Do you use points for weekends?

[Lexxiefern]

We use points for weekends on just about every trip. It is usually easier for DH to get away for long weekend trips (usually thurs - mon). It eats through the points, but I still manage to go 4x's a year

 

[Diznut84]

It doesn't appear that this thread is very representative, though. My experience is that when booking, no matter how demanding the time period, there are almost always weekend rooms available when the Sunday through Thursday nights are booked solids. Either people are staying Sunday through Thursday, staying over one weekend but not two, changing rooms during the weekend, or some combination of the above.

JMHO!
Greg

 

[bobbiwoz]

..., and we really don't feel as if our vacation has begun until we're in our DVC room.

Me too!

Bobbi

 

[Deb & Bill]

What I have noticed on the R/T Board, is that most non-members want to go Sun-Thur to save money. And many members remind them of that all the time.

We still hate to move.

 

[DebbieB]

What I have noticed on the R/T Board, is that most non-members want to go Sun-Thur to save money. And many members remind them of that all the time.

We still hate to move.

It really doesn't make sense to rent on Friday and Saturday nights, you could get a room through CRO for less. For example, a 1 bedroom in May at OKW is 48 points, so at $10 a point, that's $480. You can get it for rack rate through CRO for $452 including tax and there's the possibility of an AP or code discount. The way the resort empties out on Friday, chances are you will not have to move.

 

[JimMIA]

Because we live less than 4 hours away, our normal trips are 3-5 days at a time, so we always start our stay on Sunday to avoid weekend points.

I was looking at a May '07 stay starting on Saturday night in an OKW 1 Bedroom. That would be 148 points.

But now I'm having second thoughts. If I drop the Saturday night, it's 100 points. Because we live so close, and there are only 3 of us, we can do a LOT with those 48 points -- that's six studio nights at OKW much of the year!

We're just getting a studio for our next 4-day trip (Nov '06), and if that works out, we'll probably change our visitation pattern to shorter stays in a studio, and longer stays in a 1 BR. That will probably include short trips to VB and HHI, with a longer trip to WDW once a year, rather than 2-3 WDW trips a year.

 

[Sammy]

Yes, we've also used points for weekend stays....twice. With 3 kids, switching resorts would be a nightmare. I looked into cash ressies for the weekend nights this past Feb., but they were unavailable.

 

[loveswdw]

We TRY not to use weekend points but will if we have to. I'm not going to pay $400+ a night for a room even to save points. That's why we bought our points so we wouldn't have to pay cash. If we do stay a weekend we try to only do Saturday night, not both nights.

Last trip though was for F&W Fest. Took my DSiL and the only time she could go was Wed.-Sun. so we stayed both Fri. and Sat. nights. That 4 night stay was 142 points! OUCH! But luckily we had the points (we usually end up banking anyway) so we came out okay. And didn't cough up any extra cash for the weekend.

 

[Pluto 2]

usually when i go to disney i go for 12 nights i go from sunday than i check out on friday. that way im only there for one friday night and ine saturday night but there for 12 nights

 

[HUFF590]

Sat to Sat here allmost all the time.

 

[debm]

I think it depends why you want to use the points. We own a lot of points---and are still paying the loan on them! So we don't want to pay cash for a room even if it works out to be less than the $10/point cost comparison. When we first bought into DVC we had 150 points and we stayed Sun. -Thurs. and checked out for the weekend and went to Universal or the grandparents and then came back to WDW and stayed Sun. -Wed. or so. But after we bought a lot more points---we thought we would use them for cruising until we found it was better to use cash and book the cruise far in advance. (We still have used points for a cruise that we booked only a few months out--cheaper in comparison to what the price had gone up to.) Anyhow...now we just stay over the weekend. We don't like to spend the points and will try to time it so we don't but circumstances have made us. We were there this month for the Minnie 15K so we checked in on Saturday so I could run on Sunday. And in Sept. I am going out for the DL 1/2 and was looking at all sorts of hotels for about $80-$140 but my DH kept telling me just to use the points. So finally I decided for the convenience of the location that I would just use our points. It doesn't matter that it is the weekend, just that it is outside one of the 7 WDW ones so I spent about 30 points per night for the room. In this case it was convenience. I don't want to mess with renting points and then hoping that I can still get a room, etc. So in our case it was just a matter of what worked for what time in our lives. I think as we get older we will use more on the weekends because DH and I might go for a quick trip w/o kids when they are out of the house.

 

[cdpa4d]

We don't stay at DVC on weekends using points. I love the variety in the other resorts and don't mind moving from one to another; especially when Disney will transfer our luggage.

We usually stay value or moderate on weekends with an AP rate. If we have extra money and can swing it we'll stay deluxe with an AP rate.

 

[iankh]

I always take the philosophy of "they're my points, I might as well use them" coupled with a strong dose of "what if I get hit by a bus tomorrow, fat lot it will do me."

So, I use them, use them, use them and I have never regretted it. We've had some really great times and enjoyed some terrific weekends.

That being said, we've only been going down twice a year, a longer trip of about 8 nights and a shorter trip of a few days.

It all depends what your style is.

I've never been much of a "sip life from a teaspoon" sort of guy, but rather, tip it back and guzzle it down.

 

[snyderla]

So many different view points on points use! This is just what I was hoping for! I have a goal of staying at least one night at each resort, just to try them out. So for a little while yet we will still change resorts once during stays, probably not using points. We like to go at least once per year and we never want to stay less than 6 nights. We also usually are booking at least 2 studios for each trip. Except for this coming up trip. We bought 50 more points (used the ridiculous excuss of getting those free one day tickets! I can't believe DH actually fell for that!) so even though we are changing resorts after 5 days at BWV we will still be using points for a fri & sat when we move to OKW for the next 7 nights and then another friday at Vero Beach. But this is just because DH & I are celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary. I don't see us staying this long again.

I hadn't even thought of paying cash and just staying in the same room, but then again, we still have Poly, CSR, GF & CR to stay at, so those will be cash anyway. (Hope those rumors of DVC at Contemporary are true, that will make my stay there an easy one!)

Lori

 

[Bcat]

We always use our points for Sun-Thur stays. We use Marriott Rewards points to stay at a Marriott property on Fri and Sat.