Try before you buy - The "good old days" of purchasing DVC

1. We stayed at the Poly with our very young children in 1991. In 1992 we received an offer to stay in a 2BR at DVC (now called OKW) for 3 nights for less than $100 total for the 3 nights if we took a tour/attended a sales presentation. After that presentation, we told our guide we loved the concept, but did not like the location so we were not going to buy. Over the next 6 years We stayed offsite once and onsite several times, usually at the "Disney Village Resort". (Thanks @DVC Mike for your history of DVC thread that reminded me of that resort name.)

2. In 1998 we were taking the boat from Epcot to MGM and the captain announced "to the left, is the new DVC BWV's". I still had our guides card from our 1992 visit to OKW, and when we got home, I called him, and told him we liked the location of BWV and would be very interested in purchasing there. I then asked if in 1999 we could stay at BWV on a low cost trial basis if we attended a sales presentation, similar to what had been offered at OKW 6 years earlier. He told me that type of promotion was not being offered, but if we paid cash and stayed at BWV, took a tour, and decided to purchase, the cost of our cash stay would be applied to our purchase. We were fairly certain we were going to purchase, so in 1999 we booked a week in a 2BR at BWV, which cost about $2,500, took the tour, and ended up purchasing 150 BWV points at about $60 per point. Since DVC applied our $2,500 to the $9,000 purchase price it was a no brainer to purchase for $6,500 additional.

Any one else with similar memories?

Note: When DVC applied our $2,500 spent in 1999 toward our purchase, DVC may have taken away our 1999 use year points. I do not remember the exact details, but regardless we thought it was a great value.

DVC probably could not offer #1 above today, but #2 seems like a good sales strategy that DVC should consider offering again.
Your thoughts?

disneynutz said:

Other "discounts" were offered along the way. When we bought BLT we received a 7 night cruise for the family on DCL.

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Did you get the current year's points as well or was the cruise "in lieu" of them?

ScubaCat said:

Did you get the current year's points as well or was the cruise "in lieu" of them?

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I don't remember and we choose our UY so we may or may not get current UY points depending on when we purchased.

Bill

We bought in 1997 and were able to put the money we paid for our nine night stay at the Polynesian towards our down payment. I think we also sold back out first points. We were there in Nov, got a Sept UY and didn't go back using DVC until Dec 1998 in an OKW two bedroom. We paid about $50 a point.

In 1999 we went to DVC HH and stayed in a studio for 99.00 a night for 4 nights in February and were not required to go through a sales presentation. They gave us 4 tickets to take the Dolphin Discovery Boat Tour if we went through the presentation. We did without the intent of buying a bad investment like a "Timeshare". The no pressure presentation impressed us and we bought on our last day. We did get "free" ice-cream.

They had similar offers for the next couple of years until the resort sold out. We had friends and family take advantage of the low rates even though none of them bought. They just go with us now.

The funny thing was that the first day at HH in Feb. was so cold and windy that we were going to packed up the car and head South to Orlando. But the next couple of days it was sunny and in the high 60's so the kids were able to swim in the heated pools. If we left we may never have bought at our favorite resort.

At $168pp, there's very few incentives that would prompt me to buy direct.

50 poly points is $8400. Yikes!!

Only yesterday, a handful of years ago, the direct points were $100-120.

ScubaCat said:

Did you get the current year's points as well or was the cruise "in lieu" of them?

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Those offers tended to be choosing between something like a free cruise, free developers points or cash discounts. You still always got current points.

suebeelin said:

At $168pp, there's very few incentives that would prompt me to buy direct.
50 poly points is $8400. Yikes

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However, if someone stayed at the Poly for $2,000 cash, if DVC let them apply that amount toward their purchase, that might be enough incentive to buy.

dismedvc said:

However, if someone stayed at the Poly for $2,000 cash, if DVC let them apply that amount toward their purchase, that might be enough incentive to buy.

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There's little or nothing from DVC signals that they feel they need to do anything to encourage faster sales at PVB. But yes, what you suggest likely would. As would just giving some discounts at PVB.

What convinced me when deciding on whether to purchase was the free park tickets offer available back in the 1990's. If I am remembering correctly, it was two free passes for each bedroom for the number of nights of the stay and up through the year 2000 points. So a studo and 1 bedroom stay came with two free tickets, a two bedroom 4 tickets .... We booked a lot of studios those early years to maximize the number of tickets!

DW and I knew as soon as we heard of DVC that we would buy in.
We were staying onsite at DL-AB (now PO-RS), took the tour, and DVC offered to use some of our monies from our onsite stay as our down payment.
We had previously been burnt by a timeshare sales pitch, so as an added requirement; we booked within the cancellation period a weekend stay to ensure it was everything we had been told it was. We were very happy that DVC turned out to be just as we were told.
As PP mentioned, we loved the free tickets.

disneynutz said:

I don't remember and we choose our UY so we may or may not get current UY points depending on when we purchased.

Bill

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http://dvcnews.com/index.php/dvc-pr...0/794-free-cruise-with-dvc-purchase-or-add-on

"a referral from an existing Disney Vacation Club member is required in order to obtain this special cruise promotion."


We didn't do that; we had developer's points that had to be used by October-something of that year. (looks like we started the loan (yes, loan) process in April 2009) I remember the cruise offer being out there, but I don't think it was in effect by the time we bought in. Even if it had been in effect, we weren't in the cruising mode at that time, and especially not with DCL.