Surprising facts about DC 2002 point charts

[morphi]

There's been a lot of concern about the point charts for the Disney Collection for 2002. I did some number crunching and found some interesting facts. I thought you guys would like to know this stuff as well.

I wanted to find out how much the point price for the different DC resorts increased from 2001 levels. The 2002 point charts use different season dates than before, so it made comparisons a little difficult. I decided to average the points required per night for one room across one whole year taking into account the number of days in each season for both 2001 and 2002. I then calculated the percentage change of points required from 2001 to 2002. Here are the point inflation numbers for most of the DC resorts for 2002:

Grand Floridian - Garden View = 6.87%
Grand Floridian - Lagoon View = 26.11%
Polynesian - Garden View = 9.51%
Polynesian - Lagoon View = 38.52%
Contemporary, Wing Room - Standard View = -10.41%
Contemporary, Wing Room - Garden View = 1.94%
Contemporarey, Tower Room = 20.08%
Animal Kingdom - Water/Pool View = -2.84%
Animal Kingdom - Savannah View = 3.21%
Fort Wilderness - Cabins = -9.65%
Port Orleans - Standard & Water Views = -13.75%
Caribbean Beach - Standard & Water Views = -13.75%
Coronado Springs - Standard & Water Views = -13.75%

Surprisingly, the Polynesian and not the Grand Floridian had the largest increases. Also, the moderates went down pretty significantly.

My method to calculate these numbers was this: For each year, 2001 and 2002, determine the number of days in each season. (The season dates and definitions have changed for 2002.) Then, for each resort's room type for each season, determine the average points required per night based on a one week stay. Then for each resort / room-type, I multiplied the average nightly point cost times the number of days in that season. Then I summed all of the seasonal points together for the year. This gave me the number of points needed to stay in each resort / room-type for a whole year for 2001 vs. 2002. I then calculated the above numbers.

One caution though. This approach ignores the fact that for one resort / room type, DVC may have made the value season more expensive and the regular season less expensive. (This happened with the Fort Wilderness cabins with a one week stay in early December going up by 17% while a one week stay in late July going down by 24%. For the year as whole, the price went down 9.65%.)

This type of averaging and analysis is useful to determine if DVC is trying to punish DVC members for renting too many points or trying to limit the use of the DC program in any way. Overall, I think the above numbers show that the increases are an honest attempt to overcome the disparity between inflation rates between the DVC and DC resorts. (More on this later.)

 

[JonHM]

Great job, morphi! Really interesting (and very in depth) analysis!

 

[Pluto4President]

coincidental that GF and Poly just did major pool upgrades?

 

[JonHM]

that they're trying to 'drive us' to stay in the rooms they want us to stay in - the resorts that don't fill up as easily, or the ones they can't make as much profit on with a cash rental.

This seems pretty similar to me to DVC weekdays being SO many fewer points than weekends. While the analogy doesn't hold up, because they don't have to lower another area the same amount they raise one with DC, it still seems like the same concept, that they're trying to put in incentives and disincentives to get us to stay where they want us to stay. Not wonderfully friendly, but Disney IS a business...

 

[PamOKW]

I'm confused. If you do actual day for day increases, using the GF Lagoon View as an example, the increases are far greater than 26%. The entire months of January and of September are up 58% weekdays and 64% weekends. Garden View for those months is up 35% and 40% respectively.

 

[Johnnie Fedora]

Thank's for the analysis, I did the same type of averaging for the Poly last weekend and came out with an anerage overall point increase of 10% or so (for the Poly only).

What's missing from the 2002 DC is a low season. This removes the ability from DVCers to try an old favorite resort, or a new one, such as the AKL without losing all your points for the year. I don't understand why we have to get gouged like this for staying on WDW property. If DVC has to pay cash to WDW for our DC room, don't they get the cash back when they rent our DVC room, or are DVC rooms difficult to rent out for cash?? And again, I don't understand why there appears to be zero negotiation of room rates between WDW and DVC. I realize that they want to discourage you from staying non-DVC, but I really didn't need much more than what was printed on the 2001 point chart.

Maybe DVC could offer DC specials at certain times of the year, for some of the resorts, in the same way they offer certain cruises at a discount.

 

[DebbieB]

The dates I was thinking of in October of next year at GF went from 173 to 226, about a 30% increase (garden view, Sat - Wed nights).

 

[sgtdisney]

I got the impression when I saw the points chart that they are trying to deter DVC members from selecting the GF or the Poly. Perhaps those are the most popular selections for members not using the DVC properties and they are applying the rules of supply and demand to adjust the usage around the entire property. I was really surprised that YC and BC were less points than the Polynesian.

 

[Laurajean1014]

Nice job morphi! FYI - hotels (all) have an average of 9-12% increase a year! With the 100 year celebration, I guess Disney got a little too tipsy!

 

[prplcrzy]

Johnny,

I would think that the rooms at the DVC resorst are more difficlut to rent out. I am taking some friends with me to the world in October. The quote I got for a package from the CM was $9500 for one week at the Boardwalk including a car, air, passes and the room. I asked how much the room was and he told me $670 per night. I realize that they run specials and discount the rooms sometimes but that seems kinda steep to me. I certainly couldn't afford that and neither could they. I bought more points and rented them to them so they could stay with us and they saved a ton of cash. I didn't rent to them for $10 point cause they are friends and I didn't just buy these points to do that. I was planning to buy them anyway and I just bought a larger contract because they were helping me pay for it. Still the cash price was kinda steep and I can't see them being able to rent those rooms at those prices. Maybe that's why they discount them, when they can't get rid of them.

 

[PamOKW]

I just looked at actual increases at the GF -- If the points had stayed the same it would cost "X", with the new charts it costs "Y" -- and the difference. For Lagoon View, over 30% of the year has increased 50% or more -- not 6%.

Using this method, the average increase for a Lagoon View room is 31% and for a Garden View room it's 11%. Here's some other figures to consider:

Lagoon View
30.68% of the year (112 days) increased 50% or more
38.90% of the year (142 days) increased between 20%-40%
15.62% of the year (56 days) increased between 6%-19%
14.79% of the year (54 days) were even or down 5%
(11 of the even/decrease days are during Easter and Thanksgiving)


Garden View
30.68% of the year (112 days) up 30% or more
43.29% of the year (158 days) up 2%-19%
26.03% of the year (95 days) down 10%-19%

GRAND FLORIDIAN RACK RATES INCREASED 2-4% from 2001 to 2002....70% of our year increased 20%-104%

 

[morphi]

PamOKW, Here is how I calculated the +26.11% point increase for Grand Floridian Lagoon view:

2001:
============================================
# of days in each season:
Adventure: 75
Choice: 67
Dream: 72
Magic: 129
Premier: 22

Average nightly points per season (based on a 1 week stay):
Adventure: 26 weekdays / 45 weekends = ((26*5)+(45*2))/7 = 31.43
Choice: 36.57
Dream: 42
Magic: 53
Premier: 67.71

# of points required to stay in one room for all days in each season:
Adventure: 75 days * 31.43 pts/day = 2,357.14
Choice: 2,450.29
Dream: 3024
Magic: 6837
Premier: 1,489.71

# of points to stay in one room for all of 2001 = 16,158.14


2002:
============================================
# of days in each season:
Value: 182 days
Regular: 105
Peak: 66
Holiday: 12

Average nightly points per season (based on a 1 week stay):
Value: 41 weekdays / 74 weekends = ((41*5)+(74*2))/7 = 50.43
Regular: 56.57
Peak: 66.29
Holiday: 73.71

# of points required to stay in one room for all days in each season:
Value: 182 days * 50.43 pts/day = 9,178
Regular: 5,940
Peak: 4,374.86
Holiday: 884.57

# of points to stay in one room for all of 2002 = 20,377.43


OVERALL POINT INFLATION FOR GRAND FLORIDIAN LAGOON VIEW = (20,377.43 - 16,158.14) / 16,158.14 = 26.11%


Let me know if you see any errors in this approach. Of course the biggest simplifying estimation was to make an average points per night cost based on a one week stay. To not do this, I would have needed to look at the calendar for 2001 and 2002 and count how many weekdays vs. weekend days fell into each season. I didn't want to take the time to do that. I think my simplifying assumption still yields a pretty accurate analysis.

 

[PamOKW]

I'm not doubting how you came up with the number. I just went beserk and actually looked up each day, what the increase was, and then went through and calculated out each day of the year. 26% and 31% as an average increase are pretty close. It's just using the average is a little misleading when assessing the damage -- every weekday in January and September increased 15 points or 58%; Fri-Sa went up 29 points per day or 64%. Dec. 20-23 went up 100% weekdays or 30 points and the Fri-Sat up 104% from 53 to 108 points.

The decreases are 2-4 points per night......for Lagoon View.

 

[morphi]

In theory, the points required for the DC program should only change when there is a difference between the inflation of room rates between a DVC resort (say OKW) and a DC resort (say GF). If GF rates increase while the DVC cash rates remain the same, we should expect the points required to stay at GF to increase. However, I think it's pretty unrealistic to believe that the variance between the GF and OKW inflation rates was so high during 2001 that DVC needed to jack-up the DC point charges as high as they did. However, I think the problem lies with DVC's negotiations with DC resorts.

GF set their rack rates for 2001 and then DVC negotiated a certain FIXED discount with them (say the discount was 10% off of rack rates). They then set-up the 2001 DC point charts based on how much cash they could get for renting out vacant DVC villas to the public.

I think the problem came during 2001 when the economy softened and Disney had to offer deep discounts to the public to try to fill rooms. DVC had to do the same thing to try to rent DVC villas to the public for cash. So GF and OKW cash prices both declined and probably experienced somewhat similiar levels of deflation. So why did the 2002 DC points increase if the inflation (or deflation in this case) rates between the DVC and DC resorts were roughly similar?

The answer is that the cash that DVC had to pay to GF DID NOT DECREASE along with the cash rates GF was charging the general public because they had a locked-in contractual rate. So DVC was paying high rates to GF (that did not reflect the realities of the soft economy) while their only source of cash (renting vacant DVC rooms for cash to the public) had to face the cold hard free-market by reducing income. This led to a loss for 2001 that they have to make-up for in 2002 by charging more points for the DC program.

It seems that in order to avoid this problem in the future, DVC should flex its negotiating muscle with the DC resorts. I guarantee you that DVC is the largest single source of customers for the DC resorts. They need to flex their muscles. They should not lock-in a certain fixed discount from the rack-rate for the year. Instead, the cash that DVC pays the DC resorts should be based on the average cash rate that each resort is getting for their rooms during that stay.

We should all write or call our DVC contacts and let them know we want DVC to negotiate more flexible terms with the DC resorts in order to avoid these wild fluctuations.

 

[Dean]

Originally posted by morphi
It seems that in order to avoid this problem in the future, DVC should flex its negotiating muscle with the DC resorts.

Or with Universal resorts, LOL.

 

[morphi]

OK, PamOKW made me doubt my approach so I took the plunge and actually calculated how many points (weekday-by-weekday, weekend day by weekend day) was required to stay in a GF Lagoon View room in 2001 vs. 2002. I actually mapped out the 365 days in each year and keyed in the number of points required based on the season and the day of week. This approach does not rely on any averaging or simplifying assumptions. What I found lines up VERY closely with what I reported on the original post of this thread.

To stay in a GF Lagoon View room for all of 2001 would require 16,150 points. (My estimate based on one simplifying assumption was originally 16,158.14.) To stay in that same room for all of 2002 would require 20,388 points. (My original estimate was 20,377.43.) So the increase for 2002 for this type of room for the whole year is (20,388 - 16,150) / 16,150 = 26.24%. (My original estimate was 26.11%.)

I'm not going to do this for the rest of the room types since it is a lot of work and my original approach was VERY close.

I'm not sure why PamOKW's numbers and mine are a little different. It seems she did it by day as well.

 

[Dean]

Remember that in theory you are comparing a run of the house to an automatic lower room type. Also, it really only matters what the numbers are for when you want to go, not the overall price. And since the program was already overpriced, any increase seems exponential. Members still have a choice, give away a bunch of points or stay at a DVC resort.

 

[morphi]

The above analysis was for a Lagoon room which is what I thought was the typical room given to DVC members who stayed at GF in 2001. The lesser rooms (garden views) had smaller increases than the lagoon view (6.87% vs. 26.11%). I didn't do the analysis for the concierge rooms because I heard that DVC members could not use points to stay in those rooms in 2001. So isn't using the Lagoon Room rates for 2002 a fair comparison to the run-of-the-house 2001 rates?

 

[Dean]

True, was more pointing out that the numbers varied with the view but since we don't know what room is usually given to DVC members, it's hard to compare exactly.

 

[PamOKW]

I agree that the Lagoon View is the room most comparable to what DVC members have gotten in the past.

When you did the day-by-day comparison did you adjust for the slight changes in DVC seasons by date? It really doesn't matter....we don't need to get so specific. Bottom-line, there are major increases in the program unlike anything in the history of DVC.

The idea that the rate DVC rented a room decreased (as did all WDW resort rooms) in 2001 but DVC still paid an agreed to higher rate to Disney for their rooms makes sense. At first....

If that is true, then why didn't the Concierge Collection change drastically? There are some fluctuations and changes of seasons, views, etc. but there are no 30%, 40%, 100% jumps. In some cases, the rates remain exactly the same.

Why is DVC able to keep a relative status quo with outside vendors but has tremendous increases within their own family of companies? I'm beginning to feel less like the black sheep I mentioned and more like a pigeon....