Where else do you use your DVC points?

[Grendalynn]

We are (very seriously) considering buying a 130 point DVC contract at Poly. We do not plan to vacation at Disney every year - we usually go every other or every 3rd. However, we do plan to vacation elsewhere and use our points.

We have 3 boys, 9, 12 & 16. Aside from Disney - we enjoy sunny & warm beach vacations.

Can you experienced DCV'ers tell me where else you have used your points to vacation and how many points it cost you? We typically vacation in November and/or March. Thank you!

 

[DisDadDVC]

Using your points at almost any non-DVC property is a waste of money. You are better off renting your points out and paying cash for the reservation.

 

[RAD]

Agree with the renting option, used that tactic to pay for a couple DCL trips.

 

[Grendalynn]

How easy or hard is it to rent out DVC points?

 

[DisDadDVC]

How easy or hard is it to rent out DVC points?

Very easy. You can expect to get $11-13 per point from a broker or $12-14 doing it on your own. There is a rental board on this site, or you can use one of the brokers like David's:

http://www.dvcrequest.com/

I have done both many times.

 

[bwvBound]

I enjoy Vero and Aulani. I'm still using my points w/in the system ... but not "at Disney" (translation: not at a Disney theme park). We also use ours for short visits (1-3 nights) at Disneyland.

 

[disneynutz]

Looked at using points outside of Disney but either couldn't find availability for our dates and/or the use was expensive. IMO Disney uses the world wide vacation line as a marketing point that doesn't work for most people.

Bill

 

[mickeyman]

Look into resale and save yourself a bunch of money.

 

[DenLo]

We use our points for Disney vacations only.

You could buy less points and use your points every other year. So if you need 200 points for your stay every other year, you purchase 100 points.

 

[calypso726]

We've used our points for a post Adventures by Disney stay in Disneyland Paris at the Disneyland Hotel. Two nights was about 230 points or so I think plus the $95 fee. We could have rented our points out and had enough cash to cover the stay and then some. This year we are using some of our points for a 3 bedroom ski in ski out lodge at River Run in Keystone, CO over Thanksgiving. It is 588 points plus the $95 fee. Again, we could have rented the points out and used the cash to cover the cost of the lodge and then some. I'm really kicking myself for getting lazy and using points for this instead of renting out some points since the extra cash would have come in handy. This Floridian had no clue how ski gear really costs! OUCH!!! Mostly, we use our points for DVC stays in WDW as that is where the value lies. We have rented them out to mitigate the costs of an Adventures by Disney trip though. The times we do use them for non DVC stays we do so fully aware of the fact we could rent them out and have the cash to to pay for that stay plus extra left over. I call it the cost of being lazy

 

[crisi]

We own less points and go every other year. Every third is really tough because you can only bank one year and borrow from one year. So every third puts you in a spot where you need EXACTLY the right number of points (or want to rent, and while renting is easy, renting a small number of points is hard).

 

[girli565]

Using your points at almost any non-DVC property is a waste of money. You are better off renting your points out and paying cash for the reservation.

This is a great point!

 

[com_op_2000]

Have taken:
Two Concierge Collections trips:
Doral, Miami - Played the Blue Monster
Grove Park Inn, Asheville, NC - Different view from the top of a mountain
Two RCI exchanges:
Ft. Myers - not worth the exchange
Ft. Lauderdale - Would do again, went during their annual fleet week, looked down from the 5th floor pool area at a SR-71 Blackbird (this plane can fly at greater than 60,000 feet) flying by.
8 DCLs with 7 all or partly on points
I am one of the few people on these boards that do use DVC points for things outside of DVC. I do not like the idea of renting points as you can be held responsible for damage done by a renter or a bill left behind by a renter.

 

[nkereina]

I do not like the idea of renting points as you can be held responsible for damage done by a renter or a bill left behind by a renter.

Sorry to go a little off topic here, but this point made me wonder. If you rent your points through a broker, will the broker assume any responsibility in terms of damage? Do they offer any kind of insurance or anything? You're essentially leaving it up to the broker to pick who is staying on your points, but is that just the price you pay for getting your points rented quickly and seamlessly?

 

[disneynutz]

While a owner could be held responsible for renter damages, IMO it won't likely happen. Disney usually collects ID and credit card info from the guest on the reservation.

Bill

 

[kollerbear]

Yeah, my parents bought with the intention of using their points elsewhere as well. Once I did a little bit of research and discussed it with them, they have never used their points except at Disney. A VERY expensive way to use your points. Either rent or buy fewer points.

 

[zavandor]

Sorry to go a little off topic here, but this point made me wonder. If you rent your points through a broker, will the broker assume any responsibility in terms of damage? Do they offer any kind of insurance or anything? You're essentially leaving it up to the broker to pick who is staying on your points, but is that just the price you pay for getting your points rented quickly and seamlessly?

I think that in all the years the DIS has been open, only once we read a report of someone having a problem being a renter. And it ended well, it was sorted out. So while it's possible, I don't think it's very likely. Personally I'm more confortable with the idea of renting (I did it a few times), than with the idea of renting myself.
Renting points to offset the cost of a different vacation is very easy to do and much more convenient. If one doesn't want to get really involved, then a company like David is the way to go. I used their service once and it took me maybe a total of 30 minutes of my time, between signing the contract with David, book the reservation and add DME to the reservation. And even doing it myself using the Rent board, it didn't take much longer.

 

[AnnaS]

We have used our points for Vero, Hilton Head, DCL Cruises (combination of cash and points each time) and exchanged once with Interval (years ago/now RCI) - Royal Sands, Cancun. Would consider exchanging with RCI.

 

[Anal Annie]

We are (very seriously) considering buying a 130 point DVC contract at Poly. We do not plan to vacation at Disney every year - we usually go every other or every 3rd. However, we do plan to vacation elsewhere and use our points.

We have 3 boys, 9, 12 & 16. Aside from Disney - we enjoy sunny & warm beach vacations.

Can you experienced DCV'ers tell me where else you have used your points to vacation and how many points it cost you? We typically vacation in November and/or March. Thank you!

Right after we first bought in (Dec 2006) we banked 3/4 of our points to use for a DCL (we own 250 pts at SSR). LAST TIME we'd do that - discovered it was a horrible value for us (got 4 nights vs 2 weeks at a DVC resort AND we sucked down 3/4 of our next years points). We have used our points at all of the DVC resorts now except for the 2 newest ones (including vacations to HHI, Vero, Aulani and VGC). We have the Poly booked for next summer so that will only leave VGF for us to try. We always have a summer vacation and then usually at least 1 other trip although if you manage your points wisely you can do a whole lot with them. 130 points doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room for creative planning - especially if you're planning to use them exclusively at the Poly since it's high points. That is not enough points to even really do a "trade" unless you bank or borrow (I think the minimum for a trade is 160 pts). You may also find that as your younger kids get older your vacation habits may change which will affect the number of points you'll need. We have found that with good points management 250 points can offer some pretty nice vacations on an annual basis. Couldn't have done Aulani & VGC without having that many (unless we would've completely skipped a year).

Now that our DS is a college freshman our trips are changing so we may consider more trips to HHI or a trade thru RCI sometime. If you enjoy "sunny & warm beach vacations" your choices within DVC are limited to HHI, Vero or Aulani. 130 points won't go very far at Aulani so you should spend some time studying the point charts before you buy. We love our DVC but you do need to be a good long range planner.

 

[JLS]

I agree with the point made about using points outside of DVC being a waste of money. If you do not plan to use your points almost exclusively at DVC resorts, in my view you should reconsider purchasing. Check out sites such as RedWeek.com and look at what the going rate is for most rentals at a lot of popular timeshares and you will see that in many cases for the cost of your yearly dues or less you can rent a week at many timeshares and have tons of flexibility by just searching these sites rather than hoping for a trade. We have rented very nice Hawaii timeshare weeks for around $2000 for a week and other properties for considerably less. It also avoids the hassle of trying to rent out your own DVC points.

If you are interested in a lot of RCI properties as potential destinations you should consider picking up a fairly cheap trader week (non-DVC) and trading into RCI that way, which can be really cost effective if you buy resale and take the time to learn the system.