DVC Chit Chat Thread

[PolyRob]

I’m always in the camp of take that money spent on cash stays or renting points or buying transfer points and put it towards a new contract.

If you are going to spend money on vacationing do it the way it makes you happy and no shame if that’s at a monorail resort.

Which resort would you buy instead of a transfer!?!

Asking... for a friend

 

[Road_Dog]

This is perfectly fine! If you truly want the two trips 300 points could even be tight depending on the season so they won't go to waste. If you ever wanted less trips in future years you could also upgrade one trip annually to a one-bedroom.

If you do add on before your Oct UY I personally wouldn't take MB so you can bank those 2025 UY points forward and have more to play with. DVC will unborrow for you since you purchased a new direct contract and replace those borrowed points on a reservation with the banked points. You can also buy past the May banking deadline with an October UY and DVC will bank for the new purchase.

Don't kick yourself over the transfer. I am considering the same thing for a VGC stay. A transfer would easily cost me 5k so I look for resale contracts at desired resorts and it's significantly more. It's a slipper slope

Thanks for the advice! Your advice is good if I do go direct--and that's an added perk of going direct (the fact that I'd get '25 UY points) compared to the contract I'm currently eyeing up (no '25 UY points, just a fresh 150 in Oct '26).

 

[VGCgroupie]

Which resort would you buy instead of a transfer!?!

Asking... for a friend

AUL-S would be my preference. But if I was needing minimal points to fill out some stays I would buy a very cheap SSR (just learned this about myself) if needing direct points I’d probably go CCV. Edit to add CCV 25 pointer

 

[Brian Noble]

I need to do the math and see if it makes sense for the next year, but I don’t think it does.

I view this on a per-day basis. A full-price sorceror is 1170 and change, or just over $3.20/day. The discount for renewing is a bit over $175---or about "55 days worth" of a Sorceror. So if my next trip starts within two months or less, renewing makes sense. If it is more than two months away, I will buy a full-price one to activate then.

I wish that they would open a DVC at Disneyland Paris.

Take a look at the Marriott in the "France -- Disneyland" area that is available through Interval. It is hard to get during the summer months, and it might not be a great deal uisng DVC points via exchange, but in the off-seasons, the cash getaway prices there are VERY attractive. They don't always have cash, but when they do, it can be worth it.

 

[PolyRob]

Thanks for the advice! Your advice is good if I do go direct--and that's an added perk of going direct (the fact that I'd get '25 UY points) compared to the contract I'm currently eyeing up (no '25 UY points, just a fresh 150 in Oct '26).

No problem! With MB it's easy to look at that missing UY at $20 per point which makes Poly direct very enticing. Not to mention the ease of getting direct points and flexibility when you purchase. Plus you only pay DVC pro-rated 2026 dues from the date you agree to the sale and a majority of resale contracts with full 2026 points would expect you to pay those full dues. You could do it 9/1 direct to pay five months less in 2026 dues and still get the same amount of points as today. Don't wait too long if you need the points to book a spring 2027 trip, but it's nice to know it's an option

 

[Judique]

Whomp whomp whomp!
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I loved having my very first AP. Without DVC I never would’ve had one. I don’t think I’m renewing. I need to do the math and see if it makes sense for the next year, but I don’t think it does.

My Incredipass just expired but no trips until October. I'm debating getting a DVC MMB 75 points pass next time around in October or use up some old no expiry passes. I counted 17 pass days and I've got 22 park days booked so far, most of which are in February 2027. Still time to decide.

 

[VGCgroupie]

My Incredipass just expired but no trips until October. I'm debating getting a DVC MMB 75 points pass next time around in October or use up some old no expiry passes. I counted 17 pass days and I've got 22 park days booked so far, most of which are in February 2027. Still time to decide.

No expiry passes

 

[kgou]

these threads have been moving fast recently. can't remember if it was in this one or elsewhere, but sounds like some disboarder meet ups happened this week! to piggyback off @airjay75's comment, would be so fun to meet up with folks! I always wind up chatting with DVC folks at the pool, in lines, or in the hot tub and I always think about asking folks if they are disboarders.
anyone at WDW over Labor Day?

 

[VGCgroupie]

these threads have been moving fast recently. can't remember if it was in this one or elsewhere, but sounds like some disboarder meet ups happened this week! to piggyback off @airjay75's comment, would be so fun to meet up with folks! I always wind up chatting with DVC folks at the pool, in lines, or in the hot tub and I always think about asking folks if they are disboarders.
anyone at WDW over Labor Day?

Im always like I wonder if they would connect me to the boards I was listing off my resorts and points when asked at MM and I was oh crap did I just give myself away!! But thats because Im not everyone's cup o' tea! I cant say if I would admit who I was on the boards if asked, if it were a casual encounter. I have met a couple board members in person though, but it was pre planned.

 

[AstroBlasters]

Alright everyone, because I don't want to clog up the boards with a dedicated thread, and because this will include a lot of rambling and manic explanations of how my brain thinks about things, I figured I'd post it here.

We bought 150 points Oct UY at Poly in Oct '24 (direct purchase). We immediately banked those points forward to Oct '25. We just took a trip with our kids to Poly in March '26, 140 points for 5-nights in a Deluxe Preferred View studio. Before our trip was even over, my wife was talking about how we need to come back in October and bring her parents. Meaning we need TWO studios.

Ok, sounds good, we banked our 2024 points forward to pay for this March '26 trip, so we have plenty to spare, right? Well... not exactly. Because it's our 5-year anniversary this year, and we were planning a return to Hawaii. So we went all out decided to bring our 2 kids on a trip to Aulani. And not wanting to be the sole caretakers of our kids on our anniversary trip, we decided to invite my in-laws. So we spent exactly our remaining balance of points, 310 (the remaining 10 points from '24, our entire '25 balance, and our entire '26 balance), on a Pool Garden 2-bedroom room for 5-nights in May (coming up soon here!).

This means UY '24, UY '25, and UY '26 are depleted. And my wife is eager to head back to Poly in October. Ok, no biggie, we can just borrow '27 UY. This grinds my gears a bit, as I never wanted to get into an "always borrowing" situation, but here we are. Sadly, I need 220 points to get 2 Resort View studios for 5-nights in October '26. Which means I'm 70 points short if I borrow the entirety of my Oct '27 points.

I ended up finding someone in the Rental/Transfer board selling 64 points via transfer. So I decided to buy the full allotment of OTU points for '26 and then buy these 64 transfer points. Boom, I've now booked the 220 point reservation and have 18 points remaining for Oct '27 UY.

This means we are still in the hole. We for sure can't take a trip for the remainder of our Oct '26 UY. We would have to wait until Oct '27 in order to be able to borrow our Oct '28 points. And even then, we're STILL in the always borrow situation. Ahhhh!

So I started digging more, and despite having received a transfer for the '26 UY, I hadn't had one for my '25 UY yet. I thought if I could find someone selling a Dec '25 UY transfer points, that could help me get a March '27 stay taken care of and hold us over. So, without even really thinking twice about it, I ended up buying 147 points off someone selling.

Rather immediately, I started getting some buyer's remorse. I just spent roughly $4k on 211 points--I could have used that $4k towards adding on 25 points direct, which would have given me immediate access to 75 points. Not to mention more points in the future for the length of the contract. Hell, I could have probably found a cheap SSR contract if I really wanted (despite me not really wanting to own at separate resorts).

I realized I was perhaps a little short-sighted in buying transfer points--I don't regret it, I'll definitely use them, but perhaps the money could have been better spent towards another contract. For some odd reason, I was trying to avoid committing to more annual dues, but now that I've had some time to reflect, I really don't think it's that bad.

So I start gameplanning--realistically, I think we have found ourselves in a situation where we want to make 2 trips a year. The trip in March was for our daughters birthday, and the trip in October will be near our son's birthday. So while we MAYBE could do this October '26 trip with my in-laws and call it quits for a year, I feel we're going to be itching for more (damn add-on-itis!!!). So maybe we need to start thinking about how we can actually accomplish two trips a year. This was the primary motivation for buying the 147 transfer points, as I now have enough to book a March '27 stay. But it still doesn't change the fact that if we wanted to do an October '27 stay, we'd still be borrowing from '28, and we'd still be rather depleted come March '28.

Being in Wisconsin, we want to justify the flight expenses down, and we both agree that 5-nights is a nice sweet spot for each visit, although perhaps having an option to do 6 would be nice. I think 4-nights would be the absolute minimum we'd need. By my math, if a 5-night studio stay at Poly in October cost 110 points, and it would cost 125 points in March, I'm looking at roughly 235 points each year. But I'd want to allow some buffer in the event we want an elevated view type (as we loved the Preferred View we just did, and would likely be doing it again if we weren't trying to increase our odds of getting connecting rooms with my in-laws, hence why we chose resort view), or if we need/want to add on an extra night.

250 total points could probably work, and 300 points may be a bit more than needed, but at least 300 points would prevent me from being in a constantly borrowing situation.

I looked and found some 150 Poly resale contracts for roughly $24k. I'm seriously considering it. The cost of direct would be roughly $34k, so it's a $10k difference for the ability to combine all 300 points for a big stay at LSL or Riveria at the 7-month mark--unsure if it's worth it since I'm already DVC-Y. The more I think about it, the more I realize that if our travel habits will truly be twice a year, we'll pretty much always have to be a Studio family, so I'm leaning more towards "we'll probably never need 300 points at LSL or Riveria and 150 would be fine in the event we ever decided to stay there".

I will say, I want the points to be at Poly and not a cheaper resort, just so I can use all 300 at once in the event we end up in another situation where I need to book two rooms (or even something in the Tower, which seems to be selling out before the 7-month window opens). I'm picky like that, otherwise yeah I'd just buy sleep-around-points at SSR or something.

That being said, this entire ramble is me just thinking out loud. The $4k I spent on transfer points is gone, but they'll be used wisely. But it made me realize that I'm probably in the thick of it with DVC now and realizing 150 points likely just won't cut it long-term, unless we are comfortable scaling back to 1-trip a year. And if anyone wonders, I can say with a high level of confidence that my wife likely has zero interest in exclusively staying at OKW or SSR to make our points go further--she's become addicted to the monorail convenience, especially with kids in strollers. In case you were thinking "Why don't you guys just go to Saratoga in September and Old Key West in January? Then you get two trips on 150 points!"

Damn, DVC has really made me bougie...

This is the way…..

 

[808blessing]

anyone at WDW over Labor Day?

Can't do this Labor Day but I could make another Labor Day...

 

[Judique]

No expiry passes

Yes, back in I think it was 2015 stuff changed. I bought a couple of annual pass vouchers around that year plus a supply of 10 day parkhopper passes when word got out that no expiry was disappearing. My Incredipass was what I got when I turned in the last voucher - it also had memory maker attached, all for about $560ish. Roughly tripled in price over the years. I've got a couple of 10 day passes assigned to DD also but not sure she will use them up although she did go 2 years ago. Not unhappy with my 'investment' and I've enjoyed having the 365 days.

 

[Judique]

these threads have been moving fast recently. can't remember if it was in this one or elsewhere, but sounds like some disboarder meet ups happened this week! to piggyback off @airjay75's comment, would be so fun to meet up with folks! I always wind up chatting with DVC folks at the pool, in lines, or in the hot tub and I always think about asking folks if they are disboarders.
anyone at WDW over Labor Day?

Sometimes I ask in a roundabout way when I get to chatting to people around the resort. Sort of like 'have you heard about Disboards' but other than noting the website as a source of info, no contacts yet.

But, I've connected with lots of people from the boards online and then 'met' at the resort or did an activity with them such as most recently, The DVC Hoop Dee Doo last December and The Candlelight Procession Dec 2024 (I think.) Time gets away from me.

Before that there was a group of maybe 30 of us that would meet and do stuff from year to year. Lots of fun!

 

[Judique]

Im always like I wonder if they would connect me to the boards I was listing off my resorts and points when asked at MM and I was oh crap did I just give myself away!! But thats because Im not everyone's cup o' tea! I cant say if I would admit who I was on the boards if asked, if it were a casual encounter. I have met a couple board members in person though, but it was pre planned.

No one is everyone's cup of tea and it takes all kinds! I just do me and don't worry about much. Just happy to be out of the snow!

As I get older it's a lot different than when I had kids and met up with others with kids. Youngest DD always made friends and it made her trips better - stuff like swimming in the pool together, etc. (I am not a pool person but have put in a lot of time sitting and watching out for her when she was a kid at Stormalong Bay). My grands don't know it exists - yet. It's one of my resorts and we always had to stay there for that pool for her.

 

[VGCgroupie]

No one is everyone's cup of tea and it takes all kinds! I just do me and don't worry about much. Just happy to be out of the snow!

Speaking of snow. We got snow in my neck of the woods today! Meanwhile I’m packing swim clothes for our trip next week!

 

[Canchaser143]

Speaking of snow. We got snow in my neck of the woods today! Meanwhile I’m packing swim clothes for our trip next week!
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The weather has been wild over here today too