PVB at 7 month

[ziravan]

Well the Poly owners I know bought into Poly intending bungalows. They are well off. I know way more people in a more common budget lifestyle, but none of them bought Poly DVC.



Sure. That's fine. But you're still looking only at low to middle incomes and asserting that nobody can afford more than a "sampling". If you stop considering only people in common income brackets and think about all the VPs, CEOs, CFOs, doctors, lawyers, athletes and people with a million dollars in the bank or who earn $200k/yr or more. These people are absolutely buying Poly -- in big chunks, and direct, because it's awesome, and the bungalow is the coolest room on all of Disney property. Really, chunking out the $75,000 to get a week in a bungalow every other year (500 points @ $170, spending 993 for a week in dream season) is less costly to these people than pulling $17,000 out of my budget to get 160 pts at BLT is to me.


That's not really going on any limb to make that guess. That's a normal thing at all DVC resorts and the same will happen at Poly. It costs 20%-40% cheaper to go at these times, so they fill up fast. That has nothing to do w bungalows diverting people to studios and is just regular fall DVC dynamics.

Think of it this way.

There are only 20 of these primo rooms on all of Disney property. They're akin to the BLT suites at the top of the world. Extremely rare. So based on your logic, you'd say that a BLT suite would never sell out because it's just too expensive and people would sooner get studios (because you're only considering people that stay in studios, and not people who can afford the suites). But let's look at 7-11 mo availability: Checking dates in Oct, right now, I can get a studio for a week... but every week the 3B suites are not available.

As of right now, I can get a Studio in BLT for any week except a handful of days in Sep, Oct, Nov.
For a suite, TPV is almost unavailable, and LV has scattered weeks available.

Suites are clearly selling out faster than studios because the suites are so rare, the studios are so plentiful, and there are lots of rich people out there who can afford BLT points and bought them, and booked these rooms because 7-monthers haven't even kicked in yet.

Now let's look inside of 7 months. So May-Jun-Jul of this year. The availability for Suites and Studios are almost an exact match on the charts. Mostly taken in May-Jun, and mostly available for Jul yet.

This suggests that the Suites and Studios are filling at the same rate. More people are booking studios cuz there's hundreds of them, but with only 14 suites, there's limited supply.

Timeshares are an upper middle class product, at best. Once you get to CEO/CFO level, they aren't buying timeshares; they're buying 2nd homes. Of COURSE there's a market for Bungalows; I've never argued otherwise. But a multimillionaire, if he's going to stay on site, is going to pay CRO and be done with it. And Disney will probably have Bungalow inventory available for CRO...

I've looked at the data on deed filings from Poly since it first went on sale. I own a Poly fixed week studio contract.

2 months for example:

9/2015 - 218 Poly deeds sold, 24 deeds for values of 250 pts or more. 12% of total.

11/2015 - 241 deeds, 23 with points of 250 or more. 10% of total.

At 250 points, you could bank/borrow to 750 and that would get you 4-5 nights every third year depending on season. In no case could that get you a full week. Cheapest full week is 841 points.

10-12% of Poly owners are buying enough points to do more than sample a bungalow night here or there. 25% of the points are being sold based on that occupancy.

Assume a wash between owners with more than 250 points not staying in bungalows and owners with less than 250 points sampling nights here and there.

That means half of the bungalow points sold will be used to book studios at or before the 7 month window.

Each Bungalow is priced 6X higher give or take than studios, and at most half of bungalows are booked by Poly owners. That means that, on any given Poly booking night, there'll be enough Poly owners with only enough Poly points to book studios to reserve 420 out of the 360 studio rooms available.

 

[ziravan]

There are a couple of people tracking PVB contracts sold which is where I think the appearance - maybe fact - that more are buying for studios than Bungalows is coming from. Yes, there are some obviously large contacts and a few Bungalow fixed weeks but it is not a 25% rate.

I think that DVC could essentially offset the underselling of the bungalows by sending a higher percentage over to CRO. It's a unique product that they may want to have available for cash reservations and if they rented out to pay for trades that would really be all that matters.

Yes, but that's my main point. Poly points leaving Poly are going to come back in via the Bungalows. Both points out to DVC and points at 7 months.

Why?

Poly will be overfilled at the 7 month window with owners booking studios. And not every owner will get one, especially in prime times.

And that will only get worse over the next 50 yrs.

 

[MrInfinity]

There are a couple of people tracking PVB contracts sold which is where I think the appearance - maybe fact - that more are buying for studios than Bungalows is coming from. Yes, there are some obviously large contacts and a few Bungalow fixed weeks but it is not a 25% rate.

I think that DVC could essentially offset the underselling of the bungalows by sending a higher percentage over to CRO. It's a unique product that they may want to have available for cash reservations and if they rented out to pay for trades that would really be all that matters.

It doesn't have to be a 25% rate. It only has to be around 4% of contracts sold in larger chunks and you're looking at Bungalow-stayers. That means for every 1 person that buys 300 points, 20 people buy 50 points. Which may be the distribution, I don't know. If you looked at that and saw 20x 50-pt contracts sold, and 1x 300-pt contract sold, you might conclude the studios are obviously in high demand. But there are 20x as many studios so it works.

And yeah fixed week... this is going to be huge for Bungalows. I believe people who can afford a week at the bungalows will not be messing around with points at all and will simply buy a fixed week. This drains a massive # of points from the pool and locks them in to Bungalow stays, and not only the Su-Th cheap nights, it sells a whole week.

 

[MrInfinity]

Timeshares are an upper middle class product, at best. Once you get to CEO/CFO level, they aren't buying timeshares; they're buying 2nd homes. Of COURSE there's a market for Bungalows; I've never argued otherwise. But a multimillionaire, if he's going to stay on site, is going to pay CRO and be done with it. And Disney will probably have Bungalow inventory available for CRO...

I've looked at the data on deed filings from Poly since it first went on sale. I own a Poly fixed week studio contract.

2 months for example:

9/2015 - 218 Poly deeds sold, 24 deeds for values of 250 pts or more. 12% of total.

11/2015 - 241 deeds, 23 with points of 250 or more. 10% of total.

At 250 points, you could bank/borrow to 750 and that would get you 4-5 nights every third year depending on season. In no case could that get you a full week. Cheapest full week is 841 points.

10-12% of Poly owners are buying enough points to do more than sample a bungalow night here or there. 25% of the points are being sold based on that occupancy.

Assume a wash between owners with more than 250 points not staying in bungalows and owners with less than 250 points sampling nights here and there.

That means half of the bungalow points sold will be used to book studios at or before the 7 month window.

Each Bungalow is priced 6X higher give or take than studios, and at most half of bungalows are booked by Poly owners. That means that, on any given Poly booking night, there'll be enough Poly owners with only enough Poly points to book studios to reserve 420 out of the 360 studio rooms available.

You're jumping from upper middle class to multi-millionaire and skipping the in between. What's upper-middle to you... $100k? A family at $100k cannot easily drop $75k on a bungalow contract. We agree on this. But what about $200k or $250k. Then, you are not a Bill Gates, but you have a LOT of discretionary money. You have everything in life that a six-figure family enjoys (car, home, can afford college for your kids, and anything else money can buy)... PLUS an extra $100k that keeps coming every year.

CEO/CFO level, they aren't buying timeshares; they're buying 2nd homes.

Why would you say this. Sure they are. They're buying both. If you're a CEO you have the discretionary funds to take any trip at any time. If you're a fan of skiing, you buy a 2nd home in Colorado. If you are a fan of Disney, you buy a week at the Bungalows. There are around 8M people in the US alone that are in the over $152k tax bracket. Every one of them can afford a fixed week bungalow.

If 10%-12% of Poly owners are buying enough to do more than sample bungalows, then you make my point because only 4% of rooms are bungalows. As already demonstrated by the equally unaffordable and absurdly expensive BLT suites filling up beyond 7 months, so too will the Bungalows when the Poly is sold.

I don't really have to go into it more since it sounds like you're sticking to your fundamental assumption that everyone buying Poly is "like you" and sees the Bungalows as unaffordable and a bad value. But they are actually easily affordable to higher income families, and they will always be coveted since the Poly Bungalow is the best room on property at the #1 tourist destination in the world. It will sell out.

So I'm curious, since you bought a fixed week studio... can you convert your fixed week out to points and do a bank-and-borrow bungalow stay with them? What equivalent point value do you get on your particular fixed week if you do this?

 

[_auroraborealis_]

I think this argument about bungalows vs. studios is fairly irrelevant to the OP's initial question.

OP wants to book a monorail resort, the Poly, for marathon weekend. Even independent of how Poly aligns for points vs. unit inventory, it is an easy call that booking marathon is an 11-month proposition, and that waiting until 7 months will lead to waitlists, uncertainty and etc.

The best solutions here are not challenging to come to:

1. Buy Poly, book at 11 months. It's the marathon weekend.
2. If they'll sell you a fixed week, buy it, as marathon is one of the handful of weeks that a fixed week potentially makes a huge amount of sense.

 

[ziravan]

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[ziravan]

I think this argument about bungalows vs. studios is fairly irrelevant to the OP's initial question.

OP wants to book a monorail resort, the Poly, for marathon weekend. Even independent of how Poly aligns for points vs. unit inventory, it is an easy call that booking marathon is an 11-month proposition, and that waiting until 7 months will lead to waitlists, uncertainty and etc.

The best solutions here are not challenging to come to:

1. Buy Poly, book at 11 months. It's the marathon weekend.
2. If they'll sell you a fixed week, buy it, as marathon is one of the handful of weeks that a fixed week potentially makes a huge amount of sense.

Great advice. I own a fixed week marathon weekend during F&W. I believe that with each passing year, the guarantee will become more useful.

 

[drusba]

I think this argument about bungalows vs. studios is fairly irrelevant to the OP's initial question.

The best solutions here are not challenging to come to:

1. Buy Poly, book at 11 months. It's the marathon weekend.
2. If they'll sell you a fixed week, buy it, as marathon is one of the handful of weeks that a fixed week potentially makes a huge amount of sense.

I am not sure a fixed week would work. Fixed weeks run Sun to Sun. The marathon is always on the Sunday the week before the MLK holiday, which is always the third Monday of January. Thus, the marathon weekend, Wed to Sun, can be as early Jan 3-7 and as late as Jan 9-13, meaning you would need two fixed weeks to assure covering it every year.