Interested

[muppetman]

I am interested in purchasing some DVC points but would like to ask the folloeing questions first.

1. How much do u pay in maintenance fees a year ?

2. After paying the initial resale price and the yearly maintenance fees are u making a saving over booking normally ?

3. And can your points be used anywhere outside of Florida.

Many thanks
Dave (from Great Britain) The Weathers not great in Britain LOL

 

[eva]

1. The maintenance fees depend on which resort you buy at. The average is about $4.00 a point. So if you buy the minimum amount of points (150) then your yearly maintenance fees would be about $600. Fees can go up or down each year. There is a maximum percentage of 15% that they can increase in a year. They have never increased that drastically. They have often gone down. If I were calculating dues over the life of the contract I would figure a 4-5% increase yearly.

2. When we bought in 1997 we calculated the total cost with interest and yearly dues increasing at 5% and we were about breaking even with the prices of a moderate resort compared to a 2-bedroom for the same amount of time. The prices are quite a bit higher now so you may find that you are only saving money if you normally stay in the deluxe resorts. Although moderate resorts have increased quite a bit since then too. If you are used to staying at the All Stars or offsite you probably are losing money. But then again, you are comparing apples to oranges.

3. Your points can be used at quite a few places. They can be used without exchanging at all 7 DVC resorts. The only resort outside of Florida is the one in Hilton Head. But you can also exchange with Interval International for quite a few resorts world-wide. There's also the Concierge Collection that you can exchange into. This is a group of top hotels like the Plaza in New York. If you call DVC and request the information pack with video from them you will get an idea of all of the exchanges you can do. If you think that you will be echanging more than staying at WDW then DVC might not be for you. It is quite a bit more expensive than most other timeshares.

Hope that helps. Be sure to check out the link above for DVC FAQ's. It will give you a good idea on how DVC works.

 

[JeffPort]

If you take the initial purchase out of the equation, then the room cost savings for DVC maintenence fees vs. normal Disney rates is quite substantial. Depending on the time of year and location, you can get a 2 bedroom apartment setup in a deluxe resort for about 270 points for a week stay. That is about $1150 in dues (with no added taxes or resort fees). If you book a discounted rate for a standard hotel room in the same resort (one room with 2 beds), you will likely pay between $250 - $300 per night, or about $1900 + taxes and resort fees, which will bring the real cost to about $2100.

If you are in a similar situation as me and your family normally requires 2 hotel rooms (we have 4 children), then the cost differential changes dramatically ($1150 vs. $4200 for a deluxe resort). Add to that the indirect benefits of being able to prepare some meals in your kitchen and the year-to-year savings starts to add up very quickly.

The general rule that everyone seems to agree upon on these boards is this: If you go to DisneyWorld at least every other year and prefer to stay in deluxe resorts, the DVC ownership is a no-brainer.

 

[pumpkinboy]

In my opinion, you really only need to go to WDW once every 3 years to make the investment worthwhile (you can bank and borrow 1 yr's points). And with the current weak dollar I think you would be well-advised to consider it.

It is probably easiest to buy de novo direct from DVC management, as they have a license to sell in the UK and have sold to many UK buyers. That would also get you into SSR with the 50 yr membership, which strikes me as a bargain. I would highly recommend our guide (she actually talked us down from 300 to 240 points after going over our expected usage, saving us big $$), and will PM you with her name and contact information (free phone# etc.).