Concierge on points doesn't seem to make sense

[TwingleMum]

I was playing with the new members website and playing lets find out how much it would be to stay at ----. I looked at the Disney resorts concierge points and they seemed ludicrous. Way over what I was quoted by Disney w/o any discounts. I was looking at GF in particular. First off is concierge Sugar Loaf or Main Bldg?? I was looking at GF main Bldg concierge for Dec 7-Dec 15th. I was given a rate of $585/night. The DVC point chart is for that same period Sun-thurs 63pts/night ( or $630/night) and Fri/sat is 113pts(or $1130/night). And $585 was for the more expensive main bldg. So on Fri/sat you are almost paying double. I guess if you have a lot of points to use it would be OK but otherwise I think it would make more sense to use your points Sun-thurs and book for cash concierge and hope for at least AAA discount.

 

[dianeschlicht]

I joined DVC so I wouldn't have to pay additional for staying at WDW, so I agree that using points for Concierge stays is a waste of points. I am VERY happy to just stay in a 2 bedroom OKW villa for 10 days instead!

 

[TwingleMum]

Don't get me wrong I love our DVC and didn't buy to do concierge but we were talking about adding a few extra days on a trip and trying all different Disney resorts. Thats what got me to play with the point chart.

 

[wisbucky]

I totally agree with DianeSchlicht. We bought into DVC so we would not be paying any additional monies down the road to lodge. I see no reason (speaking of DH and I only) to use points for concierge. That to us would be a waste of our DVC. We feel more than content with having choices of several resorts to pick from in the DVC collection on grounds at Disney.

 

[MikeJ]

We're looking at staying at the Grand Californian before our August 2005 repositioning cruise on the Magic. Is it possible to book a room at a DL hotel on points and upgrade to concierge by paying the differential with cash (assuming availability)? Or do you have to book the whole thing with points?

- Mike

 

[CarolMN]

I don't think DVC values a point at $10 when it negotiates the point schedules for the non-DVC options. FWIW, there are expenses involved to turn a DVC point into the cash needed to pay for the non-DVC options. Also, none of the non-DVC options (except possibly the trades through II) have any contractual "inflation" protection built in. Only the point requirements to stay at a DVC resort have that.

Anyway, IIRC, it seems to work out that DVC values our points at somewhere between $5 -$6 per point. At $6/point, 63 points equates to $378/night. Remember there is no additional tax to pay. That doesn't seem quite so bad.

All that said, I do agree with the others - the best economic value of DVC points is using them to stay at a DVC resort. I don't see how it will ever be a good $$ value to use my points to stay at any of the non-DVC resorts.

Best wishes -

 

[Chuck S]

DVC has to base the non-DVC point usage on the amount of $$ they expect to recover from renting out the room through CRO, taking into account the costs associated with the transaction, including the daily maid service that is included when our trade out points are rented through CRO. I would expect trades to be fairly expensive point-wise so there is a buffer for lower than expected return, otherwise the cost of those trade would be shared by every member through a dues increase.

 

[Johnnie Fedora]

Somewhere in the evolution of the DVC program (2001), Disney resorts decided to really over-inflate the point costs for any "Disney family" exchanges.

The most likely reason for this is plain greed. Disney can take the exchanged points, rent them out through CRO and make a bundle on them. There seems to be a nice "handling fee" built into this whole exchange process?

This is to bad for the flexibility of the overall program. We would have liked to sample some of our favorite Disney resorts through point exchanges, but since the process is a complete gouge, we have been staying off-site, or renting our own points and staying onsite at a discounted AP rate.

Disney valuing member points at $5-6, would be fine with me if they reciprocated. But, I've never received a cash rate at a DVC studio for $50-60/night. Go figure?!?

Mooooooooo!

 

[lacool]

We did it once. We stayed at AKL concierge for a couple of nights, when my in-laws backed out of the trip with less than 30 days to go. We didn't really need the 2-bedroom unit that we had booked, so we changed to AKL for two nights, followed by an OKW 1-bedroom for the remainder of our trip. We would not have been able to use the points before they expired, and we really enjoyed the experience of AKL and the savannah view.

That said, the concierge service was nice, but it paled in comparison to the luxury of staying in a 1-bedroom unit, being able to spread out, stay up after the kids had been put to bed, not to mention the jacuzzi after a long day at the parks.

So, we enjoyed the experience, but it made us appreciate our DVC villas so much that we won't be doing it again anytime soon.

 

[erikthewise]

If you add tax onto the $585 rack rate quote, the 63 points a night is a close match at $10/pt. This is typical of current point charts at non-DVC resorts. The weekend rates are exorbitant, and only those with hundreds of points to burn should consider spending them on concierge on weekends. But then, those people don't need my advice!

There is an explanation other than greed for the major increase in points at non-DVC resorts in the 2002 point charts; I don't know how much truth it contains.

It used to be a pretty good deal to rent points for the purpose of using them at non-DVC resorts. In fact the Mousesavers website (which started in 2001) used to have an item pointing out the excellent savings available in this way. It may be that the resorts did not appreciate these "discounts" that they had no control over. The 2002 increase seemed intended to put an end to this practice by making it no longer economical to rent points for use at non-DVC resorts.

I doubt that DVC is making a lot of money on points used at non-DVC resorts, simply because I don't think it happens that often. Everyone reaches the same conclusion as the OP

 

[Scratch42]

Originally posted by MikeJ
We're looking at staying at the Grand Californian before our August 2005 repositioning cruise on the Magic. Is it possible to book a room at a DL hotel on points and upgrade to concierge by paying the differential with cash (assuming availability)? Or do you have to book the whole thing with points?

- Mike

I remember reading about someone that did that. Not sure on this board though but at DisneyLand Board.

If I remember I'll let you know or someone else might know for sure!

Scratch