Why do you own DVC if you hate Disney?

[KAT4DISNEY]

I actually have an unpopular opinion on this. I hope they go back to their plans of raising the points especially on studios. I think they were legally in the right, and we just had a bunch of whiners throw a tantrum over it. I personally wish Disney would go back to a minimum buy in of at least 220 points. We have too many people buying small contracts with the intention of only staying in studios. I don’t believe that was ever the purpose of DVC. It really messes inventory up, especially in resorts that only have lock-offs. Sorry if this upsets people, but that is just my opinion.

Raising points on the studios wasn't exactly the problem although it was one issue discussed based on what had always been implied by DVC of reallocating within units. The big problem was that they increased the overall points at the resorts via the lock-off premiums. A big benefit for DVC only.

 

[zavandor]

I actually have an unpopular opinion on this. I hope they go back to their plans of raising the points especially on studios. I think they were legally in the right, and we just had a bunch of whiners throw a tantrum over it. I personally wish Disney would go back to a minimum buy in of at least 220 points. We have too many people buying small contracts with the intention of only staying in studios. I don’t believe that was ever the purpose of DVC. It really messes inventory up, especially in resorts that only have lock-offs. Sorry if this upsets people, but that is just my opinion.

Do you really see Disney rolling back a change that could earn them tens of millions per year just because 20 people complained?

 

[Ben E N]

I actually have an unpopular opinion on this. I hope they go back to their plans of raising the points especially on studios. I think they were legally in the right, and we just had a bunch of whiners throw a tantrum over it. I personally wish Disney would go back to a minimum buy in of at least 220 points. We have too many people buying small contracts with the intention of only staying in studios. I don’t believe that was ever the purpose of DVC. It really messes inventory up, especially in resorts that only have lock-offs. Sorry if this upsets people, but that is just my opinion.

You completely missed the point of those 'whiners'. We all agree that studios should go up, but raising the cost of one bedrooms made no sense based on the data we as members had available. It came across as a money grab, and a way to hurt members. The lockoff premium was a sneaky way to make it all work out in Disney's favor, and I am glad that people 'whined' enough to make Disney pull back and regroup for 2021.

 

[bumbershoot]

Why do you invest in that which you do not believe?

Your error is in thinking that other people are one dimensional.

Real people have many layers to them (Shrek taught is this lol). They can hold many thoughts and feelings at once.

They can think “this place is fun” and “this place used to be more fun” and “this place isn’t actually worth this much” and “purchasing DVC ten years ago was a decent decision” and “there is zero chance I would buy in now at the price it costs” and many many other varied thoughts beyond those.

Your error is in your perception of the thoughts and feelings of others. Open your mind to see the fullness of the truth of other people.

Stop looking at the "haters" as haters, start seeing us as pragmatists and you'll understand what we are saying a lot better.

Yep.

I personally wish Disney would go back to a minimum buy in of at least 220 points.

When was that? I bought in 2009 and it was 160.

 

[sethschroeder]

I don’t believe that was ever the purpose of DVC

Don't build studios and problem solved.

If you have studios a vast majority will want to stay in those.

 

[Bing Showei]

I actually have an unpopular opinion on this. I hope they go back to their plans of raising the points especially on studios. I think they were legally in the right, and we just had a bunch of whiners throw a tantrum over it. I personally wish Disney would go back to a minimum buy in of at least 220 points. We have too many people buying small contracts with the intention of only staying in studios. I don’t believe that was ever the purpose of DVC. It really messes inventory up, especially in resorts that only have lock-offs. Sorry if this upsets people, but that is just my opinion.

You’re probably not trolling, so if you don’t mind clarifying your opinion a little more maybe those who you disagree with can understand your position better.

What do you see in what Disney did, raising the points on the studios and 1-bedrooms (lock-off premium), achieving?

What precisely do you think people were whining and throwing tantrums over, and why do you think Disney reversed course?

If small contracts are effecting inventory, who do you blame for that, what do you feel raising the minimum buy-in would achieve, and why do you think Disney hasn’t done this?

I’m honestly wondering because, as you mentioned, this isn’t a common opinion and I’m curious how two members (you and I) who could be effected the same way by the same policy could have such different views on it.

 

[Mikamarii]

This topic comes up fairly regularly with different areas of Disney. People like to say: it used to be better. Disney has always been the same. It faces the same criticism it has always faced. My generation has it easier than my parents; my parents generation had it easier than my grandparents; my grandparents generation had it easier than my great grandparents; and so on. Rather than rehash a previous post I’ll copy a link to one I did in another thread that includes links to a few news articles showing that “it used to be better” isn’t really a thing. My response is in post 85

https://www.disboards.com/threads/d...ort-parking-fees.3755299/page-5#post-60786050
I don’t care that people want to complain. An adversarial process is good. If we just rolled over for everything then we’re taken advantage of. You can love something and want to make it better. Some people like to make change for the better some people just like to complain. It’s the world we live in.

Business is always a battle. I hate the term ‘money grab’ because most of the time it’s used as a ‘cheap’ explanation by an angry consumer. Every business wants to make money. The line every business has to walk is I need my consumer happy and I need to make money. Even when they give something away for free it’s to make money.

We love to live In a world of absolutes. If you criticize X then You must hate X. From my time on these boards I have found that yes, there are some who seem to complain just to complain but; for the most part, it’s people wanting to make the product better.

 

[RescueRanger]

You’re probably not trolling, so if you don’t mind clarifying your opinion a little more maybe those who you disagree with can understand your position better.

What do you see in what Disney did, raising the points on the studios and 1-bedrooms (lock-off premium), achieving?

What precisely do you think people were whining and throwing tantrums over, and why do you think Disney reversed course?

If small contracts are effecting inventory, who do you blame for that, what do you feel raising the minimum buy-in would achieve, and why do you think Disney hasn’t done this?

I’m honestly wondering because, as you mentioned, this isn’t a common opinion and I’m curious how two members (you and I) who could be effected the same way by the same policy could have such different views on it.

LOL! Trolling? Nope, not me. I have been on these boards for almost 20 years. I don’t have time to troll. First, let me say that I believe Disney has created these problems. Why? Greed, plain and simple. However, that doesn’t change the fact that there is a problem. When you need a 2 BR and you are still in your home resort priority, and you can’t get one because all of the studio sides are booked up? There is a major problem. The only way to fix that is to increase the points on studios drastically. I believe that Disney raising the points on 1 BR was also greed. My guess is they will revisit reallocation again but this time it will only be on studios. I don’t see Disney raising the point minimum buy in also because of greed. The points cost so much now that it would price many people out, and well Disney wants to sell as much as they can.

 

[Bing Showei]

LOL! Trolling? Nope, not me. I have been on these boards for almost 20 years. I don’t have time to troll. First, let me say that I believe Disney has created these problems. Why? Greed, plain and simple. However, that doesn’t change the fact that there is a problem. When you need a 2 BR and you are still in your home resort priority, and you can’t get one because all of the studio sides are booked up? There is a major problem. The only way to fix that is to increase the points on studios drastically. I believe that Disney raising the points on 1 BR was also greed. My guess is they will revisit reallocation again but this time it will only be on studios. I don’t see Disney raising the point minimum buy in also because of greed. The points cost so much now that it would price many people out, and well Disney wants to sell as much as they can.

I’m not sure you and I actually disagree on much, to be honest. Your statement above sums up perfectly the position of the whiners that you mentioned previously.

I think where we may differ is the raising the point cost of 1BRs as a portion of a lockoff. Having not stated your position one way or the other on the lockoff premium, I’m not sure you feel that is a justifiable means to making 2BRs more available.

Ignoring the legality of such a move, would you be ok if the point requirements for all rooms were increased, across the board, by 50%? Every room would cost 50% more, no offsets. I ask because many of us saw the retracted charts as a small step, if left unchallenged, as a philosophical step in that direction, with respect to management policy.

The retracted charts increased the lockoff premium and effectively lowered the buying power of the entire membership wholesale. There was no offset for the points required to book out a resort. What you and I bought as a percentage of the resort was effectively diluted with our holding essentially going straight into Disney’s pocket.

I agree there is a booking issue in the system for a large part of the year. I also agree that management has a fiduciary responsibility to address that issue. I’m just not convinced that reducing the membership buying power to do so is the best solution for the owners.

ETA: including “not” in my last sentence to make sense.

 

[Ben E N]

LOL! Trolling? Nope, not me. I have been on these boards for almost 20 years. I don’t have time to troll. First, let me say that I believe Disney has created these problems. Why? Greed, plain and simple. However, that doesn’t change the fact that there is a problem. When you need a 2 BR and you are still in your home resort priority, and you can’t get one because all of the studio sides are booked up? There is a major problem. The only way to fix that is to increase the points on studios drastically. I believe that Disney raising the points on 1 BR was also greed. My guess is they will revisit reallocation again but this time it will only be on studios. I don’t see Disney raising the point minimum buy in also because of greed. The points cost so much now that it would price many people out, and well Disney wants to sell as much as they can.

The only way for Disney to raise points somewhere is to lower it elsewhere. It looked like they were trying to game that system by only lowering 2 bedrooms, which a large number of would be unavailable once the studios that were part of the lock off got booked. This would then force people to essentially throw away points that they paid for.
If you look at Skier Pete's data on 1 bedroom and studio availability, you will see that the fall books up very quickly compared to other times of the year, and that 1 bedrooms book up much, much slower than studios. Unless that data is missing something big, it would imply that a point reallocation should involve shifting costs from 1 bedrooms and to studios, and moving costs away from other seasons and into the fall. Sure, there would be people who would be unhappy if that happened, but at least those changes would be reasonable and at least appear to be made in the interest of the DVC population.
It's sort of like raising park ticket prices. Many people disliked it, but others actually preferred it because it helped reduce overall attendance 3% this year. Less people equals shorter lines. A move like that is at least somewhat understandable. The parking fees at hotels, however, benefits no one, which is why there was so much complaining about it.
The parks are making the highest percentage of profit compared to their cost of all Disney's assets (at least in 2018, movies may take the win in 2019). They don't need to keep squeezing us for every penny to remain very profitable.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

LOL! Trolling? Nope, not me. I have been on these boards for almost 20 years. I don’t have time to troll. First, let me say that I believe Disney has created these problems. Why? Greed, plain and simple. However, that doesn’t change the fact that there is a problem. When you need a 2 BR and you are still in your home resort priority, and you can’t get one because all of the studio sides are booked up? There is a major problem. The only way to fix that is to increase the points on studios drastically. I believe that Disney raising the points on 1 BR was also greed. My guess is they will revisit reallocation again but this time it will only be on studios. I don’t see Disney raising the point minimum buy in also because of greed. The points cost so much now that it would price many people out, and well Disney wants to sell as much as they can.

The only location with that exact issue is BWV and yes, that is tough at times. At other times it isn't. Raising studio points is not the only way to fix it though and I think that unless you made studios there almost the cost of 1BR's or equal to 1BRs the studios would still book up very quickly during the busy DVC times. What would be nice is if they were able to or did hold a certain percentage of 2BR's towards that category vs letting them go in the studio category until gone. It might be said it violates the first come booking aspect but point basis for those lock-offs were on 2BRs so I think there's an argument to be made to hold them as 2BR's too. At some point they could remove that hold (when, I don't know but I'd put it in the home priority period so owners there then had the first crack at studios).

It's good they never built another resort with the set up of 2BR's only being lock-offs.

 

[robinb]

When you need a 2 BR and you are still in your home resort priority, and you can’t get one because all of the studio sides are booked up? There is a major problem. The only way to fix that is to increase the points on studios drastically.

I don't understand why your need for a 2BR supersedes my need for a studio. Why increase my price so you can get your unit easier? Or, in other words, why should I have to pay more so you have an easier time booking a 2BR? If you want a 2BR in a resort with only lock-offs you'll have to make your plans as early as the studio people do.

 

[zavandor]

LOL! Trolling? Nope, not me. I have been on these boards for almost 20 years. I don’t have time to troll. First, let me say that I believe Disney has created these problems. Why? Greed, plain and simple. However, that doesn’t change the fact that there is a problem. When you need a 2 BR and you are still in your home resort priority, and you can’t get one because all of the studio sides are booked up? There is a major problem. The only way to fix that is to increase the points on studios drastically. I believe that Disney raising the points on 1 BR was also greed. My guess is they will revisit reallocation again but this time it will only be on studios. I don’t see Disney raising the point minimum buy in also because of greed. The points cost so much now that it would price many people out, and well Disney wants to sell as much as they can.

I agree they'll probably try to increase the cost of studios, but there is a but.
With the rolled back 2020 points charts they showed the membership they wanted to address the studio booking situation. They recognized there is a problem. If they do this with the 2021 charts they'll confirm they have this view.
And yet, for the Riviera point charts, where they could have addressed the situation from the beginning, studios still cost half the points of 1BR. If they reallocate studios at Riviera, owners of that resort who bought for studios could easily sue DVD for scamming them into thinking the cost of studios would remain the same proportion related to 1BR.
They could get away with it like they got away with the THV first reallocation or the BLT point chart that was published shortly before the weekends reallocation. However in this case it's different because there is proof that DVC had already identified the problem months before the Riviera declaration.

 

[Ben E N]

I agree they'll probably try to increase the cost of studios, but there is a but.
With the rolled back 2020 points charts they showed the membership they wanted to address the studio booking situation. They recognized there is a problem. If they do this with the 2021 charts they'll confirm they have this view.
And yet, for the Riviera point charts, where they could have addressed the situation from the beginning, studios still cost half the points of 1BR. If they reallocate studios at Riviera, owners of that resort who bought for studios could easily sue DVD for scamming them into thinking the cost of studios would remain the same proportion related to 1BR.
They could get away with it like they got away with the THV first reallocation or the BLT point chart that was published shortly before the weekends reallocation. However in this case it's different because there is proof that DVC had already identified the problem months before the Riviera declaration.

It would take a well-coordinated and privately funded class-action lawsuit, though. And what would be there hopeful end game? Keeping studios at their current cost, which will most likely cause them to book up too quickly for people's liking.

 

[zavandor]

It would take a well-coordinated and privately funded class-action lawsuit, though. And what would be there hopeful end game? Keeping studios at their current cost, which will most likely cause them to book up too quickly for people's liking.

Imagine someone having buyer remorse, they might force Disney to take back the contract for the amount of money they paid, just threatening legal action.
Not saying I would do it of that it will happen, however it's something they should be thinking now while they plan the next reallocation.

 

[RAD]

Let me start by saying we used to love Disney. We purchased DVC in 1999 and have done 3 add ons over the years. But where we are now is we still love Disney, just not WDW. We are platinum Castaway Club members and that’s where we go for our Disney fix since they still know how to do Disney. Sorry but IMHO WDW is just a pain in the rear for a vacation, just too much planning from Fast Pass + to what parks you need to be in on what day to see what parade or event and will that match up with restaurants you what reservations for. Plus with the ever increasing price of tickets and the recent change to yield based pricing it’s just getting harder and harder to justify. So why do we still have DVC, frankly we rent the points out and use that to pay for the annual maintenance fee and whatever is left over on other vacations. We will still bite the bullet and go to WDW every now and then with the grandkids and extended family but that’s it.

 

[DougEMG]

I actually have an unpopular opinion on this. I hope they go back to their plans of raising the points especially on studios. I think they were legally in the right, and we just had a bunch of whiners throw a tantrum over it. I personally wish Disney would go back to a minimum buy in of at least 220 points. We have too many people buying small contracts with the intention of only staying in studios. I don’t believe that was ever the purpose of DVC. It really messes inventory up, especially in resorts that only have lock-offs. Sorry if this upsets people, but that is just my opinion.

I disagree. I don't think Disney could legally increase the points like they planned. A 'bunch of whiners' isn't going to make Disney management change what they do. I personally think Disney will push the bounds of the contract as much as possible till someone sues them.

 

[DougEMG]

In the current environment I would not buy DVC. Their desire to follow industry standards lumps them in with what I consider are shady businesses. So I would never buy something from them now.

The ONLY reason to own DVC is to save money. It still saves me money over paying cash, so Currently it is still better for me to keep my ownership. If that ever changes I will sell in a heart beat.

 

[TiggerBouncy]

Well, I did sell. In truth, the largest reason was a job loss, but if Disney didn’t “mess up” a lot of things I would have found a way to keep my DVC.
Getting rid of Pleasure Island and the Adventurers Club is sort of what started the fall for me. There are also things like turning the Pirates of the Caribbean into the “Jack Sparrow” ride. Not a big deal to some, but to me it demonstrates abandoning their core. I can continue with many examples. Frozen replacing the Norway ride also comes to mind. Cheaping out on the Poly’s lobby refurb, reducing the 360° holiday fireworks, no longer adhering to site-lines, lack of food variety in the signatures, lack of merchandise variety in the shops, poor housekeeping, major reduction in CM tradition training..... well, I could go on for an hour.

Point is, at one time we were the biggest Disney fans on the planet.
We did not leave Disney.... Disney left us.

Fair enough and I completely respect that. Disney is not for all people and Modern Disney is definitely different. I have no qualm. I was curious about the people who don't sell but feel as you do. Cheers!

 

[crisi]

Fair enough and I completely respect that. Disney is not for all people and Modern Disney is definitely different. I have no qualm. I was curious about the people who don't sell but feel as you do. Cheers!

We only have enough points for our own use every other year...and this year is HH. Although Disney isn't as great as it once was (and in other ways its better....food went from miserable even at signatures to we had some very good signature meals last trip), its still a fine every few years vacation for us....with HHI and Aulani we are looking at every four for Disney at the most. (we love HHI and like it in late Winter, when we are sick of shoveling and when you can get a room at seven months pretty easily) because HHI really isn't a February vacation spot.

But on top of that, I got my points for $63 a point. I can rent them out and, while that isn't a great investment for someone buying today - I've made my ROI on my points - that cost is good and sunk AND recouped. I can do ok renting out points I don't want to use (I'd do better selling them, I just did the math, but using them once in a while plus renting them when we don't use them makes the most financial sense. When we - or our adult children - no longer want WDW, HHI, or Aulani every five years or so, then we are getting into "it makes sense to sell."