Being selfish when buying DVC?

[DizBub]

That's another thing.....since we go 3 to 4 times a year, we drive, have annual passes with discounts, DVC discounts and TIW. We can go on our trips seemingly inexpensively. Our guests fly, have to buy tickets and the food at WDW is not cheap. They are incurring huge expenses just to join us, their "free" vacation is costing them a small fortune. Sometimes I feel bad expecting them to come......

 

[jodifla]

We like traveling with people. We also bought DVC so we would not have to stay in studios. We wanted the more relaxed feel of a one bedroom. We bought at 150 points, enough to do a mix of vacations, studios to two bedrooms. Then we added on 56 points. We do vacations with just our son, or invite people. Our family members aren't really Disney people. Our friends live in Florida, so it's a simple drive to WDW for them and not that expensive.

We've owned DVC for 20 years now, and bought at a point level that's flexible enough to do bigger and smaller vacations. We have great friends -- nobody feels entitled.

 

[crisi]

If you don't buy DVC, would you even be considering paying for other people when they travel with you?

I think this is a really critical question. We've taken friends and family - and have been thrilled to share, but we wouldn't be paying for someone else's hotel room otherwise.

DVC makes it economical to share, but it isn't free to book a two bedroom over a one bedroom or an extra studio. Would you pay for their hotel room? If not, ask yourself what is different about DVC. With two exceptions, we'd have paid for the hotel room for our guests - one was friends we brought when we had family cancel - and the next is the trip coming up, where we want to share with some good long time friends.

 

[Dean]

I think this is a really critical question. We've taken friends and family - and have been thrilled to share, but we wouldn't be paying for someone else's hotel room otherwise.

DVC makes it economical to share, but it isn't free to book a two bedroom over a one bedroom or an extra studio. Would you pay for their hotel room? If not, ask yourself what is different about DVC. With two exceptions, we'd have paid for the hotel room for our guests - one was friends we brought when we had family cancel - and the next is the trip coming up, where we want to share with some good long time friends.

We would I'm sure but to a much lessor degree than we do with timeshares. Basically we couldn't afford to do what we do without timeshares. When we invite people we provide the accommodations, if they ask us to use our timeshares, we let them pay a reasonable amount. What's reasonable depends on my costs and other factors such as how we'd use it otherwise.

 

[bumbershoot]

We bought in for ourselves. We invite family because it's fun for us. The family we invite never stays for more than 4 days so we all enjoy a big room and then my small family moves to a different room. We take that opportunity to try out a different resort so it's extra fun. We have not yet charged family or a friend who we've invited. We're going anyway and they enhance our stays so we are happy to provide it. And nope I'd never pay cash for a hotel room for anyone, though we have paid for ourselves because we ran out of points from family trips. We love the ability to be generous.

Our friends live in Florida, so it's a simple drive to WDW for them and not that expensive.

Our family members had the cheap passes and it's just a drive, but going from a day trip with their own food brought in to a multiday trip and paying for food, it really increased their expenses. Now they decided they love Universal as much as we do, and they dropped their Disney passes. My cousin and I are doing princess and I finally get to check out the resort where we own, but we aren't doing parks unless we use our Uni passes.

 

[Baklava]

We just bought a couple days ago. We bought what works for the people we intend to vacation with- ourselves and our children. We did consider other people a little- in as much as *we* might want to invite or co-ordinate. We have friends with DVC and we thought about splitting bigger villas. We will want to take my daughter's bestie in a few years and since both girls are on the spectrum, we'll want to bring the other mom (which means the baby sister too, possibly.) These are things we want to do some time, but ultimately the purchase of $30K+ needs to be about us and our desires and habits, not other people who may or may not come along. We bought enough points to bring guests if we want or to splurge on nicer digs if we don't.

 

[Vernie822]

We have already decided that we won't be allowing anyone other than our parents to use our points without paying us. Maybe a sibling as a gift but I don't intend on letting people use our points because we own a timeshare and they expect it since it's "free" to us. We work too hard to be able to vacation and Disney/other vacations is our treat. We live well within our means in many aspects of our lives so that we can vacation often. That being said no one except our parents even know that we own yet!

Down the road maybe we'll add another contract, we definitely plan on taking our moms since they both like to vacation and our dads don't!

 

[Madame]

We won't be giving away, inviting others for free etc with our DVC points. With the current Canadian exchange rate we'll be paying $1550 in dues for our 200 points. Since I'd be uncomfortable asking for $ from family to cover used points, we won't offer.

It might sound selfish, but vacation time is our time as a family unit & I don't want to deal with possible drama. We can also only travel when I'm on school break & are a family of 5. We'll need all of our points just to get us all in a 1 bd for a week!

 

[a742246]

If money wasn't an issue I would say this every time, treat your true friends and true family whenever you get the chance, especially if they can't afford the experiences that you can! Why? Because in the end we are just memories! Heck, if I won that big lottery a few days ago, I told my wife that my job would be to treat a couple of families with sick children and/or disabled military Vets with children a week in WDW and with me escorting them. I would do this twice a month for every month until the day I could no longer walk! But that's talk from a 60 year old man!

However, if money is an issue and they can can afford to go only on your dime then I say " " them!

 

[Dean]

If money wasn't an issue I would say this every time, treat your true friends and true family whenever you get the chance, especially if they can't afford the experiences that you can! Why? Because in the end we are just memories! Heck, if I won that big lottery a few days ago, I told my wife that my job would be to treat a couple of families with sick children and/or disabled military Vets with children a week in WDW and with me escorting them. I would do this twice a month for every month until the day I could no longer walk! But that's talk from a 60 year old man!

However, if money is an issue and they can can afford to go only on your dime then I say " " them!

I'd point out that for those where money isn't an issue, they don't normally buy DVC. They stay in suites and get special VIP treatment.

 

[SuperRob]

Part of our adding on is to give us more points to work with so that we can have a bigger room if some family wants to join us. We've also got a huge family trip we're planning (perhaps to coincide with the WDW 50th), and with enough points, I can get at least three rooms, if not more, to help accommodate the family. In that scenario, I'd ask my Dad (who's footing the bill for this reunion-style trip) to pay me as if I were renting the points, which would help pay for the cruise my wife and I would like to take later, since we'd be using up three years of vacations for this one.

Personally, my philosophy is that if you'd be happy bunking down with us, and don't particularly care where, I'm more than happy to share the room. If they make it difficult, I'll simply never extend the offer again. And there are some family members I would never offer in the first place, because I know they'd be pains in the *** about it. In fact, I offered to share our Aulani accommodations with my sister and her family, but they couldn't afford to fly out after having some money troubles. No big deal, doesn't really impact our trip, although we'll miss them. But then we offered to add a couple friends of ours that live in Hawaii to our reservation so that they could come use the pool while we were in town.

If they want to use our points without us there, then they can pay us for them. I'm not giving up my vacations without some consideration. And if anyone approached me with some entitled attitude about it, that would be the quickest way to get me to say, "Maybe some other time." Luckily, I really only have one family member that I think would do that, and it hasn't been an issue yet.

 

[a742246]

I'd point out that for those where money isn't an issue, they don't normally buy DVC. They stay in suites and get special VIP treatment.

I don't know Dean (and I respect you immensely), there's a lot of cautious (smart?) people out there that own DVC that are very "fortunate" who can afford anything they want. They know who they are, and maybe they just need a little push to share their "opportunities" with close friends and close families! I know plenty of (friends) people who were always chasing the dollar and now some of them are very ill, but they never took the time to share their fortunes with others. I speak to their children and every one of them wished things were different, and if one person can see themselves in this scenario and can maybe "treat" someone they love to something. That would be a plus!

 

[SuperRob]

I don't know Dean (and I respect you immensely), there's a lot of cautious (smart?) people out there that own DVC that are very "fortunate" who can afford anything they want. They know who they are, and maybe they just need a little push to share their "opportunities" with close friends and close families! I know plenty of (friends) people who were always chasing the dollar and now some of them are very ill, but they never took the time to share their fortunes with others. I speak to their children and every one of them wished things were different, and if one person can see themselves in this scenario and can maybe "treat" someone they love to something. That would be a plus!

That's pretty much where we're at as well. We know our membership is a blessing, so we want to share that when we can.

 

[a742246]

That's pretty much where we're at as well. We know our membership is a blessing, so we want to share that when we can.

Do it as long as you can, there's a lot of people that will remember you! And if you ever fall on bad times most of them will remember!

 

[pmaurer74]

we bought ours with the thought of our extended families. We are taking the inlaws for 5 nights at Boardwalk in June, 2 studios using 2015 points and my parents and my sister's family of 7 in December. Two two bedroom units are WLV using 2016 and 2017 points. It will then be a few years before we can take anyone else. I am hoping my girls will have honeymoons and I am planning a trip to Hawaii in 5 years. I assume as the girl grow older I will likely need the points for larger rooms. We have 210 points. After this year, I may regret taking people. I have already had both parties change their dates slightly.

I bought our DVC using money left to me from my aunt. It is in her memory that I am hoping to create memories with my loved ones.

That being said, I do not think you would be selfish to not consider them.

 

[Dean]

I don't know Dean (and I respect you immensely), there's a lot of cautious (smart?) people out there that own DVC that are very "fortunate" who can afford anything they want. They know who they are, and maybe they just need a little push to share their "opportunities" with close friends and close families! I know plenty of (friends) people who were always chasing the dollar and now some of them are very ill, but they never took the time to share their fortunes with others. I speak to their children and every one of them wished things were different, and if one person can see themselves in this scenario and can maybe "treat" someone they love to something. That would be a plus!

Your statement was related to those where money wasn't an issue however my guess is you really meant those that had choices and could do things if they wanted but didn't have money to throw away. After years of saving and living within our means, that's where we are at present. We do a family trip most years with up to 40 people and we cover the accommodations. Without timeshares there's no way we could afford to do so. Timeshares make it workable but not necessarily cheap, just cheaper enough that we can swing it.

 

[a742246]

You are one of the most generous disboards members out here, you were even were willing to give some unused rooms for free to total strangers here on the disboards, if I remember correctly. You share your fortunes with loved ones and people will remember you long past your life. That's away it should be!
These disboards are lucky to have you as a leading contributor here. All I wanted to point out was if someone has an opportunity to help true friends and family,
go for it.

Your statement was related to those where money wasn't an issue however my guess is you really meant those that had choices and could do things if they wanted but didn't have money to throw away. After years of saving and living within our means, that's where we are at present. We do a family trip most years with up to 40 people and we cover the accommodations. Without timeshares there's no way we could afford to do so. Timeshares make it workable but not necessarily cheap, just cheaper enough that we can swing it.

 

[Dean]

You are one of the most generous disboards members out here, you were even were willing to give some unused rooms for free to total strangers here on the disboards, if I remember correctly. You share your fortunes with loved ones and people will remember you long past your life. That's away it should be!
These disboards are lucky to have you as a leading contributor here. All I wanted to point out was if someone has an opportunity to help true friends and family,
go for it.

Thank you for the kind words, I'm just trying to make it through life and do the best I can to manage what's been entrusted to me and be the best person I can be which is always a work in progress. Fortunately that hard work and planning over the years has given me opportunities to do things for others that not everyone can do.

I do feel it's a mistake for most people, esp those newer to DVC, to buy planning to share with family or friends unless they're already doing those basic trips anyway. It can be wise to buy a full sized contract over a small one but is also usually wise to buy smaller than they think they need to start with on the larger end as well. Basically they need a specific plan and need before them to justify buying for family/friends not just a general idea that they'd like to do this. The reasons I feel this way are centered on the premises that DVC is expensive, people should not buy what they can't afford (pay cash without consumer debt), that planning and completing such trips can be stressful and that many people will take advantage and/or not act appropriately. Put another way, if you've gone the last 3 years with your parents and plan to cont the trend, buying points to do that trip may be reasonable. If they haven't made such trips and don't have a track record, not so much. But it is one of those aspects of buying in where only that person is going to know their circumstances and family. My goal is to get them to think about what they're doing and make a decision based more on the hard factual information and get past the emotions as much as possible.