How much do you 'charge' family & friends?

[Rock'n Robin]

We joined in 2000 and took our first BWV trip in 2001. Now we need a 2BR anyway because we are a famiily of 5, so we took my parents without charging in 2002. I did ask for them to pay for a couple of meals and they did, and really nice places too (Flying Fish for my BDay!) Of course they also said they appreciated me doing all the research, renting Dad's ECV and having it in the room, and they loved seeing it all with the kids (They had gone to MK and Epcot in 88 alone, this time they saw Epcot, MGM and AK with my kids).
And after the heavy sigh and eye roll I got from my dad when he found out we bought a "time share," the look in their eyes when they saw the 2BR room was priceless! Now you should hear them talk up Disney to their friends!
Robin M.

 

[zillow]

Just a night of babysitting

 

[kramer_clan]

I have 4 sisters and 3 of them have families. We have a 17 night stay planned at BWV next summer. They are all coming down for a few nights.....scheduling it so that occupancy will not be a problem with the 2bedroom. I told them all that they just needed to get down to Florida, buy passes and put a little money in for groceries.

That is really all we expect from family when we invite them to share our Disney trips.

Vicki

 

[pwoodham]

It depends on so many things and has so many answers......

1. My sis & bil have timeshares and invite us all the time. I would never ask them to pay when they come with us.
2. My mil is on a fixed income. I would never ask her to pay (for anything!)
3. Other sisters have incomes, and on the one occasion I've asked them to contribute, I based the amount on what it would cost them to stay at All-Stars, always a total of less than $100 per night. So for their 7 night stay in a studio at BCV last year, I asked for a total of $600. Since 3 stayed, that was $200 each for the week. I thought this more than fair, but at the last minute, 2 of them cancelled for "financial reasons." Please note I had already used mileage to get them tickets to DFW (where we are), although I did ask them to pay the $189 fare from DFW to Orlando and back.

Bottom line - I got the two who were backing out to come anyway by telling them they didn't have to pay for the room. Then I felt weird taking $$ from my other sister. I will not ask them to pay again unless they invite themselves. Too much hassle, too much weirdness. and it certainly is not worth a strained family relationship.

OTHO, my family is too large and my income too small for me to invite them all for free all the time, so this may impact how often we ask them along.

Another aspect to this which has been discussed on the board is your guests' perception of your "timeshare." For some reason, many may have the idea that it's free to you, and feel like you're trying to get one over on them if you ask for reimbursement. Tread carefully, and I hope you come up with a good solution for you and your guests.

 

[Disney-Kim]

In reading this thread again I have realized that everyone is posting whether they would charge family/friends that they INVITED. I would not charge for family I invited to join us. Yes maybe a couple dinners out. ok. I agree with everyone else on that. And of course never charge your parents.
but in my post I think everyone didn't get the jist of where I was coming from.

What about the family members who all of a sudden want to go to WDW with you because you have DVC and that means a free or nearly free room for them. Do you get my point....they are not being asked by you to go but inviting themselves. (if thats ok with me and of course I am not going to say no) but....

do you guys see the difference? and here is another point. We do not want to share a unit with anyone. Rather book 2 studios.

so with a different viewpoint would any answers be different.
I want to give them a great deal but not free. [/COLOR]

 

[CarolynFH]

I agree with you, Disney-Kim, there is a difference between people we invite and people who invite themselves. If we invite them, we don't charge anything because we think of them as our guests. If they want to contribute, they can take us out for a nice meal. Of course we will expect them to help with the meals in the villa! We set out everything in advance -- they pay for their own transportation and park passes.

But if someone asks to come along with us, or to use one of our timeshare opportunities without our offering it first, then yes, we would charge. We would set a price based on points used or maintenance fees that would compensate for our not being able to use that opportunity but that would also benefit them in terms of lower cost than what they would pay for the same quality of accommodations.

 

[Dean]

Originally posted by Disney-Kim
In reading this thread again I have realized that everyone is posting whether they would charge family/friends that they INVITED. I would not charge for family I invited to join us. Yes maybe a couple dinners out. ok. I agree with everyone else on that. And of course never charge your parents.
but in my post I think everyone didn't get the jist of where I was coming from.

What about the family members who all of a sudden want to go to WDW with you because you have DVC and that means a free or nearly free room for them. Do you get my point....they are not being asked by you to go but inviting themselves. (if thats ok with me and of course I am not going to say no) but....

do you guys see the difference? and here is another point. We do not want to share a unit with anyone. Rather book 2 studios.

so with a different viewpoint would any answers be different.
I want to give them a great deal but not free. [/COLOR]

I think many posts touched on it but didn't concentrate on this issue. Every situation is different. In general, I'd look very negatively at anyone who invited themselves. If they asked, I'd make a judgement call and say yes or no. At the same time, I'd decide how much to charge them taking into account the number of points it would cost and the aggravation to me. I'd also lay down any ground rules. There is a good chance that anyone inviting themselves would be told no and also a good chance they'd eliminate themselves from the pool of people we might invite at a later date. If I deemed appropriate, I'd even tell them that it was upsetting for someone to invite themselves ESPECIALLY to try to get a free vacation at my expense. I'd go on to tell them how much it cost me and how much I could rent it for.

Most families have freeloaders, you usually know who they are up front. Then there's the family you do invite who decide to invite other family members to go on YOUR vacation without your knowledge or permission. Usually this is also a freeloading family. I'm always amazed how some families have one or more components who feel another component of the family should "share" with other "deserving and needy" family members. Usually people who you don't want to vacation with anyway at any cost.

Some people are just good at manipulating others. My wife had a brother who could (and did) get his parents to repeatedly do things for hime (like cars) that they never did for any of their other children. They'd send him money to pay the rent, he'd go to the beach then convince them to sent them money for the rent again. They bought him something like 4 or 5 cars, usually lasting about a year or less till he wrecked them or let someone else do it for him. It sure made it hard for my wife when he passed away as she had many mixed emotions.

 

[TiggerFreak]

If we invite you, we intend to treat you to a free room/bed.
Everyone that we have invited so far has insisted on helping with the groceries or springing for a nice dinner somewhere in the World.

One trip, our niece and her 2 children were going the same week. After realizing that we could save her some $$, we changed our ressie from a 1BR to a 2BR. If I remember we asked for $8 a point for the difer in the ressie. She also got the DVC discount on the passes. With the access to the kitchen, washer and dryer, she was very happy and saved about $350 on the trip.

 

[SCCaguioa]

We'll be 'in the same boat' come March, 2004. I'm thinking we will handle the transportation, accomdatations, and tickets; all they need money for is food, and play money.

Of course, I haven't told them about our surprise dinner show at HDD and/or PL

 

[AZKathy]

We have invited friends/family on two occasions. On both, we just spring for the accomodations with our points. Meals, tickets, etc are their own responsibility. We split the cost of groceries. Wish we had money to do everything, but we don't! On our first trip my BIL insisted on paying for the rental car which was a nice surprise. Our second trip with friends, we received a lovely porcelin sculpture in the mail after our trip that our friends saw that we liked in an art shop in Downtown Disney. That was a wonderful thank you on their part.

We like taking friends and family when we can just to share something they probably would never do without us inviting them. They had a wonderful time visiting the most magical place on earth and we had a wonderful time having them along!

 

[arminnie]

Originally posted by Disney-Kim
In reading this thread again I have realized that everyone is posting whether they would charge family/friends that they INVITED. I would not charge for family I invited to join us. Yes maybe a couple dinners out. ok. I agree with everyone else on that. And of course never charge your parents.
but in my post I think everyone didn't get the jist of where I was coming from.

What about the family members who all of a sudden want to go to WDW with you because you have DVC and that means a free or nearly free room for them. Do you get my point....they are not being asked by you to go but inviting themselves. (if thats ok with me and of course I am not going to say no) but....

do you guys see the difference? and here is another point. We do not want to share a unit with anyone. Rather book 2 studios.

so with a different viewpoint would any answers be different.
I want to give them a great deal but not free. [/COLOR]

I think I said this on another thread. First decide if you would enjoy their company on a vacation - if not DO NOT let them come with you under ANY circumstances. Why ruin your vacation.

Even if you would like to share a vacation with them - there's no reason that you are obligated to provide them a room. If you were staying in a hotel would you feel obligated to pay for a second room for them? You don't want them in your studio and probably don't have room for them anyway. Why not just tell them to rent some points and make their own plans.

They might be happier staying cheaper offsite or might prefer a deluxe hotel or have their heart set on a monorail hotel. Let them make their own plans and meet up with them as much or little as you like.

IF (and that's a really big IF) you have extra points (in another thread people said they NEVER have extra points) you could rent them to them. Again if you were paying for a room and had extra money in your checking account (an asset like points in your account) would you feel like paying for their room?

You could rent points to them for $1-2 less a point as it might be easier than renting to strangers, BUT in some ways it might be more risky - no deposit - no contract to handle things like them having to cancel at the last minute. People have to cancel at the last minute for all sorts of valid reasons - could you be in a position to lose points? Personally I'd just stay out of the middle and let them handle their own arrangements.

 

[BCVOwner2002]

We have been to WDW using DVC twice and both times we took DS' friend. We did not charge him. Next year (when DS graduates) we have invited 4 or 5 of his friends to come along as a graduation present. I sent an e-mail to the teens and their parents explaining we will be covering the cost of the 2-BR villa and it will be up to each person to cover the cost of air fare, tickets, souvenirs, etc. I also suggested $15-$20 per person to cover food expenses - soda, snacks, deli meats and breakfast foods in the fridge for the week. This will save them money from having to eat out.

While we were visiting in August we had my best friend (who lives in FL) come visit with her children and boyfriend. The first words out of her mouth (once she found out we owned DVC) was when can I stay and that she and her boyfriend could really use a vacation! I didn't know what to say! DH asked, "When was the last time he gave her $1,500?" She surprisingly responded, "Never. Why?" DH explained that while we purchased DVC for pre-paid vacations for 40 years it will cost an average of $1,500 per year between the initial investment and maintenance fees. She didn't say anything further.

Would I charge people we invite? Definitely not! Would I charge someone who wanted to use our points? Definitely yes!

Annmarie

 

[pigelet]

We have invited our friends to join us to Disney. When we went in Sept. 2001 we got them a discounted rate of $279/night in BWV for a one bedroom villa. They were so happy to get such a great rate since Disney was charging $400/night.
Back in the spring when we decided to go again this Oct. we advised them that we had extra points available if they again wanted to join us. We agreed that they would pay the maintenance fee. They will be using 190 points and will have their own room for 6 nights. It worked out to be a little more than $4/point. They paid us $779. We all thought that was a fair price. Even FTP couldn't compare. They did check into that as well before deciding to come with us. Hey, if they didn't want it, I'm sure another set of friends would have jumped on it. I am happy they are coming with us.

 

[WDWLVR]

We've taken my in laws a couple of times and have never charge them. They will usually insist on buying a dinner or two and last October my MIL paid for our tickets into Universal. Right now they are using our points for 5 nights at Vero Beach. A nice way to give them back for all they did for DH while he was growing up.

 

[timC]

We did bring my DMIL one trip...um... We had a great... er....time.

She stayed free, but she insisted on passing us money everywhere, and pay for too many of the meals. It was a rather uncomfortable situation.