Just bought direct . . . Talk me out of it?

[disneynutz]

Cost is one thing but the lack of support and the poor customer service for DVC owners is another. It's almost like we are abandoned. The website has so many issues that Disney is working on it's a joke. The workarounds are a pain if available, MS chat tells you to call MS, MS often has long phone hold times. Inventory availability is there one minute, gone the next and back again.

As members we just seem to put up with the poor service, why?

Bill

 

[ziravan]

It really sounds like you need a VGF resale contract.

That's where you want to stay and you can no longer buy VGF direct.

Forget about anything the DVC guide told you about buying resale, if he did at all (he likely didn't mention it if you didn't). The restrictions on resale points are all very bad uses of points anyway.

"Buy where you want to stay." That's a mantra around here. There are essentially 3 DVC buying strategies:

Buy where you want to stay - you can use the 11 month home resort advantage to almost always get what you want. (Even VGF studios are hard to get at 11 months in Nov/Dec, and forget about it at 7 months).

Buy where you don't mind staying - use the 11 month home resort advantage to book where you don't mind being and then use the 7 month window to stay where you want. This is a great strategy if you intend to routinely explore other resorts.

Buy cheapest combo of points, length of contract and maintenance fees (MFs). That would be SSR. In this case you would be relying on the 7 month window for your booking and you'll be happy to just be at Disney and not let it get to you if you don't get what you want.

The problem as I see it is that buying Poly doesn't meet any of these buying strategies for you. The only strategy you buying Poly meets is DVC's current selling strategy. And 100 points isn't enough for Poly.

For the same price you could likely get 120 (at VGF) or 150-160 points at a resort you want instead of the resort DVC is selling. That will make a huge difference for you.

Also. DVC busy time isn't the same as WDW busy time. WDW is busy anytime school is out. DVC is busy essentially from late Sept to mid-Jan. If you plan on staying from late Sept to mid Jan (and since you're there now, that's likely) you absolutely must buy where you want to stay.

 

[ziravan]

One other thought. If you're there now and plan on keeping your current contract or rescinding and buying a contract that will better fit you in a few months:

Consider upgrading your tickets to gold annual passes. All you need do is pay the difference between the AP price and what you paid for current tickets.

You can upgrade as long as you still have days on the ticket, even if it's the last day.

This will allow you to put the price of your current tickets towards the next year's worth of Disney trips.

 

[Dean]

Yeah, the point I was getting at was that compounded inflation isn't your friend over 50 years - even if the rate of increase is fairly low.

Way back when companies used to hand out cost of living increases every year, that sort of thing wasn't a big deal. I haven't seen cost of living increases being a normal part of business for years. For most people, their real wage is going down every year - DVC dues (and tickets and food) are going up - making it harder to be able to look in a crystal ball and be assured that you'll be able to afford this in 20 or 30 years.

I agree. I just wanted to point out that it didn't offer any protection at all just like the reallocations limits don't.

 

[ustasmom]

One other thought. If you're there now and plan on keeping your current contract or rescinding and buying a contract that will better fit you in a few months:

Consider upgrading your tickets to gold annual passes. All you need do is pay the difference between the AP price and what you paid for current tickets.

You can upgrade as long as you still have days on the ticket, even if it's the last day.

This will allow you to put the price of your current tickets towards the next year's worth of Disney trips.

So with the purchase he walked with a DVC number so he could buy a discounted AP pass, right? What would then happen if he rescinded his contract?

 

[ziravan]

So with the purchase he walked with a DVC number so he could buy a discounted AP pass, right? What would then happen if he rescinded his contract?

My guess is nothing, pass would still be good.

That's Disney's history with such things.

Get a throwaway room, book ADRs at 180+10 or even FP+ at 60, cancel the room and the ADRs and FPs stay. It's only an issue if they ask for DVC card later and they won't do that at the front gate.

That's just my guess.

Of course, rescind or not, if they go to DVC HQ in SSR, I think they could even get cards printed now, and that would solve anything short of running their member number through a computer.

That said, I wasn't thinking about gaming the system as much as since it sounds like they're going to be DVC members anyway, and they're there now, and likely only need to spend a couple hundred each to upgrade to AP, this would be an excellent time to do it.

That's the thing about DVC. We went to WDW, from Texas, four times our first year. AP plus a place to stay suddenly makes WDW mostly prepaid.

 

[ustasmom]

My guess is nothing, pass would still be good.

That's Disney's history with such things.

Get a throwaway room, book ADRs at 180+10 or even FP+ at 60, cancel the room and the ADRs and FPs stay. It's only an issue if they ask for DVC card later and they won't do that at the front gate.

That's just my guess.

Of course, rescind or not, if they go to DVC HQ in SSR, I think they could even get cards printed now, and that would solve anything short of running their member number through a computer.

That said, I wasn't thinking about gaming the system as much as since it sounds like they're going to be DVC members anyway, and they're there now, and likely only need to spend a couple hundred each to upgrade to AP, this would be an excellent time to do it.

That's the thing about DVC. We went to WDW, from Texas, four times our first year. AP plus a place to stay suddenly makes WDW mostly prepaid.

Great info!! Thank you.

I bought a 50 pt contract just so I could become a member and buy the discounted AP. But then I decided that I wanted 100 points, too. So now I wait to close. And I watch the temperatures.

We didn't talk to anyone about DVC until our last afternoon there. Quite the bummer as I had a couple thousand in tickets that stay. But buying resale saved us a lot of money so it all worked out in the end.

 

[ziravan]

Great info!! Thank you.

I bought a 50 pt contract just so I could become a member and buy the discounted AP. But then I decided that I wanted 100 points, too. So now I wait to close. And I watch the temperatures.

We didn't talk to anyone about DVC until our last afternoon there. Quite the bummer as I had a couple thousand in tickets that stay. But buying resale saved us a lot of money so it all worked out in the end.

We booked a trip on rented points and after spending long hours researching the rental process, my search started to become a general search of DVC.

It's funny, when I first started looking, I dismissed BCV and BWV out of hand as "boutique" resorts. I was strongly considering buying AKV.

The more I researched the more I wanted to buy in. What appealed to me most was the idea, oft repeated, that DVC changes the way people "do Disney".

DW green lighted the project and the more we looked, frankly, the more appealing Storm Along Bay looked.

We found a 250 pt BCV contract with weird points config (all the next year's points borrowed into the current year, so something like 250 2014 points, 0 2015 points, 250 2016 points. Not loaded, but not completely stripped).

Got our membership cards in the mail the week of our rented points trip and upgraded to AP while there. Went that Sept, Nov, Feb, Jun, and Aug on the AP: 29 nights at WDW (most but not all at DVC), by our count, about $16 per gate entry.

Here's my point I guess: the more research we did, the more we settled on where we wanted to stay, and it's not where we first thought.

Now we have a fixed week Poly contract (Monorail resort) and a larger BCV (Epcot resort). We've found that we really love our resorts and also we love AKV and OKW (but can normally find those at 7 months). We even picked up a Wyndham timeshare for cheap on EBay and have Bonnet Creek booked next year.

OP, we love our DVC contracts and they have absolutely changed the way we do Disney, but we researched them extensively first.

Rescind, Research, Re-buy. That's my advice.

 

[jillmc40]

I bought vgf direct when it first went on sale. I am now in the process of buying a resale at vgf because we needed more points. We started with 100 just to see how it was and thinking we would only stay a few nights a year. Fast forward, dh and kids love it and now we want to spend a week split with bwv (which dh HATED the bw when we visited once but he loved the resort!). Point being, there are plenty of vgf contracts out there. Enough to get you started anyway, and you should absolutely buy where you want to stay, especially if it is vgf!

Good luck!

 

[zavandor]

I bought resale a few years back and I'm very happy. But that's me. For many people buy resale is the way to go, for others direct is better. Instead of trying to understand which one are you, I'd say: are you sure you know all the ins and outs of DVC? You are here to ask information so probably you have your doubts. If you cancel today you'll have the following weeks (months) to investigate and understand your beat option. If you then decide to still buy direct DVC will still be there.
You don't get any special perks for buying while in WDW. You can make a call and buy from your home and get the same deal.

It took me 5 months of active investigation to buy my first contract. Knowledge is power.

 

[pmaurer74]

It took me 5 years to buy in, mainly due to money. We bought WLV because it feels like home to us but mainly because I think 30-50% of our stays will be in December and we needed the 11 month booking window.

 

[bakerworld]

OP, did you cx the purchase ?? We've only bought directly however it was in '08 when the economy was in the dumper so our direct purchase was lower - in fact, we compared the purchase to 1997 when we previously looked into the purchase and it wasn't much higher with a lower pt 'buy in'. Altho, in the end the lower pt buy-in didn't really matter as we almost doubled our original purchase amount.

 

[dspud]

Hope you canceled and started buying on the resale market. Cancelling was a VERY easy process with no hassle/no guilt pleading from Disney. We are in the process of buying resale now and are MUCH happier with the purchase.