7 Day Disney Cruise

[GATORBOY]

Hi All, Am new to the club and was wondering, is it better to pay for cruise with points or sell points and use cash? Any info would be great, Thanks!

 

[TnRobin]

You have hit on a $25,000 question. Your answer to this will depend on who answers.

Mush of the debate centers around how you value your points. I usually compare my points for what I paid for them which is aournd $5.50 per year. Others will value their points on what the current market value is. That is somewhere around $10 a year.

When I look at whether an exchange is worth it, I look at the points I have to give up and what it cost me. This makes the cruise aj fair trade.

Others look at what they could rent their points for and what the cash price of a cruise is for. In this instance, most times the cash price wins.

I didn't buy DVC to rent it out. It is just a big hassel to rent enough points out to pay for a cruise. (IMHO) Plus I am paranoid about the possible liabilities of renting on that scale. But what is right for me is not right for others.

Finally I get more than a $10 per point value by staying at a DVC resort. So to me It is a better deal to pay cash for a cruise and bank the points to the next year.

 

[Cruise04]

We kind of had a similar dilemma when we were getting ready to book our cruise. We had points but by borrowing and banking we were just short some points for our 3rd person. So dh sat down and figured what the cost would be to purchase X amount of points and what the cost was to pay cash for the person. We talked and my suggestion to him was logical - why pay X amount of money for the 3rd person for a one time shot when we can pay that plus a bit more for X amount of points that we can use for the next X amount of years.

Now that worked for us because we don't go every year. So you also have to look at that. If you go every year, are you going to have points left over to use the following year for a trip or will be upset because you used your points for the cruise and thus won't have the points and have to pay for a room. That would be a similar thing if you rented out your points. If you rent out points and don't have enough for another trip - is that going to disappoint you later or will you put aside some of that money to pay for your room?????

If it were me, I'd use the points. But I can sure see Robin's side of it as to the comparison. You also run the risk of not being able to rent out enough points to pay for your cruise, then what happens???

 

[Luvdisney]

We just did the same thing. I looked at booking using points and what the same cruise would have cost paying cash. I went though All seasons travel for the dates I wanted it was better to rent the points and then pay cash. The earlier you can book with cash the cheaper it is. In fact If I banked and borrowed my points I wouldn't have had enoogh to go on the cruise. I would have had to pay points for 3 people and then would have paid cash for the 4th. But renting my points I was able to pay for the entire cruise and still had some points left over.