Breaking Even

[mustinjourney]

From my simplistic vantage point, I look at DVC resale cost per point compared to Dave’s rental price to determine pay off. This assumes I would use Dave’s rental points every time I visited, I go at least every other year, and that annual dues/resale/rental pricing stay more or less in line with each other over time (perhaps a bad assumption). Also ignores inflation, and opportunity costs. Trying to keep it simple.

Solve for X (# visits break even, allowing that the biggest gap can be two years):

X = resell price per pt / (rental price per pt - annual dues per pt)

Example:

Today’s resell price for Bay lake is about $140/pt with annual dues at $6.6/pt.

Dave’s home resort rents at $20/pt.

So X = 10.4 visits in today’s Bay Lake scenario.

this ignores the value of controlling the points and reservation.

As we are now finding out right now—that David’s guarantee is not so iron clad

I’d personally value that at another $2-3 per point.

 

[gharter]

For us, working through the numbers, it was about 4- 5 trips for our BWV points and about the same for our AKL points.
this was comparing booking a 1 BR based on discounted prices since that was what we stayed in with DVC, even though we never would have paid cash price for that.
With family staying with us at BWV, we also had a 2 BR for one year. Those prices helped us break even quickly.
While it may not be completely correct, at this point our trips now cost us our dues, food and APs.
A lot of how long it takes to break even also depends on how much you paid per point initially and that is a wide margin.

 

[AdamsMum]

Before I purchased DVC, I went to disney every other year and stayed in a moderate resort (POFQ or CSR). I now go to Disney every year, so I actually spend more money on other things, bu it took me around 8 years of checking the discounted price of my moderate resort against the discounted cash cost of staying in a DVC studio. Saving money wasn't actually my goal when I bought. I fell in love with BWV when I checked around the area on one of my trips, and bought it because I loved it. One of my least favourite things at Dis was to wait for a bus after the fireworks, with sore feet, and two young kids. Staying at BW, I can engineer my trip so that I hardly ever have to do that.

ETA: If your main reason for buying is to save money, you might not find DVC a good strategy. Buy it if you love it.

 

[ofcabbagesandkings]

this ignores the value of controlling the points and reservation.

As we are now finding out right now—that David’s guarantee is not so iron clad

I’d personally value that at another $2-3 per point.

I wouldn't compare the cost of renting points to the cost of owning DVC for this reason, since I'll never rent points because I like to control everything about my reservation and prefer to be able to make changes on the fly without an intermediary like a TA or a DVC owner. I would compare the total cost of owning DVC with the cash cost of the room with a discount, since I have almost always gotten either a RO discount or free dining on our trips. The difficulty for me, in making that calculation now, is that I have no idea where cash room rates might land when WDW is able to reopen. Will social distancing guidelines decrease room availability and thus drive up prices, or will a lack of tourism mean that discounts are plentiful?

 

[mustinjourney]

Before I purchased DVC, I went to disney every other year and stayed in a moderate resort (POFQ or CSR). I now go to Disney every year, so I actually spend more money on other things, bu it took me around 8 years of checking the discounted price of my moderate resort against the discounted cash cost of staying in a DVC studio. Saving money wasn't actually my goal when I bought. I fell in love with BWV when I checked around the area on one of my trips, and bought it because I loved it. One of my least favourite things at Dis was to wait for a bus after the fireworks, with sore feet, and two young kids. Staying at BW, I can engineer my trip so that I hardly ever have to do that.

ETA: If your main reason for buying is to save money, you might not find DVC a good strategy. Buy it if you love it.

Yeah -- buying DVC is definitely not a money saver. Buying DVC leads to addonitis, and then APs, which means more $$ on flights/travel, and then more DVC points b/c you ran out and you need to squeeze an extra trip in b/c you already have an AP.

 

[mustinjourney]

I wouldn't compare the cost of renting points to the cost of owning DVC for this reason, since I'll never rent points because I like to control everything about my reservation and prefer to be able to make changes on the fly without an intermediary like a TA or a DVC owner. I would compare the total cost of owning DVC with the cash cost of the room with a discount, since I have almost always gotten either a RO discount or free dining on our trips. The difficulty for me, in making that calculation now, is that I have no idea where cash room rates might land when WDW is able to reopen. Will social distancing guidelines decrease room availability and thus drive up prices, or will a lack of tourism mean that discounts are plentiful?

no idea about hotel rates -- but DVC resale listing prices seem to have fallen at least 5-10% already. Starting to see 2018 numbers again. I'm guessing by January 2021 (when maintenance fees are due) we'll be seeing further reductions in listing prices.