As we alluded to back in April, Disney Vacation Club has released revised 2022 Disney Vacation Club Points Charts as a result of member feedback and complaints.
As part of the release, Disney Vacation Club states:
“Disney Vacation Club Management, LLC is adjusting the 2022 Vacation Points Charts with the goal of balancing demand and improving availability for Members.
The adjustment includes the following modifications:
- September 20th–30th, moving from the second travel period to the first.
- Additional point reductions to the month of September, based on specific Resort demand patterns.
The adjustments only affect Disney Vacation Club Resorts at Walt Disney World Resort. They do not impact Disney’s Vero Beach Resort, Disney’s Hilton Head Island Resort, The Villas at Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa and Aulani, Disney Vacation Club Villas, Ko Olina, Hawai.“
Click on links below for a PDF of each resorts revised 2022 Points Chart:
Aulani, Disney Vacation Club Villas, Ko Olina, Hawai’i
Bay Lake Tower at Disney’s Contemporary Resort
Boulder Ridge Villas at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge
Copper Creek Villas & Cabins at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge
Disney’s Animal Kingdom Villas
Disney’s Hilton Head Island Resort
Disney’s Polynesian Villas & Bungalows
Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa
The Villas at Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa
The Villas at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa
If this sounds like deja vu, that’s because, in many ways, it is! In fact, this revision marks the second time in the past three years that DVC has issued revised charts after pushback and questions from members regarding the intent of the changes.
Previously we took a deep dive into what is going on and why Disney Vacation Club is revising points charts for the remainder of 2022!
Base Year and Breakage 101
In order to understand what and why this is occurring we must first explore several key concepts to Disney Vacation Club ownership and membership:
The first important concept to understand is that all point charts are created off of what can be referred to as a base year. This represents the total number of vacation points for a given resort mapped out over a calendar year. While small fluctuations can occur in the total number of points from year to year due to the placement of weekends and holidays, essentially, each year’s point charts must be comparable to this base year and not fluctuate far from these numbers.
Next, it is important to understand that any overage or fluctuation in these charts greater than the base year total reflects an overage of points in the system for a given resort. These excess points allow Disney Vacation Club to make larger changes in the number of points required to stay in a room for a given night and create an excess inventory and additional opportunities for DVC to capture more money via a process known as breakage.
Breakage Income is revenue generated by DVC through selling rooms for cash that are available within 60 days of check-in. 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.
What is wrong with the 2022 Points Charts?
To understand what is wrong with the 2022 Points Charts, we need to briefly look at the history of these charts over the past three years.
In 2020, the proposed Disney Vacation Club points charts attempted to increase the total number of points in a calendar year by reallocating how two-bedroom lock-off villas (the lock-off premium) were calculated into the points charts. We could go far down the rabbit hole here, but for simplicity, I’ll say that if you are interested in reading up on what exactly happened in 2020 that resulted in the points charts being reversed, head over to DISboards.com.
The year 2021 brought us the change of seven vacation seasons, as opposed to the historic five vacation seasons, claiming that this rebalancing would “encourage travel throughout the year with the goal of improving availability”. This was primarily met with a positive or neutral response from members, and no revisions were made.
The problem with the 2022 points charts comes back down to how Disney Vacation Club can create excess points within a calendar year and can be seen by exploring one specific holiday – Easter. As a result of the new seven vacation season system implemented in the 2021 points charts, Easter can fall into three possible travel periods. This causes what would perhaps be a cheaper time of year to have an inflated point cost without changing how the other seasons are calculated. As a result, the total number of points for the year is severely inflated, which, as we mentioned above, allows DVC to create excess inventory, make certain booking categories more expensive for members, and ultimately get more money through excess breakage.
I will end this explanation by saying that this is a very surface-level answer to what is going on. For more details, I would again encourage you to head over to DISboards and check out the thread on this issue.
We can scrutinize the issues discussed above in various ways ranging from the legality of certain point chart changes to whether Disney Vacation Club is acting in the best interest of its members. In the end, we leave those questions up to you to decide. DVC, however, has apparently heard the concerns of many, as seen by the release of these updated 2022 points charts for the remaining booking months available. The hope is that these charts will better balance the adjustments previously made and continue to allow members to stay at their home resort for the same number of points they have historically used.
Stay tuned to DVC Fan, the DVC Fan Facebook Group, and The DIS for more information as it becomes available!
Is there anywhere we can see the first 2022 point chart to compare the changes?