Buying Resale AND Direct - Points Use Questions

[cbg1027]

My DH and I are considering buying DVC. I would like to buy resale, but would still like the option using the member perks. I also am thinking that Disney may, in the future, try to do everything they can to incentivize people to buy direct. So my idea was to buy a minimum purchase contract direct for 50 points (most likely AKV) and then buy the bulk of my points resale. That way I retain the member perks.

My question is, will this present any issues when booking? Can one combine points from multiple contracts for one vacation?
Say I have 50 AKV points direct, and 100 BWV resale.
I want to book a 38 point stay at AKV and do so. Then I want to book a 112 point stay at BWV. Will this be an issue other than the 7 and 11 month booking windows? Is there any issue with the fact some points are resale and some are direct when booking one stay?

Thank you!

 

[BillPA]

You can only book home resort at 11 months, with home resort points. At 7 months, a point is a point no matter where its home is. At least until DVD changes that. I would get the resale done first, that way you can just add direct where ever, it would be much easier to get the same UY that way. Just make sure you title both EXACTLY the same, names etc.. so you only have one master contract number. Disney may not sell you a 25-50 point 1st contract, but as an add-on, no problem.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

I would also recommend: Resale first.

It gives you the broadest options for UY that way when shopping in resale. If you lock in a UY via direct, then go to resale, and then you want a certain contract size... blech. Nuisance.

Disney will sell a 25-point add on without blinking. Officially, they will not sell a new buyer less than 100 points at AKV.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

My DH and I are considering buying DVC. I would like to buy resale, but would still like the option using the member perks. I also am thinking that Disney may, in the future, try to do everything they can to incentivize people to buy direct. So my idea was to buy a minimum purchase contract direct for 50 points (most likely AKV) and then buy the bulk of my points resale. That way I retain the member perks.

My question is, will this present any issues when booking? Can one combine points from multiple contracts for one vacation?
Say I have 50 AKV points direct, and 100 BWV resale.
I want to book a 38 point stay at AKV and do so. Then I want to book a 112 point stay at BWV. Will this be an issue other than the 7 and 11 month booking windows? Is there any issue with the fact some points are resale and some are direct when booking one stay?

Thank you!

No, booking is done the same with both direct and resale points.

I'd also recommend resale first then direct.

 

[Dean]

I would also recommend: Resale first.

It gives you the broadest options for UY that way when shopping in resale. If you lock in a UY via direct, then go to resale, and then you want a certain contract size... blech. Nuisance.

Disney will sell a 25-point add on without blinking. Officially, they will not sell a new buyer less than 100 points at AKV.

I agree. The best way to do this for AKV is to buy resale first then do a 25 pt retail add on assuming one wants to have the options of the perks. They still won't be able to use for DCL and the like but I see that as a positive if savings are involved. IMO UY is very important for many and where it's not, they are taking more risk owning DVC.

 

[CarolMN]

.....(snip).......My question is, will this present any issues when booking? Can one combine points from multiple contracts for one vacation?
Say I have 50 AKV points direct, and 100 BWV resale.
I want to book a 38 point stay at AKV and do so. Then I want to book a 112 point stay at BWV. Will this be an issue other than the 7 and 11 month booking windows? Is there any issue with the fact some points are resale and some are direct when booking one stay?

Thank you!

If your direct purchase and your resale purchase are TITLED EXACTLY the same AND have the SAME USE YEAR, they will be under one membership. In your example, it would be easy to combine points from BWV and AKV at 7 months to make a reservation.

However, if you title the purchases differently or if they have different use years, you will end up with two memberships. Combining points will be more difficult. You would have to reserve some nights from the AKV contract and the rest form the BWV contract. You would have two different 7 month windows for your stay. After you make the reservations, you could call MS to note that you want to stay in the same room for the duration of the stay.

So unless you really plan to use the two contracts separately (for example, bank and borrow to go to BWV one year and then the next go to AKV), it's easier to manage if you keep the same use year and make sure everyone involved in the purchases knows you want the contracts titled exactly the same so that Disney puts them under one Membership.

 

[cbg1027]

Wow, so glad I asked this! I did not think about the fact that there would be two memberships!

Can you only do add on points at your home resort?

So if We buy a resale contract at AKV for 150 points, we then can go buy 25 points direct from Disney as an add on to our membership? And that would then qualify us as "direct purchase " members who can access member perks? At least as far as 25 points would allow?

We would probably never use DVC for anything other than DVC resorts. It's just such a bad value to use the points for cruises, non DVC resorts, and other destinations! So I'm not worried about being short enough points to book a Disney cruise, etc. I just want to have access to things like member only events, lounges, etc. This add on idea would save us even more money since we only have to do 25 points! Our DVC guide told us he would sell us a 50 point contract at AKV. I asked if was sure several times because everything I've read and been told said 100 was the minimum.

My other thinking with buying one resort resale and one direct was that I want to be able to book BCV or BWV 11 months out from Food and Wine Festival. But AKV is our favorite and where we would like to have our home resort. Does everyone have much trouble booking at BCV and BWV at 7 months out from F&W?

So does this mean people who own at multiple resorts have multiple memberships?

 

[_auroraborealis_]

Can you only do add on points at your home resort?

No, you can add on anywhere that Disney is ready to sell you. By this, I mean they aren't keeping waitlists for VGf or VGC, maybe others.

Our DVC guide told us he would sell us a 50 point contract at AKV. I asked if was sure several times because everything I've read and been told said 100 was the minimum.

Some resorts are 50, some 100, for a first-time contract. If you already hold a contract, it can be 25.

My other thinking with buying one resort resale and one direct was that I want to be able to book BCV or BWV 11 months out from Food and Wine Festival. But AKV is our favorite and where we would like to have our home resort. Does everyone have much trouble booking at BCV and BWV at 7 months out from F&W?

Yes. If you aren't booking BCV or BWV in home resort for fall, it's not happening, save via waitlist, luck and extreme flexibility of dates. That said, 25 points won't get you very far, even bank/borrow for a 3-year cycle.

 

[Dean]

Wow, so glad I asked this! I did not think about the fact that there would be two memberships!

Can you only do add on points at your home resort?

So if We buy a resale contract at AKV for 150 points, we then can go buy 25 points direct from Disney as an add on to our membership? And that would then qualify us as "direct purchase " members who can access member perks? At least as far as 25 points would allow?

We would probably never use DVC for anything other than DVC resorts. It's just such a bad value to use the points for cruises, non DVC resorts, and other destinations! So I'm not worried about being short enough points to book a Disney cruise, etc. I just want to have access to things like member only events, lounges, etc. This add on idea would save us even more money since we only have to do 25 points! Our DVC guide told us he would sell us a 50 point contract at AKV. I asked if was sure several times because everything I've read and been told said 100 was the minimum.

My other thinking with buying one resort resale and one direct was that I want to be able to book BCV or BWV 11 months out from Food and Wine Festival. But AKV is our favorite and where we would like to have our home resort. Does everyone have much trouble booking at BCV and BWV at 7 months out from F&W?

So does this mean people who own at multiple resorts have multiple memberships?

A resale then a 25 point add on titled the same would be under one master contract with the current options but it's possible in the future this could change. IMO you want to stay away from multiple master contract unless you have a specific situation or plan where the hassle is worth it and for the situation you've described it likely would never be a good choice.

Personally I think the best choice for most people is exactly what you're doing. Buy resale then 25 retail all planned dup front. Even if they don't think they'll use the perks, I'd look at it as insurance for later. Smaller numbers are likely the exception but it would depend on how much value the perks would give. They will sell 50 retail at most resorts and I've seen a couple of reports where they apparently sold 25 retail up front but I wouldn't count on that. It's almost always better to do the resale first then the retail second. You would get access to all perks based not those 25 points but they wouldn't go far for a cruise which your correctly surmised was always a bad value buying in to use for anyway.

 

[mustinjourney]

Sometimes I feel like we end up having the same conversations over and over.

https://www.disboards.com/threads/considering-dvc-and-several-questions-long.3578852/

My comment on that thread was that if you do buy 25 points direct at a stand alone resort, make sure (as Dean mentioned above) you have a plan for those points. Don't just buy the minimum 25 in order to get the direct benefits at the cheapest costs. If you're going to spend the extra money, make it also work for your situation. I made this mistake by only buying 25 points at BCV separate from my 280 points at VGF, so I'm hoping other people can learn from my error. I looked at it solely from an overall cost standpoint and failed to consider the long term usage implications.

Good news for me is that I am a little lucky in that 5 nights during F&W cost 75 points, which is 3 years worth of points exactly. Of course, if I have to cancel that trip last second, I could be in a world of hurt losing all those points in one fell swoop, particularly since my UY is DEC.

 

[mustinjourney]

So if We buy a resale contract at AKV for 150 points, we then can go buy 25 points direct from Disney as an add on to our membership? And that would then qualify us as "direct purchase " members who can access member perks? At least as far as 25 points would allow?

Yes -- you would be considered full members. The only caveat is that if you wanted to use points to book a cruise or the like, then you would only be able to use the 25 points from the direct contract. The resale points would be ineligible. Of course, you already know that is a bad use of points, so no big deal.

 

[mustinjourney]

My other thinking with buying one resort resale and one direct was that I want to be able to book BCV or BWV 11 months out from Food and Wine Festival. But AKV is our favorite and where we would like to have our home resort. Does everyone have much trouble booking at BCV and BWV at 7 months out from F&W?

So does this mean people who own at multiple resorts have multiple memberships?

Booking at 7 months for a STUDIO during F&W at either BCV or BWV is very tough. You most likely will have to piece it together via a waitlist or do a split stay. This past year, we got our first contract in July and it had 46 points banked points that were going to expire end of November so I figured we'd use them to try out F&W. I naively thought I'd be able to book three nights in November less than four months out and use up exactly my 46 points. Needless to say, that was impossible, even with a completely flexible schedule.

I ended up originally booking a 4 night split stay at 4 resorts, with 3 of them being 1 BR suites. I was able to waitlist 1 night at BCV so that we didn't have to move another time, but it made for a lot of wasted time stalking the RAT (resort availability tool). Also -- those 1 BR suites cost about double the amount of a studio, so we blew through the 46 points real quick and ended up having to use points we hadn't planned on using.

During that RAT stalking -- I realized people were not joking about how quickly BCV and BWV rooms get booked up. The other thing I found out quickly -- a room that is there one minute, can be gone the next second. I lost out on two different rooms when that happened.

And if you haven't seen this thread -- it's an invaluable resource for gauging the availability of rooms at the various resorts.

https://www.disboards.com/threads/p...-some-1-bedrooms-vgc-update-10-21-15.3419112/