Walt-Jesus that someone would take off and nuke it from orbit (it’s the only way to be sure) and Pete Werner with it. The place is an open sewer of people who would benefit greatly in health and mental well-being through frequent and vigorous use of recreational drugs.
The Shorter™: DVC management is slightly gaming the points charts to make Easter, a toss-up with Christmas for the most in-demand time, require more points per room night without offsetting the increased points elsewhere in the calendar. The foil-hat territory of the linked piece is that DVCD is doing this to make it less attractive for owners to use their points during busy times, thus inflating cash inventory, and capturing more revenue. Except: all revenue over 2.5% of the resort operating budget goes back to the owners in the form of dues rebates anyway! So there is a real point of diminishing returns for this “strategy.”
My fault for getting out of the boat™.
Edit/Note: the above bolded passage is exactly wrong. See reply below for details.
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It depends on what you mean by “best interest.” If that means “making points go farther by having rooms cost fewer points,” then no, it’s not. But the revenue angle is exactly backwards, in that there’s a hard limit to how much money DVCD can make from cash rooms. If they raised points costs to the stratosphere so that no one had enough points to use and all those rooms could be rented for cash, then the most DVCD could keep of that revenue is 2.5% of a given resort’s operating budget, with the overage going back to owners in the form of dues rebates.
And 2.5% of the resort budget is only a small fraction of the revenue that would be generated by massive cash rentals, so it would probably wipe out dues for a great many owners, but at the cost of alienating them because they couldn’t use their points. Which seems like a business strategy way more meat-headed than anything DVC has done in its history.
You need to develop much greater senses of paranoia and personal aggrievement if you want to be a true SuperFan™. Having a rich inner fantasy life also helps.
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I thought I didn’t like the DISboard because their forum interface annoys me. But maybe it’s the conversation. Their panties seem to be in a bunch often. 
I misunderstood it to be exactly the opposite - that the members got the 2.5%. Thanks for clarifying.
This rule is a really great stopgap designed to protect the members interest. I like it.
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Except: your initial assumption is right and I’m wrong, and I have this backwards. I’ll admit to having to reread this multiple times to finally get it:
While a portion of this income (capped at 2.5% of the resort’s operating budget) is indirectly returned to members via a credit towards annual dues, the remaining excess breakage is absorbed by Disney Vacation Club as profit.
So only 2.5% goes to the members, the rest to DVCD.
I’ll stick by my original thesis that this is still foil-hat territory. DVCD is gambling that they can make the points chart so unattractive to owners that they won’t use their points and the flowers of cash rooms will bloom, without any backlash? Seems unlikely, and a 49-page DISboards thread from America’s Finest Amateur Legal Minds tends towards agreement.
The “secondary” market of owners renting out points - which used to be absolutely prohibited in large block letters in the owner agreement - tends to argue against large numbers of owners sighing forlornly and watching their points wither and die at the end of the use year. I’ve always wondered why DVC doesn’t co-opt the entire rental market by making themselves the exclusive broker. Yes, there would be all manner of hooting and shrieking, but they’d be on pretty firm legal ground to do it.
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DisBoard is useful because they have a lot of users who gather a TON of data. I’ve referred to them often for things like boarding group information, ROFR timing, DVC pricing, etc. But I don’t like the tone of the discourse there. We are a MUCH more agreeable bunch here. No offense to anyone who uses both. 