Please help!!!!!

[april2011bride]

DH and I keep going back an forth with to buy direct or a resale. It seems you get a better value with resale, but is there things you can't do with resale that you can do buying direct? Like using points on a cruise? Any info would help a lot! Thanks!

 

[bwvBound]

From the DVC Member's Website:

New Policy Announced for Re-sale Purchases

Disney Vacation Club® has announced a new policy that limits access to certain Member Getaways exchanges for Ownership Interests purchased on the secondary market (also known as the re-sale market).
Under the new policy, Members who purchase from anyone other than Disney Vacation Development, Inc., on or after March 21, 2011, will not be eligible to use those Vacation Points to make reservations within the Concierge Collection, the Disney Collection or the Adventurer Collection. Those Vacation Points will instead be valid only for reservations at Disney Vacation Club resorts, as well as for RCI® exchanges, Club Cordial and Club Intrawest.
The affected collections are special Member benefits programs offered by Disney Vacation Development, Inc., and are not part of Members' Ownership Interests. That said, Members who purchased on the secondary market prior to March 21, 2011, may use those Vacation Points for all Member Getaways.
Note that the policy doesn't impact banking, borrowing or transferring Vacation Points. All Members will continue to have the ability make such transactions, regardless of where they purchased their Ownership Interests. Complete rules about these transactions are available in the Home Resort Rules and Regulations section of this website.

 

[ELMC]

DH and I keep going back an forth with to buy direct or a resale. It seems you get a better value with resale, but is there things you can't do with resale that you can do buying direct? Like using points on a cruise? Any info would help a lot! Thanks!

Ok, let's see how well I've been paying attention to some of the more veteran posters on here.

Those benefits, such as Disney Cruise Line, Adventures by Disney, etc. are not guaranteed, even with a direct purchase. So if you buy direct with the intent to choose those options, just know that those options can be taken away in the future. Will it happen? Probably not. But there's always a chance.

Second, using your points for anything other than staying at DVC resorts is often considered to be a poor financial use of points. You can confirm this for yourself by pricing a cruise by paying cash and comparing how many points it would take for the same cruise. Then multiply the points by 10 (points are typically valued at $10 each because they easily rent for that amount). You'll find that it costs way more by using points than it does by paying cash.

Also keep in mind that when you buy direct, you will see an IMMEDIATE depreciation of your "investment" by as much as 50%. Your $130 direct AKV points will fetch you about $60 if you had to sell them tomorrow. If you're comfortable buying direct even given these considerations, then do so. But if any one of these details leaves you feeling hesitant, resale is probably the way to go.

My advice? Read a lot more of the threads on here until you are sure of what you want to do. Good luck!

 

[Deb & Bill]

The only thing you are guaranteed is staying at DVC resorts. And even that could change if DVC decided to sell off a resort.

 

[WiggleWorm]

We did a resale (it was before Mar. 2011 though) and for us it was definitely the way to go. We did a lot of research beforehand, on these boards as well as talking to people who had DVC as well as both a Disney Rep and a Timeshare Store Rep. We also ran some numbers comparing how many trips we would need to make before we would start saving money. Resale won out for us in all areas.

 

[Mom B]

In our situation, mostly by chance, we ended up going both ways. We bought our first contract resale (after taking the DVC tour, deciding not to buy at the time, and then researching for a couple of years), 100 pts at VB. Then we added on direct during a trip "home"...30 pts at AKV...then a 50 pt OKW resale...then 140 pts AKV add on resale. (Oh, and somewhere along the way we bought, and later sold, a small OKW resale contract that was in a different use year...we found that it wasn't very compatible to mix use years.)

When we decided this year to book the 2013 Member Cruise, I called MS and asked if we were eligible (because most of our points are resale, I wasn't sure if it would work). I was told that as long as we have ONE contract through direct purchase, we qualify to book the Member Cruise. As it happened, we had planned to book the cruise using cash anyway, so I didn't have to juggle points and figure out which contract(s) to use and so on. Now I don't know if that would apply to other 'benefits' of buying direct, and as with everything else, that could change even so. You probably want to tread very carefully on this one and do your research, but so far, having a mixture of direct purchase and resale points seem to be working for us.

 

[april2011bride]

Thank you so much for all the input! You guys are great! Mom B.... What you did is what we were thinking we would end up doing! Thanks for sharing!

 

[chalee94]

Thank you so much for all the input! You guys are great! Mom B.... What you did is what we were thinking we would end up doing!

don't misunderstand, though.

the VB pts can never be used to book onsite at wdw at 11 months out, no matter how many other resorts you buy into. if you buy 100 VB pts, then 30 AKV pts and then 50 OKW pts - and then want to book AKV at 11 months out, you only have access to the 30 AKV pts. you can use pts from the other contracts at AKV only at the 7 month window if anything is still available.

(now you can bank and borrow with that AKV contract to use 30 banked AKV pts + 30 current AKV pts + 30 borrowed AKV pts = a maximum of 90 AKV pts every third year.)

but i'll just add that most of us would not recommend starting with an offsite resort like VB or HHI if you intend to use the pts at wdw. if you can book 10-11 months out, you are better off buying at the resort you prefer (or at least, don't mind staying at). some people do report routinely getting what they want at 7 months out...others are disappointed and frustrated...a lot depends on how much risk you want to take and how lucky you are.

 

[april2011bride]

Ok thank you. We are looking to buy at AKL... We bid on one! Fingers crossed it all works out!

 

[Mtnman44]

Buying direct is fast and easy and yes, it was even fun and "magical" for us. At the time, we paid about $6 to $7 per point more than what was the going rate for the same thing on the resale market.

Now, buying Direct can cost you anywhere from $40 to $80 more per point than an equivilant resale contract. Disney eliminated some trading options for non-direct owners. However, those options were never a good deal financially and certainly not worth paying extra for now.

If you are wealthy and don't really need to worry about price, then do whatever is most convienient for you. (If you are that wealthy, why use DVC at all?) However, if you need to get the most value out of your $, definately buy RESALE.