Just bought into Rivera DVC, thinking of cancelling and buying non-direct.

[ziravan]

And given that you are looking in the 250 point range: if you bought 150 resale and 100 direct then you’d still save a bundle and still have “full direct benefits”.

And if you’re adventurous enough to do split stays, you could have two home resorts that way, for example 150 BLT resale and 100 AKV direct.

Besides, we all know, even if you don’t yet, that once you own that many points, you’re coming more often and I say that as someone who loves quite close to you, in B/CS.

DVC changes the way you do Disney. It’s why we bought and it’s very true.

 

[Soap_1984]

Everyone is giving good advice. I'd rescind and explore some of the options. If you are only coming every other year, I would not buy direct and I also would think hard about the number of points you need; 250 seems like a lot if you aren't coming every year but depends on where/length of stay.

Good luck!

 

[steviekm3]

With doubt then definitely go ahead and rescind. DVC will always be there happy to sell you points even the same day you rescind or if it's months from now. Take your time to figure out what really will meet your needs and if DVC itself even is right for you.

It does sound like resale will work just fine for you and can save you thousands of dollars especially if you're looking at 250 points. If you go every year this is 500 points you'd be working with each trip and is quite a lot depending on the resort, time you go and size of the villa you plan on getting.

Where have you normally stayed at Disney when you've gone?

All the 1BR's, 2BR's GV's and Treehouse villas have kitchens. Studios have kitchenettes. BLT's it a bit unique as it's a galley style kitchenette so more storage and room but it's the same amenities - toaster, microwave and small studio fridge. And the space devoted to the kitchenette takes away from living area. The larger villas there and at AKV-Kidani are the best overall I think as they are the ones that have 2 full baths in the 1BR's and 3 full baths in the 2BR's.

Every resort has trade offs for transporation. If you can walk to a park then you bus to all the others and it's probably a shared bus. If it's all buses for the resort then it will mean at least 1 stop at a different building (AKV) or 4 or so stops around the resort (OKW, SSR).

We stayed outside the resort in California and in Florida stayed in the Wilderness lodge with room that just overlooked the parking lot, not the Savannah and it was still very expensive. If it were my choice alone we would stay outside the park but my better half likes to stay in the park.

We have a 19 month old and a 5 year old so we'll be going lots over the next 20 years. My thoughts are the DVC is worth it if you pretty much know for sure you'll be going 10 times.

 

[Deb & Bill]

We stayed outside the resort in California and in Florida stayed in the Wilderness lodge with room that just overlooked the parking lot, not the Savannah and it was still very expensive. If it were my choice alone we would stay outside the park but my better half likes to stay in the park.

We have a 19 month old and a 5 year old so we'll be going lots over the next 20 years. My thoughts are the DVC is worth it if you pretty much know for sure you'll be going 10 times.

Do you mean Animal Kingdom Lodge with a parking lot view, not a savanna view? No savanna at Wilderness Lodge.

 

[steviekm3]

Yes I did rescind just about hour ago.

I bought for December but wonder if this is a problem as we like to travel during Thanksgiving week since our school aged child gets that week off from school ( Fall break ). What would be the ideal month to have if we will be traveling during that time period ? 11 months seems that December is best, but I'm not 100 percent sure.

 

[steviekm3]

Do you mean Animal Kingdom Lodge with a parking lot view, not a savanna view? No savanna at Wilderness Lodge.

Yes sorry Animal Kingdom Lodge, no Savanna view.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

Yes I did rescind just about hour ago.

I bought for December but wonder if this is a problem as we like to travel during Thanksgiving week since our school aged child gets that week off from school ( Fall break ). What would be the ideal month to have if we will be traveling during that time period ? 11 months seems that December is best, but I'm not 100 percent sure.

If you like to travel Thanksgiving week, a December UY is actually the worst possible. UY is about when the points can be used, not your 11 month booking. You can always book your home 11 months in advance so long as the points will be available at the time of stay.

There is a good primer on UY here on the DIS.

I will also mention that if you travel Thanksgiving week, buy where you will be happy to stay. Hard week to switch.

 

[steviekm3]

If you are seeing the resale restriction as enough of a negative to impact your decision, then I would cancel. While you were not told about it, it is in the documents and pretty obvious for a buyer...ie: not in the fine print...so you would have gotten that information when you got The official documents.

In terms of buying resale, you have to be sure that what you buy will make sense for trips to Disney and decide number of points based on that.And, remember, you will not be able to use resale at Rivera or beyond

No one resort will be good for easy transportation to all the parks, but some will give you better options than others, BWV and BCV will give you easy transportation to Epcot and HS.

BLT, VGF and CCV.BRV will give you easy access to MK..by monorail for some and boat for the other...I left out Poly because they don’t have kitchens..

Rivera will give you easy access to Epcot or HS, but will not be a place you can stay with resale.

The rest will require buses. Now, one option, if you do like Rivera, is to reduce the number of points you buy there to 100, and then add on the rest via resale. Gives you some points for Rivera for the times you might want to stay there, and then the rest for stays at other places.

Good luck!

If I buy minimum number of points direct and then buy resale at another resort, can I use those direct points at the resale resort ?

 

[ziravan]

This is what I would do:

Cancel the Riviera contract.

Then buy a 160 point BLT contract.

Then buy 2 - 50 point Riviera contracts same UY as the BLT Contract. The small point contracts will hold up the resale value.

For about the same amount of money, you now have lots more options.

And a blue card.

 

[ziravan]

If I buy minimum number of points direct and then buy resale at another resort, can I use those direct points at the resale resort ?

Not until the 7 month window.

If you have two contracts with the same UY, they would be under one contract. They would maintain their separate home resort advantages at 11 months and could be used together at 7 months.

If you took my advice above, and bought Riviera direct and BLT resale, at 7 months you can use Riviera points at BLT, or anywhere with the BLT points at another L14 resort. You could NOT use the BLT points at Riviera at 7 months.

But you can use bank/borrow to accomplish much the same result: use two years of Riviera one year to double Riviera points, and two years of BLT the next year to double that usage.

 

[CarolynFH]

Yes I did rescind just about hour ago.

I bought for December but wonder if this is a problem as we like to travel during Thanksgiving week since our school aged child gets that week off from school ( Fall break ). What would be the ideal month to have if we will be traveling during that time period ? 11 months seems that December is best, but I'm not 100 percent sure.

If you like to travel Thanksgiving week, a December UY is actually the worst possible. UY is about when the points can be used, not your 11 month booking. You can always book your home 11 months in advance so long as the points will be available at the time of stay.

There is a good primer on UY here on the DIS.

I will also mention that if you travel Thanksgiving week, buy where you will be happy to stay. Hard week to switch.

Here’s the link to the UY thread: https://www.disboards.com/threads/understanding-use-year-updated-march-10-2019.1942668/. Very helpful in determining which UY would be best for your family.

 

[steviekm3]

Not until the 7 month window.

If you have two contracts with the same UY, they would be under one contract. They would maintain their separate home resort advantages at 11 months and could be used together at 7 months.

If you took my advice above, and bought Riviera direct and BLT resale, at 7 months you can use Riviera points at BLT, or anywhere with the BLT points at another L14 resort. You could NOT use the BLT points at Riviera at 7 months.

But you can use bank/borrow to accomplish much the same result: use two years of Riviera one year to double Riviera points, and two years of BLT the next year to double that usage.

Thanks so much for the information. I live in College Station, pebble creek neighborhood !! Am looking at BLT.

 

[steviekm3]

Here’s the link to the UY thread: https://www.disboards.com/threads/understanding-use-year-updated-march-10-2019.1942668/. Very helpful in determining which UY would be best for your family.

Thank you for the information.

 

[ziravan]

Thanks so much for the information. I live in College Station, pebble creek neighborhood !! Am looking at BLT.

We live near Lake Bryan.

From experience the best access/price to flights to MCO is Southwest from Austin. Especially with young kids because you can board right after “A”.

We have BCV, Poly, and AKV points. We believe that you can’t go wrong with multiple home resorts.

And the AP discount can come in if you do every other year if you group years. For example, buy AP and go the 2nd week of Nov and then the next year the 1st week of Nov: two years on same AP, then take two years off.

Typically though, if you buy in the 250 point range, you’re gonna start to go more often. Once the sunk costs are sunk, each individual trip is less per trip. Said differently, those sunk costs are going to be the same going forward whether you take 1 or 3 trips per year, so may as well take 3. . .

 

[we"reofftoneverland]

Resale, no contest. If you want direct benefits just do 100 points direct and the rest resale. But you might want to just go all resale. More points.

 

[Jenniebee]

You didn't purchase anything bad per se, Riviera direct is not too bad to purchase right now because of the incentives. I do not recommend buying any other resort direct, because the direct prices are set so high for the other resorts. But I agree with the advice to do a ton more reading and research on the DVC system. If you buy resale there are certain things you can't do, I would spend time finding out what they are and if they matter to you. You can always do a mix, like what is being suggested here, 100 points direct, and whatever else you want resale. One caveat is try to get the SAME use year for multiple contracts.

 

[CraigInPA]

Consider if those "direct benefits" are worth it to you.

Right now, the main economic benefit is discounted annual passes. With one trip per year, it's hard to make that cheaper, even with the discount, over buying regular park tickets (unless you vary your trip each year by a week, where you travel 51 or less weeks after your last trip).

There's a minor economic benefit in discounts, but many of those discounts are shared with holders of a Disney Visa card.

The other big benefit is the ability to book Riviera (and future DVC resorts to be built). I'm not sure how much of a real benefit this is, since it's clear that there will be an active Riviera rental market, just like there is for the "legacy 14" (DVC resorts built before Riviera). Resale points purchased today can book at any of the legacy 14 at 7 months.

Booking cruises, adventures by Disney, and using points for cash room reservations are terrible uses of points. It's so bad that David's point rental business has an "exchange" program for cruises. They find someone to rent your points, and take the money to book you a cruise saving you 25% or more over what you'd spend on a direct exchange with Disney.

There's a lounge at Epcot that is direct owner only. Expect this to disappear as Epcot is re-developed. There are, occasionally, DVC only events like Moonlight Magic and the Soarin' backstage tour. The MM events are limited to the number of attendees, and never occur near Thanksgiving/Christmas. The Soarin' backstage tour is limited to 20 people once per week-it is very difficult to book.

If you do decide to buy some of your points direct, you can buy your main resale points at one resort (like BLT) and the 100 points at either the same resort, or another resort. If you match your use year, you'll be able to have one online account and see both contracts. If you have all your points at one resort and one use year, you can use them together seamlessly. I have 3 contracts, all the same use year and all at BLT, one purchased resale, and two tiny ones purchased direct (when I purchased the direct contracts, the minimum number of direct points to get benefits were 25). My wife and I had stayed at or visited all the DVC resorts over the years, and knew that BLT was our "home", so we never considered having points at multiple resorts or doing split stays in one vacation.

 

[princessmocha]

Yes I did rescind just about hour ago.

I bought for December but wonder if this is a problem as we like to travel during Thanksgiving week since our school aged child gets that week off from school ( Fall break ). What would be the ideal month to have if we will be traveling during that time period ? 11 months seems that December is best, but I'm not 100 percent sure.

I think you are getting some good advice. As far as Use Years, December is the worst for when you want to travel. We like to do a either Nov, Dec, or Jan vacations and so we have our October UY for those and we also almost always travel in the summer and we have June use year for those - Although we do use our October for summer as well since our banking date isn't until May. If you do the direct and resale route, definitely make sure you get the same use year for them. For when you would travel look for August, September or an October UY.

For our contracts - We have 3 with one we are waiting ROFR, We only have 1 that is direct for 100 pts. That was our starter contract and then the add-on-itis hit. We have 2 contracts with October and will have two with June. We will have 4 different resort, which for us works because of where we like to go. We also like to have bigger rooms, 1 bedroom or bigger, so not nearly as hard to get at the 7 month mark as studios are, and on the flip side we have no problem staying at our home resorts as we love them all. Good luck with your planning and purchasing. Make it fun process and don't let it stress you too much.

 

[Sandisw]

If I buy minimum number of points direct and then buy resale at another resort, can I use those direct points at the resale resort ?

Yes, you can at the 11 month mark if they are the same resort and 7 month if different, with the exception of Rivera .

So, say you bought 100 points at Rivera and then did 150 at BLT. at 11 months, you can book each resort with its own points. However, at 7 months, you could then use all the points together to book any of the original DVC resorts,

Direct points can be used everywhere and resale points only at L14. If your home resort for direct and resale are, say, BLT, and they are the same UY...very important...then you can use all together at 11 months.

 

[MICKIMINI]

Regardless of which resort you buy, make sure to look for a loaded contract. You can often negotiate for a better deal on the dues portion of the contract. We purchased 250 OKW resale which was actually two contracts (100/150) already more valuable (easier to sell) that had two years worth of points plus current year. We negotiated 250 points $0 dues and 250 points for about $3.75 per point...and 250 at the current rate, so we started this resale with 750 points up front. A higher asking price might turn out to be a better value if you can rent out the excess to offset the cost of the contract or stay in a crazy expensive grand villa to celebrate...either way you win.