Advice please

[Mariabelle]

Interested in my first purchase and conducting research.

Backstory: My in laws have a home in Orlando which we stay at when they are there. However for those times they are not or just to spend some days on property, I want to utilize DVC. I was condsidering purchasing at VB to get more points and save money. Would this make sense for someone like me who has potential flexibility? I will be looking at the 7 month window since I wouldn’t ever really be at home resort.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

 

[RamblinWreck]

SSR may be a better option for you

VB is cheaper on the front end but the Maintenance Fees are much higher. They will add up in a hurry.

 

[miTnosnhoJ]

Interested in my first purchase and conducting research.

Backstory: My in laws have a home in Orlando which we stay at when they are there. However for those times they are not or just to spend some days on property, I want to utilize DVC. I was condsidering purchasing at VB to get more points and save money. Would this make sense for someone like me who has potential flexibility? I will be looking at the 7 month window since I wouldn’t ever really be at home resort.

Thanks in advice for any advice!

Do you tend to go at any particular times of the year?
Do you have a favorite resort? Or would you be happy to stay anywhere?

 

[Mariabelle]

Do you tend to go at any particular times of the year?
Do you have a favorite resort? Or would you be happy to stay anywhere?

I do love GF and summer is my time of year. Holidays I stay with inlaws. However any of the resorts I would stay.

 

[mustinjourney]

VGF is hard to get -- with that said -- summertime is usually "fairly" open for all WDW resorts for less than 7 consecutive days.

https://www.disboards.com/threads/p...-studios-1-bedrooms-june-2018-update.3689931/

check out that chart to see if you can book where you want at 7 months. Keep in mind that the longer DVC is in existence, these charts will change and VGF will likely get more difficult (more owners will be in the system and VGF is still one of the hottest commodities).

SSR is "currently" the cheapest/best value at 7 months.

If you want to stay at VGF -- and you'll need the 7+ month advantage -- buy VGF.

 

[kniquy]

I was condsidering purchasing at VB to get more points and save money. Would this make sense for someone like me who has potential flexibility? I will be looking at the 7 month window since I wouldn’t ever really be at home resort.

Definitely do not buy VB to stay on property. This is for a few reasons. 1. If you want to book between end of Sept - Mid Jan you will be left with limited options at the 7 month mark. 2. Although it looks appealing with the lower buy in - it will be the MF that end up making up the bigger portion of your over all cost of ownership. 3. With the resort being on the coast you run the risk of it being hit by a hurricane thus sending the MF upward to help with repairs from storm damage (happened at HHI a few years ago).

Your best buy in on property would be SSR with it having a lower buy in and the lowest MF on property. This is usually the go to for people who don't necessarily care where they end up on property. If you are mainly thinking summer travel then availability is usually pretty good at most resorts. Typically studios will be the hardest to get rooms simply because they are lower points.

 

[miTnosnhoJ]

I do love GF and summer is my time of year. Holidays I stay with inlaws. However any of the resorts I would stay.

VGF is amazing. If you would be happy staying there only in the summer, with a 50% to 75% success rate at 7 months, a Saratoga Springs contract would probably work for you. In the near term, you should have no trouble booking it at 7 months, but Disney has been making changes that make the long term less predictable.

 

[rob5589]

I agree with everyone else here. SSR over VB for sure. If you happen to come across a good deal on a fully loaded contract, you can even rent out some points to offset the initial buy in price.

 

[Mariabelle]

Thank you everyone! Your advice is appreciated! Lots to research and you pointed out things I would never have known or thought about!

 

[BillPA]

My advice, for what it's worth, BUY WHERE YOU DON"T MIND STAYING. It is getting much more difficult to switch at 7 mo. So make sure you will be happy if you must stay at your home resort. Do you really save if you can't stand the resort you purchased???

 

[disneynutz]

Select the best UY for your vacation patterns.
Buy where you love to stay.
Book at 11 months.
Buy resale if you can.
If you buy additional contracts, keep the same UY and names on deeds.
After buying resale, if you intend to buy a small direct contract for the perks, find out what the new resale rules are.
DVD/DVC marketing can change the perks at any time.
Perks and policies tend to change when management changes and DVD/DVC upper management just changed.
Expect to spend more on Disney vacations after you buy DVC.

Bill

 

[LuigiSpice]

Select the best UY for your vacation patterns.

What do you mean by this exactly? Lets say I tend to travel in Late August, would I want my UY to be far away from that (Feb) or close to it?

 

[Jason@dvcstore]

What do you mean by this exactly? Lets say I tend to travel in Late August, would I want my UY to be far away from that (Feb) or close to it?

If you vacation in August then an August use year would be best for you. Then you go backwards for the next best use years for you. June (since July use year doesn't exist), April (since May use year doesn't exist), March, February and December would work well for an August traveler.

 

[disneynutz]

What do you mean by this exactly? Lets say I tend to travel in Late August, would I want my UY to be far away from that (Feb) or close to it?

UY is free insurance if you need to cancel and bank your points, it has happened to most of us. If you vacation in late August an August UY would work for you. Your banking deadline would be March 31st of the following year.

Bill

 

[Minniemee14]

UY is free insurance if you need to cancel and bank your points, it has happened to most of us. If you vacation in late August an August UY would work for you. Your banking deadline would be March 31st of the following year.

Bill

So does your banking deadline come at a certain time after UY? I’m a little confused.

 

[disneynutz]

Points can only be banked during the first 8 months of your UY. Your UY is not a calendar year. Points need to be available during the dates of your stay, not when you make the reservation. Banking moves points one UY forward, borrowing moves points one UY back. Banking and borrowing are final transactions and can not be reversed.

Bill

 

[LuigiSpice]

So does your banking deadline come at a certain time after UY? I’m a little confused.

Took me a minute to sort through this as well, but I believe if I was to buy in now with a UY of August, I would have X-points to use until Aug 2020. If I had to cancel that trip for whatever reason, I could bank those X-points by March 2020 for use until Aug 2021.

Is that correct?

 

[Xalthon]

Took me a minute to sort through this as well, but I believe if I was to buy in now with a UY of August, I would have X-points to use until Aug 2020. If I had to cancel that trip for whatever reason, I could bank those X-points by March 2020 for use until Aug 2021.

Is that correct?

That might be stating it a little more complicated than it needs to be.

As Bill indicated, you can bank your current use year points during the first 8 months of your use year. Thus, if you have an August UY, you have until March 31 to bank any unused points into the next year's UY. After that date, you cannot bank anymore and if they are not used (includes renting, transferring, etc.) then they will be lost.

EDIT: Adding link to banking chart -- https://disneyvacationclub.disney.g...pecific/eng/member/mydvc/2008bankingchart.gif

 

[BillPA]

If you buy now DIRECT, you will get 2018 points to use by July 31 2019, or have the CM bank them into 2019 UY, plus 2019 points will be available to borrow now or use by July 31, 2021.

 

[CraigInPA]

If you buy now, in April, you'd be in your August 2018 use year. You'd have to use those points by July 31, 2019, or you bank them by March 31, 2019. Since it's already April, those points could be lost. You can try to find a last minute room to use them up, transfer them to RCI, rent them to someone else (who would want you to book them a room), or let them expire and be lost. If you just bought the contract, member services could also bank the expiring points for you. For direct customers, it's no big deal. For resale, it's a once-in-a-lifetime exception to the banking rules.

If it was before your banking deadline, you could have banked them into your 2019 use year. They would then expire on July 31, 2020. You cannot bank them a second time.

On August 1, 2019, you'd get a new batch of points.