What to charge family?

[patsal]

When able to do so, I charge my sister $10 per point. It is a bargain for her to upgrade to deluxe for what she would have paid for an allstar. Works well and we are then at the same resort!

 

[conandrob240]

Close family ( parents, sister), I gift it or charge maint fees pp. anyone else pays $11 pp.

 

[auralia]

It sounds like 10$ pp is reasonable to most so I think I'll do that. My brother makes way more than dh does so he can more than afford it!

 

[Vodo]

Here is what we are doing. We are staying in a 2 bedroom lock off at AKV for a week with another couple an their 2 year old. We asked them to pay 9pp for the studio, help with food in the room, and get the rental car. We both thought that was very fair. They have never been to Disney and want them to experience right...

The big question is do you charge them based on the point cost of a studio or just the increased point cost for a 2-Bed versus a 1-Bed?

 

[kkmousealow]

My sister has gotten rooms for us a couple of times - always she offered, we didn't ask. The first time we stayed in the studio part of a 2 br in bwv. I bought the dining plan for her and her hubby in exchange. That was for a week. Another time we stayed for 5 nights in a studio while she and her family were in a separate 2 BR. this time we were really strapped for cash, and maybe shouldn't have even gone to WDW but I never can resist. I ended up buying them a couple of meals and sending a surprise champagne gift to their room... But I felt like a freeloader. The last time we just stayed one night with them in a 2BR at BLT and the rest of the time we were at SOG. I bought them dinner at le cellier.

Now the tables have turned and I am finally a dvc member. I'm going in January and my parents want to join... So I have a 2 BR for my family and my folks at VWL. My mom is insisting on paying for it.... So I appreciate this post for ideas on what to do here. Anything with family and $$$$ is so awkward

 

[Alexander]

Charge them whatever they were going to pay for the value resort. They clearly were going to pay out that much, so it wouldn't be unrealistic to ask for that amount. The other siblings are either not going to care at all or be really pissed when you don't have points for them to rent. Regardless of how much you charge now, if you aren't going to have points for others to use in the future, the price won't matter.

 

[DougEMG]

When I rent points out to family and friends I give them a $1/point discount over what I would normally charge, plus they get to pay me in Canadian dollars instead of US dollars.

 

[Kidanifan08]

MF + $2-3 seems reasonable. You should consider the buy in cost. I help a fellow DVC member rent out her points, and we generally charge $10/pt and round to the nearest $100. I may consider increasing that $/pt next year. Hopefully you other sibs don't start pursuing you for points, but you could always add on some more points and let them pay for it!

 

[amypetecar]

With it being family, it really is what you feel comfortable with. That said, i think anything up to $11 per point is easy to defend since its davids going rate.

 

[OneMoreTry]

I would charge them the amount that I paid per point for my annual fee.

But I really wouldn't because I never have points left over.

 

[elfbo]

This year we are renting our extra points out to my sisters for $1 over MF, because we got an extra years worth of points for buying in. They know though, that if they want to go next year, its going to be $11-15 (whatever the current rate is) because we will have to buy points to transfer in.

So I think its pretty fair to charge them the rate you would get from renting them elsewhere, but give em even more of a discount if you feel like it!

 

[tazhughes]

I always charge family $10 a point.

 

[Mahwah]

I think $10 pp is a very fair price. They are going to be saving money off the regular cost to book a room, and they are probably saying money compared to any rental company. Hopefully they don't back out and leave you with holding points.

I agree, it wouldn't be fair to gift the points since you certainly can't be expected to do that with everyone in your family. They were not free points to begin with, so I don't think anyone should expect it to be free to them.

On a side note, I had gifted a club level savannah view room at AKL to my BF and her husband last year. She is so rude sometimes or just oblivious. She didn't even say thanks, the first thing she asked me is if we had extra points we had to use up, and I said we did have enough extra to give them the room (not really extra, but we could spare them). And she was like "oh, at least they didn't get wasted". That's hardly a "Thank you" in my opinion.
They didn't offer to take us to nice dinner or anything. We had gotten food at Mara that night, and her husband made a feeble attempt to pay for our QS and we wouldn't let him.

If you ever do find yourself in a position where you are gifting points to anyone - don't assume they will appreciate it. Sometimes friends and family can be rude without realizing it.

Well....I would never do that again with your BF...seems like she didn't appreciate it at all and I know the feeling! Last November, I gave away 2 nights to my niece & her boyfriend and I felt like she didn't appreciate it at all. She had so many complaints, she was very negative so finally I said, "Sorry Gabrielle that you weren't happy!" My husband said, "that's it...do not give away our points anymore!" We took my mother one night to Vero Beach which hubby said from the beginning it was a bad idea because my mother will expect to go on every trip with us and he was right. We went back to Vero Beach for our anniversary Memorial Day weekend and we did not invite Mom and boy did she have such an attitude when we came home. She didn't say anything but you could tell.

 

[brertoad]

Well....I would never do that again with your BF...seems like she didn't appreciate it at all and I know the feeling! Last November, I gave away 2 nights to my niece & her boyfriend and I felt like she didn't appreciate it at all. She had so many complaints, she was very negative so finally I said, "Sorry Gabrielle that you weren't happy!" My husband said, "that's it...do not give away our points anymore!" We took my mother one night to Vero Beach which hubby said from the beginning it was a bad idea because my mother will expect to go on every trip with us and he was right. We went back to Vero Beach for our anniversary Memorial Day weekend and we did not invite Mom and boy did she have such an attitude when we came home. She didn't say anything but you could tell.

I agree, I think I'd rather sell any extra points that give them away. I feel your pain. This last Christmas my BF and her husband didn't get us any Christmas presents, no big deal right, but she could have told me not to buy them anything. So, after the AKL CL room, we ended up giving them Xmas presents on top of that. Ugh. I swear. I've bought tickets for all kinds of things and share with them, and they never plan anything with us, let alone pick up the tab.

Your neice must be very spoiled indeed to be so unappreciative. It's one thing to have complaints or negative opinions - those are things that she could have expressed to the staff of the hotel or kept to herself, but it's another thing to throw it in your face as if you have any control over it and then for her making you so frustrated that you apologized to her for being unhappy (with spending your points) to get her to stop complaining about it.

She should have expressed some gratitude, the rooms aren't cheap if paying OOP, and points aren't free. I couldn't imagine the lip you would get if you charged her money to cover the points, I bet it would have been worse, they probably would have acted like you ripped them off.

With regards to your mom, I think many family members of DVC owners feel like they are entitled to share your timeshare. An invitation should be appreciated as a one time gift. She should not have taken it as a slight that you went on a vacation, it's not realistic to expect your daughter to take you on every vacation she takes.

I'm sure if we all had unlimited points and money it would be easier to deal with - but even then, when is enough enough, and would they even appreciate it then. I'm thinking the best thing is to just keep it to ourselves, no one will appreciate it as much as we do.

I'm sure there are some DVC owners who has some great family and friends who are appreciative and chip in with groceries or reciprocate with a nice dinner or something thoughtful, but unfortunately I have some dysfunctional ones. My expectations are not high, a thank you goes a long way; for instance, my brother makes less money and is younger, I will always do more for him without any strings attached because of that dynamic. But, for me, my friend who wastes money and makes more than we do, they could have taken us out for dinner at least. It's what we would have done for them at the very minimum if they gifted us the room.

We live and learn.

 

[buzz5985]

Looks like I am in the minority - we will charge the MF for the points used if we aren't on the trip.

If we are on the trip - we will charge nothing.

Janis

 

[sara mom]

Friends- $8 a point.

My father- nothing. He occasionally goes with us and is our babysitter when we want to go out at night.

In-laws- we conveniently never have enough points and often suggest staying at a completely different hotel. This happened after they backed out 2 weeks before a stay in which we had a 2 bedroom booked for the 6 of us. Not much you can do with those points as it was close to the end of our UY.

 

[Tink-n-Belle]

$10 is more than fair.

When you consider dues and the actual cost for the points it about $7-8....more if the points are financed so you are just about breaking even....I mean even if you make $2 a point......what will that get you dinner??

Plus, you are letting them have points you could of used... which is very nice of you. When I only had enough points for my family I never would have rented them because they were too precious to me and my Disney trips.

IMHO, you are doing such a nice thing by letting him rent your points....after all you bought the points and took on a financial burden(in the form of payments or loss of cash flow if paid in full and loss of interest on that money) and the commitment to take on that burden for 50 years......

Also, they will appreciate it more and like you said, you can't do it for everyone in your family......these are your points that you are giving up.....that is worth more than $2

I've done both gave away points as a thank you to babysitter---although it was a bonus and didn't cost much, if I had to do it over again I would have given her the $350 it cost me and let her buy her own room at the BC for $400 a night...for 5 nights...even though it cost me oop $350 it saved her $2000......by giving them the pts they got a $2000 value out of it. The only thing I asked was for her to call me on the trip to let me know how it was going.......did I get that noooo, she didn't call until 3 weeks later to thank me.....and I don't even think she actually thanked me.....I was so hurt.....because that gift cost me a week at my favorite place with my family.

Then I rented to my nephew for 10 a point.....told him go to website price out AkL sav view and let me know if he wanted to purchase my points. He was so appreciative and to this day is still appreciative....because he knows I saved him a ton of money....I netted $2 a point.... Which didn't even cover lunch at the beirgarten.

 

[k3chantal]

Looks like I am in the minority - we will charge the MF for the points used if we aren't on the trip.

If we are on the trip - we will charge nothing.

Janis

We don't charge if we are on the trip either. We like having friends with us and are usually the ones asking so it would feel weird if we then said "by the way, it will cost....." We feel 'bad' as it is because when we are asking because we are asking them to spend money on airfare, tickets and food which they were not planning on spending in the first place.

I would feel very different if a friend or family were pursuing my points to use.

 

[auralia]

The plot thickens. My brother wants me to come with as a guide (they have not been in 17 years and now have a daughter). My husband can take vacation to watch our kids (I would go at the same time but my daughters school will not allow it). So I quoted him the price and now this. I'm thinking ill pay for the garden grocer order and tickets to the Christmas party and watch their dd a night or two so they can have a date and leave the price as it is.

 

[delilah]

I never charged my brother and his family to stay with us using our points. We tried several different things. Once we stayed in a 2 BR unit, because it was fewer points than a 1BR and Studio. Never again. We found out that one of them (brother or SIL) was a thermostat changer. SIL also wasn't very diplomatic in how she expressed herself. She apparently expressed the opinion in front of my niece (about 6 or so at the time) that I was "stupid", who repeated it to me. I guess SIL is missing the part of her frontal lobe that filters comments she makes, and also is not very good at parenting her children. We changed to renting two studios the next time. We planned our vacations so they could come for the next couple of years, until the most recent visit, my brother's family decided that they would come and stay in the room, but not visit the parks with us. So, being stupid the way that I am, I decided not to invite them the next year, and planned our family vacation when it best suited my immediate family. (My son is in boy scouts, and they have their summer camp the week we used to go to WDW with my brother; they live in Florida, and when they have park tickets, they get the seasonal pass type, which is blocked out for most of the summer, when school is out). SIL hinted around at that time that she would have liked to have used our points to go to the marathon in January (this was 5 years ago). I told her that since we wouldn't be going then, she could rent the points from us (that is, it wouldn't be free). That was the last I heard from her about renting points for the marathon.

Since then, SIL has become ex-SIL