Direct purchase becoming less attractive

[Ruttangel]

I think where DVC is missing out is that all you need is the minimum number of points to get all extras
Imagine if they said you need to maintain 75% of your points to be direct to be blue card

I would guess most people are hybrid and prob less than 50% direct atm

 

[VGCgroupie]

I think where DVC is missing out is that all you need is the minimum number of points to get all extras
Imagine if they said you need to maintain 75% of your points to be direct to be blue card

I would guess most people are hybrid and prob less than 50% direct atm

Ooof don’t go putting this idea out there. Hurts just thinking about it.

 

[MICKIMINI]

I think there's some FOMO involved with the idea of missing out on new resorts. But are you really missing out that much on not being able to stay at RIV or CFW? Probably not...

We have some direct points and just switched a stay at the 7 month window from VGF to CFW just to see what it's about. We like all DVC properties we've stayed at so I suspect we'll like the cabins as well. But it's nowhere near the convenient location of VGF, PVB or BLT so I suspect it may be a one-and-done experience. We also like RIV a lot but since we bought BWV resale I don't feel much need to splurge on that expensive points chart at RIV, especially since it's hard to get standard view at 7 months. Besides, is RIV even a real "EPCOT resort"?

So you have RIV and CFW and possibly Reflections before the end of the decade.... But aside from that, what "new resorts" are coming online between now and 2042 that may be restricted? With all the O14 resorts up and running till 2042, I don't see much point in buying direct just to "future proof" a big unknown. It may be different after 2042 if you have restricted BWV2, BCV2, and BRV2 but by then you'll be 18 years older and may care a lot less.... Until then, if you own resale at PVB, VGF, BLT, CCV, OKWe, SSR, AUL, VGC you still will have plenty of options to exchange into for the next 30 years!

I do believe there is an advantage, especially for "younger" people. We put our son and DIL on the direct contract so they will have opportunities in the future to stay at resorts that haven't even hit the drawing boards. A legacy gift for our kids!

 

[hcortesis]

are kind of a nail in the coffin, right?

Wrong. At least for me.

 

[Sandisw]

That's great to know!

And for those with multiple use years, you can buy 24 for each use year? (I assume they will cap the BOGO for once per calendar year?)

Only if you have more than one owner sign up. This program gives the member who enrolls the option to buy the BOGO deal. So, even with more than one UY, you get the deal on a maximaum of 12.

You can still buy 24 on each, buy the way the rules are listed, it’s not going to give you more than one deal. Now, if you have joint owners, each could enroll and it should unlock it as one gets the deal on one and one on the other.

 

[Sandisw]

Am I misreading this—so if I have all resale, I can buy OTUP and stay at VDH on them?

They will sell any owner OTU points, up to 24, and those can be used at the restricted reports….so it can get you one night…

The BOGO required you to be DVCY

 

[ocdb8r1]

They will sell any owner OTU points, up to 24, and those can be used at the restricted reports….so it can get you one night…

The BOGO required you to be DVCY

I've never purchased OTU points. Never knew you could use them for restricted resorts. Assume that you also don't actually have to be "out" of points in order to purchase them? Do you have to use them immediately (when you call to purchase) or can they sit in your account?

 

[Sandisw]

I've never purchased OTU points. Never knew you could use them for restricted resorts. Assume that you also don't actually have to be "out" of points in order to purchase them? Do you have to use them immediately (when you call to purchase) or can they sit in your account?

You can purchase them at 7 months…there is no home resort advantage.

You can only purchase when making a reservation and they will expire at the end of the UY in which your reservation falls.

Howeve, you can cancel that reservation and the points go into your account in a temporary contract which will then work online for a different date.

Some people will book a random night in the UY of a trip, cancel, and then have them there for a waitlist, or to swap into a booking already made at 7 months or less to free up their own points.

And, you can buy even if you have points of your own to use. It’s limited to 24 per membership each UY.

So, this new program allows you to purchase them for half price. If you aren’t using any of the other benefits, then you need to add the full $99 in so it brings them down to around $14/point.

 

[RuntheMouse]

I’m loving that we have direct points. Last night we were able to attend Moonlight Magic, got in the first time we had a chance and we were able to switch our Incredipass to Sorcerer Passes just this past week. Saved us a ton of money. It was also worth it for us to have unrestricted access to future resorts, options will be limited come 2042.

We have just enough direct for a blue card and the rest are resale.

 

[MartyParty]

I say no.

It’s always been a risky-to-bad idea to buy just for perks that could (and regularly are) rescinded, altered, or worsened at any time.

It remains so with the new program.

The reason most people buy direct when presented both options is because they want to. That’s what Ive learned here. People justify it all sorts of different ways, but if you want to buy direct, you’re going to buy direct. And I’m pretty sure nothing will change that.

Yup. Agree with this CastAStone. And the same logic for resale buyers albeit the cost savings are real.

Thinking of these buyer groups, I have a three-circle chart in my mind of Direct, Resale, and an overlap of both. Guessing the overall of both Direct+Resale buyers is the smallest percentage of owners. Wonder which group is the largest percentage? Direct or Resale? Not that it matters.

 

[Genie+]

Disney tickets routinely exceed the pace of inflation. So do many other entertainment options. I do not understand how that can be possible while still maintaining attendance, but it has been true for as long as I've been around DISboards.

Please pardon me getting philosophical here… but I attribute this to the outward scale of efficiency and population.

Humanity is getting better and better at everything (well most things at least lol). Nothing but exponential growth since we went from 12.5 to assemble a Model T to 1.5 hours after the assembly line was introduced. The same explosion of leaps and bounds that happened with the industrial age are happening again in the information age. Every advancement is an investment in the future, that everything keeps getting easier and easier to achieve. That efficiency multiplied by increased manpower/population means there’s just alot more of everything to be had… for a price. But the price to create is often getting lower, leaving a bigger and bigger surplus of resources to compete as consumers.

In Rockefeller’s best day he could not afford a space mission - today he could. In his best day it would cost him pretty much his whole fortune to put a pair of decent shoes on every living soul, yet even with triple the population today it would cost him just a fraction of his networth. But if he wanted to buy a nice island? He’d need alot more money today, wayyyy past the inflation that has happened since his time. The surplus of resources competing for the more limited things on Earth.

The answer to how WDW has maintained attendance while prices outpace inflation is probably the same answer to how real estate pricing in the most desirable areas have wayyyy outpaced inflation. Surplus of resources competing. For now Disney Parks still hold something special that people value giving a large chunk of their resources to experience.

 

[Brian Noble]

...and the follow-on question is: How did those resources come to be available if the average real wage has been stagnant? In other words, on average, the average person's discretionary income has not grown in constant-dollar terms, but the price of admission definitely has.

I suspect the answer to that is that real income growth has not been distributed uniformly, and has increasingly concentrated in the upper income strata. In this case, average is just the wrong measure, because instead the population is splitting into two groups. One (the upper-middle-class and above) is growing much faster than real inflation; the other is barely keeping pace. There have been some exceptions to that in the last year when real wage growth was a thing, but only recently.

 

[skier_pete]

Looking on a long-term basis, I found the receipt below from 2011 in my inbox. Those older FL Resident passes were close in functionality (i.e., blackouts) to the Sorcerer Pass and were about $400 apiece before taxes. At $1080 today that's a 170% increase in 13 years. The US BLS CPI Inflation calculator shows Inflation over that period was 40% (or that $400 in 2011 would have the same buying power as $557 today). They slowly but surely turned the annual pass into a luxury product over the years. And with a flat stock price over 10 years, it's not adding shareholder value (albeit I'm sure there are other missteps to point to along the way).

To this point though - you are comparing AP prices to inflation, not to Disney price inflation. Disney price inflation has turned EVERYTHING into a luxury product:

Example A: A MYW 7-day no-hopper ticket in 2011 was $247. Today that same ticket is $728. (At least when I priced it for October 2025 recently.) That's a 195% increase in the same timeframe.
Example B: A top tier MNSSHP ticket in 2011 was $65, now it's $199. 206% increase.

In case you want to check my references:
https://allears.net/walt-disney-world/wdw-planning/2010s-walt-disney-world-tickets/

And let's give this little shout-out to DVC that rarely gets talked about - it's a way to cost control a portion of your Disney vacations. Because while ticket increases and hotel increase go up by 150-200%,, my AKV dues which I bought in 2014 were $5.93 in 2014 and $9.08 this year. A 53% increase in 10 years. Rack rate at say Port Orleans Riverside has gone from $239 to $449 for a pool view room. A 90% increase versus my 53% increase!

This actually factored heavily in my calculations when buying. I just pulled up my calculations that I did in 2014 to see whether DVC was worth it. My "break even" point vs staying at a moderate was 11 years in that original calculation. It also showed that I calculated a moderate would cost $349 in 2024 including tax. Truth is that wasn't too far off if you consider a 20% rack rate discount and standard view room. (Which is what I used.) I has estimated my dues would be $9.77 in 2024 ten years ago as well, and they are actually $9.08 so I had even OVERestimated the dues. I assumed 5% increase per year.

What's interesting though is that although I am just reaching the breakeven point, the savings goes up so quickly from here.
By 2030 I will have saved $9000 with DVC.
By 2035 I will have saved $22000 with DVC.
By 2040 I will have saved $41000 with DVC.
By 2057 when my contract expires I will have saved $139,000 with DVC versus a moderate room.

That last little bit was self-indulgent, sorry.

 

[CastAStone]

Yup. Agree with this CastAStone. And the same logic for resale buyers albeit the cost savings are real.

Thinking of these buyer groups, I have a three-circle chart in my mind of Direct, Resale, and an overlap of both. Guessing the overall of both Direct+Resale buyers is the smallest percentage of owners. Wonder which group is the largest percentage? Direct or Resale? Not that it matters.

Direct by a lot. The vast majority of DVC contracts have never been sold.

 

[disneylandtour]

They will sell any owner OTU points, up to 24, and those can be used at the restricted reports….so it can get you one night…

And if I had OTU points in my account, the restricted resorts would show up in a room search? Or would I need to call MS?

 

[D-Trick]

Imagine if they said you need to maintain 75% of your points to be direct to be [DVC-Y]

Ooof don’t go putting this idea out there.

Highly unlikely. Imagine with two future owners 150/200 got membership extras but 749/1000 didn't.

I don't see it changing from 150 for a while. The current minimum spend for DVC-Y is just over $30k after incentives (CFW), and if they made it 200 pts then that would push it to over $40k. That's a significant jump and a harder sell for impulse buyers and those on the fence.

 

[disneylandtour]

Direct by a lot. The vast majority of DVC contracts have never been sold.

I would add: the vast majority of DVC buyers (especially first-time buyers) don't even know about the resale market. They simply talked to someone at a DVC booth or on a ship, maybe went to a presentation (and got a crappy backpack), and then bought.

 

[CastAStone]

I would add: the vast majority of DVC buyers (especially first-time buyers) don't even know about the resale market. They simply talked to someone at a DVC booth or on a ship, maybe went to a presentation (and got a crappy backpack), and then bought.

They may have also gotten a nice backpack, if they bought 20 years ago.

 

[disneylandtour]

I’m loving that we have direct points. Last night we were able to attend Moonlight Magic, got in the first time we had a chance and we were able to switch our Incredipass to Sorcerer Passes just this past week. Saved us a ton of money. It was also worth it for us to have unrestricted access to future resorts, options will be limited come 2042.

We have just enough direct for a blue card and the rest are resale.

Access to post-2042 resorts is the big reason I'm starting to think about a blue card. I don't need an in-park lounge, especially if there's a wait. I can buy my own iced tea elsewhere. The Villain's lounge has sorta turned into a series of upsell options for members. And the other extras (free "treat" at Jollywood, various late-night events in the parks, etc.) aren't worth the 50% to 125% up-charge of direct. But all of the EPCOT walkables expire 2042. That seems significant. The Monorail loop resorts will be open to all (presumably) for a long time. But being blocked out of whatever is over by EPCOT would be an issue for me. Again, that's still 18 years away. And sometime in there, there's going to be a decent sale on a resort I like.

 

[VGCgroupie]

I would add: the vast majority of DVC buyers (especially first-time buyers) don't even know about the resale market. They simply talked to someone at a DVC booth or on a ship, maybe went to a presentation (and got a crappy backpack), and then bought.

If knew about resale 10 years ago I would be VGC rich right now