Good reason to buy direct?

[Lorilais_mommie]

Thank you for this information - I did not realize you could not use DVC resale pts the same way as if you bought direct. This is huge for me. We have not become members yet, but this could be a deal breaker for us since we do like to cruise. Grant it, we probably wouldn't use points all that often, but we like having the option to do so...so, if I'm understanding correctly, if we want to use points to cruise we need to buy direct, correct?

We also like to cruise every now and again..
Altho we didn't factor being able to use points for DCL (because these points can change to anything DCL wants)

In the last few Year there has been one or two cruises worth useing points on.. Instead of paying cash..
These are normally off season cruises and things like that..
However since Disney can take them away at anytime, it's not something I would plan on getting for the next 50 years

 

[neilmeetsworld]

Awesome information everyone. My GF and I just attended a presentation at Disneyland. We are Disneyland AP and potential Premiere members. We were offered Aulani points at 155 dollars per point rate. The benefits of buying direct from Disney was:

-Access to the Disney Collection
-Not worrying about right to buy condition
-Deal with DVC rather than third party

Cons:
-Aulani is in Hawaii and while it sounds amazing, the airfare even for us California's would be more than either Florida or deciding we want to use it at the Grand California
-155 dollars per point to enter the DVC seems extreme. While each home resort will have different maintenance costs, I was able to find resale point discounts of nearly half of buying direct.


My question for the veterans is when it comes booking for the 7 month window vs the 11 month window. I foresee our future vacations potential being limited to the Grand California for local entertainment and I would hate not being able to stay at the Grand California if I am not able to book.

Also if you are looking to book the cruise, it really does depend on how much you value your points. Unlike the DVC properties, Disney Cruises are much more affordable even if you do pure cash compared if you did the resorts in the open cash market.

I am really leaning to buy resale because I would prefer not to finance the purchase and we can spend 15K, which would be good for either 160-200 points resale or 100 points direct...

 

[chrisaman]

Awesome information everyone. My GF and I just attended a presentation at Disneyland. We are Disneyland AP and potential Premiere members. We were offered Aulani points at 155 dollars per point rate. The benefits of buying direct from Disney was:

-Access to the Disney Collection
-Not worrying about right to buy condition
-Deal with DVC rather than third party

Cons:
-Aulani is in Hawaii and while it sounds amazing, the airfare even for us California's would be more than either Florida or deciding we want to use it at the Grand California
-155 dollars per point to enter the DVC seems extreme. While each home resort will have different maintenance costs, I was able to find resale point discounts of nearly half of buying direct.


My question for the veterans is when it comes booking for the 7 month window vs the 11 month window. I foresee our future vacations potential being limited to the Grand California for local entertainment and I would hate not being able to stay at the Grand California if I am not able to book.

Also if you are looking to book the cruise, it really does depend on how much you value your points. Unlike the DVC properties, Disney Cruises are much more affordable even if you do pure cash compared if you did the resorts in the open cash market.

I am really leaning to buy resale because I would prefer not to finance the purchase and we can spend 15K, which would be good for either 160-200 points resale or 100 points direct...

I bought VGC resale a few months ago and I would recommend, if you want to stay at VGC, especially when there is something going on like a run weekend, you need to have VGC. VGC is soooo small and being the only resort at Disneyland, it fills up fast. However, if Disneyland is just a drive away, do you know when you will be wanting to go to Disneyland 11 months out. That is the big thing for us, we use DVC for the busy stuff like Christmas season, run weekends, and those sort of things that we plan out 11 months out. Then we just stay at good neighbor resorts when we go with little planning. We just bought a 100 point contract which gives us the run weekend and a 2 days at christmas. Then we use a SS contract for Disneyworld trips and trips we plan out last minute. If there is room, we get VGC, if not good neighbor.

 

[chrisaman]

Awesome information everyone. My GF and I just attended a presentation at Disneyland. We are Disneyland AP and potential Premiere members. We were offered Aulani points at 155 dollars per point rate. The benefits of buying direct from Disney was:

-Access to the Disney Collection
-Not worrying about right to buy condition
-Deal with DVC rather than third party

Cons:
-Aulani is in Hawaii and while it sounds amazing, the airfare even for us California's would be more than either Florida or deciding we want to use it at the Grand California
-155 dollars per point to enter the DVC seems extreme. While each home resort will have different maintenance costs, I was able to find resale point discounts of nearly half of buying direct.


My question for the veterans is when it comes booking for the 7 month window vs the 11 month window. I foresee our future vacations potential being limited to the Grand California for local entertainment and I would hate not being able to stay at the Grand California if I am not able to book.

Also if you are looking to book the cruise, it really does depend on how much you value your points. Unlike the DVC properties, Disney Cruises are much more affordable even if you do pure cash compared if you did the resorts in the open cash market.

I am really leaning to buy resale because I would prefer not to finance the purchase and we can spend 15K, which would be good for either 160-200 points resale or 100 points direct...

Also, we went resale because we didn't want aulani. Oahu is our least favorite Hawaiian Island and we really have no desire to stay there with the exception of a few days just for the experience. Maui, Kaui, and Big Island are wayyyy better cuz we like being away from people.

 

[AnnaS]

Direct or resale - if you need to stay at the Grand California Villas you must buy there!!

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Thank you for this information - I did not realize you could not use DVC resale pts the same way as if you bought direct. This is huge for me. We have not become members yet, but this could be a deal breaker for us since we do like to cruise. Grant it, we probably wouldn't use points all that often, but we like having the option to do so...so, if I'm understanding correctly, if we want to use points to cruise we need to buy direct, correct?

For a little perspective - keep in mind that cruises can take a good amount of points - if you don't plan on purchasing a lot of points then you may not have enough to cruise on. Also, for example if you do plan on purchasing 200 points the purchase price difference between direct and resale could be 16-18K. That in itself would pay for a few cruises and you would not be under the constraints of trading to do it. Being able to cruise sounds good in the presentation but you need to consider what that really means.

Awesome information everyone. My GF and I just attended a presentation at Disneyland. We are Disneyland AP and potential Premiere members. We were offered Aulani points at 155 dollars per point rate. The benefits of buying direct from Disney was:

-Access to the Disney Collection
-Not worrying about right to buy condition
-Deal with DVC rather than third party

Cons:
-Aulani is in Hawaii and while it sounds amazing, the airfare even for us California's would be more than either Florida or deciding we want to use it at the Grand California
-155 dollars per point to enter the DVC seems extreme. While each home resort will have different maintenance costs, I was able to find resale point discounts of nearly half of buying direct.


My question for the veterans is when it comes booking for the 7 month window vs the 11 month window. I foresee our future vacations potential being limited to the Grand California for local entertainment and I would hate not being able to stay at the Grand California if I am not able to book.

Also if you are looking to book the cruise, it really does depend on how much you value your points. Unlike the DVC properties, Disney Cruises are much more affordable even if you do pure cash compared if you did the resorts in the open cash market.

I am really leaning to buy resale because I would prefer not to finance the purchase and we can spend 15K, which would be good for either 160-200 points resale or 100 points direct...

As a local will you be booking more than 7 months out regularly? If so VGC probably does make a lot of sense to buy especially since it's the only DVC in CA. In WDW there are many resorts so there's flexibility but not so much in CA. But if you'd be trying to catch some rooms last minute then there really wouldn't be a need to pay the premium for VGC. So far it does remain possible to book VGC right at the 7 month mark at certain times of the year. Best availability for 1BR's but it's possible to get studios and 2BR's too. That might be fairly stressful to plan on doing regularly if you are set with certain dates.

 

[Lorilais_mommie]

Random question..
If you buy direct, but buy at the sold out resort AKA VGC are those points consider resale?
And are no allowed to be used for cruises Ect.ect.?
Or b/c you bought direct they are open?

 

[DizBub]

Random question..
If you buy direct, but buy at the sold out resort AKA VGC are those points consider resale?
And are no allowed to be used for cruises Ect.ect.?
Or b/c you bought direct they are open?

If you buy direct from Disney, even if it's at a sold out resort, those are considered direct points and are good for cruises and everything else.

 

[Dean]

Random question..
If you buy direct, but buy at the sold out resort AKA VGC are those points consider resale?
And are no allowed to be used for cruises Ect.ect.?
Or b/c you bought direct they are open?

All points bought from Disney are considered qualified.

 

[carcam51]

For a little perspective - keep in mind that cruises can take a good amount of points - if you don't plan on purchasing a lot of points then you may not have enough to cruise on. Also, for example if you do plan on purchasing 200 points the purchase price difference between direct and resale could be 16-18K. That in itself would pay for a few cruises and you would not be under the constraints of trading to do it. Being able to cruise sounds good in the presentation but you need to consider what that really means.

Thank you...this is great perspective! Am I correct in my understanding that if purchasing resale, those points can only be used at the DVC Resorts and that points must be traded to use the Disney Collection and World Passport Collection? Don't get me wrong, we love going to see the mouse, but we would utilize other resorts - how does this differ with buying direct vs resale? TIA

 

[PacoDF]

Thank you...this is great perspective! Am I correct in my understanding that if purchasing resale, those points can only be used at the DVC Resorts and that points must be traded to use the Disney Collection and World Passport Collection? Don't get me wrong, we love going to see the mouse, but we would utilize other resorts - how does this differ with buying direct vs resale? TIA

You can't use resale points to book in Disney Collection and other non-DVC destinations. What you can do is rent out privately your points and use that cash to book any other vacation. Most DVC member around here do just that as it is better value.

 

[carcam51]

You can't use resale points to book in Disney Collection and other non-DVC destinations. What you can do is rent out privately your points and use that cash to book any other vacation. Most DVC member around here do just that as it is better value.

WOW! Thanks for the quick response! There is so much to learn. So I'm clear, buying direct (while more expensive - I know) allows you to book in Disney Collection/World Passport/etc. Yes? I'm just trying to understand the basics

 

[PacoDF]

WOW! Thanks for the quick response! There is so much to learn. So I'm clear, buying direct (while more expensive - I know) allows you to book in Disney Collection/World Passport/etc. Yes? I'm just trying to understand the basics

Yes. Direct = no restrictions.

 

[carcam51]

Yes. Direct = no restrictions.

Perfect! Thank you!

 

[chalee94]

WOW! Thanks for the quick response! There is so much to learn. So I'm clear, buying direct (while more expensive - I know) allows you to book in Disney Collection/World Passport/etc. Yes? I'm just trying to understand the basics

as i said on page 1 of this thread about the world passport collection:

you can still trade DVC resale pts through RCI or buena vista trading co. for other timeshares. no disney hotels and no disney cruises, but don't go so far as to say no trading out at all.

 

[LauraLea]

Perfect! Thank you!

Before you get too excited about this, check the points requirements for these options. Also, there will be a $95 booking fee.

Laura

 

[Deb & Bill]

You can't use resale points to book in Disney Collection and other non-DVC destinations. What you can do is rent out privately your points and use that cash to book any other vacation. Most DVC member around here do just that as it is better value.

That's not quite correct. True, you need direct points to use for booking Disney Collection and the Concierge Collection, but you can do World Passport Collection (RCI and Buena Vista Trading Company) with resale points.

 

[carcam51]

Before you get too excited about this, check the points requirements for these options. Also, there will be a $95 booking fee.

Laura

Not getting too excited - just thanking PP for their short and to-the-point response

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Not getting too excited - just thanking PP for their short and to-the-point response

Which you understand wasn't quite correct, yes?

Thank you...this is great perspective! Am I correct in my understanding that if purchasing resale, those points can only be used at the DVC Resorts and that points must be traded to use the Disney Collection and World Passport Collection? Don't get me wrong, we love going to see the mouse, but we would utilize other resorts - how does this differ with buying direct vs resale? TIA

As has been mentioned a couple of times points purchased via resale can still be used to trade thru RCI, Club Cordial and Club Intrawest. All exchanges do have $95 exchange fees - and you would pay that every time you made a change to the exchange also.

In addition to the 3 exchange options above direct purchases can exchange thru the Disney collection (all moderate resorts, FW resort and Poly, GF and YC hotel rooms, DL resorts, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Paris resorts, Adventures by Disney and Disney Cruise line - all subject to availability which is controlled.) and thru the Concierge collection.

 

[Golden Rose]

One more quick perspective. We have 3 contracts, 2 we purchased direct, 1 resale.

The resale purchase was very stressful and took 3 months to complete, once we found a contract we wanted. I probably spent 2 or 3 months looking for a contract with our use year and roughly the amount of points we wanted, at one of the two resorts we were interested in buying into at that time. So we're talking about 5 or 6 months total time. The dvc resale specialist broker we purchased through made it far more stressful than it needed to be. She didn't return calls or emails in a timely manner, and she never kept us updated at what stage of the process the contract was in. (She didn't bother to tell us when we'd passed ROFR, for example. Or to tell me what our new closing date was. Or when she needed us to transmit the funds. Seriously.) That said, while it wasn't a great experience, we did end up with the contract we wanted at a price we were willing to pay.

I would do either resale or direct purchase again, depending on the circumstances. We bought direct recently because we knew we wanted VGF, and we wanted to immediately use the points to book our vacations for this year. We wanted to book stays at VGC, Aulani, AKV, and VGF, and we knew we would have to use a rather complicated arrangement of banked, borrowed, and current points to get exactly what we needed. We'd priced staying at GC and Aulani for cash, and decided we saved enough money adding on to our DVC even direct that it was time to add on. We'd been discussing adding on for a couple of years, and we knew we were interested in VGF once it was announced, so it was an easy decision to buy direct again last year.

I know everyone on this board pushes resale, resale, resale. But we have found that sometimes buying direct makes a lot of sense.