Canadian DVC Owners - questions

[bbangel]

I am seriously considering buying in, most likely through a resale as I can't buy from Disney without being in Florida.
How have others handled making the payment? I don't have a US bank account and they won't take cheques from a Canadian bank (even if it is in US funds).
When you pay your maintenance fees to Disney do you use your credit card?
Anything else I should know or consider before I buy?

 

[poohbear7]

We make our payments through our credit card. We have a $ US dollar Canadian credit card that we use for U S purchases. We pay the card off in U S dollars

 

[bbangel]

Did you buy direct from Disney? Did they allow you to purchase on your credit card or did you buy in another way?

 

[cpbjgc]

I am seriously considering buying in, most likely through a resale as I can't buy from Disney without being in Florida.
How have others handled making the payment? I don't have a US bank account and they won't take cheques from a Canadian bank (even if it is in US funds).

We bought resale through the Timeshare Store since we could not buy direct. We paid using a U.S. money order drawn from our bank (no fees on our account for doing this)

When you pay your maintenance fees to Disney do you use your credit card?
Anything else I should know or consider before I buy?

We pay maintenance fees with our credit card through the DVC members-only site. Once you are a member DVC sends you an access code for the site and you can access lots of info on your contracts, current points, whats availabe to use, whats banked, payment of fees, etc. The only thing you can't do is make reservations through the site.

Few things to know:
If you sell in the future, there is a U.S. witholding tax (10% it think);
You cannot talk to your Disney assigned "guide" about pretty much anything, for the same reasons Disney won't sell directly too you;
You will likely be spending more time at Disneyworld than you thought
You will have to watch for a rare medical condition of "addonitis" especially right after a particularly relaxing trip ("If we only had another 50 points...")


We have been twice since buying and I am working through the latest "addonitis" scare...

 

[F4disneyfan]

Our payment comes off our visa and our dues we just send them a money order drawn on our US dollar account at TD.

 

[Fellowship9798]

We're from the west coast too. We don't hear about too many DVC members from the Lower Mainland.

We paid for our resale DVC purchase with a US Funds Bank Draft sent by courier to the closing company.

We paid annual dues previously by credit card but this year I tried sending in a cheque on my TD US$ account. I was trying to avoid the 2-3% fee that credit cards charge on foreign exchange transactions. The cheque cleared and the dues are listed as being paid so I guess it worked. TD has a presence in the US through TD Waterhouse so this may be why they took the cheque. It may not have worked on US$ accounts from other Canadian banks.

I guess something to consider for westerners is the cost of transportation to Florida and back. We're only planning on using our DVC as an "every other year" type of thing considering the time and expense involved in travelling there. No $59 airfares from Buffalo for us!

Good luck with your decision.

 

[F4disneyfan]

We're from the west coast too. We don't hear about too many DVC members from the Lower Mainland.

We paid for our resale DVC purchase with a US Funds Bank Draft sent by courier to the closing company.

We paid annual dues previously by credit card but this year I tried sending in a cheque on my TD US$ account. I was trying to avoid the 2-3% fee that credit cards charge on foreign exchange transactions. The cheque cleared and the dues are listed as being paid so I guess it worked. TD has a presence in the US through TD Waterhouse so this may be why they took the cheque. It may not have worked on US$ accounts from other Canadian banks.

I guess something to consider for westerners is the cost of transportation to Florida and back. We're only planning on using our DVC as an "every other year" type of thing considering the time and expense involved in travelling there. No $59 airfares from Buffalo for us!

Good luck with your decision.

There is also TD Bank North in the US owned by TD.

 

[bbangel]

We're from the west coast too. We don't hear about too many DVC members from the Lower Mainland.

We paid for our resale DVC purchase with a US Funds Bank Draft sent by courier to the closing company.

We paid annual dues previously by credit card but this year I tried sending in a cheque on my TD US$ account. I was trying to avoid the 2-3% fee that credit cards charge on foreign exchange transactions. The cheque cleared and the dues are listed as being paid so I guess it worked. TD has a presence in the US through TD Waterhouse so this may be why they took the cheque. It may not have worked on US$ accounts from other Canadian banks.

I guess something to consider for westerners is the cost of transportation to Florida and back. We're only planning on using our DVC as an "every other year" type of thing considering the time and expense involved in travelling there. No $59 airfares from Buffalo for us!

Good luck with your decision.

I guess you can count me among the people who hope there will be DVC in California some day. I did factor in projected flight costs when doing my math
One of the main reasons I want to do is my best friend lives in Halifax and it would make a great meeting destination for her family and me.
Off to talk to my banks regarding wire transfers and US dollar bank accounts.

 

[bbangel]

Few things to know:
If you sell in the future, there is a U.S. witholding tax (10% it think);
You cannot talk to your Disney assigned "guide" about pretty much anything, for the same reasons Disney won't sell directly too you;
You will likely be spending more time at Disneyworld than you thought
You will have to watch for a rare medical condition of "addonitis" especially right after a particularly relaxing trip ("If we only had another 50 points...")


We have been twice since buying and I am working through the latest "addonitis" scare...

I have heard of the dread addonitis. Since I already have ODD (Obssesive Disney Disease) I will have to be especially vigilant!

If you can't talk to your guide how do you arrange everything?

 

[cpbjgc]

I have heard of the dread addonitis. Since I already have ODD (Obssesive Disney Disease) I will have to be especially vigilant!

If you can't talk to your guide how do you arrange everything?

You can always talk to member services. The "guide" is the Disney salesperson who is supposed to answer all your questions, feed you rumours about Disney opening DVC on the West Coast and be there to help treat the addonitis by helping you buy more points . Because they are primarily a salesperson who is supposed to be registered to sell timeshares/real estate, they have to be very careful in what they say to you when you live in a province/state where they are not registered.

Member services is more the administration who handles booking your reservations, booking dining plans, cash reservations at the DVC resorts using your DVC discount, and managing your points. I find them generally very friendly and helpful. Once you buy in as a member, this is your main contact point for vacation planning.

Besides that, the DISboards seems to have all the vacation planning advice you could ever need (even when you don't ask for it!). I find the DVC boards around here to be very useful for that.

For us, we have a small contract (100 points) which lets us do every other year at our home resort (OKW). That's the other advantage of resale, you can start off buying a small contract to see if it fits your needs and add on over time if you like. When buying direct from Disney, your initial purchase is a minimum of 160 points (used to be 150).

 

[poohbear7]

We bought direct from Disney.

 

[madonna31]

as I can't buy from Disney without being in Florida.

I'm a little confused on this statement (but of course DH handles all of the money stuff with DVC, so I'm not much help). However, we are in Ontario and bought directly from Disney.

There is also TD Bank North in the US owned by TD.

That's what we use. Disney takes our monthly payments right from our US TD bank account.

 

[bbangel]

I'm a little confused on this statement (but of course DH handles all of the money stuff with DVC, so I'm not much help). However, we are in Ontario and bought directly from Disney.

Ontario is the only province where Disney is registered to sell their property. I guess that is where their highest percentage of Canadian buyers are. Everyone else has to sign all the paperwork in Florida.

 

[bbangel]

Thanks everyone for your replies. Continuing to crunch numbers and hope to make a decision soon.

 

[madonna31]

Everyone else has to sign all the paperwork in Florida.

Ok, so seeing as you are from Vancouver, you would have to physically be IN Florida in order to sign???

 

[bbangel]

Ok, so seeing as you are from Vancouver, you would have to physically be IN Florida in order to sign???

That is what they tell me. They can't even talk to me on the phone or send me promotional materials.

 

[madonna31]

WOW, I never knew that. Ya learn something new everyday.

So sorry to hear that.

 

[F4disneyfan]

That is what they tell me. They can't even talk to me on the phone or send me promotional materials.

If you want the promo stuff just have somone in Ontario call down and have it sent to them just let them know it is for friends in another province and they will send it off. Once it arrives in Ontario you just send it to whoever it needs to get to.

 

[dhluvsDisney]

We have bought directly from Disney and we are just finishing a resale purchase thru TTS. We sent our closing cheque yesterday. We have found both ways to be quite simple (Disney was easier in that we did not have to courier the cheques both times in order to be there promptly).

Our dues get charged to our credit card, but I may change that to an autodebit on our Royal Bank U.S. account.

 

[Kurby]

We bought resale through the Timeshare Store since we could not buy direct. We paid using a U.S. money order drawn from our bank (no fees on our account for doing this)


You cannot talk to your Disney assigned "guide" about pretty much anything, for the same reasons Disney won't sell directly too you;.

ok - we're thinking about it again and i have a question these things.

I just spoke to someone from DVC Judy - and she was very helpful. she knew I was in Canada and talked about buying direct from them though suggested if we wanted to finance we look to our bank since their intrest rates are 10% with direct withdrawl and 11% with invoice.

she also gave me her direct 1800 number so i don't understand those 2 comments - why can't you talk to your DVC guide? and why do you think they won't sell direct to you?

we can't get away from thinking about buying in especially now since our fav resort has come online with DVC Animal Kingdom.

now we need twice as much so we can buy into DVC and buy our travel trailer.


aggrrrr i wish my husband had bought into it back in 1991 before we were together and the price was 60+% lower.