Help!! Advise for a newbieee!!!

[mpct29]

Hi! Im completely lost… We are a family of 3 (me, hubby and boy 3y/o). We have visited Disney every year and a half or every 2 years and have stayed in property. We are interested in purchasing around 160-200 points for Animal Kingdom, Contemporary or Grand Floridian. Interested in studio rooms, not the villas. We traveled during may or sept/oct.
Info I need to know: price wise which home hotel is the best option for me, benefits of program (discounts, dining plans, park tickets), what is and how to trade/rent points, if I can cancel contract, difficulty booking dates selected at home resort and other resort, how to bank points, if I can give points to a family member (parents, in-laws). I really need advice for a newbieeee!!! Thanks!

 

[dsnydaddy]

Hi! Im completely lost… We are a family of 3 (me, hubby and boy 3y/o). We have visited Disney every year and a half or every 2 years and have stayed in property. We are interested in purchasing around 160-200 points for Animal Kingdom, Contemporary or Grand Floridian. Interested in studio rooms, not the villas. We traveled during may or sept/oct.
Info I need to know: price wise which home hotel is the best option for me, benefits of program (discounts, dining plans, park tickets), what is and how to trade/rent points, if I can cancel contract, difficulty booking dates selected at home resort and other resort, how to bank points, if I can give points to a family member (parents, in-laws). I really need advice for a newbieeee!!! Thanks!

As far as the best resort for the best price, it is a personal decision but this thread will provide you with a lot of good information:

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3356021

Here is some of the advice that you will hear:

1. Discounts are variable and can come and go. Don't count on them.
2. Renting points means that you pay an owner to make a reservation for you. It's a good way to get your feet wet.
3. Once you own a contract it's yours. If you "cancel" it that means that you give it back to Disney and lose all your financial interest in it. It's generally better to sell your contract on the resell market.
4. Buy where you want to stay. That way you have a three month preferential booking window over the other DVC owners that do not own your resort. This is really important for peak seasons.
5. Banking points is when you move points from the current contract year to the next. You have to do this earlier than 3 months before the Use Year month.
6. On Family members. You can make reservations for family members (or for anyone else for that matter). If you are actually giving points to someone (as in giving the contract to someone) then you will need to move your interest over similar to transferring real estate.
7. Read as much as you can on the DVC section of the DIS. There's tons of info here and very good advice.

 

[chalee94]

Info I need to know: price wise which home hotel is the best option for me

SSR is the cheapest overall. AKV is cheaper resale and it does cost less per night for the rooms than BLT or VGF but it does have fairly high annual dues.

VGF is a little risky as the studios book up very quickly. but in general, you should have a lot of options for may bookings as that is not a high demand time period for DVC.

here is another good thread for considering which home resort to buy:

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2152512

, benefits of program (discounts, dining plans, park tickets)

discounts come and go. don't buy for the perks.

with that said, right now, DVCers get random dining and shopping discounts at wdw and about $150 off annual passes (no other ticket discounts at the moment).

also, we can book the DDP without having to buy tickets as part of the package. but there is no free dining - not ever.

what is and how to trade/rent points,

you can use pts to make reservations and rent them (or give them) to other prople. we call it renting pts because you generally price the reservation based on the number of pts, but you cannot actually rent points. you can rent to other DVC owners or nonowners.

alternatively, you can transfer pts to another DVC owner. the pts actually go into their acct (with their home resort and UY intact).

you can read more on the rent/trade board if you are interested.

if I can cancel contract

if you stop making payments to disney, they will take the contract back for free (it's called foreclosure).

in general, you are making a long-term commitment to a real-estate interest (like a lease). you are responsible for paying annual dues/maintenance fees until you sell it to another person. (or until the lease expires - the resort contracts expire in different years from 2042 to 2064).

difficulty booking dates selected at home resort and other resort,

it varies. sept/oct can be busy due to food and wine at epcot. may is a relatively low period.

VGF is a small resort - even owners are having some issues with booking studios at 11 months out. OTOH. booking BLT-lake view studios at 7 months out in may or september should be there most of the time.

how to bank points,

log onto the member site and click a few buttons. easy.

just remember that banking and borrowing are both final transactions and cannot be undone. so be sure before you click the buttons.

if I can give points to a family member (parents, in-laws).

member services won't talk to a non-member. so the pts are useless to non-members. as stated above, you can put a reservation in their name and make changes for them by acting as a go-between between your family and member services. they can confirm that they have a reservation on disney's website - they just can't make any changes themselves.

 

[chalee94]

here is a thread that will give you a lot of information:

DVC Resource Center

also, if it hasn't been said already: buy resale. not directly from disney.

here is a link to more reading material when you are ready for it:

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3041038

also, do some reading through threads on the DVC forums to get a sense of what issues are affecting current DVC owners and considering how those issues might impact you.

 

[dsnydaddy]

also, if it hasn't been said already: buy resale. not directly from disney.

here is a link to more reading material when you are ready for it:

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3041038

Amen!

 

[mpct29]

how resale works? the purchase is for a specific amount of time or until the expiration date?

 

[chalee94]

how resale works? the purchase is for a specific amount of time or until the expiration date?

all of the resort contracts (other than OKW, which is a little complicated) expire at the same time for each resort.

if you buy BLT, the contract will expire in 2060 whether you buy direct or resale. if you buy AKV, the contract will expire in 2057 whether you buy direct or resale.

most people do not hold their contracts until expiration. if you decide in 2025 to get rid of your BLT contract, you would need to sell it to another person. that is called a resale transaction. you will generally be selling for less (sometimes much less) than DVC would charge the person for a comparable contract.

resale buyers do not have the option of trading for things like disney cruises or disney hotels (like the yacht club) but those are very expensive trades anyway.

 

[mpct29]

Can I purchase a low points contract directly from Disney and purchase a re-sale and the transfer these points, combining both points?

 

[chalee94]

Can I purchase a low points contract directly from Disney and purchase a re-sale and the transfer these points, combining both points?

not for things like cruises, no. disney can track this pretty easily.

assuming they are both the same home resort and same UY, you can combine the pts pretty easily for booking DVC studios. (but there is no real advantage to buying direct.)

 

[chalee94]

here is a link to non-DVC destinations (like cruises) so you can see some sample point charts to decide if it would be worth it to you.

http://dvcnews.com/index.php/dvc-program/points-charts/non-dvc-destinations

here is a current thread discussing buying DVC for cruises:

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3365033

here is a more extended discussion of valuing your pts for trading:

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3235889

also, keep in mind that while DVC stay point charts are relatively fixed (for the whole resort for the whole year - any night or villa can be made more expensive by making another night or villa cheaper), point charts for cruises can and do change from year to year.