Cruising with points

[Lisa D]

Our family would like to try the 3 or 4 day cruise on our next trip "home", preceded by 3 or 4 days at BWV. I heard from some other members on our last trip that it can be cheaper to pay cash for some or all of your cruise, rather than use points. How can you tell which is the better deal? We will be 2 adults and 2 children. Can you pay for say, 1 adult and 1 child on points and use cash for the other two? Thanks for any advice!

Lisa

 

[EROS]

Lisa, we've cruised with points as well. It's all a matter of how you "value" your points. Some here use a $10/point comparison because in theory you could rent out your points at that rate. We use a $5-$6 rate, which is our real out-of-pocket expense for DVC. Sometimes it pays to use points for the adults and cash for the kids; DCL will allow this.

Good Luck,

 

[Dean]

You can pay for as little as one adult with points and as many or few of the rest with points or cash. The problem is that what you pay for cash is not the same as if you go through DCL, it's a negotiated price that is frequently higher than the specials you get directly. Using points usually returns between $6.50 and $8 pp, cash for a cruise is usually the cheapest option but your points availability may affect your decisions.

 

[AnnaS]

We used points last year for 4 adults and paid cash for one child. For next year's cruise we used points for two adults and one child and paid cash for two adults (two inside staterooms). We also value our points for the price of our dues. Just remember that we had to pay for the two adults and $75 fee when we booked cruise (in August). (that was about $2700 - we did not want to borrow points again). You don't have the same time frame to pay as if you were booking through a TA.