DVC Club Level and Home Resort Survey

[AnnaKristoff2013]

Which is why I just have a hard time believing they are going to even worry about adding points from the older resorts….starting with the 5 they can easily start with…it’s going to be a big carrot.

They may be anticipating a lot of foreclosures/deedbacks at places like Vero Beach in the near future. That resort is definitely going to hit “worthless” status sooner rather than later based on the YOY dues increases. HHI may not be far behind, and honestly, OKWE may hit it long before the contract expires as well, given dues increases.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

Including my original purchase price, I just paid $126 per night to stay in a Standard View Studio at the Boardwalk Villas.

Considering the cash rack rate price (tax included) for a similar Boardwalk Inn room for the same nights is $762 per night, I’m not sure that cash is looking better.

Standard View studios at the resort with arguably the best point chart is probably not a good comparison to cash. Now do it for a Grand Floridian Lake View 1 bedroom Unit and tell me how it works out.

 

[Sandisw]

They may be anticipating a lot of foreclosures/deedbacks at places like Vero Beach in the near future. That resort is definitely going to hit “worthless” status sooner rather than later based on the YOY dues increases. HHI may not be far behind, and honestly, OKWE may hit it long before the contract expires as well, given dues increases.

For sure it makes sense when that happens. I meant right now when their ownership in those resorts is pretty small.

 

[Cfabar1]

I don't mind the Vero dues in and of themselves, the buy in is just still too high in my view when I see current dvc resale prices.

At the end of the day you're buying in at an oceanfront resort. A small one at that... The issue is many people bought in for WDW, which those points are not best suited for.

 

[walt34]

Standard View studios at the resort with arguably the best point chart is probably not a good comparison to cash. Now do it for a Grand Floridian Lake View 1 bedroom Unit and tell me how it works out.

Not the OP but I just checked a few different time periods. There seems to be roughly a $550 to $600 difference per night (points fully priced vs website prices).

 

[Nabas]

Standard View studios at the resort with arguably the best point chart is probably not a good comparison to cash. Now do it for a Grand Floridian Lake View 1 bedroom Unit and tell me how it works out.

For the same nights at a Grand Floridian Lake View 1 bedroom:

Rack rate: $1602 per night

DVC points: $619 per night

I purchased 2 of my 3 DVC contracts more than a decade ago and, to date, have averaged $12.83 per point across all 3 contracts for all of my stays (including original purchase price). That number continues to decline as the original purchase price gets spread across more years. (Unlike some others, I keep track of what I have spent to date, rather than spread the cost of the original purchase across the life of the contract.)

Until my Maintenance Fees reach a combined average of $12.83 per point, my cost per night will continue to decline each year. After that, they will increase.

Of course, Disney keeps increasing the price of its hotels, nearly always faster than the percent increase in Maintenance Fees. Consequently, I expect my savings to grow as long as Disney continues to increase what it charges for its hotels.

Maintenance Fee increases are governed by Florida law - they can only increase by actual cost.

Disney hotel prices can increase by whatever Disney thinks they can get away with.

Having closely kept track of all of my DVC stays and the corresponding rack rate for the same room, I calculate that I have received a 64.95% room discount to date.

As you note, the Boardwalk Standard View Studios are probably the best value (along with AKV Value Studios).

Where I’ve saved the least are for my Vero Beach stays (which have much lower rack rates than WDW hotels). The worst-case savings there were only 4.3% for a one-bedroom in the summer, practically the same as rack rate!

Of course, Vero Beach is DVC only and it’s difficult to find cash rooms there in the summer, so I didn’t have much choice.

 

[J-Dog]

I would assume that at 2%, 5% maybe even 10% trust ownership at a legacy resort you won't see much impact on 11 months availability for legacy owners. But at 20% or 30% trust ownership at a legacy resort those hundreds of owners using the same pool of points would certainly show a different booking pattern than the average legacy owner. My guess is that it would skew usage even more to high demand seasons, unless there is a limiting factor implemented (restricting the rooms accessible to the trust to a percentage, restricting the number of trust points at a resort that can be used each month,...)

Whether DVD will feel compelled to do something about this, is the big question.

I guess that could be a way for DVD to use the stick, rather than the carrot, to lure deeded DVC members to the Trust - by severely increasing the points charts in high-demand seasons, and then basically saying "well, since it costs so much and is so hard to use your current points at your home resort when you want to, you can now switch to our NEW Trust, and can have your choice of all these other resorts at that time!".

 

[walt34]

I guess that could be a way for DVD to use the stick, rather than the carrot, to lure deeded DVC members to the Trust - by severely increasing the points charts in high-demand seasons, and then basically saying "well, since it costs so much and is so hard to use your current points at your home resort when you want to, you can now switch to our NEW Trust, and can have your choice of all these other resorts at that time!".

This wouldn't convince me, I'm not sure about others. If home resort advantage doesn't work for me at a single home resort anymore, I'm certainly not going to switch to an even more competitive and less predictable system.

 

[J-Dog]

This wouldn't convince me, I'm not sure about others. If home resort advantage doesn't work for me at a single home resort anymore, I'm certainly not going to switch to an even more competitive and less predictable system.

I agree, but based on other timeshare company's tactics and the opinions in this thread, it sees like the generally-less-ideal-for-owners Trust systems are selling, so people are falling for it somewhere.

I have a FW as my biggest contract, so there's no chance I would switch. I would probably sell before switching, if DVD really got nasty about giving perks to the Trust and/or removing perks from legacy owners, as the article referenced above implied that they could.

 

[Sandisw]

I guess that could be a way for DVD to use the stick, rather than the carrot, to lure deeded DVC members to the Trust - by severely increasing the points charts in high-demand seasons, and then basically saying "well, since it costs so much and is so hard to use your current points at your home resort when you want to, you can now switch to our NEW Trust, and can have your choice of all these other resorts at that time!".

Except, they can only change the point charts no more 20% a night each year. And, they have an obligation to make the changes based on demand.

So, while they can certainly decide to do that over time, it means several other time periods will be quite lower, which would be even hard for DVC to explain.

I just don’t think they will care how many deeded owners choose to sell their ownership interest back to DVD and repurchase in the trust, until it gets closer to the 2042 resorts ending.

Then I can see them coming up with a plan to entice those owners so that when those resorts come back as part of the trust system, they have hooked in some of the owners who love those locations.

 

[J-Dog]

Except, they can only change the point charts no more 20% a night each year. And, they have an obligation to make the changes based on demand.

So, while they can certainly decide to do that over time, it means several other time periods will be quite lower, which would be even hard for DVC to explain.

I just don’t think they will care how many deeded owners choose to sell their ownership interest back to DVD and repurchase in the trust, until it gets closer to the 2042 resorts ending.

Then I can see them coming up with a plan to entice those owners so that when those resorts come back as part of the trust system, they have hooked in some of the owners who love those locations.

You're probably right, but if all else is equal except for DVD able to make more money by charging an "upgrade" fee to switch, then they could try something. That's of course assuming that DVD is really as money-hungry as some posters here are implying.

 

[Sandisw]

You're probably right, but if all else is equal except for DVD able to make more money by charging an "upgrade" fee to switch, then they could try something. That's of course assuming that DVD is really as money-hungry as some posters here are implying.

The thing is that someone selling their interest doesn’t automatically put it into the trust or not hinder the ability to get your home resort in the same way.

Let’s take BCV… where DVD might only have 2% of the resort…it’s about 90k worth of points, which that isn’t very many rooms it can offer each day…so, unless they get a large % of current owners there transition, the access will be limited because the trust members can’t book more than what is owned by the trust,

I would never trade mt ownership in my home resorts as I want the priority.

 

[J-Dog]

The thing is that someone selling their interest doesn’t automatically put it into the trust or not hinder the ability to get your home resort in the same way.

Let’s take BCV… where DVD might only have 2% of the resort…it’s about 90k worth of points, which that isn’t very many rooms it can offer each day…so, unless they get a large % of current owners there transition, the access will be limited because the trust members can’t book more than what is owned by the trust,

I would never trade mt ownership in my home resorts as I want the priority.

Yes, that makes sense. But I was responding to a poster that was mentioning the consequences of the trust eventually owning ~30% of all points - which would theoretically have a significant impact on deeded owners' booking ability.

Considering that there is nearly constant complaining (whether warranted or not) that booking is harder today than it was 10 or 20 years ago. If that is indeed the case currently, than a trust would seem to exponentially worsen this in another 10 or 20 years, if the trust linearly increased their point total over time, right?

ETA: A scenario would be something like a person who currently would buy SSR for SAP points in order to book, say a RIV studio in week 49 at 7 months - which is difficult but not impossible. In this case, RIV owners would have a significant advantage over the person with SAP. However, If that person decided instead to buy (or upgrade) into a trust, they would then have an 11-month ability to book a RIV studio. Probably minimal impact if they only had access to 2% of RIV inventory, but if in 10 years they have access to 30% of RIV inventory, then deeded owners will have much more competition for high-demand rooms/times compared to current SAP.

Or am I totally wrong?

 

[JackosinDIS]

Yes, that makes sense. But I was responding to a poster that was mentioning the consequences of the trust eventually owning ~30% of all points - which would theoretically have a significant impact on deeded owners' booking ability.

Considering that there is nearly constant complaining (whether warranted or not) that booking is harder today than it was 10 or 20 years ago. If that is indeed the case currently, than a trust would seem to exponentially worsen this in another 10 or 20 years, if the trust linearly increased their point total over time, right?

ETA: A scenario would be something like a person who currently would buy SSR for SAP points in oder to book, say a RIV studio in week 49 at 7 months - which is difficult but not impossible. In this case, RIV owners would have a significant advantage over the person with SAP. However, If that person decided instead to buy into a trust, they would then have an 11-month ability to book a RIV studio. Probably minimal impact if they only had access to 2% of RIV inventory, but if in 10 years they have access to 30% of RIV inventory, then deeded owners will have much more competition.

Or am I totally wrong?

I think that even 2% ownership could have a significant impact on competition.

As an extreme example, 2% of all points at BCV is enough to book every room for an entire week. If the trust has the same access to rooms as deeded owners (which I assume it would), then IN THEORY, the trust could use its 2% of total points in the resort to book every room for a week.

This is, of course, subject to first come first served on the rooms, but if there are 10000 beneficiaries in the trust entitled to use the points, and 10000 deeded owners of BCV, then the laws of probability say that 50% of the rooms for that particular week in the above example will go to the trust.

This is of course an extreme example, as it is highly unlikely that there will be one week in the year which everyone wants at the same time… but you get my drift. It will have some impact even at small % ownership for popular dates and room sizes.

As the ownership % of the trust increases at any given resort, the competition would get much worse (from the deeded owners perspective) because of the sheer number of people in the trust entitled to have a go a booking a room, unless the Trust does something to either spread out how the points can be used by the members of the trust over the year, or create a separate bucket of rooms which are available.

 

[J-Dog]

I think that even 2% ownership could have a significant impact on competition.

As an extreme example, 2% of all points at BCV is enough to book every room for an entire week. If the trust has the same access to rooms as deeded owners (which I assume it would), then IN THEORY, the trust could use its 2% of total points in the resort to book every room for a week.

This is, of course, subject to first come first served on the rooms, but if there are 10000 beneficiaries in the trust entitled to use the points, and 10000 deeded owners of BCV, then the laws of probability say that 50% of the rooms for that particular week in the above example will go to the trust.

This is of course an extreme example, as it is highly unlikely that there will be one week in the year which everyone wants at the same time… but you get my drift. It will have some impact even at small % ownership for popular dates and room sizes.

As the ownership % of the trust increases at any given resort, the competition would get much worse (from the deeded owners perspective) because of the sheer number of people in the trust entitled to have a go a booking a room, unless the Trust does something to either spread out how the points can be used by the members of the trust over the year, or create a separate bucket of rooms which are available.

Yes, that makes sense to me.

So, I guess the question becomes - what is the trust going to do to spread the points out? In your scenario, if there are 10,001 trust owners, and 10,000 use all their points at BCV in week 49, and 1 the other one gets stuck with VB in the summer, what is the trust supposed to do with the other 98% of trust-owned VB points that nobody wants? Or at the very least, the VB points that trust owners only grudgingly want because BCV is completely booked?

Then aren't they creating a worse problem - deeded owners are unhappy due to more competition, and trust owners who are stuck with VB(or SSR or HHI, etc.) are unhappy due to being unable to book what they were promised (11-month booking at multiple resorts)?

 

[walt34]

This is of course an extreme example, as it is highly unlikely that there will be one week in the year which everyone wants at the same time…

This is why I said that 2% is not a problem (Disney has that as cash rooms as it is) and I don't think that 5% will be a problem either.

But at higher percentages, a trust that does not limit point usage in some way will have a serious impact on availability in high demand seasons. This was the point of my post.

 

[Sandisw]

Yes, that makes sense. But I was responding to a poster that was mentioning the consequences of the trust eventually owning ~30% of all points - which would theoretically have a significant impact on deeded owners' booking ability.

Considering that there is nearly constant complaining (whether warranted or not) that booking is harder today than it was 10 or 20 years ago. If that is indeed the case currently, than a trust would seem to exponentially worsen this in another 10 or 20 years, if the trust linearly increased their point total over time, right?

ETA: A scenario would be something like a person who currently would buy SSR for SAP points in order to book, say a RIV studio in week 49 at 7 months - which is difficult but not impossible. In this case, RIV owners would have a significant advantage over the person with SAP. However, If that person decided instead to buy (or upgrade) into a trust, they would then have an 11-month ability to book a RIV studio. Probably minimal impact if they only had access to 2% of RIV inventory, but if in 10 years they have access to 30% of RIV inventory, then deeded owners will have much more competition for high-demand rooms/times compared to current SAP.

Or am I totally wrong?

Technically that is correct in that a deeded owner at SSR who can’t trade until 7 months is going to have a harder time booking a resort that is part of the trust than the trust owner.

But, as a deeded owner, all that matters is access to your home resort and not the others.

The concern I have for adding inventory from sold out resorts or already declared units is giving way too many trust members home resort advantage to the same set of finite trust points

That is why my hope is that they don’t put in points tied to the deeded units already sold but rather the new units that have not yet been added

For example, take Poly tower. Instead of declaring those for sale as a deeded interest, they are added to PVB, but when added, they are only added to be accessed via the trust until 7 months…similar to how inventory attaches to a favorite week.

It would be the same with units not yet declared for RIv, VDH and AUL…and of course, CFW would be all that way.

For the rest of the resorts, DVD would decide not to put any of its interests into the trust since it is so small.

However, if one is looking at booking at 7 months? Yes, a trust type system in conjunction with what we have could very well change up the nature of SAP.

 

[Sandisw]

Yes, that makes sense to me.

So, I guess the question becomes - what is the trust going to do to spread the points out? In your scenario, if there are 10,001 trust owners, and 10,000 use all their points at BCV in week 49, and 1 the other one gets stuck with VB in the summer, what is the trust supposed to do with the other 98% of trust-owned VB points that nobody wants? Or at the very least, the VB points that trust owners only grudgingly want because BCV is completely booked?

Then aren't they creating a worse problem - deeded owners are unhappy due to more competition, and trust owners who are stuck with VB(or SSR or HHI, etc.) are unhappy due to being unable to book what they were promised (11-month booking at multiple resorts)?

All those things are yet to be known but in other systems, my understanding is that they give access equally across each week.

Here is a potential way it could work:
Let’s say they have 200k points worth of inventory to start the trust at Poly tower, CFW, AUL, VDH, and RIV…none of these units are ones currently declared for deeded owners use…they remain a separate bucket.

That means there are 1 million points for trust members to book with. Each month, trust members can access about 83k points worth of inventory at all those resorts 11 months out. Once those are used, at whatever resort they choose, no more bookings.

So, Poly tower could book up for trust owners quickly but AUL rooms stay longer.

My guess is that whenever this system gets up in running, it will start with more than 1 million points but you get the idea

At 7 months, those units open to all DVC owners.

Now, who knows how they will actually set it up, but for me, this is how it would work best, at least to start.

But, I know think we have an idea of what the plan is going to be for those 2042 resorts…they will be sold as part of a trust model and not deeded.

 

[BWV Dreamin]

This wouldn't convince me, I'm not sure about others. If home resort advantage doesn't work for me at a single home resort anymore, I'm certainly not going to switch to an even more competitive and less predictable system.

And this “ stick” approach won’t work for FW deeded Owners. I am guaranteed regardless of where the points charts go.

 

[Chili327]

Wouldn’t it be easier to set up the trust to have their own priority booking window? Like deeded owners are 11 months, and trust could be 10-8 months, so they still have priority over “everyone”, but not over actual owners?