Call me cheap (or frugal) but I am paying cash on the weekend again

[pumpkinboy]

Yes it makes for complicated ressies, and you need to check in and out during your stay, but I am conserving points so we can get the family in a BWV GV in '06.

I just managed to get the remaining weekend nights I had booked on points, re-booked at the DVC discounted cash rate. (Yay!). I had done this for our ressies next weekend (three ressies for a 5 night stay), and for our January ressies (another three for 5 nights) and now for April vacation (five different ressie #s for 19 nights). Here's how it worked:
November: arrive Weds, two nights on points 2BR BWV std view, two weekend nights DVC discount 2BR std, Sunday night on points 1BR std (our friends go home Sun).
January: arrive Thurs on points VB ocean view inn room, Fri & Sat same room on cash w/DVC discount, Sun & Mon 1BR VWL on points.
April: our family plus grandparents and niece: Arrive Fri, stay Fri & Sat @AKL on General Public code 1 deluxe savannah view bunk bed room (for 5), 1 regular savannah view room with King for the grandparents; Sun-Weds nights BWV std view 2BR on points (Grandparents and niece go back to Maine), Thurs 1BR std view BWV on points, Fri 1BR std view on cash w/DVC discount.

Whew! The lengths I go to in order to stretch our 495 points.

But here are the savings:
November saved 116 points, spending $936 after sales tax
January saved 58 points, spending $302 after sales tax
April saved 207 points, spending $1,542 after sales tax, and getting to stay at AKL

And this way I still get to enjoy the code hunt the way the folks on the resort board do . So Cheap or Sensible (or completely obsessed), you decide.

 

[Happy Birthday Cat]

You are truly a New Englander pumpkinboy. You remind a lot of everyone in my wife's family. Of course as you know, they are New Englanders as well. She would be very proud of you.

BTW, I voted all of the above.

And I hate the code hunts and that is one of the reasons I love DVC so much.

HBC

 

[pumpkinboy]

After all, HBC, your in-laws are "just t'other side" of the Kennebunk River from us, so a similarity would not be suprising .

I note that you use the term "New Englander" rather than "Yankee"; unfortunately, Yankee has pejorative connotations outside of the NorthEast, and in New England is often despised for being the hated baseball team from NYC . So I'll take New Englander thx, or even Mainer (since I am only living here in the South for now, my true home is Maine after all). Didn't you hear about Mainers inventing copper wire? Well y'see two neighbors way Down East were quarrelling over this penny, and...

Of course, being a finance wonk by profession, I had to make up a spreadsheet, comparing points costs vs cash costs (and updating year to year). Of course there is an if-then statement in there to determing the better price and best sequence of ressies. I need to do it for SSR now (probly OKW too), as I have spreads for BWV and VB - and the Pfd view numbers are mostly the same as BCV and VWL so no need to spread differently.

Hmmm, maybe I shuld have voted "obsessive"....

 

[CarolMN]

Originally posted by pumpkinboy
......(snip)>>>>>>But here are the savings: >>>>>>>

Oh my! Just look at the lengths we will go to rationalize our Disney trips!

Did I tell you I just bought a $200 dress that I didn't need (but I wanted it) for $100? I saved $100!

Never mind that I spent $100 to save the $100 and that I bought something I didn't really need at all in the first place..


Best wishes -

 

[EmptyNester]

but then again, this Maine girl doesn't understand spending $2800 to "save" 381 points.

- Sharon

 

[bobbiwoz]

I didn't vote, I don't know what to make of it, but if you get the GV at BWV with those points it WILL be worth it for sure.

It does make an interesting "Read" however!

Bobbi

 

[mikesmom88]

pumpkinboy

I voted all of the above because I am the same way!

 

[pumpkinboy]

Originally posted by EmptyNester
but then again, this Maine girl doesn't understand spending $2800 to "save" 381 points.
- Sharon

Hey, obsessive is a fair characterization, that's why I put it there.
But here's my reasoning behind "spending $2800 to 'save' 381 points", as our friend in Androscoggin County so aptly puts it:
If I didn't save these points this year for the GV, I'd have to go out and rent them on the rent/trade board, at which point we're talking a minimum of $10 per point and no guarantee of BWV points. And we're definately going to need the extra points next year. So I figure, since I have the free cash, spending $2800 to save $3810 worth of points comes to over $1000 not considering interest or opportunity costs.
Yeah, but doing all that checking in an checking out, and making complicated ressies, really does fall into the obsessive category, but if it takes me 10 hours in total to do it, that's a payback of $100 an hour for the hassle (which in my own twisted way, I find kinda fun).

Glad you enjoyed reading thru the machinations, Bobbi.

 

[magicalmcwho]

I vote for all of the above also but i would say frugal.


Jim.

 

[DrTomorrow]

I'm with HBC: voted "AOTA" but tend to think "obsessive". As a software engineer with with definite "anal"ytical tendencies (I even wrote a program in C++ to optimize my family's annual College Bowl pool, complete with GUI), I sympathize, but buying into DVC at 300 points was done to eliminate stress, not increase it. Although it is an interesting multivariate Min/Max problem....

And I've never thought of "Code Hunting" as enjoyable.

IMHO YMMV

 

[EmptyNester]

Originally posted by pumpkinboy
as our friend in Androscoggin County so aptly puts it:

Hi Pumpkinboy - most Mainers don't know where we are

Yeah, but doing all that checking in an checking out, and making complicated ressies, really does fall into the obsessive category, but if it takes me 10 hours in total to do it, that's a payback of $100 an hour for the hassle (which in my own twisted way, I find kinda fun).

Thanks for the explanation - I just couldn't take that much moving/point manipulation. But, as long as YOU'RE having fun, that's all that matters!

Enjoy your stay in the GV!
- Sharon

 

[Muushka]

You are just smart pumpkinboy! And all of the above plus the frugal mentioned. But then, being a 'former' New Englander (RI), I completly understand your logic. The fun is in making a game out of how much you can save! I like it!

 

[megrod74]

I voted AOTA too, but I understand since you had a goal in mind. You weren't just doing it to do it. (But I get the feeling you probably would)

 

[MinnieGi]

LOL! Pumpkinboy you go and enjoy that BWV with your family next year! All that checking in and out will be worth it. Besides look at how many other resorts you get to enjoy b/c of your savings.

Actually I like to code hunt too. I just booked AKL for the weekend b/4 we check into BWV for our week stay that does include one weekend nigths on points but just couldn't do two. Even though we are DVC I really do enjoy the "hunt."

The past two trips we also avoided weekend points by using AP rates one time we changed resorts the other we just paid the AP rate for our room and no check in/out was needed.

Enjoy all of your "savings!"

 

[joepoe]

I said obsessive. How can you be called cheap or frugal when you are paying cash to stay at WDW? WHy don't you use the extra money you spend on accomodations every year to buy enough points so you dont have to move?

 

[RuthnPaul]

Originally posted by joepoe
How can you be called cheap or frugal when you are paying cash to stay at WDW? WHy don't you use the extra money you spend on accomodations every year to buy enough points so you dont have to move?

Joe, well said!

 

[msdis]

No matter how you look at it you earned it with that much work.

I'd say it was "great planning".

 

[pumpkinboy]

Originally posted by joepoe
I said obsessive. How can you be called cheap or frugal when you are paying cash to stay at WDW? WHy don't you use the extra money you spend on accomodations every year to buy enough points so you dont have to move?

The thing is, I don't have to move. I check in and out officially, but they have always kept us in the same room. Yeah we move in January, but that's just so we get some park time in, and we were planning on that move anyway. We also move once in April, but again that is planned; we are taking my 9 yr old niece down for her first visit, so the "WOW" factor of a savannah view room is what we wanted. Once we move to BWV after the 1st weekend, we stay in the same room until final checkout.

Until they build a DVC resort at AKL, Contemporary and maybe at the Poly, I will want to diversify. The higher point costs on the weekends give me a good excuse (and a financial incentive) to do so. We go to WDW often bcs it's our main vacation spot; we have a wheelchair bound child, and WDW is the only place we can go that is completely open to him (and his little sister doesn't mind a bit). Staying in the resorts on a code gives us a different experience than our DVC, and we all enjoy a little variety.

We could buy even more points, and we did at several points this year. But I hate paying a higher points price when I could pay a lower cash price and arbitrage by renting the saved points out and being up money. Now I'm not renting them out, as I am saving them for a GV, something I am not going to do too often. So I don't think that getting even more points, more than we will likely use most years, makes any sense for us. If we are going to be needing more points on a ongoing basis, believe me, we'll get them.

Again, "obsessive" is a fair call. I was on disability for a while in late summer and had some time on my hands, so coming up with a good points vs cash rate spreadsheet, a Net Present Value calculation, some long range planning and cacluation and a few calls to MS and CRO were a way to keep my brain working, even when my body was not allowing me to be at the office(mostly better now thx). I did other things too, but DVC planning and calculation were a pleasant diversion.

 

[bobbiwoz]

pumpkinboy, I am glad you are "mostly better now" and hope that soon you'll be "all better!"

Here, here for the notion of a AKL DVC!

Bobbi

 

[Tooneric]

Pumpkinboy,

How does the "checking in" for each ressie work? I ask because I'm doing the same thing in February. I'm paying cash for the first night of our trip (Sat.) and the last night (Fri.). I was told we keep the same 2BR suite and the same keys.

Do you get a new "Welcome Home" each time you check in?

BTW, I voted all of the above. But aren't all DVC DISers obsessive, sensible, and frugal? Well, at least obsessive and sensible. Okay, obsessive.