How to spend weekends with the least amount of points?

[cdorval]

Not quite one of you DVC'ers yet, but my contract is in the mail and I should be the proud owner of 300 pts. at the BCV within a week or two. I'm looking for some help on conserving Fri/Sat pts, and the best/various ways to do it. I have never stayed in the park before although I've visited 10 times or so, so I'm thinking this DVC thing at the BCV will be like dying and going to heaven!! I plan on reserving 12 nights next summer as soon as I can, which will include one Fri/Sat combination. I guess I can move out of the park and stay at some cheap offsite hotel, (need 2 rooms for 2 nights since there will be 6 of us). I guess I could book 2 rooms at the Allstar, 2 rooms at another moderate/luxury hotel, stay at BCV on Fri/Sat and burn pts, try and move to OKW for these 2 nights or maybe something else I haven't thought of? I will be buying an AP, but not sure if/what type of WDW room discounts go with that. Any experienced point savers out there with thought/suggestions? Thanks ....

 

[Lew]

Although you're not quite a member yet, you're close enough! Welcome Home!!

We have stayed off property or at another WDW resort on the first Friday/Saturday in the past to conserve points. Although it's a great way to reduce point usage, we never feel quite settled knowing we'll need to move in a couple of days. Also, when staying off property we never really feel we're there yet.

Personally, we wouldn't even consider moving out if the weekend were to fall in the middle of our vacation. It's too disruptive IMHO.

You might want to consider paying cash for those two nights to conserve points. You'll need to weigh the cash cost vs. point cost.

For your first DVC trip and first on property stay, I'd recommend using points points for the entire time. You'll have a ball!! You can then evaluate your trip and various options for future trips.

 

[Dean]

For a 12 night stay Sunday to the following Friday, I'd eat the weekend points or pay cash and link them as suggested. 300 points with banking and/or borrowing should give you plenty of points to do so. Of course you could split your stay between 2 or more resorts with 1 being either OKW or BW standard (especially for the weekend) and that would save quite a few points. No way I'd move off for the weekend in that situation JUST to save the points. And this is from someone who never goes for weekend points as we usually stay 5 days since we're only a few hours away. Now if you wanted to stay off a few days anyway and do non Disney stuff, you might want to consider other resorts like the Universal resorts though they're not any cheaper, if anything they can be more. The other suggestion IF YOU TRULY DON'T MIND MOVING A TIME OR 2, is to use that opporunity to try other WDW resorts to include the moderates.

 

[CarolMN]

We decided to buy enough points to cover our annual vacation needs - it's usually a week one year and two the next.

If you think of the point cost on a weekly basis, the weekend points don't seem so important. IMHO, there is no way to avoid weekend points if you plan a stay longer than 5 nights, unless you are willing to move or pay cash.

IMHO, paying cash defeats the purpose of DVC altogether. Cash prices will likely go up (even the discounted cash price) every year and the economic value of DVC is to lock in the price of accomodations. When we did the financial analysis, we certainly didn't plan to keep paying cash for part of our Disney vacations. Sometimes I think people buy DVC and then end up spending much more on Disney vacations than they ever planned. Those points somehow turn into gold and they turn into misers, LOL! IMHO, they would have been better off with a forced savings plan - like a Christmas Club, only for vacations.

No way would I even consider moving between resorts. I know some actually LIKE to experience more than one resort per trip, but I just can't enjoy the experience of mutiple check ins and check outs and worrying about luggage transfers. Once we're there, I'm there!

Obviously, all of this is JMHO and many will have a different opinion. Just thought I'd give you something a littel different to think about.

Congratulations and WELCOME HOME!

 

[SleepyatDVC]

I agree with the above posts. You are already saving on weekend points by skipping the first and last weekends. Not worth it to move out and then in just for the middle weekend. You "lose" two days during check-in and check-out. Not to mention the packing and unpacking.

Now if you really want to break up your stay... Some people use the weekend to go on a 3 day cruise or go to the beach. We'll be breaking up our 13 night stay in September by driving to Miami to visit my girlfriend who just had her second son. Since we were planning to visit sometime anyways, I figured the high points weekend was as good as any! Now, dh has been complaining already that it's a pain to move and I should have planned it so that we hit Miami the first weekend so that we would only have to move once, instead of twice now.

If you really want to conserve points and don't mind moving, one option to save money is to consider priceline.com for the weekend. Bid only 3* or 4* and know what area you are bidding for. Do your research at www.biddingfortravel.com BEFORE bidding to avoid costly mistakes.

Good luck and enjoy your DVC membership!!!

"points somehow turn into gold and they turn into misers" - ROFLMHO!!!

 

[CaptainMidnight]

Well, if the weekend night falls in the very beginning of the trip and we don't arrive until the evening, we sometimes stay the first night in a studio before moving to a one bedroom the next day. Th studio is great for when we first get there, but we don't move down to uit in the middle or at the end of the vacation. This helps for those situations where we need to stretch our points a little.

 

[Richyams]

We do that twelve night vacation every year. Arrive on Sunday, leave a week from the following Friday. There is no chance in the world that I would move out during the middle weekend to save points....and I just live a couple of hours away also.

You need to look at it in one week blocks, or your desired vacation. I think that obsessing over avoiding weekend point costs is rather trivial.

 

[RweTHEREyet]

I personally have a very hard time using points for a weekend stay. I just like to make more trips with the points I have. Having said that, I am using weekend points for a studio later this month, so we will see if I sit in the room to make sure I get the most of my points Our trips usually involve arriving on Sunday and leaving on Friday. If flgiht/airfare works out better/cheaper to arrive on Friday or Saturday, we usually stay at the AllStars and then move to DVC. I can say this. in my experience, it is always better to "move up" in your accommodations. Don't stay at DVC and then move "down" to AllStars. Don't start in a 2 bedroom and then move to studios. Start at the bottom and move up, or disappointment settles in. Good luck with your decision.

Folks, please don't flame me about "moving down" to AllStars. I stay there all the time, so much, I am sick of the place, but in my opinion, going from any DVC to AllStars is a step backwards. Don't mean anything negative to AllStars.

 

[DisneyHumbug]

We're going Christmas week - staying Mon - Sun in VWL, the rest of the family at WL. I stressed out so much over "spending" weekend points...until my DD said "but Mom, didn't you buy DVC to USE it???" And she's right - I'd rather spend $$ on dinners out than on paying cash for a hotel room just to save points.