Considering membership - I have some questions.

[nderh2o]

Considering DVC membership... Have some questions...
1. Saw that Disney is offering free dining plan when you book a complete (resort and tix) trip. If you use DVC and purchase Tix at the time of making reservations are you eligible for the promo?

2. I have DS6, DD4, DD2. DW and myself figure if we buy a DVC membership that we would avg about 1 trip every 2 years. Looking at 2 BR unit. Do you recommend buying points so we have enough every 2 years or twice the points so we can go every year. What about renting points out?

3. What are the pros/cons with resales vs direct from disney? Can you buy membership in DVC resorts other than SSR directly from disney?

These are just the beginning of my Q's. Hope to get the info I need to make an informed decision.


May 2005 OKW

 

[lisaviolet]

No, it has to be a resort booked through the CRO.

 

[lisaviolet]

Whoops. I missed your added questions. Renting. It would cost you any where from low $2000 to over $4000 to have a two bedroom for a week depending on the resort and the time of year (at WDW). Based on $10 a point which is only today's prices. If you bought it would be anywhere from 133 points low season at HH to 462 at the Beach Club at Christmas. So I guess if it's every other year you could get away with buying 150-200 points for most times of the year. Also, I sometimes avoid the weekends and vacation for five nights. If you were okay with that ....renting would be so much less and you could get away with buying less points or extending to every year.

Big decision. Others will be here soon to give your more insight on your DVC questions.

 

[abner1776]

Question 3:

If you buy through DVC the price is set and you pay no closing cost($400 - $600 on average). You can also finance the purchase thru DVC is you want. CLosing is painless and fast(relatively) ...DVC will even charge you CC if you want to earn rewards or whatever.

If you buy though resale the price might be lower than DVC, but you will pay closing costs of $400 - $600. The closing process is longer than thru DVC and DVC can always exercise their right of first refusal and buy the agreement right out from under your nose...you will then be left with...nothing. Financing is dependent upon the reseller...could be + or not.

Yes, you can purchase sold out resorts thru DVC...inventory is limited depending upon the resort and you must purchase a minimum of 150 points. The cost per point is set $95.

If you are interested in the smaller resorts(BCV, BWV, VWL) you maybe better buying through DVC since the price savings on resale is minimal. For the other resorts(SSR, OKW, HH and VB) resales prices are far lower than DVC and therefore you can save some money on resales.

In either case, you need to run the calcs to see which is cheaper.

 

[dianeschlicht]

You also have to take into consideration that you are buying vacation accommodations for the next 47 years. You pay a one time price guaranteeing that you will never spend more than the maintenance fees in addition each year for your WDW accommodations. If you plan to use them every other year, you would bank one year into the next and have 2 years worth of points available at once. The other case is that you borrow the following years points to get your everyother year fix. Beware though, because many of us changed those vacation styles to EVERY year, once we bought DVC!

The other thing to consider is that you will be staying in ONE room at regular resorts or 2-3 bedrooms with complete kitchen and laundry facilities at DVC. I have no doubt that renting points from an owner can be attractive for now, but there is no guarantee that the owners will continue to have the cost of a DVC rental be so much cheaper than paying WDW for the same like accommodations.

Also, perks to DVC membership change on a regular basis. Right now we have a great perk of $100 off the price of an AP. For those of us who vacation every year, this is a FANTASTIC perk! Others, like yourselves might not feel that way about it if you don't go every year. While we do NOT get free dining (why should we?), we DO get discounts on selected WDW restaurants, and things like mini golf, regular golf, etc.

Lastly, most buying in now will need to be members a bit longer to see the financial benefit, but when we bought in, we figured we "broke even" about the 4th year. That is probably because we paid cash rather than do Disney financing.

 

[DemoBri1]

On point #2 of your question, you have to really decide if you are at all interested in coming down every year or not. If you are committed to the trip every other year, then I'd buy a total number of points that can be combined every other year to get you your 2 BR for the "normal" season and # of days of your trip.

If you're looking to go basically once a year, then I'd look at acquiring points that would be much closer in total to the number of points you'll need for a trip every year. The reason not to get the entire number of points is that there will probably be a year where you do decide not to take a trip.

By borrowing and banking properly, we would have been able to squeeze out 8-9 night trips for our first 6 or 7 years in a 1BR at BCV with 170 points. We are going to miss our target because we decided to surprise both sets of Grandparents by providing them both with rooms on our trip 2 years ago, so this really ate into our point totals.

It's somewhat tricky but you really need to download one of the point planner programs that are out there and map out how many points you will use.

 

[mom2grace]

DVC members and those who rent points from a DVC member (me) ARE eligible for the Dining plan. We just did this last week, and we bought our tickets from ticket mania, not Disney.

 

[mydogdrew]

DVC members and those who rent points from a DVC member (me) ARE eligible for the Dining plan. We just did this last week, and we bought our tickets from ticket mania, not Disney.

OP is asking about free dining with CRO ressies, not the dining plan that we can purchase as members.

 

[KimmLynn]

OP is asking about free dining with CRO ressies, not the dining plan that we can purchase as members.

You can also only purchase the dining plan as a member if you are staying at a DVC resort.