ABD vs. Disney Vacation Club?

[moo im lani]

I love ABD, but I also wish they had some more destinations to choose from. One of my good friends is a member of Disney Vacation Club, which has resorts and locations alllll over. What do you think would be the advantages / disadvantages of choosing one over the other?
Of course I know the obvious, being that Disney Vacation club does not have a planned itinerary, but more along the lines of, do you think it would be more worth it to do multiple ABD trips, or become a member of DVC and travel through them?

 

[Tozzie]

I love ABD, but I also wish they had some more destinations to choose from. One of my good friends is a member of Disney Vacation Club, which has resorts and locations alllll over. What do you think would be the advantages / disadvantages of choosing one over the other?
Of course I know the obvious, being that Disney Vacation club does not have a planned itinerary, but more along the lines of, do you think it would be more worth it to do multiple ABD trips, or become a member of DVC and travel through them?

I am a DVC member and I go on ABD tours but they are totally different concepts. First of all DVC does not have resorts "all over" they have resorts in Florida, Hilton Head and California and are building one in Hawaii, you have the ability to trade with RCI to go to a resort that isn't a DVC resort but there is no guarantee that you will be able to get the destination you want when you want it.

DVC provides accomodations only. ABD is a tour group you go to sights, and do many things on the vacations.

There is no way to compare the two.

 

[moo im lani]

Oh, okay. I never fully understood DVC, what with all the points and all, but I was just very curious. Thank you for your input!

 

[Judyat]

We belong to the Disney Vacation Club and you can use your Disney vacation club points for ABD trips. We went to Italy using our DVC points for ABD and it was great. Depending on thetrip and the time you go trips range around
400 - 600+ points.

 

[NejTheLion]

While you always get the most value out of your DVC points using them at specific DVC locations, it's still more cost effective to purchase DVC and then use those points toward ABD. We purchased a bunch of points to help pay for cruises. If you do the math, I think what we spent to purchase points would have equaled the cost of about 5 years of cruises. But those points last for something like 40 years. Even with annual dues, if you plan to go on an ABD trip or a cruise every year, it's cheaper to do it with DVC points than out of pocket.

And if you can rent your points to other people, even better. You won't need to rent as many points to get the cash amount you need.

 

[moo im lani]

Thank you everyone!
You all definitely helped

 

[Judyat]

One more thing to mention is that with DVC you can bank your points with RCI and book a vacation with them. When you bank them with RCI you have 2 years to use them. That's where being able to book at resorts around the world comes in.

 

[tufbuf]

What is the minimum membership points you can purchase?