Does ANYONE think it's a good idea to buy direct from Disney??

[Minniesgal]

UY is insurance in case life happens. It can be worth a years worth of points or more in some situations. Just be clear that for the situations where UY does not provide that safety net due to booking habits or unpredictability, the risks still exist. Basically DVC is a greater risk for that group than it is for those who can use UY as a major advantage. And while Jim or many others (myself included) have not lost points, many have or had to use them in a way that didn't provide the same return such as using points for cash type options like DCL or for unit sizes that they would have preferred not to use. As for the sales staff, they are timeshare sales people, no more and no less. And while they may be better and more appropriate than most, and maybe a little less so the past 3-4 yrs, the facts remain the same.

Worth noting though that UY insurance only works if you generally travel every year. For people who do every other year or 1 in 3 UY insurance doesn't protect you much but the ability to rent does. Work cancelled my leave this year but as my trip involved borrowed and banked points UY only helped on a few points which i could bank. What did help me was the ability to contact Davids and rent over 400 points quickly.

 

[loveglobe]

Minniesgal Sorry to hear your trip got cancelled : (

I just started a different thread on renting to David's vs DVC Rental Store. Would be interested to know why you picked David's and what your experience was like!

http://www.disboards.com/threads/re...ersus-dvc-rental-store.3378406/#post-53042737

 

[Dean]

Worth noting though that UY insurance only works if you generally travel every year. For people who do every other year or 1 in 3 UY insurance doesn't protect you much but the ability to rent does. Work cancelled my leave this year but as my trip involved borrowed and banked points UY only helped on a few points which i could bank. What did help me was the ability to contact Davids and rent over 400 points quickly.

I don't agree, having a good UY is even more important for this situation than it is otherwise because it gives you time to rent, reschedule and to bank the current UY portion. All you lose in this situation is the ability to bank for a portion of your points. And just like those I mentioned above, if the UY doesn't offer much or any safety, one is simply taking more risk by owning. Whether that risk is worth it depends on many other factors, in some situations it makes owning not worth it when DVC otherwise makes sense.

 

[JimMIA]

...I was essentially comparing the importance of UY between someone who plans far in advance versus for instance if your work schedule is unpredictable so you can't book months ahead...

All timeshares work better for owners who can plan far in advance and whose plans are not subject to unexpected changes. That's just the nature of timeshares, which were originally developed for people who wanted to visit the same resort, during exactly the same week every year -- and many people still love that model, which is why DVC now offers fixed weeks at some resorts in addition to straight points contracts.

People who have unpredictable work schedules or are only able to plan short-term probably are not great candidates for successful timeshare ownership. Many make it work, but they are not the classic ideal timeshare candidate.

Some timeshare systems offer only one UY -- Jan 1 - Dec 31. Wyndham offers 4, but seems to be trying to morph as many of their accounts into a Jan UY as possible. But to offset the lack of UY choices, they offer much more flexibility in banking/borrowing. They also have about 90 resorts in more than 50 locations, which expands the options greatly. Does that make them better than some other system? No, of course not. It's just their model.

Whatever system one owns, we have to learn the mechanics of the system and manage it to our best advantage. UY is only one facet of a system, and probably not one of the more important facets.

 

[djohn06]

If you want a VGF studio and love VGF....buy direct. Anything else, I would go resale.