Do you pay cash on the weekends??

[vbarry]

I am trying to figure out my Dec reservation. It is 75 points for the weekend nights. Do you usually pay cash for the weekends or do you stay on points no matter what since that is why you purchased DVC?? I am trying to stretch my points as far as possibly but I have a hard time paying $1000 for two weekend nights in a one bedroom. Otherwise...I have to stick with the studio! Thanks!

 

[browniemtb]

I think you may find many that pay cash for weekend nights. Many of those that do tend to travel to WDW more than once a year and do like to stretch the use of their points. The way I look at it is I bought the points to use whether for weekends, trades, cruises, or whatever. But that being said we only go once a year and I may have purchase more points than we need right now. Once #3 gets a little older all that will change. I do agree with you, I would be hard pressed to pay a lot of money for a 1 bedroom for the weekend.

Brownie

 

[DebbieB]

I did it 2 or 3 times when I wanted to stretch points. For example, a 1 bedroom at OKW is 48 points on Fri & Sat, I was able to get a cash rate around $320 incl tax (this was 3 or 4 years ago). So that comes out to around $7 per point saved. I didn't want to commit to an add-on, so that actually came close to the cost of additional points divided by the number of years plus dues for 1 year.

 

[Chuck S]

I don't pay cash for weekends at a DVC resort, because I just can't justify the cost. If I really need to save the points, I'll move to a value or off-site. But most of the time we just stay put and use the points.

 

[Granny]

I am trying to figure out my Dec reservation. It is 75 points for the weekend nights. Do you usually pay cash for the weekends or do you stay on points no matter what since that is why you purchased DVC?? I am trying to stretch my points as far as possibly but I have a hard time paying $1000 for two weekend nights in a one bedroom. Otherwise...I have to stick with the studio! Thanks!

To me, moving out to an off-site hotel or paying cash for the villa on the weekends kills the point of joining DVC in the first place. So if we are at a DVC resort we stay put during the weekends.

Sometimes we arrive late on a Saturday in Orlando and have stayed off-site for that night. That's as close to staying off-site on the weekends as we get.

As brownie said, many people do avoid using points on the weekends. If we lived closer, we'd probably do multiple Sunday - Thursday trips instead of our once a year 8-10 day trip.

 

[BWV Dreamin]

Nope, I usually only include one Friday or Sat. nite to my ressie....and use points, not cash. Like Granny said, kinda defeats the purpose of DVC when using cash.

 

[DebbieB]

To me, moving out to an off-site hotel or paying cash for the villa on the weekends kills the point of joining DVC in the first place. So if we are at a DVC resort we stay put during the weekends.

Sometimes we arrive late on a Saturday in Orlando and have stayed off-site for that night. That's as close to staying off-site on the weekends as we get.

As brownie said, many people do avoid using points on the weekends. If we lived closer, we'd probably do multiple Sunday - Thursday trips instead of our once a year 8-10 day trip.

When I added the cash night(s) at OKW through member services, we did not have to move, it was treated as one stay. I don't think I would want to move either.

 

[castleri]

Will be the odd person out here - We have moved on weekends to save points if it is in the premier season - The points saved are being used for
the 5 nights we will be there in a week or so. I would not pay the room rates even with a D?VC discount. We just plan to do our non Disney things during the weekends when we will be offsite. The last time we checked out on Friday morning - used the pool, went to DTD, went to the outlets, ate at an offsite restaurant my DGD really wanted to go to, went to Walmart, checked into the offsite hotel. Then on Saturday we went to TL and again did some DTD stuff and ate before going back to the hotel. Got up Sunday and checked into SSR at 7:30 am before returning the rental car to the Dolphin and heading to the MK( it was NYE). The cost to stay offsite was $122 for the two nights which was less than any Disney resort. In a less point intensive season I would just use the points and stay the weekend.

 

[psu4glory]

seems like our vacation patterns are pretty similar to many of the posters in this thread...we've never paid cash to avoid using points for weekend nights in a villa. one of the reasons that we purchased DVC was to STOP spending cash for hotel rooms on property!

the best way that we've found to mitigate the impact of the high cost of weekend DVC stays is to begin our vacations on sunday. that way - even with a longer vacation (up to 12 days), you only have to worry about 1 weekend. we have yet to stay more than 12 days on any one trip...

 

[pilferk]

We do it, right now, but not really because of the DVC weekend premium.

We just don't have enough points to travel for the entire time we want to.

We also drive, so our first night we typically arrive either in the afternoon, or early evening. We prefer to rent, say, an AS Music Family suite for the night rather than use points. Just our preference, for now.

For this next trip, we're also extending our stay an extra day. Instead of being there Friday - Friday (with that first Friday night being a cash stay), we've decided to do Thursday - Friday...with both the first Thursday and Friday night being a cash stay. I doubt that will be the norm.

In ANY case, we plan to add on in the next year or so (especially if/when "The Kingdom Tower at the Contemp" opens) so we will be able to cover our entire stay on points.

 

[DisneyHumbug]

With young adults new to the working world with limited vacations, we take long weekends. It kills me to use all those points, but I'm just so happy my young adults want to go with me!!!

 

[DVCLiz]

That's the nice thing about the flexibility of DVC - there's no "right" way to use your points, and no one "purpose" that is set in stone as an owner. If it suits you to spend the points on weekend nights, it's a great option. If you'd rather move to another resort or pay cash to stay where you are, it's a great option.

We usually stay on points Sunday - Thursday, and move for the weekend, because I don't like to use that many points on the weekend and we like to stay at non-DVC resorts occasionally. If we start with a Friday - Saturday stay at the Polynesian or the Animal Kingdom (before the DVC units were there) it gives us a chance to enjoy those resorts, which are family favorites.

Having said that, I'm spending points for a weekend stay for the first time next month - because it's a last-minute stay during an extremely busy week, and the cash availability was out of my price range.

 

[Kathi OD]

Since buying into DVC, we only use points for our room when staying at WDW, even when we are there on Fri/Sat nights. The main reason we purchased DVC was so that we wouldn't have to pay cash for our rooms.

 

[vbarry]

I think I just need to buy more points!

 

[DISNEY FIX]

Excellent conclusion.

 

[eliza61]

When I decided to own, we purchased enough points for a 1 week stay each year in a 1 bedroom. I rarely pay cash for any stay. I am getting to the point where I'm thinking about an add on.

 

[spruce]

No, we don't pay cash for weekends, we spend points. We figure that Disney has a big enough share of our disposabe income from points purchases, dues, AP's, dining plan, golf, spa treatments and souvineers.
We have 18 nights booked this year over 2 trips and still have 76 points we could use.

 

[MagikMom]

A typical vacation looks like this for us:

First Thurs, Fri Sat at a value resort to save on weekend points.
Then we check in to our resort on Sun, using vacation point on a 1 week basis. Ex: Sun-Sun. Then we stay Sun-Fri on week day points. The vacation totals 14 nights and 15 days.

Did that make sense?

 

[vbarry]

If you are a family of four do you choose to stay in a studio to save points? The holiday time is such a high point time that I just cannot justify using the points to stay in a one bedroom.

I think we will do the studio for now and I will have some points left over to stay in a one bedroom next time!

 

[cdtommie]

We use points for weekends during the lower seasons (ie late Oct and early Dec trips) but not in the spring (usually get a moderate or AKL with the AP discount).