DVC Promotions

[oneyedsally]

We just did our first family vacation at Disney World and were inundated with information about DVC. This was really our first exposure to it and we are intrigued. There is currently a promotion where if you buy with the Polynesian resort, you get a free 100 points to use at Saratoga Springs this year, and depending on how many points you buy you get $$ credit off your purchase. We were actually considering the Polynesian anyways and would get 200 points, which would give us $2,500 off. It sounds like a really good deal. The promotion ends May 31st but we wanted to try to rent points and check it out to make sure it works for us before we commit. Do these types of promotions come up often?

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

It is something they've finally started again after a few years of no discounts or promotions with both VGF and PVB when it first went on sale. Prior to those resorts it was a very common practice. Slow sales of PVB seem to have prompted the action again.

For that number of points I'm starting to see some spread for PVB in resale vs direct. It might also be worth keeping that in mind if you decide the timeshare would be beneficial for you after your investigations.

 

[oneyedsally]

I saw that if you buy resale, you can't use your points for cruises. We really enjoy the cruises a lot but they don't seem to be as great of a value for the points, based on a chart I saw when I was first looking at it. We'd have to save points for several years just to go on one cruise, whereas I could jump on a <90 day deal on a restricted stateroom and pay half the retail price.

After diving into the numbers a bit more, it seems like we might want to go with a lower point value which would not give us as great of a benefit with the promotion. I ran the numbers for the full life of the membership and with 200 points it really adds up! We like Disney, but we also like to vacation other places. So instead of getting enough points for an annual "deluxe" vacation at Disney, going with a lower point value would allow us a bit more flexibility.

At the very least, if promotions are starting to come out more frequently, I won't have FOMO with this deal and we can try DVC out next year and see how we like it. Thanks for the insight!

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Buy DVC to use for the rooms, not to trade.

Definitely good to check it out and see how it feels and works for you. You can use a strategy such as banking and/or borrowing to go every other year and just get approx 1/2 of the points required for your normal stay. But there's nothing wrong with renting either as a strategy for the occasional stay.

If Poly isn't your must have resort there may easily be a different resort that makes sense. The savings from resale for most resorts is going to far outweigh any direct promotions.

 

[jerseyduke]

The general consensus is that using points for cruises is a bad use of points. You can use a broker, rent out your points for cash, take said cash, and pay for the cruise and have money left over. As long as you are comfortable doing that, the ability to use your points for cruises is a non issue.

Another loss you incur by buying resale is that you do not get a discount on Annual Passes. To me, this is the bigger loss. However, note that Disney is not obligated to give us a discount, they could take that away at any time.

If it were me, knowing what I know now I would do the following:

If I wanted a fixed week at the Polynesian, I would buy direct.

If i just wanted 200 points, I would look for a contract of about 150-175 points (with a good use year for my needs); I just saw a 175 pointer asking for 140 per point. I would buy that, then buy 25 points direct from Disney so I get my AP discount. You will save in the area of 6,000$ doing it this way (save about 35 per point on the 175, and pay full price on the 25). You will have the 200 points that you are after, the ability to buy discounted annual passes, and you will pay 6,000$ less for forfeiting the ability to use the points for cruises.

 

[disneynutz]

Disney offers "deals" when sales are not meeting expectations. In reality they inflate the point price to cover their costs. In addition if your sales person tells you that your are getting prior years points, you are paying for them, they aren't free.

As posted often, using points for anything other that a DVC room sounds good but it's all advertising, not usually a savings but you pay a premium price for the privilege. Apparently over charging wasn't enough so Disney added an additional $95 dollar fee for each non-DVC room reservation and the fee is paid each time you modify the reservation.

DVC can be a cost savings but you need to understand the fine print.

Bill