Considering DVC - Question on Selling Points

[Nickunited]

Hello all

I am considering purchasing a DVC membership and my wife and I are going through numbers and scenarios.

We right now have found out a realistic plan of how many times we plan on going to Disney over the X amount of years, especially if/when we start a family.

We have a point total that fits us picked out as well and all but we are just running through scenarios that might pop up (of course you can not predict anything) but one of them is if there is a 2-3 year stretch where we can not make the trip to Disney.

WE know how banking and borrowing works but my wife is concerned about a stretch we dont make Disney and we possibly lose points.

WE understand that you can sell points? Correct? If so, how easy of a process is that?

Can I get some thoughts on how to manage points that might go lost.


Thanks all

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

You can rent points or rather, rent a reservation. There are a couple of brokers out there now who will match you up with people looking to rent so it's as easy as that if you wish. So far, the rental market has been strong.

 

[sndral]

The price per point for renting them out will usually cover what you paid in MFs plus yield a few extra dollars per point profit. Take a look at the rent/trade board here on Dis to get a sense for how much points rent for, or check out Dis sponsor David's DVC and read his info. 'for owners' to understand how brokers work.
You can also trade your points into RCI to exchange for a stay in another timeshare for a non Disney vacation.

 

[Dean]

Hello all

I am considering purchasing a DVC membership and my wife and I are going through numbers and scenarios.

We right now have found out a realistic plan of how many times we plan on going to Disney over the X amount of years, especially if/when we start a family.

We have a point total that fits us picked out as well and all but we are just running through scenarios that might pop up (of course you can not predict anything) but one of them is if there is a 2-3 year stretch where we can not make the trip to Disney.

WE know how banking and borrowing works but my wife is concerned about a stretch we dont make Disney and we possibly lose points.

WE understand that you can sell points? Correct? If so, how easy of a process is that?

Can I get some thoughts on how to manage points that might go lost.


Thanks all

If you have one 2-3 year stretch and are planning ahead, you should be fine. IF you're buying the "proper" number of points you likely won't have enough with banking and borrowing to put yourself at risk without other life issues. You'd need a stretch that is at least a full 3 years for this to be an issue based on travel timing. But eventually you hopefully will have extra points if you buy the right cushion of points which you could rent or use to splurge.

 

[Nickunited]

Good info - now if i sell my points- does the person who buys them HAVE to stay at my home resort or they can book anywhere?

Same is if i wnt to buy extra points for a year - can I buy points at Resort A and use them on Resort B?

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Good info - now if i sell my points- does the person who buys them HAVE to stay at my home resort or they can book anywhere?

Same is if i wnt to buy extra points for a year - can I buy points at Resort A and use them on Resort B?

As I mentioned above it is renting a reservation. You will make the reservation and rules are the same as any other reservation, you will just put their names on it instead of yours.

The other option is to transfer points out. You cannot transfer banked or borrowed points. They retain their UY and home resort and the person receiving can bank them but cannot borrow them.

 

[Nickunited]

As I mentioned above it is renting a reservation. You will make the reservation and rules are the same as any other reservation, you will just put their names on it instead of yours.

The other option is to transfer points out. You cannot transfer banked or borrowed points. They retain their UY and home resort and the person receiving can bank them but cannot borrow them.

Thanks again - and my Wife is KAT so she laughed when I sent her 'I received this from someone named KAT4DISNEY' hahah

 

[LisaS]

Welcome to the DVC section of the DISboards!

Good info - now if i sell my points- does the person who buys them HAVE to stay at my home resort or they can book anywhere?

As KAT said, if you won't be using your points you have a few options. One is to do what we call "renting points". It's a misnomer because what you actually do is make a reservation for someone using your points and then you rent them the reservation, charging a dollar amount per point for the points used to make that reservation. For example, a perspective renter wants a reservation that requires 100 points. You have advertised that you charge $13/pt so you charge the renter $1300 for that reservation. Your renter doesn't receive the points and cannot make the reservation himself/herself. You make the reservation and you control the reservation. The renter cannot make changes to it or add the dining plan for example.

Another option is to transfer your points which can only be done with another DVC member. Once the other member receives the points, you are out of the picture. The other owner makes his/her own reservation using those transferred points. You can transfer points once per Use Year either into or out of your account.

Same is if i want to buy extra points for a year - can I buy points at Resort A and use them on Resort B?

As KAT said, transferred points retain their home resort and UY. So if you want to book BWV in the 11-month window, you would have to get a transfer of BWV points. If you transfer in SSR points for example, you can book SSR 11 months out or any other resort once you are within 7 months of check in, so if you wanted to book BWV with those SSR points you could not do so until the 7-month window opened.

Just to clarify terminology, if you talk about buying and selling points, that usually means buying or selling a DVC contract. If you want to discuss disposing of or acquiring some extra points, the preferred term is "transfer" (moving points from one DVC member account to another) or "rent" (making a reservation for someone else and renting them that reservation).

Again, welcome to the DVC boards. There are lots of knowledgeable and helpful posters here and also lots of good info in the many hundreds of threads in these forums!

 

[gmboy95]

As far as renting points...i have rented my points on this site on quite a few occasions...not all of them, just the left over ones year to year, and it has been great every time I have done so

 

[Nickunited]

As far as renting points...i have rented my points on this site on quite a few occasions...not all of them, just the left over ones year to year, and it has been great every time I have done so

As - so if you have say points left over - you rent out the rest of them.

Like if we went with 120 points - we can rent all of them for a week or what not

But say we use only 80 of them on a short trip. We could then rent the last 60? Is that easier or harder than the whole lot? Or is it the same?

Also - does the broker just buy your points and resell or do they match you up?


These are like some final questions we have as my wife is into it just worried about eating too many points.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

We could then rent the last 60? Is that easier or harder than the whole lot? Or is it the same?

It's really about finding the right match up, since 60 points will only book a few days. You aren't renting the points so much as you're renting the reservation you make with the points.

Also - does the broker just buy your points and resell or do they match you up?

It's a match-up. Another DVC owner can "buy" your points for transfer, subject to transfer rules. A non-DVC member cannot buy your points.

One thing to be aware of is that David's, for instance, has a minimum contract amount of 95 points to rent via their brokerage service as a DVC owner. So you'd be unlikely to ever be able to just rent your leftovers via David's. I think other brokers may work with smaller allotments, but the challenge is a lot of their requests require 150-300 points many times.

 

[Nickunited]

This has been most helpful all - thank you. We are leaning towards it. Sounds like renting unused points is pretty easy but the smaller the value, the tougher it might be

 

[Nickunited]

and i will learn the terminology - i promise haha

 

[JimMIA]

Critical point -- you can't rent or sell points.

There are two options:

• You can transfer points to another DVC owner. In that case, the points go into their account and become their points to use as they see fit.
• Or, you can make a reservation for someone else...and rent the reservation to them. Those points are still your points, and you retain both ownership and control of that reservation until they check into the resort.

There are risks involved with renting reservations, so be sure you do some research to learn what those risks are.

I personally would never recommend buying points that I might need to use for rentals. If your math depends on that option, you're cutting things too fine. Don't force the answer you want.

I'd buy less and use banking/borrowing to manage my holdings so that I never had points going to waste or being lost. Better too few than too many.

 

[JimMIA]

It's a match-up. Another DVC owner can "buy" your points for transfer, subject to transfer rules.

Understand two things about "transfer rules."

First -- the current transfer rule is one transfer in or out per year.

Second -- transfer policies are one of a thousand things that can be changed instantly, with no notice to you, with one swipe of the Mouse's pen.

Wyndham eliminated them completely overnight. DVC transfers were formerly virtually unlimited and they went from unlimited to one per year overnight.

 

[CarolMN]

If you do end up needing a few extra points to complete a reservation, you can purchase up to 24 one-time use points from Member Services for $15 each. This option is available to you once per year. Keep in mind that the OTU points may only be used for reservations made 7 months or less prior to arrival. (But the option has saved a few trips for many of us over the years. )

 

[TechRavingMad]

Is there a broker like David's but for Transferring points?

 

[_auroraborealis_]

Is there a broker like David's but for Transferring points?

One or two of the other brokers will do it, but most point transfers are done privately, through boards on DIS or other timeshare boards.

 

[Nickunited]

We used the feedback here and are meeting with other DVC members who Rent points tomorrow night. Right now I think we are leaning to becoming members.

Understandably my wife's concern is eating points. It might happen here or there but she wants to know they will sell and from what we see, in the near future the market will be OK for that.

Once we start that family...gulp...we plan on taking our kids every year if possible.

It makes sense for us for travel styles as we like the nicer accommodations.

We are hoping to have a decision by Monday as we have a trip booked in August and it makes sense to join now and use the points on that trip.

Keep you posted but right now we are leaning towards joining the DVC family


**another selling point was Vero Beach being a 45 minute drive away from the Spring Training home of the Mets****

 

[_auroraborealis_]

We are hoping to have a decision by Monday as we have a trip booked in August and it makes sense to join now and use the points on that trip.

It is unlikely you will be able to use newly purchased points on an August trip, with a caveat that if you are buying Poly they might have something. But it's a might, because we're inside 60 days, and even the inventory for cash bookings is likely well-booked.

You can't swap a cash booking at a DVC resort and pay for it with points.