101 advice for newbies: what I wish I had known before buying..

[DianaMB333]

Hi
I joined DVC early 2020 (wish I had done it before, but everything happens for a reason lol)… and probably read many of the threads but couldn’t truly make sense of all the information available.. therefore I would like to put here the basic lessons learned hoping it helps ..

experienced DVC members, feel free to jump in too , or even correct something if I am still misunderstanding something of the DVC rules LOL..

1a. Start with resale deal (take a look of avg resale prices chart to see what deals make sense for you; and ask for references of the reseller companies.

Pros: best use of money - you will get more points; plenty of offers and resellers around.

Once you get the points, you are a member and elegible for add on / direct purchases with better prices than new members. There are rules around minimum points and add on conditions but still the lower price is worth looking at.

Cons: it requires patience to pass through all the process and get the points loaded (45 days to 3 months in total)

1b. Start with direct purchase (ask your agent to walk you through the new resorts but also through sold out resorts, sometimes there are reasonable deals around, like the current prices of SSR, not so far away from resale prices at the smaller contracts and you will get non restricted points)

Pros: you could get the points almost immediately (contingent of down payment and docs/info provided)

Cons: overthinking around the price difference with resale, you need to let it go.. no restrictions and potential benefits could worth the splurge

Note: direct sales incentives usually are best at the moment you are looking at them, usually there are best prices “today” than “tomorrow”; with the exception of unusual events such as Covid were DvC put good incentives out (summer 2020, why I didn't purchase then?!).

2. Use year discussion… bottom line, if you usually travel the same time of the year, UY is very important mostly to avoid having holding points with short window to be used in case that you have to cancel the trip.

If you end up having multiple contracts/ UY try your best to use them for different purposes and avoid combining them for single trips, this is to avoid some confusions for future uses.

3. Choosing the resort matters, mostly if you plan to book hard reservations at 11 months (i.e. BLT for new year’s eve), but if you have some flexibility around travel dates and can live with uncertainty of the availability at 7months, then just pick the one that makes more economic sense and be open to split stays .

4. “Add-on itis” is true!, therefore you could just avoid Disney discussions for 90days or so, just to reduce temptations, or have a strong willpower (or a good voice in your conscience) .:. Otherwise, I recommend to be honest and decide how much are you truly willing to invest, avoid the multiple additions (and resale processes) and just jump right into the best deal you get.

Note: I started with 100pts, somehow ended up with 5 contracts and 470 points - all within 4 months after the first deal; most likely could have found a better price at first buying 450 points all together

good luck and enjoy!

 

[princesscinderella]

I agree with #4 buy the most points you can initially because you will always feel like you need more of them.

Your list is very good

 

[Bobby2443]

Understanding the booking system is a big one. For a long time I thought the use year is when points were "released" so I could book a trip instead of it simply being a time period when a trip could be booked. If I were new I would do a lot of research on this before buying. Also for use year I think it's important to understand for cancelations but also important to understand if you are going to be a reservation walker because it affects when you can start your walk. It all comes down to the intricacies of the booking system which will either leave you frustrated or happy you took the time to understand it before you made a purchase.

 

[hbg1]

I'd add one that I learned while reading this board that I had never thought of/realized before.

If you're buying a lot of points (ie 500 or a high number) direct, have them broken into smaller contracts if possible. When selling later it makes life a lot easier...never thought about this earlier because I never thought we'd sell.

Another item to consider is how long you'll own it...expiration played a huge part in my recent purchase.

Great list!

 

[DianaMB333]

Understanding the booking system is a big one. For a long time I thought the use year is when points were "released" so I could book a trip instead of it simply being a time period when a trip could be booked. If I were new I would do a lot of research on this before buying. Also for use year I think it's important to understand for cancelations but also important to understand if you are going to be a reservation walker because it affects when you can start your walk. It all comes down to the intricacies of the booking system which will either leave you frustrated or happy you took the time to understand it before you made a purchase.

Hi.. what do you mean of “start your walk?” For example looking for NY’s eve which UY would you use and how do you walk it?

 

[Sandisw]

Hi.. what do you mean of “start your walk?” For example looking for NY’s eve which UY would you use and how do you walk it?

Walking a reservation is when you book it 11 months out from an earlier start then you really want and move it forward before the 11 month window opens for check out day of what you booked.

This allows you to lock in a hard to get room for a hard to get time ahead of others who simple wait.

However you can’t walk reservations over the start of a UY.

So if you wanted to walk a reservation to NYE, having a Dec UY would mean you could not start it until Dec 1st.

However, if you have an Oct UY, you can start it Oct 1st.

Personally I would not buy a UY for walking purposes but to make sure it fits my travel patterns. But, if you find that more than one works, then choosing an earlier one could be also advantageous for walking a trip.

 

[Nabas]

The most important thing I learned about being a DVC member is that booking a DVC room is very different than booking a hotel room directly from Disney.

What specifically do I mean?

First, popular (i.e. hard to book) seasons for DVC are often at odds with popular times of year for hotel Guests.

DVC members like to book months when it costs fewer points, when the parks are less crowded, and when the weather is cooler.

In my experience, July and August are the easiest months to book a DVC room, while October, November, and December are the most difficult to book.

Second, you have to plan your DVC stays at least 7 months in advance, often 11 months.

When I book a Disney hotel room, I often can get what I want 2-3 months ahead of time. With DVC, many Studios are gone at 7 months.

Since we don't have to fly to get to WDW, we like to be spontaneous. This is much harder to do as DVC members.

 

[Spinster Travel]

I'll expand on the choice of Use Year topic - I often hear people say that "use year doesn't really matter if you travel at different times of the year". I disagree with this and urge everyone to put some thought into choosing the UY that you want regardless of how consistent or varied your travel patterns might be. I travel all year round, but narrowed down my UY to August/September/October based purely on the banking deadline for those UYs. While I do travel at different times of the year, I more or less have my summer travel plans figured out by late spring, so the deadlines for the August/September/October UYs made sense to me. I ended up with a September UY and it works great for me.

 

[RoseGold]

I think people really need to thing about the exit strategy.

Everyone acts like they are going to hold this forever, but that isn't what ends up happening. You need to have a plan.

 

[RivShore]

Since we don't have to fly to get to WDW, we like to be spontaneous. This is much harder to do as DVC members.

If you don't care about the resort, how hard have you found to get a studio on a spontaneous trip (a week or 2 out)? (I guess I assumed SSR would always have some availability.)

 

[DianaMB333]

If you don't care about the resort, how hard have you found to get a studio on a spontaneous trip (a week or 2 out)? (I guess I assumed SSR would always have some availability.)

It is possible, but most likely split stays

 

[What-r-ya Goofy?]

The real cost of membership is in the payment of annual dues over the life of the contract. Don't fret over a difference of $10 a point between contracts. Everyone likes having bragging rights to getting the best deal, but in reality a minimal difference in purchase price is a drop in the bucket compared to what you will pay in dues over the life of the contract.

Enjoy

 

[Nabas]

It is possible, but most likely split stays

Exactly.

You sometimes can piece together a trip from one night here, two nights there, etc.

Or you get lucky with a cancellation 31 days before.

Or sometimes SSR is available.

But for the most part, DVC forces to to plan your trips 7-11 months ahead of time.

 

[sndral]

I would caution about addonitis. It’s easy to get caught up in ‘collecting’ DVC contracts, but then there’s ‘the morning after’ when you find yourself paying all of those MFs on points that you have yet to use. A lot of people imagine vacationing with family and friends but learn that doing so is like herding cats - people can’t seem to commit 11 months ahead of time, or your invitees want you to ‘tweak’ the dates because something came up, not realizing how impossible that may be. I’ve had two big trips come to nothing, one because my brother had to pay for a wedding and suddenly could no longer afford for his family to go even though I was providing accommodation, the other because the resorts shut down due to the pandemic (hopefully that one at least is a one off.) DVC is just a drop in the expense bucket when you add in MFs, airfare, park tickets, dinning costs, after hour and upcharge events, etc..
If, however, like me, you know you intend to add on via resale and have a strong preference for which home resort you’ll want next, then take a look at the number of points in each use year when deciding which use year you want on that first contract because it’ll be easier to match that use year when you are shopping for your second, third etc. contract because not all use years are equal when it comes to number of points available. The more points sold in a particular use year the more contracts likely to be available via resale - especially at smaller resorts. There’s nothing worse than wanting to buy and seeing great deals in the wrong use year & rarely seeing your hard to get use year on the resale market.
Here’s a link to use year point distribution https://dvcnews.com/dvc-program/own...ty-of-disney-vacation-club-points-by-use-year

 

[kes601]

Something I would add to the direct vs resale "savings" is that if you have a lengthy trip coming up in the next 7-11 months then some of that resale savings is lost because we've seen it can take 2-4 months to get a resale contract closed. By that point you may be out of luck booking much.

We went direct in February after our resale was taken at ROFR. We were able to get a last minute 3 night trip at Poly and have a split set for this summer of BLT (5 nights) -> Riviera (8 nights) -> BWV (4 nights). We'd probably just now be getting our points from the resale had it gone through.

From my calculation we've "saved" $10,500 (AP rates for the nights) by buying a direct contract and getting those points right away.

 

[KTownRaider]

I'll expand on the choice of Use Year topic - I often hear people say that "use year doesn't really matter if you travel at different times of the year". I disagree with this and urge everyone to put some thought into choosing the UY that you want regardless of how consistent or varied your travel patterns might be. I travel all year round, but narrowed down my UY to August/September/October based purely on the banking deadline for those UYs. While I do travel at different times of the year, I more or less have my summer travel plans figured out by late spring, so the deadlines for the August/September/October UYs made sense to me. I ended up with a September UY and it works great for me.

I was one of those that didn't think I had a real pattern of travel and UY didn't matter. If I can get a a good deal on airfare/hotel, then sign me up! Then I thought about the inverse- are there periods I know I will not be travelling to WDW? Only when I thought about this did I realize that I've been avoiding summer (hot and humid), and that really elevated the importance of UY. I eventually settled on October (May 31 banking deadline). So it's not only thinking about travel patterns, but also patterns of non travel (if that makes sense).

 

[Bobby2443]

Hi.. what do you mean of “start your walk?” For example looking for NY’s eve which UY would you use and how do you walk it?

Sandisw already covered it but for my family we like going the first two weeks of December, and this is a really busy time for DVC because it's Christmas and it's a time that needs less points compared with other times of the year. If you have a December UY and you want to walk a reservation you can't start to walk it unless you have banked points from the previous year so you can book and walk before December 1st or you would need to book on December 1st and walk it until you arrive. But if you like to go the first two weeks of December that wouldn't give you many days to walk it. A September use year would probably be better for something like that because you can start booking as of September 1st instead of December 1st.

 

[holden]

Buy where you enjoy staying.

If you are buying a large number of points, break it up into smaller contracts. We purchased two contracts of equal points so we could leave them to our children.

 

[🍀TwinsMom]

Hi
I joined DVC early 2020 (wish I had done it before, but everything happens for a reason lol)… and probably read many of the threads but couldn’t truly make sense of all the information available.. therefore I would like to put here the basic lessons learned hoping it helps ..

experienced DVC members, feel free to jump in too , or even correct something if I am still misunderstanding something of the DVC rules LOL..

1a. Start with resale deal (take a look of avg resale prices chart to see what deals make sense for you; and ask for references of the reseller companies.

Pros: best use of money - you will get more points; plenty of offers and resellers around.

Once you get the points, you are a member and elegible for add on / direct purchases with better prices than new members. There are rules around minimum points and add on conditions but still the lower price is worth looking at.

Cons: it requires patience to pass through all the process and get the points loaded (45 days to 3 months in total)

1b. Start with direct purchase (ask your agent to walk you through the new resorts but also through sold out resorts, sometimes there are reasonable deals around, like the current prices of SSR, not so far away from resale prices at the smaller contracts and you will get non restricted points)

Pros: you could get the points almost immediately (contingent of down payment and docs/info provided)

Cons: overthinking around the price difference with resale, you need to let it go.. no restrictions and potential benefits could worth the splurge

Note: direct sales incentives usually are best at the moment you are looking at them, usually there are best prices “today” than “tomorrow”; with the exception of unusual events such as Covid were DvC put good incentives out (summer 2020, why I didn't purchase then?!).

2. Use year discussion… bottom line, if you usually travel the same time of the year, UY is very important mostly to avoid having holding points with short window to be used in case that you have to cancel the trip.

If you end up having multiple contracts/ UY try your best to use them for different purposes and avoid combining them for single trips, this is to avoid some confusions for future uses.

3. Choosing the resort matters, mostly if you plan to book hard reservations at 11 months (i.e. BLT for new year’s eve), but if you have some flexibility around travel dates and can live with uncertainty of the availability at 7months, then just pick the one that makes more economic sense and be open to split stays .

4. “Add-on itis” is true!, therefore you could just avoid Disney discussions for 90days or so, just to reduce temptations, or have a strong willpower (or a good voice in your conscience) .:. Otherwise, I recommend to be honest and decide how much are you truly willing to invest, avoid the multiple additions (and resale processes) and just jump right into the best deal you get.

Note: I started with 100pts, somehow ended up with 5 contracts and 470 points - all within 4 months after the first deal; most likely could have found a better price at first buying 450 points all together

good luck and enjoy!

Yeah, #4 is a biggie. We should have just bit the bullet and bought a larger amount right off the bat and saved money on new deeds/filing costs AND gotten the double points for buying direct at RR, thereby giving us a much larger initial pool of points to play with. I think everyone convinces themselves they'll be fine in a studio forever, too, and will always be able to go off season for cheap points.

Kids grow, parents want privacy and quiet, you get spoiled doing DVC, and next thing you know you can't imagine anything less than a one or two-bedroom. And why not bring Grandma and Grandpa? Invite the friend's kids as they become tweens and are bored doing Disney AGAIN, but would be okay with a friend keeping them amused?

Moral of the story, buy all the damn points and pray you can be that cocky person in 2042 who says, "Remember when Riviera was so cheap at $180pp? Now it's $360!"

 

[ajsanford]

Buy where you enjoy staying.

If you are buying a large number of points, break it up into smaller contracts. We purchased two contracts of equal points so we could leave them to our children.

I am looking at buying 150 points now (first time buyer)... my guide is saying that I have to have my first purchase be a combined 125 points and then i could do a separate 25 points at the same time to get to the 150... but he can't do 75 and 75...
Is this new guidance or has anyone recently been able to get them to split their first purchase like this?