Points or Cash

[klh]

What is the best and cheapest way to book the cruise. They say it is better to sell the points and pay cash for the cruise. What do you think, Some one also mentioned to book through Cosco travel. I need help.

Thank you

 

[DVCconvert]

personally, I think if you want a cat 5+ the best deal is simply to pay cash for it.

 

[ljm]

While I am not a DVC member, I do remember while considering DVC, one of the things I looked at was the cost of using points for a cruise. It seemed quite a bit more expensive to use the points than just to pay for it outright. You may want to price it out with Costco (great prices!), and compare the value for yourself.

 

[Muushka]

We are DVC members and cruised last year. We rented out some points and added some to it and saved a bundle.

If you read some of the posts of people who booked their cruise on points and had to pay the $75 fee and then had to cancel for one reason or another. They have a heck of a time getting rid of those points once they have been allocated to a cruise. Their value is a lot less than the going 10 to 12 a point most are getting. If I were cruising last minute and had a bunch of points to get rid of, then I would do it. But I would be afraid to book many months in advance, because you never know what can happen.
Oops, didn't mean to sound so scary .

 

[mgoble]

We are cruising in 2 weeks on points. I look at is this way: one of the biggest reason we bought DVC was the ease of use. Using our points may be more expensive but it is no hassle of renting or anything else. Just call MS and off you go.

 

[babsnabbs]

I agree with mgoble. We're cruising on points in April and while it may be a little more expensive I'm usually one who doesn't mind paying up for convenience. To a point, I guess. Why buy the points if you're not going to take advantage of all the flexibility?

 

[Muushka]

We do not have an unlimited supply of points and have to be careful about how we use them. If we had used all points for our cruise, it would have taken 474 points. Plus the $75 booking fee. And if we needed to cancel, well, you know the scenerio. We paid $2900 for the cruise. Because we took the cruise, we did not go to WDW that spring. We sold 104 points, got $1040 for them and added that towards the cruise expense.

Had we used our points, yes, it would have been convient, but it also would have wiped out 2 years worth. We go to WDW 1 to 2 times a year. We would have to pay cash for a room there. For us, not a sound financial decision.

 

[AOPI57]

We're doing our 3rd disney cruise July 2 2005. We have always done a combination of points and cash. For our 2005 cruise we paid cash for 2 in a cat 5 and cash for 1 in a cat 11. We used points for the other 2 in the cat 11. (we're a family of 5 so we always get 2 staterooms). This has always worked for us and we still have points to go to WDW the same year and HHI . Do whatever works for you and enjoy!

 

[MassDisLovers]

How do you "sell" points to get the cash for a cruise? It sounds intriguing!

 

[Muushka]

How do you "sell" points to get the cash for a cruise? It sounds intriguing!

I think a better term might be "rent".

 

[Skallywag]

We weighed up the options and decided to rent out some of our points and put towards the cost of the cruise. We now wish we had gone the other way and used points and booked the whole lot through member services just to get the excellent service we receive through them. We booked through travel agent and the service we are getting now leaves a lot to be desired and many questions unanswered.