DVC every three years doable?

[LtRazor]

Family of five and we only do Disney every 3 years but then get AP and do 3-4 weeks during that AP time. I've started looking into DVC as we want to stay in the Deluxe resorts, ok with SSR and know number of points I need. Has anyone successfully done this? If so, what is your strategy?

 

[Dean]

Family of five and we only do Disney every 3 years but then get AP and do 3-4 weeks during that AP time. I've started looking into DVC as we want to stay in the Deluxe resorts, ok with SSR and know number of points I need. Has anyone successfully done this? If so, what is your strategy?

Every 3 years is dicy at best. If you stay within the actual 3 year window it is workable but if you're banking borrowing to get there you have considerably more risk if you have to change or cancel. You need to understand Use Year because you'd have to travel within the UY in question not just the calendar year. For example, if you went in March one year then in Nov 3 years later you likely would have lost one years points depending on UY.

 

[supersnoop]

Every three years comes with the risk of stranding points. If you can do every 2.5 years, or 3-2-3-2..., you can make it work.

You need to book for the exact number of points you have in order to make your plan work. If you have 2 or 12 points left over, there's no way to save them long enough to get to your next trip. If you have some flexibility at 7 months, you might be able to purchase one-time-use points to round out your account.

 

[LtRazor]

Someone on FB gave me simple solution and I don't think I ever thought of it. Bank 2017, go in 2018 and borrow on 2019 points. this may actually work for how we go. Definitely open to other suggestions.

 

[LtRazor]

Every three years comes with the risk of stranding points. If you can do every 2.5 years, or 3-2-3-2..., you can make it work.

You need to book for the exact number of points you have in order to make your plan work. If you have 2 or 12 points left over, there's no way to save them long enough to get to your next trip. If you have some flexibility at 7 months, you might be able to purchase one-time-use points to round out your account.

If I had a few left over, I'd just book extra day/s and the buy one time use to cover gap for that last day. Also, for what I'd be saving, if I had 10 points left over every 3 years I'd be ok with that.

 

[miTnosnhoJ]

At three years, you will likely come out better financially to just rent points or to book a regular hotel room because of the time value of money.

Also, the simple solution you saw on Facebook is what everyone has been warning you about. It works great if all goes as planned, but if life happens and you cannot go in 2018, then you risk losing the banked points from 2017 and the borrowed points from 2019, because they all need to be used in 2018. However, you could bank your 2018 points into 2019 and go for a week, so you would not lose everything.

 

[zavandor]

Here's why every three may not work.

You start with the following points per use year (let's say you have 50):

2017 50
2018 50
2019 50


You want to go in 2018 and you want a week in October at BLT Theme Park view: it costs 151 points. Even if you borrow all points from 2019 you are 1 point short. You cannot book the whole reservation at 11 months, but you can purchase a one time use point from MF, but that can be done only at 7 months.
So at 11 months you can only book 6 days and hope to be able to add the last night at 7 months. Here's what you would have at 11 months:

2017 0
2018 128 (used for 6 nights reservation)
2019 22 (leftover, hoping to be able to combine them at 7 months with one One Time Use point)

At 7 months you call but the extra night is not available (and having to call vs online booking increases the chances this could happen). I'm not sure if MF will allow you to buy one point to be able to waitlist (I think not), but let's say you're not lucky anyway and the wailist never comes through and you cannot secure the last night.
You now have 22 points in the 2019 UY that you cannot use and you must rent or loose them.
In fact now you would have the following points:

2019 22
2020 50
2021 50
2022 50

If you go every three years, your next vacation would be 2021, but points can be banked only once, so the 22 points can be used only in 2020, not in 2021. You could go in 2020, but you would have only 122 point, not enough even for 6 nights and trouble starts all over again.

Moreover, for your 2018 trip, if you need to cancel, points cannot be put back in their UY and one time use points cannot be banked, so if you have to cancel you will have to rent the points during 2017 UY or loose them.

Going every three years is possible, but it comes with higher risks and requires more flexibility (for example, you could book the last night in a different resort and do a split stay, change dates, change resort...).

 

[Dean]

If I had a few left over, I'd just book extra day/s and the buy one time use to cover gap for that last day. Also, for what I'd be saving, if I had 10 points left over every 3 years I'd be ok with that.

10 points wasted every 3 years is likely your savings if you don't miss a window for travel. I likely wouldn't do this for most situations. Ultimately it depends on other factors we don't know the answer to. If you're a long ways away and this is the reason or every 3 years or if it's a budget thing, I would do it either case. If it's simply a choice to do other things the rest of the time and you could adjust if needed, I might but likely would look at other timeshares that would do both.

 

[pdude81]

DVC also has a way of increasing how much thought you give to your vacation planning, which causes you to want to go way more often. If you check the threads where people say how many points they started with and how many they have now, you'll see that the struggle is real. I agree with the posters above that consistently planning for every 3 years is risky since you can burn two years worth of points if you aren't able to rent them out in an emergency. Would a slightly shorter trip every 2 years work for your family?

 

[DVCMonorailBlue]

and bear in mind - you're paying dues on the years you don't go - that'll add a lot to your costs.

 

[crisi]

If I had a few left over, I'd just book extra day/s and the buy one time use to cover gap for that last day. Also, for what I'd be saving, if I had 10 points left over every 3 years I'd be ok with that.

Here is the issue (we do every other year, so I'm really familiar with banking and borrowing). You aren't likely to have exactly the right number of points. And one time use points are only available at seven months - so if you need just a few points to get BCVs, they may not be available when you book. This is especially true if you are looking to studios, which frequently book up very quickly - and two bedrooms will often be an issue. You may end up with that last day at a different resort.

If I were going to do every three years (which is where we've more or less been), we actually rent out the unused points. But you have to have enough points to make the rental worthwhile - few people want ten points. We tend to end up renting more like a year or a year and a half, since we have points for every other year in a two bedroom.

 

[Dean]

and bear in mind - you're paying dues on the years you don't go - that'll add a lot to your costs.

Not really, you'd be paying 1/3 the fees compared to the same trip every year. The real dollar savings is likely to be minimal in this situation but there can still be a savings for certain situations.

 

[ELMC]

Great points have been made in this thread but in a way they're all moot. Once you become a DVC owner you will most likely visit more frequently than once every three years, and you'll be adding on in no time.

 

[amccu18007]

Great points have been made in this thread but in a way they're all moot. Once you become a DVC owner you will most likely visit more frequently than once every three years, and you'll be adding on in no time.

TRUTH!

 

[Dean]

Great points have been made in this thread but in a way they're all moot. Once you become a DVC owner you will most likely visit more frequently than once every three years, and you'll be adding on in no time.

Sometimes but not always. Best to rent a time or 2 then maybe buy if they anticipate stepping up their time.