disney cruise/resale question

[boardwalkbride729]

I have read that when you buy resale, those points can not be used for the cruises. I have also read posts stating that using points for a cruise wouldn't be worth it anyway. Why is that? When my husband and I went on the DVC tour a few months ago, one thing we really liked was that the points could be used on cruises. (That is where we had our honeymoon and really enjoyed the cruise).

 

[chalee94]

here is a link to a sample cruise point chart. i'm pretty sure DVC salespeople generally just show shiny pictures of cruises and don't tell you how many pts you'd actually need to take a cruise.

remember that DVC is not the cruise division. they are both part of the disney corp but they are run separately. so DVC has to take your DVC pts and book DVC villas that are rented through central reservations. then they can take that cash and pay the cruise division for your cruise. but it's not a perfect process and it has costs...so point costs for the trades tend to be high.

so the question is: is it worth it to pay 30% - 50% more to buy direct in order to be able to trade your pts for a cruise? if i can pay less for a resale contract and still rent my pts and book a discounted disney cruise with money left over, that seems preferable to me in purely financial terms.

but it's your money. if you don't care about the extra cost to buy direct and like being able to trade pts for cruises (psychologically for some people, it's just "points" and not real money anyway), then suit yourself.

 

[Geomom]

It costs a LOT of pts to go on a cruise, and the pt cost is per person and you have to pay a $95 transaction fee to use your pts anywhere outside of the DVC resorts. A 3nt cruise ranges from 74-168 pts/person (pt amount changes depending on type of room and season), so you're looking at spending 148-336 pts for 2 people on a 3 night cruise. I can get a week in a studio at a few WDW resorts for around 135 pts and I can get a week in a 2 bedroom for around 350 pts! So you compare 3 nights on a cruise plus spending $95 or you can have a week at Disney in a studio/1 bedroom/2 bedroom for the same number of points.

 

[disneynutz]

Using points for non DVC stays is like buying a $250,000 car. Everyone could do it but most don't see it as a good use of their money.

Bill

 

[Dean]

I have read that when you buy resale, those points can not be used for the cruises. I have also read posts stating that using points for a cruise wouldn't be worth it anyway. Why is that? When my husband and I went on the DVC tour a few months ago, one thing we really liked was that the points could be used on cruises. (That is where we had our honeymoon and really enjoyed the cruise).

Using points for DCL normally returns around $6-7.50 pp. It would be far cheaper buying less points and paying cash for the cruise, far safer and give one a lot more choices long term. To me buying extra points to try to force a cruise "because it's already paid for" is likely having extra withheld in taxes so one can get a refund only 1000 times worse. IMO they're doing you a favor by preventing you buying to use for cash type exchanges because it forces you to consider the real cost and not get caught up in the hype and emotion. There are NO situations where it's reasonable to buy to use DVC for the cash type exchanges. If anyone can show me a situation where such a program is guaranteed or a given option is consistently cheaper than buying less points and paying cash, I'd love to see it. Personally I'd want both to buy for those type of options or in the absence of a long term guarantee, a consistent and significant savings of around 20% compared to early booking prices for DCL for example.

 

[coastalhh]

Because you get 0 value using your points.

Every point has a maintenance fee. If you had Animal Kingdom Villas the maintenance fee is roughly 6 a point.

Lets say you booked a 4 night deluxe ocean state view room for Sept30th 2015 on the magic
That is 101 points PER PERSON.
606 per person considering your maintenance fees you pay every year on those points.
If 2 of you went that would be 202 points or 1,212 in maintenance fees

If you just paid cash it is $1,372.42 for 2 people

So you would spend 30,300 to get 202 points only to save 160.42 a year? At that rate you would break even not considering interest or inflation in 188 years

Some of the cruises you actually pay more to use points(just in maintenance fees) then it cost to book with cash


That is everyones problem when first looking at DVC- once you make the big purchase its not free to vacation after that..you still get charged per night- just in maintenance fee.

Disney hotels vs DVC you save around 50% but cruises you save nothing or very very little so it makes more sense to just pay for them.

 

[CarolMN]

Those who wish to discuss the value of using points to cruise may do so in this thread:

Using Points for the DVC "Collections"

Thanks!