DVC scam or real?

[thesheas1325]

I am priceing my options and on paper I am paying a fortune for this thing is it really worth it. Does anyone have anything negative or posative to say about it. You know the thing you wish you knew before you bought, the fine print etc.

 

[abner1776]

There are many posts out on the web about the bargain of buying into DVC and but the initial cost of buyin in which may be close to $15,000 must be weighed against the long term cost of taking a vacation every year for the next 30-40 years.

I would encourage you to read as many posts as possible and add up the entire cost (remember that the intial 15k is only part of the cost...then add in the maintenance fees you pay each year) and run your own numbers to see if it's a bargain for you.

There is no question that if you are a WDW junkie and plan on visiting WDW on a regular basis and like to stay at the deluxe resorts, that DVC is a bargain. If instead you are comfortable staying at POP or the other value resorts and only plan on visiting WDW every couple of years or so, then DVC is probably not going to be a cost saving for you. Also, you own individual financial situation will dictate what is best for you.

Good luck

 

[DisDaydreamer]

I am sure you will get a variety of answers as to how and why it may or may not be right certain types of people. Don't know how much you know about DVC. Some people will direct you to some good sources of Info... I don't have any handy except lookup DVC on Wikipedia to start with. Bottom line here is.... It is not a scam.

 

[Chuck S]

Like all timeshares, the value in the use. If you use DVC at DVC resorts, consistently, with only rare reservations outside the DVC system, it will be a good purchase for you.

If you want to use your points outside the FVC system on a regular basis, it is not a good value.

 

[mickey&minniealways]

We usually rent from my sister but sometimes she stays at a dvc resort. She has alos stayed at Stowe Vermont, the Boston Harbour Hotel, the Cape, Lake Georg NY, NYC and a few others. She has never had a problem doing this and she says all the accomodations have been beautiful. We have borrowed from her and also borrowed from her and stayed at Loon in the White Mtns of NH for a ski vacation. She sold hers last year for financial reasons but we are now considering it,we were not ready then. It sure beats being locked into a specific week every other year in a regular time share. I hate being dictated to.

 

[DeeCee735]

WDW is our favorite vacation destination, as it is for my college age kids as well. We visited a few times before buying in, it was and is well worth it to us. The prices of the resorts go up every year, even with discount codes or low season travel it's more and more expensive to pay cash for the rooms. Taking the cost of the rooms out of the equation makes for more affordable trips. Yes there are maintenance fees, but we still save compared to if we were to pay 6 or 7 nights for a room at the Polynesian, Animal Kingdom or Wilderness Lodge - 6 nights would be around $2500 with the tax, my mf are less than half that and allow for many more than 6 nights a year depending on accommodation/season of travel, with better accommodations than a regular hotel room.

So in our opinion, it is well worth it. Also, we toured another major timeshare in Hilton Head when we stayed in Disney's HH Resort (which is beautiful), they wanted $28,000 for one week/one bedroom in the Spring with maintenance fees just shy of what I pay for my 235 points for DVC! $28,000???? for one week! That was alot to us, and not worth just one week. DVC's points flexibility is a huge advantage - again JMHO.

Good luck with your decision.

 

[fishermouse]

Our experience is it has been well worth it, your best bargain is to stay at DVC but the WP trades are also a good deal. Using the conciers collection or DCL is IMO where you can use up a lot of points and would probably be better off renting your points out and paying cash. This option is a little work.

 

[beachblanket]

I do have to weigh in on the subject of regular WDW use vs. trading out (not the concierge program) and disagree strongly that trading is never a good use of the plan. It can be - if you make the effort to leverage it properly.

Specifically, if you (a) can and are willing to plan far in advance and (b) pick your trades carefully (ergo, do your homework and in general stay with large well reviewed properties), you can get great value for your points - many of the properties I have traded into have put me into villas that are as large and nice as what DVC offers - and yes, I was able to get into them during high seasons.

And I'm not even getting into the subject area of renting points, where those who don't mind the effort involved can get incredible flexibility (income from the point rental being used to both offset your maintenace costs for the rental year and either saved or used to pay for a non-DVC vacation, which can obviously be whatever you want whenever you want).

To boil all this down, what I tell people when they ask me about DVC is...

It's a great program for those who:

• plan their vacations far in advance
• don't mind (or perhaps even enjoy) investigating and managing the details of itineraries. Or put another way, can deal with the "work" part of properly managing a DVC membership.
• in general like vacations at resorts
• plan to go to Disney World, mid-Atlantic Florida, Hilton Head or (in the future) Hawaii on at least some regular basis (ergo, within every 3-4 years or so)

It's definitely not the program for those who:

• are last minute vacation types
• want to delegate all the details of vacation planning to outside parties like a travel agent
• have no ongoing interest in any of the areas where DVC properties are located
• prefer vacations that involve sleeping in a tent, a cozy, informal little inn or a simple B&B

 

[Anjelica]

Not saying this is the case - but Troll?

 

[BroganMc]

I am priceing my options and on paper I am paying a fortune for this thing is it really worth it. Does anyone have anything negative or posative to say about it. You know the thing you wish you knew before you bought, the fine print etc.

If you're not already, buying DVC will turn you into a Disney junky.

 

[beachblanket]

Not saying this is the case - but Troll?

They usually have a pretty transparent "attack something or someone" or "rock the boat" agenda - the OP here seems to be throwing out a simple "opinions about the value please" question that comes up with some regularity here.

 

[Tiggerlover48]

We are still on the fence. I love Disney - so that's not a problem!!

We do like to vacation other places and with pre-paying our DVC, plus with the maintenance fees, would I have more money to rent a house or go someplace else? Probably not. So I would use my points. I don't think it would be a bad value. We usually travel the last week of June when it is cheaper to rent a house in Maine. So with our points we could travel anytime and anywhere!! And I would love to stay in a one-bedroom villa, but would I stay there and pay "rack" rate - no!!! I'm a thirfty person and watch where and when I spend my money. So it would be a treat to be able to do this.

Did I just talk myself into it? LOL Now I just need to talk to my husband.

 

[Anjelica]

They usually have a pretty transparent "attack something or someone" or "rock the boat" agenda - the OP here seems to be throwing out a simple "opinions about the value please" question that comes up with some regularity here.

To a point yes - but posting on a DVC planning message board, where you can assume most people on the board are either interested or planning for dvc vacation that the word "scam" just comes off kind of confrontational. Again though, and as my husband likes to remind me, I am probably wrong.

 

[rsackett]

Like all timeshares, the value in the use. If you use DVC at DVC resorts, consistently, with only rare reservations outside the DVC system, it will be a good purchase for you.

If you want to use your points outside the FVC system on a regular basis, it is not a good value.

I do not own DVC. I have traded in via Interval International a few times. I own at Marriott Manor Club.

I have never direct traded in, but I would guess that if a DVC owner wanted to trade and get better value thae could save some points by finding a person to do a direct trade with. I have heard it takes a lot of points to do a trade outside of DVC using the DVC system.

Ray

 

[Chuck S]

I do not own DVC. I have traded in via Interval International a few times. I own at Marriott Manor Club.

I have never direct traded in, but I would guess that if a DVC owner wanted to trade and get better value thae could save some points by finding a person to do a direct trade with. I have heard it takes a lot of points to do a trade outside of DVC using the DVC system.

Ray

Actually, the Interval International trades are probably the best non-DVC use of points. The real "point eaters" are trades within Disney to non-DVC resorts, cruises, Adventures by Disney, and the trades that DVC has set up to non-DVC locations within the concierge collection.

 

[beachblanket]

I have heard it takes a lot of points to do a trade outside of DVC using the DVC system.

I'm a DVC member who traded into a two bedroom in a preferred location at the Marriott Ford's Colony Manor in Williamsburg during high season last year.

That trade cost me 270 DVC points.

The same type of villa (a 2BR Preferred/BW view) at my home DVC resort (the Boardwalk) during the exact same time period as my stay in Williamsburg would have cost me 314 DVC points.

Translation: my DVC "buying power" (the higher value of the DVC accomodation as opposed to the Marriott one) got me a bargain at Williamsburg. Or put another way, the demand from Marriott members to get into our properties is greater than the demand from us to get into theirs, with DVC management leveraging that dynamic to our benefit.

 

[rsackett]

I'm a DVC member who traded into a two bedroom in a preferred location at the Marriott Ford's Colony Manor in Williamsburg during high season last year.

That trade cost me 270 DVC points.

The same type of villa (a 2BR Preferred/BW view) at my home DVC resort (the Boardwalk) during the exact same time period as my stay in Williamsburg would have cost me 314 DVC points.

Translation: my DVC "buying power" (the higher value of the DVC accomodation as opposed to the Marriott one) got me a bargain at Williamsburg. Or put another way, the demand from Marriott members to get into our properties is greater than the demand from us to get into theirs, with DVC management leveraging that dynamic to our benefit.

I think with a direct trade you may be able to use even less points than 270 if you found an owner of a resrot that you wanted to trade into.

It would be more hastle, and take some trust. If the amount of points you save would be worth it would be up to you.

 

[Mickey'sApprentice]

I think the best solution for somebody that still wants to vacation a lot elsewhere is to buy a small contract. We love our 100 point contract at BWV.

However, just like BroganMc said, if you really like Disney, you will want to start coming back much more often.

CRV is keeping our add-on-itis at bay for now, but we are seriously looking at point charts!

 

[beachblanket]

I think with a direct trade you may be able to use even less points than 270 if you found an owner of a resrot that you wanted to trade into.

Maybe, maybe not - the comparison I provided is based upon public, published pricing. A direct trade is a private negotiation and there's no database anywhere that aggregates the actual pricing of those (one could try to cobble together a wet finger analysis based upon rental positings on TUG, but the results would be at best a very sloppy guesstimate). So there's no clear evidence that private trades are always better deals than working through II via DVC.

If anything, the private trade path is usually recommended for getting hard to find locations (as example the Westin St. John or the Atlantis Harborside villas) that are rarely put into trading inventory - and in those situations, the scarcity "seller's market" element is likely to result in the trade costing more, not fewer points.

 

[tomcat]

So in our opinion, it is well worth it. Also, we toured another major timeshare in Hilton Head when we stayed in Disney's HH Resort (which is beautiful), they wanted $28,000 for one week/one bedroom in the Spring with maintenance fees just shy of what I pay for my 235 points for DVC! $28,000???? for one week! That was alot to us, and not worth just one week. DVC's points flexibility is a huge advantage - again JMHO.

Good luck with your decision.

1 week at a DVC in a 2 bedroom unit would have cost us $25,920.

We declined Disney's offer.