$75 exchange fee eliminated for cruise

[nuthut]

Just talked to MS and the $75 exchange fee has been eliminated for the member cruise. Seems like they a giving us about $8.22-$8.63 per point vs. paying cash. I will rent my points and pay cash and come out ahead. Maybe the price is dropping already.

 

[disney queen]

please do not think i am a duh-duh, but to get the cash amount multiply the number of points listed by the $$$ amount. right? thanks!

 

[nuthut]

Well I took the cash price and divided it by the number of points. Example a Cat 7 is 248 points for two adults and it is $2066 cash.
2066 divided by 248 equals $8.33 a point.

 

[Regina]

I'm not going to touch the math, but that's great news about the exchange fee.

 

[Aaron]

After reading your message I checked the members web site and see that they have indeed removed the little blurb about having a credit card ready for the $75 fee.

I think we'll be doing it.

 

[Johnnie Fedora]

It's too bad that DCL didn't match DVCs offer and knock $75.00 off their total price/person.

I thought the $75.00 was to cover DVCs administrative costs for the exchange. I hope my dues won't be negatively affected by that give away .

I understand why DVC is doing this (considering all the complaints they've likely recieved). I just wish they would negotiate better with the other Disney divisions. It would really be nice if the other Disney divisions (like DCL) stopped viewing us DVCers as a captive audience who print our own money.

 

[Dean]

I'm sure MS has received a lot of complaints about the higher cost and this is the bone their throwing members to smooth things over and try to "even up" the costs.

I'd like to point out that the $8.33 per point figure (and the others) are misleading. It's comparing to an inflacted cash price. The real dollar comparision would be for the week before or the week after and to the discount pice, not the rack rate. Tim Larison worked out an extensive comparison for the 7 night cruises in April using DCL's price as well specials available to him as a travel agent. The numbers were pretty similar for different categories with the value per point being around $6.75 pp using the discounted price and $7.75 pp using the DCL price. Actually better than I expected. The higher cabins aren't discounted so the price was the same and climbed to around $8 pp for category 4. He did point out some things like you could cancel the cash cruise up to a certain time and get your money back (as compared to reservation points) and that you could book much farther out securing a better cabin. Also if you wanted cat 12, you couldn't do that on points.

I did notice that on the special cruise you could book cat 12 for the same points as 11. Obviously if this is a member only voyage, all categories should be available. I wonder what happened to the four category 1 and 2 rooms. I guess it's a member cruise plus. Maybe the extra charge is to cover the cost of Board members to go.

As a side note, if I cruise, it really doesn't matter that much if it's Disney or not. To me, that means I also would need to compare the discounted price of other similar cruise companies to include RCCL, HAL and Princess. That widdens the gap between cash and points even further. Some have said in the past that DCL is a step above RCCL with larger cabins, etc. That may be, I don't have any knowledge for direct comparision. I do know that I've been pleased with RCCL in the past so that's still my direction for comparison. Put another way, DCL will need to be roughly in the same cost range as RCCL for me to take the plunge.

 

[Johnnie Fedora]

I think all the DVCers who are going on the "special" ("specially $$priced$$") cruise should be grateful that there are those of us willing let DVC know when we're unhappy with program aspects. All our complaints likely resulted in the saving of the $75.00 fee that would have been billed to member credit cards on 8/24.

I'm sure all who attend WILL have a good time. In fact, maybe all the complaints will cause some additional added extras that weren't originally planned for the "special" cruise. That way upon return, everyone can let us know what we missed and how it was worth the extra points/cash. Please let me know if Tinkerbell leaves you a refund check (equal to the value season overcharge) under your pillow one night.

We were originally excited about the announcement and considered changing our current plans--until the point/cash info was released. We would have loved to attend, but opted not to. I hope DVC will take the positive AND negative comments into consideration when planning future special DVC events.

Since joining, we have seen the 2002 and 2003 Disney Collection and DCL points jump astronomically, with no explanation from DVC. It's a shame they leave pictures of these on their sales info. We never intended to pay points for many of these options as they weren't a good use of points on the 2001 points chart. and now...... We will enjoy the DCL 7-day western cruise in 2003 for $833 more than it would cost us on the 4-day "special" cruise.

Point usage is a subjective choice. I'm sure many happy memories will be made on this "special" cruise.

We will also have many happy memories from our 7-day cruise and all of our DVC vacations. IMHO, our family will get more vacation memories by not attending the "special" cruise.

Since a DVC/Disney vacation is always quality.......quantity wins out when it comes to choosing the "special" cruise--or not.

Johnnie

 

[Scott5150]

Every year, the value of our DVC points will DECREASE when being traded for a non DVC resort. That is because while the number of points for a room at a DVC resort is fixed, the cost of the Cruise, for example, will increase each year.

I have cruised three times on points, but I am aware that sooner or later, it will not be economically feasible to do so. Anyone who buys into DVC with the intent of using the points for non DVC vacations will not get the most of their money. On the flip side, I believe that DVC members get an awesome deal, especially if you use your points correctly. If you use your points for a value season reservation from Sunday to Friday, you have just saved a TON of money.

Scott

 

[RobDoc]

Every year, the value of our DVC points will DECREASE when being traded for a non DVC resort. That is because while the number of points for a room at a DVC resort is fixed, the cost of the Cruise, for example, will increase each year.

Keep in mind that the DVC resorts that are rented to apy for these options will also increase their rates, so the cost increases shouldn't get too out of line, as long as others perceive DVC resorts to be a good value.

Currently, the lower occupancy at all WDW resorts certainly affects the return on renting DVC points used for non-DVC reservations. I think the "exchange" rate (higher points than the perceived "going rate" for rentals) currently is costing Disney some $$. This doesn't really affect our dues, since the point costs have been negotiated. If the DVC resorts can be rented easily at rack rate- Disney comes out ahead on the exchange- if they have to heavily discount the DVC resorts, then they can lose $$, even when the point cost is judged to be too high.