Direct vs Resale?

[Leahc117]

Hello! I keep going back and forth on direct vs resale- we are a family of 5. I was thinking the annual pass discount is pretty significant. What are your thoughts?

 

[Spinster Travel]

I’m in the same boat, but admit that this is out of fear of missing out. Financially the resale prices make sense, unless you’re talking about Riviera which I think is a bad buy given the resale restrictions. Yes you do get an annual pass discount buying direct from Disney but is that worth in some cases $100 more per point? I’m likely going to buy either 100% resale or just 100 points direct and then a smaller package resale.

 

[Prince John Robin Hood]

I’m in the same boat, but admit that this is out of fear of missing out. Financially the resale prices make sense, unless you’re talking about Riviera which I think is a bad buy given the resale restrictions. Yes you do get an annual pass discount buying direct from Disney but is that worth in some cases $100 more per point? I’m likely going to buy either 100% resale or just 100 points direct and then a smaller package resale.

I agree completely. Unless you're doing multiple trips every year the annual pass isn't worth it. We like to go to the waterparks and golf which is extra with the annual pass. Many resale members have gotten discounts on dining and shopping with showing the white card on their phone but that is supposed to be a direct perk only.
We were interested in Moonlight Magic which is for direct members only but this year none of the dates would have worked for us.
We would consider a 100 point direct contract but only at the right price. Direct benefits aren't worth $6,000+ to us. A really great resort in the future may change that though.

 

[Lorana]

What resorts are you thinking of? Have you compared the costs of resale vs direct, your travel plans, and your family size?

I personally am a fan of Direct + Resale because that's what made sense for our family: the DVC Gold AP vs Regular Platinum AP is $476 per person ($340 for renewal); for a family of 4, that's $1904 or $1360 a year. If the difference between Direct and Resale is $6000, then you make up that difference in 4.5 years with renewals, or if buying an AP for the first time and then renewing each year, in 4 years. If buying an AP every other year, then it's about 6 years (3 years of buying non-renewal priced Gold APs).

In addition, you get all the Blue Card Benefits/Discounts and special events like Moonlight Magic, but the important one to us also is the ability to use those direct points at Riviera and any future resort that opens up, something we won't be able to do with the resale points.

Then you buy the remainder of your points resale, to take advantage of the significant savings you get for resale contracts.

 

[MonkeyKnifeFight]

Annual pass only makes sense if you are going multiple times in a year or more than 10 days. You need a lot of points to be going that much.

so make sure to factor that in and not just the minimum of 100. The best option is to buy 100 direct and the other 200-300 resale.

 

[MBTigger]

As West coasters, we thought about going 100pt direct with Aulani, and 100 resale. But our likelihood of getting thousands of dollars of value from discounts is unlikely. We have dietary restrictions and prefer most of our food cooked in our kitchen. Last time we ate 1 Lunch at Saana and 2.5 quick service meals (Adults did not eat one) for 5 days at WDW. Breakfast casserole and lots of taco fixin's. Amazon prime now is my new hero....

IF we went to WDW 1 week per year, using the "get an annual pass, use it twice within 12 months, wait 13 month and repeat", we could save roughly $300 per person every 2 years. For a family of 4 that is $600 per year. Not bad, but with over $6k more in direct costs, that is a 10 year payback time. Even MORE if I decide to visit Aulani and not WDW. While I love the idea of Moonlight Magic, I cannot plan my trips around them.

BUT, if we ever get to point where we want multiple trips a year, we may very well decide direct is worth it. But by then our teenagers will be out of the house and they might not be able to use the passes, so the calculation might change again!

 

[Duckbug.Ducktales]

If a fixed week is at all interesting to you to guarantee a room during difficult times to book (like holidays, festivals especially Food and Wine, first two weeks of December, etc), you could do that by buying at either Copper Creek or Riviera. Sometimes an overlooked perk.

 

[UrsulaWantsYourSoul]

If a fixed week is at all interesting to you to guarantee a room during difficult times to book (like holidays, festivals especially Food and Wine, first two weeks of December, etc), you could do that by buying at either Copper Creek or Riviera. Sometimes an overlooked perk.

Dovetailing off of @Duckbug.Ducktales, if you are a runner and enjoy runDisney events you can buy a Guaranteed Event Week which instead of a fixed week in the calendar year... shifts with the event (if I understand correctly):

https://disneyvacationclub.disney.go.com/rundisney-weeks/

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Dovetailing off of @Duckbug.Ducktales, if you are a runner and enjoy runDisney events you can buy a Guaranteed Event Week which instead of a fixed week in the calendar year... shifts with the event (if I understand correctly):

https://disneyvacationclub.disney.go.com/rundisney-weeks/

As I understand they no longer sell the RunDisney weeks. Perhaps they started again but at one time it had been eliminated.

 

[ninafeliz]

Hello! I keep going back and forth on direct vs resale- we are a family of 5. I was thinking the annual pass discount is pretty significant. What are your thoughts?

We are a family of 6, and bought direct. The discounts on passes was a great benefit, and I think we'll use it even though some years it might not make as much sense for us to have passes as others. We put a lot of value on being able to go to parks as long or as short as we want to, without feeling like we burned a ticket. We also like to do things like walk through Epcot to take the monorail to the MK, etc, and when we have passes we don't have to give things like that even a second thought. One trip we all had passes but one had expired and we didn't renew, and it was a huge pain not being able to do things like that (I am aware that currently none of that is possible at all, I am hoping that at some point in the future the ability to do all of those things will return). I do really hope the don't drop that benefit, or not bring it back, since, as people love to remind you here over and over and over again, they can change the perks at any time. We took our chances.

However, and I know the general consensus on these boards is that this is ridiculous, a big part of why we bought direct is that I don't want to feel like a second class citizen. It's just my personality and nature. I knew from the get go that if a "blue card" existed I wouldn't be happy with a "white card". Dumb? Probably. Real? Yes. So it's quite possible that we gave more weight to benefits in order to justify it - but it worked for us.

In addition, the more we did math the more we realized that the yearly fees account for so much more than the buy in - so in the grand scheme of things it wasn't as huge of a deal as people make it out to be. A lot of money - sure, but not as much as it seemed when we added up the entire cost of the 51 years. I would see these resale prices that seemed tempting, but when I did the math it wasn't as much of a savings as I had expected, just because you still have the same maintenance fees.

 

[montreid]

If the proposed DVC at DLR has AP benefits to DLR -- we'd kick the tires on 100 pts over resale at VGC.

 

[macman123]

I have:

155 BLT points direct - allows me to book RVA
200 BLT points resale
200 BLT points resale

So combination. Enough so I can stay at RVA and also get perks, but enough resale that is cheaper!

 

[sethschroeder]

I was thinking the annual pass discount is pretty significant.

Just don't buy until the AP comes back for sure. You can't buy them right now and there is always a way outside chance they don't bring it back.

Annual pass only makes sense if you are going multiple times in a year or more than 10 days. You need a lot of points to be going that much.

so make sure to factor that in and not just the minimum of 100. The best option is to buy 100 direct and the other 200-300 resale.

If you space out your vacations 11 months apart it also works and would save you some money.

 

[sethschroeder]

Hello! I keep going back and forth on direct vs resale- we are a family of 5. I was thinking the annual pass discount is pretty significant. What are your thoughts?

You only need 100 points direct the rest can be resale. I would buy the resale first, then buy direct to match that UY.

The only reason for all direct is if you have to stay at RIV or future DLV.

Good thing is you can always sell your resale and get all direct points in the future if you want to.

 

[montreid]

And DVC DLR - approved!

Thanks to mod from DLR thread

DVC DLR
https://dvcfan.com/2020/07/27/dvc-show-disneyland-hotel-dvc-tower-plans/

 

[becauseimnew]

And DVC DLR - approved!

Thanks to mod from DLR thread

DVC DLR
https://dvcfan.com/2020/07/27/dvc-show-disneyland-hotel-dvc-tower-plans/

Gosh, another reason why I should overpay for direct pricing.

 

[RoseGold]

This seems very premature. There are no APs right now, and who knows what pricing or park reservations or whatever will look like if they do come back.

Even assuming old pricing, if you staggered your vacations to only need an AP every other year (August, then July), then the discount was minimal.

This is at least a 5K discussion, sometimes much, much more. That takes a lot of APs and merch discount (which can be eliminated at any time) to make up.

 

[Lorana]

Hello! I keep going back and forth on direct vs resale- we are a family of 5. I was thinking the annual pass discount is pretty significant. What are your thoughts?

With a family of 5, you are looking at $2380 per year savings if you get a Gold AP instead of a Regular/Non-Discounted Platinum AP (since normally you have to be a FL resident to get the Gold AP). For renewals, that's $1700 per year.

If the difference between Direct and Resale is $6000, then you make up that difference in just about 3 years (first year $2380; second year $1700, third year $1700 = $5,780). If you did every other year, you'll do more than that in 6 years ($4760 after 2 AP purchases/4 years; $7140 after 3 AP purchases/6 years). Also keep in mind that Disney usually raises the price of APs every year.

If you plan on getting APs, I think buying at least 100 points direct (and the remainder resale) is worth it.

 

[Lorana]

Team White Card & SAP, Poly + SSR

I just noticed your signature, and love it.

 

[Drfate102]

We just bought 200 points direct at Copper Creek, and we are Florida Residents, so there is no extra savings for us on APs, as we have had ours for 9 years. But we bought direct because we like new experiences and future proofing ourselves, we will always have the ability to stay at any resort. And that is what we wanted. You always need to make the right choice for you and what fits your lifestyle.