Having two home resorts

[bimmertt]

Prospective new owner here and wanted to get some thoughts about owning at two resorts. I was originally going to buy all my points at VGF but now I’m thinking about splitting the points between VGF and Poly2 when it goes on sale next year. I’d like to have ~200 points to play with so I was thinking 150 at VGF and then 50 at Poly2. I’m not sure if we’d go more than once a year so we’d alternate and bank the points for the resort we skip that year. Does this make sense or would this be a headache? This is only coming up because I like VGF, but Poly is a favorite of ours.

 

[AwfulWaffle]

The more home resorts the merrier. Split stays ftw.

 

[Jgc014]

I think two home resorts can be nice, but I am not sure I would pick that split. 150 VGF plus 50 Poly 2 will likely be around $3.5k more than just 200 VGF. At least for me, I don’t think only 50 Poly points would be worth that premium. And with the point charts, 50 at Poly won’t go a long way earlier - likely 2-3 nights tops.

If you want Poly, I would wait and do a more substantial Poly 2 purchase, or do 150 VGF plus Poly resale. With more Poly 2, you could have the bulk of your points at your favorite resort plus you would qualify for incentives that you wouldn’t with only a 50 point Poly 2 purchase.

With resale Poly, you could get even more Poly points for the same price as 50 direct. If you really only want 50 more points though, with 50 points you likely will only be staying in studios, so you wouldn’t take advantage of the larger Poly 2 units. Therefore, less of a disadvantage to being locked out of Poly 2 if a seperate association. Then if you ever did want to book Poly 2, your direct VGF points would still work there (pending 7 month availability of course).

Good luck with the decision!

 

[intamin]

VGF and Poly are both very point heavy resorts. I don't imagine a 50 pointer at Poly going very far. Poly 2's availability remains to be seen. I assume if you're interested in Poly 2 then you're interested in the tower and not as much the studios? If you're okay with doing a split stay then it'd be fine because you could do 5-6 nights at VGF and then 1-2 at poly each year but if you're skipping a resort and alternating it's going to be difficult because you'll have 300 for VGF every other year and only 100 for poly every other year. If you're trying to alternate banking I'd probably recommend a bare minimum of 100 at each resort.. ideally 150+. The 100 at each would get you at least a studio for a week for most weeks with banking, if you do 150 at each most weeks you should be able to obtain a 1BR for the majority of the week at each resort. I own RIV and am planning to do split stays with Poly 2. Ultimately we plan to own 300 at each but that's more because we want to be able to do 2BR splits and have a little more for another stay as well.

 

[theMoreDisneytheBetter]

I’d echo what has already been said about not getting much out of a 50 point contact. If you only want studios you may as well buy Poly 1 resale. I also wonder if it would be weird to have 2 home resorts next to each other. Inevitably you will like one more than the other and then you will always wish you were there instead. This is my mom’s big concern about buying at riviera (we are primarily beach club family though admittedly we do have 4 home resorts).

 

[Sandisw]

We love having more than one resort. RIV and VGF are our top two (we have SSR too to use to supplement). But, I agree with others that 50 points at Poly tower, even with banking to get 100 won't get you many nights.

But, we are split stay people and most trips do that. A night or two at VGF and the others at RIV. With VGF and Poly tower being right next to each other, its probably not worth using that strategy.

If VGF is a place you want to own, get the 150 now and then next year, you can see what happens with Poly tower and maybe find that you can get 75!!!

 

[bakerworld]

We own 3 homes - 160, 100 and 85. We originally bought 55 at one home with the idea that we would go every other year and then later added another 30 points to make it 85 because 55 wasn't enough points to stay as long as we'd like. I enjoy having a choice at the 11 month deadline. Two of our Homes have the lower point villas - AK & BL - which you really need the 11 month window or 'walking' ability.

 

[robinb]

I own 300 points, 200 at BWV and 100 at AKV. I usually bank and borrow my AKV points to use on Club level studios.

 

[RichVIII]

Our 2nd home was a 50-pointer (direct). It has been a lot harder to manage than expected. Once you bank and borrow, you lose a lot of flexibility for that 11mo advantage. Our 1st resort we have the most points with and I can have more than one reservation and more flexibility to put together a trip. Our 50pointer has almost become more SAP (sleep around points) than a real advantage. I wanted to add on more but the min buy in 50 points. So it is another bigger commitment. I would go 200 GFV so you can have max flexibility at home resort and hope for 7 months somewhere else.

 

[RoseGold]

Poly2 is going to have an insane chart. 50 points at Poly2 is going to do nothing, and they don't have to let you buy in that small of an increment. Buying 50 points at a resort that should be 25-45 points a night is asking to orphan points and lose money.

VGF2 should have been sold out by now. If they cut the price, it will be completely sold before Poly2 goes on sale. That wouldn't shock me when they are down to a few points.

If you are only going every other year, just rent points. This is a whole lot of hassle, and tying up a whole lot of money for a place you dont' go that much.

 

[Minniesgal]

I don't see the point in doing this if you are going to buy such a small amount of Poly points I would just buy all at 1 resort.

 

[Frederic Civish]

Unless you are going over 200 points, I would get them all at one location, and in ONE MEMBERSHIP.

We have 8 contracts at 3 resorts, AKV (twice), Poly and BLT. Over 1000 points. And because of how the contracts are, we have FOUR memberships. We have enough at each resort to stay every year, and we often make 3 to 5 trips per year to DW. So we have a lot of experience using the different resort 'home ownership' and I don't really find it to be very important. Much of the time we are still just booking in the 7 month window at OTHER resorts, and using the Wait List to fill in the holes at wherever we want to stay.

I can tell you that if you have two small contracts at 2 different locations (perhaps less than 100 points at each location) then you will NOT find it as useful or as easy as having 200 points at one location. You can make it work, but it is still a hassle to try to make a longer reservation or a bigger room reservation by combining two smaller contracts from different resorts. Even doing it in the 7 month window, it is still somewhat more limiting, rather than 'freeing.'

In my opinion..

 

[aceshigh73]

Unless you are going over 200 points, I would get them all at one location, and in ONE MEMBERSHIP.

We have 8 contracts at 3 resorts, AKV (twice), Poly and BLT. Over 1000 points. And because of how the contracts are, we have FOUR memberships. We have enough at each resort to stay every year, and we often make 3 to 5 trips per year to DW. So we have a lot of experience using the different resort 'home ownership' and I don't really find it to be very important. Much of the time we are still just booking in the 7 month window at OTHER resorts, and using the Wait List to fill in the holes at wherever we want to stay.

I can tell you that if you have two small contracts at 2 different locations (perhaps less than 100 points at each location) then you will NOT find it as useful or as easy as having 200 points at one location. You can make it work, but it is still a hassle to try to make a longer reservation or a bigger room reservation by combining two smaller contracts from different resorts. Even doing it in the 7 month window, it is still somewhat more limiting, rather than 'freeing.'

In my opinion..

Im still mostly a newbie thats waiting on RoFR so i havent done the booking, banking, and borrowing yet. When u say you have 4 Memberships, is that because of different UY's ?

 

[kanerf]

Hmm, well I own AKV, BLT, BRV, BWV, OKW and RIV and I am always open for more, looking at you PVB-II.

 

[Frederic Civish]

Im still mostly a newbie thats waiting on RoFR so i havent done the booking, banking, and borrowing yet. When u say you have 4 Memberships, is that because of different UY's ?

Of my 8 contracts, I have 3 different use years, and they end up being in 4 different memberships.

I have my adult kids with me on 6 of the contracts and I want to put my kids on the other 2 contracts, but have just never gotten around to it, in the last 5 years. Once I do that, those 2 contracts will be rolled into one of the other memberships, and I will only have to worry about 3 memberships. Then I will have 1 membership containing both Poly and AKV with a Sept Use year. 1 membership (1 contract) with BLT and a Feb Use Year and one membership (1 contract) that is also at AKV but with a March Use year.

I didn't want to wait so I just bought the best contracts I could, at the best price, and was able to match up 1 AKV contract and 2 Poly contracts in the Sept Use year. We PREFER to travel in Oct, so this is perfect. But, I have to adjust the names on the contracts to be able to get them together.

I don't find it to be a particular problem, that the other contracts are at other resorts and Use Years, because they are both around 225 to 250 points each, which gives us enough points that, with banking and borrowing, we have enough to use them 'independently' of the others.

However, I do run into things like our coming trip in October where we are staying at SSR, and I booked a room, but then my daughter came along and added some days, however she used a different membership, so we have a 2 bedroom for a bit over a week, and they can't really combine it into ONE reservation. I have talked to DVC about this reservation and they are trying to LINK the two reservations together, since they are consecutive and in identical rooms, but, technically, we MIGHT need to check out on the 'transition' day and then check back into a new room. In the past, when we have had other, similar situations, it has not been a problem and they made it so that we DID NOT need to check out and check back in, but it COULD happen, and it WILL happen if they are not absolutely identical.

But a bigger problem, if you don't have enough points and they are spread across 2 memberships is that, in order to use them, you will most likely have to make multiple reservations, possibly with one in the 11 month window and 1 in the 7 month window, and make absolutely sure they are consecutive and in the same exact type of unit, and then HOPE that Disney won't make you 'move out and then move back in.' Because if you get the two unit types 'off' by anything different at all, such as size of unit, preferred vs standard, lock-off vs non lock-off, or anything else, then you WILL have to move out and back in. This is actually going to happen to us on our last day on a trip to AKV that we are making next week. My daughter added a day at the end, but it is in a slightly different type of unit, so we will need to check out and move rooms, just for 1 day.

This isn't a deal breaker. You can work around it, and with a bit of extra care, you can avoid this. I am teaching my daughter how to make sure to choose the right units with the right memberships. But it DOES add a bit of a potential complication, that you must then pay attention to, in order to avoid.

And this is in addition to the problem of things like - wanting to cover an extra day or two, but having not quite enough points on one membership, so then you MUST book it with two separate memberships. It would be better to have all the points in one membership, so that you aren't scrounging around, trying to find a few extra points by going to the other membership.

You could ALWAYS transfer points TO and FROM yourself, moving them from one of the memberships and into the other. But you can only do this ONCE PER YEAR. And, in addition, it doesn't change the ability to book in the 11 month window, if they are not both at the same resort anyway. So whether or not they are at the same resort, it is just a bit easier to try to get them both in the same use year and same membership anyway.

Overall, my advice is that you can always find ways to make ALL of this work, but it is just easier and less complicated to have all your contracts in the same use year and exact same names, so they are just ONE membership. And I suggest you only split the points between TWO resorts if you have more than 100 points at each.

 

[kboo]

8 contracts, 3 home resorts, 2 UYs (and memberships).
Definitely into split stays.
Smallest contract is 25 points direct from back when that got you blue card benefits, and it’s paired with a larger resale contract. Every other contract is 100-200 points.

I agree with everyone else that one small contract at its own home resort may be more trouble than it’s worth. Especially if you buy 150-200 VGF points now, you will have some time to use those points and see how much it matters to you to switch at 7 months. 50 points, even with banking and borrowing, is only going to be useful for studio stays, and we’ve almost always seen that availability at Poly anyway. And for the first few years of Poly 2, if you’re interested in 1BRs, you’ll probably have decent availability depending on when you travel. And it’s not so bad to be “stuck” at VGF.

Our first VGF contract was 200 points. The first time we used those points, we stayed 6 nights (?) in a standard studio over Easter break for ~195 points. Guess who added on VGF points shortly after that?

ETA: if you want to try out split stays and only have 1 resort/contract to use, book two separate stays in the same room category that cover your entire stay (e.g. 3 nights VGF + 4 nights VGF for a week) Then you can modify one or the other independently of the rest of the week. E.g. waitlist BCV for the first 3 nights, for example, and if it doesn’t come through, you still have a whole week at VGF, and you can also waitlist another resort for the 4 nights, without having to call MS. If you book the 7nights all at once and want to drop a few nights to book something else at 7 months it entails calling MS, potentially canceling the whole reservation and then rebooking. Not worth the rise.

 

[DonMacGregor]

Technically 3 home resorts, although our SSR points are used for SAP most of the time. We also have two UY's: all of our WDW points are February UY, and all of our Aulani are December (the actual UY didn't really matter as we are in SoCal and can go whenever). The Aulani points are in their own UY, to avoid the temptation of dipping into them to use at WDW or to extend a WDW trip.

 

[Jwaire]

I enjoy split stays and hate buses, which is why I purchased PVB (my all time favorite) and RIV (Skyliner). Unfortunately, my extended family does not primarily because they have small children.

That's created a little bit of an issue as my points are evenly divided. Now, I'm on a "bank one contract and alternate" cycle, which defeats my original purpose.

If you were telling me you were purchasing 50 pts at Animal Kingdom, SSR, OKW or Boardwalk—I'd understand. Studios are affordable there and your 50 pts would go further. But Poly 2? You're likely looking at a tower with a higher point chart and more premium view rooms. I'm not sure 50 pts would take you very far.

 

[DanCali]

Just signed a contract for 5th home resort

 

[ajiuo]

I have 2 home resorts. AKV and VGC. I like to travel to Disneyland in the spring and Disney world in the fall. If I ever got another contract it would likely be a small contract for Aulani. Not sure if I would get a second home resort in the same area… if I did it would probably be copper creek (own the trilogy)