Ap Discount At Dvc Resorts

[goofy58]

wWe are planning a trip to WDW for next year(06). We are members at SSR and have not decided on a date yet. We are going to purchase AP's for DW,DD,DS, and myself. I have seen on other posts that the cash discount is greater with the annual pass and easier to get a ressie for. Anyone know what the discount is? Also if we were to go at Easter time how available would a Friday night be for a cash ressie? We have not yet decided, as we have been there before at Easter(wow was it crowded) Our other option is in July? Thanks for any info you can give.

 

[DebbieB]

The member discount is a flat 25%. AP or code discounts can vary. I got about 30% off on an AP rate last May for an OKW 1 bedroom. AP rates can be blacked out around holidays. With the last batch of AP rates, they said they were available Sunday to Thursday, although some people posted that they were able to get them checking in on Friday or Saturday.

 

[tjkraz]

I would think that at the DVC resorts, the 25% DVC member discount would be easier to obtain than an AP discount. DVC only has a very small percent of rooms to rent on a cash basis, while any rooms projected to be unbooked on points would get the DVC member discount.

I think it would be very difficult to get either of these discounts around Easter. July would definitely be easier.

If you're wanting to stay at a non-DVC resort, you may get an AP discount. Although I hear they are hard to come by at the Deluxe resorts due to high demand and limited supply.

 

[DisneyMim]

We are able to get AP discounts very easily. In fact we just planned a very last minute trip for a long week-end in a couple of weeks and used an AP discount for WL. IMHO the AP discounts are much easier to get then the DVC discounts. It seems that they don't have many rooms set aside for the DVC discount. This has just been our experience over the years. We use a mixture of our DVC points and cash for all our trips, as we like staying at different resorts (Poly, AKL, etc.) so don't always stay at a DVC resort and don't like to use our DVC points for non-DVC trips. Even when we have stayed at Vero we went cash. Once with a DVC discount which did not include maid service, and the other time with a discount that I found in the back of the Birmham book that was LESS than the DVC discount and included daily maid service. You have to do your homework. There ARE very good discounts out there.

 

[tjkraz]

It seems that they don't have many rooms set aside for the DVC discount.

They don't "set aside" any rooms for the DVC discount. The idea behind DVC is for the rooms to be 100% booked year-round. That would happen if everyone used all of their points each year...which doesn't really occur.

Rooms are only offered at the 25% member discount if DVC's computer projections indicate that the resort will not be fully booked for a given date by members staying on points.

Just a guess, but I'd bet that the discount is very rarely offered at the smaller resorts for weekday stays, and only occasionally offered for the higher-point weekends. OKW and eventually SSR (mainly due to their size) will be more likely to have an inventory of discounted rooms available for any given time.

 

[Cruelladeville]

I agree with DisneyMim's response. I ALWAYS stay with a combination of points and cash, and have always found the discount available, even at Christmas in the hotel portion of Beach Club. We have stayed on the AP discount from Christmas Eve(the last day the discount is available, usually) until New Year's and gotten the rooms for cheap. Last year(2003) our room at Beach Club at Christmas was $199 per night, and we had a lagoon view room in that last set of rooms closest to Epcot. If DVC is booked--like it is at Christmas--you can't get the AP discount, but you can easily get the discount at the delux resorts, instead. Most of the rest of the year you will get the discount at the DVC resorts, too, and it comes with maid service. I always check with MS and CRO to compare rates and availability before booking at a DVC resort, and many times I have gotten a DVC villa thru CRO when MS told me it wasn't available.

 

[d-r]

Hi last year we stayed the week after the week after Easter - what I mean is, we checked in on the weekend after Easter, so when we checked in on Friday it was still Easter week, and the points were still holidays. Then the next week when we were there the points went down. We stayed in a two bedroom at OKW, and the points for the first weekend were something like 100 points a night if I am remembering right. We were able to get an AP discount by calling regular CRO for something like $250 a night, iirc, so it was a lot smarter than using points, and a lot better than the discount through dvc. I remember thinking what a great deal it was. I think the weekend nights were easy to get for cash because they cost so many points not many people used them. But that's just my guess. You never know if you will get an AP discount or not - it has been pretty easy the past couple of years but you never know. But you should try it because it may work out to make a lot of sense for you. There wasn't any trouble for OKW to "link" the reservations so that we just stayed in the room for 10 days, fwiw. I think we may have went back and got new keys.

 

[DisneyMim]

I guess I really didn't mean that they "set aside" rooms for DVC discount, I meant that it is easier to get a room using an AP discount. A DVC CM told me years ago that they like to give out rooms at DVC resorts to non-members so that they may become members. I believe this because we have been members since 1991 and have used AP and other discounts (non-DVC discounts) countless times AFTER I was told that there were no DVC discounts available for a resort. Basically all I am saying, to people who are looking for a cash discount (and I know that probably most members are NOT looking for cash discounts since they bought into DVC to avoid such), is to look around and try various discounts because most times other discounts work better. Cruelladeville it seems like you vacation like us. We LOVE our DVC membership, always have, always will, but sometimes those AP discounts are too good to pass up!!! And as we sometimes vacation last minute, gotta love the fact that we can always get something even during Holiday season.