Just starting my DVC research

JasonMak2000

Mouseketeer
Joined
Jun 17, 2017
Just in the beginning stages of learning about dvc and trying to determine if it would be something that would work for our family. So one question I have is - is there wisdom in looking at 2 dvc contracts instead of just one larger one? If we were looking at getting 200 points or more, why not get 75 points at one really desirable resort and the other 125 at another resort where the current cost per point is much cheaper? If you did that, can you book at the 'desirable ' resort at 11 months but use all your 200 cumulative points for that reservation? Seems like at second benefit would be having 2 resorts you can book at 11 months instead of just one. I'm sure that it's not that easy. Gotta be some issue with this arrangement. Trying to learn so be gentle :)
 
Points retain their home resort designation and you cannot combine from 2 different resorts at 11 months, only 7 months. Otherwise it would be bypassing the home resort priority.
 
To add.

IMO it’s a good choice to buy two smaller contracts but as Kat already pointed out you can’t combine them at 11 months you would have to wait until the 7 month window.

The reason I think it’s a good choice is if you a some point need to downsize you ownership you could just sell one of the contracts and keep the other. Only Disney can split up a contract from ie 200 points to 2 x 100. Also smaller contracts demand a higher selling price.

Have in mind smaller contracts will also set you back more money when you buy it so it goes both ways. Also the closing costs will seem higher on smaller contracts vs larger ones.
 
I'd say yes, look at smaller contracts as easier to sell on and also attract a premium, but on resale if you go below 120 you start to pay a small contract premium (albeit relatively modest until you get sub 100).
However, others will disagree as it depends on your travel habits, I've always been insistent on all points same resort and use year.
This is because I usually come once a year at most, and always for 10+ days at a time.
I also bought enough points for 1 beds to sleep around the resorts, which I have no problem doing as long as I book on 7 months (busy times).
Thus I need to pool all my points for my travel patterns.
Yes I could transfer points from one contract to another, but it's a hassle but crucially for my booking pattern (all done on the AM 7 months out) you cannot book with transferred points online, you must call. This means I would lose the 8am advantage.
I'm going for 11 nights over Xmas 2019 and want Wilderness Lodge and Boardwalk. Unless Star Wars disrupts things badly, getting one beds at 8am 7 months out at both resorts isn't a problem but I want that 1 hour advantage.
 


Ok so now I have other questions based on those responses. So I guess all points are allocated at the time of booking? If I didn't have enough points at the 11 month mark and needed to rent some to make up the difference, then I would have to have the point rental arranged before I would be able to book?
 
Ok so now I have other questions based on those responses. So I guess all points are allocated at the time of booking? If I didn't have enough points at the 11 month mark and needed to rent some to make up the difference, then I would have to have the point rental arranged before I would be able to book?
Yes you must have all necessary points at time of booking. You however you may have banked points from the previous year or you can borrow from your next use year, or have rented/transferred in points. The rented/transferred points need to be from the same resort to have the 11 month booking priority, and as they retain their use year will need to be appropriate for your dates of travel as well. Banking and/or borrowing your own points is a simpler solution if possible.

ETA: in light of Mickey 15’s post below, I am using rented/transferred in the same context meaning the points get transferred into your DVC account
 
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Ok so now I have other questions based on those responses. So I guess all points are allocated at the time of booking? If I didn't have enough points at the 11 month mark and needed to rent some to make up the difference, then I would have to have the point rental arranged before I would be able to book?

To clear up some terminology:

"Point rental" = someone who owns DVC "rents" their points to a non-owner by booking a stay in the non-owner's name using the owner's points. The non-owner pays the owner cash for this (usually a $ amount per point)
"Borrowing points" = an owner borrows against some of their own future-year points into this year to make a reservation that they otherwise wouldn't have enough points for.
there's also
"One-time-use points" = points an owner buys directly from Disney to top-up their points balance if they don't otherwise have enough to make the reservation.

I believe owner-to-owner "renting" is referred to as "points transferring." I'm not too familiar with it.
 


We talk about "renting points" but it's inaccurate language. What actually happens is that a DVC owner books a reservation with their pts and rents that reservation to the third party. The third party has no ownership of the points at all. MS will not speak with them about the reservation as they don't even own the reservation until they check in.

In the case of a points transfer, the points actually do change hands. The points maintain their UY and home resort but the recipient of the transfer can book a stay with full control (although they likely have to phone in to book a stay instead of being able to book online). Only owners can receive points through a transfer.

One Time Use points can only be used at the 7 month window, so that can be a big limitation there.
 
Ok so now I have other questions based on those responses. So I guess all points are allocated at the time of booking? If I didn't have enough points at the 11 month mark and needed to rent some to make up the difference, then I would have to have the point rental arranged before I would be able to book?
No. Your points for every year until the end of your deed expiration (between 2042 and 2068) are present on your contract the moment you buy that contract. A DVC owner of a 100 point contract at BWV, for example, will have 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021... 2042 points in their contract right now.

When you book has no bearing on whether or not your points need to be available. When you travel is when your points have to be available. This is an important distinction. If you are booking a stay within your 2019 UY, you can use any combination of the following points:

1- Banked points from your 2018 UY
2- Current points from your 2019 UY
3- Borrowed points from your 2020 UY
4- Transferred points that cover your 2019 trip (whether current or banked - transferred points cannot be borrowed)
5- One Time Use points at the 7-month mark

For example, if you wanted to book today a November 3-10 2019 trip with a contract with a December UY contract, you are booking in your 2018 UY (December 1, 2018 through November 30, 2019). That November trip will be using any combination of the following points:

1- Banked 2017 points
2- Current 2018 points
3- Borrowed 2019 points
4- Transferred points that cover November 3-10, 2019
(OTU points unavailable until April 3, 2019)

This is the post you need to read to understand UY and how your points are allocated. Understanding Use Year

Before getting too far into what size contracts you should be buying, I'd suggest you look at the sticky resources that are available on the boards to really understand what you are buying.
 
There are a number of ways that you can use contracts at 2 different resorts. If you have 2 contracts you can book resort A (your 75 points) at 11 month mark and then you could book Resort B (your 125 point ) for the rest of your stay at the 11 month mark. This would create one long stay with it being a split stay.

Another option would be to bank or borrow or both to combine that 75 point contract to use 150 to 225 points for one stay. While doing this you could just bank your 125 point contract to use the following year.

One important thing to be fully aware of is your use year - how it affects your banking or borrowing and booking of a trip. Knowing about the "what if" situations - such as what if you have to cancel a trip. If you are past your banking window then those points stay in that use year which could mean that you won't have time to use those points.

There is a ton to learn and understand about the DVC system, so keep reading here. Even after you become a member you will still encounter different situations so these forums will be an invaluable tool for navigating the system.
 
I'd say yes, look at smaller contracts as easier to sell on and also attract a premium, but on resale if you go below 120 you start to pay a small contract premium (albeit relatively modest until you get sub 100).
However, others will disagree as it depends on your travel habits, I've always been insistent on all points same resort and use year.
This is because I usually come once a year at most, and always for 10+ days at a time.
I also bought enough points for 1 beds to sleep around the resorts, which I have no problem doing as long as I book on 7 months (busy times).
Thus I need to pool all my points for my travel patterns.
Yes I could transfer points from one contract to another, but it's a hassle but crucially for my booking pattern (all done on the AM 7 months out) you cannot book with transferred points online, you must call. This means I would lose the 8am advantage.

I'm going for 11 nights over Xmas 2019 and want Wilderness Lodge and Boardwalk. Unless Star Wars disrupts things badly, getting one beds at 8am 7 months out at both resorts isn't a problem but I want that 1 hour advantage.

This describes how we operate as well.
 
So if you are combining points from 2 separate contracts (where u own both) then technically you are transferring points to yourself? Could you book a 1 bedroom at 11 months at one resort then wait to determine if you were going to borrow points from the next UY, or rent from another owner or use OTU points at the 7 month mark? Hypothetically, if a 1 bedroom was still available to book at the 7 month mark, could you cancel the 11 month booking and re-book so you could combine points from the 2 resort point contracts that you own? Hope those questions make sense - yikes!
 
So if you are combining points from 2 separate contracts (where u own both) then technically you are transferring points to yourself? Could you book a 1 bedroom at 11 months at one resort then wait to determine if you were going to borrow points from the next UY, or rent from another owner or use OTU points at the 7 month mark? Hypothetically, if a 1 bedroom was still available to book at the 7 month mark, could you cancel the 11 month booking and re-book so you could combine points from the 2 resort point contracts that you own? Hope those questions make sense - yikes!

Usually you want to keep the same UY for all your contracts. Online you would then see the 2 different contracts and select which you wanted to use or the order you want them used in (applicable in the 7 month window assuming they are different resorts). So no, you aren't transferring them, just selecting what points you are using. If you were booking at 11 months then the one that it is the home resort for would be the only one you would be allowed to select to use the points from.

And yes, you could book at 11 months and then if there were availability at 7 months you could rebook using points from both or from just the non-home resort should you wish. It's technically cancelling the 11 month booking and then making a new reservation.
 
This might not be a popular opinion, but don't focus on the initial point cost. In the long term, the initial point cost is a small portion of overall DVC ownership and usage costs. Dues, tickets, travel costs, all of those keep going up over the years.

Buy where you want to stay. I'm glad I did.

I once thought about buying SSR points at about 90 and saving about 5K instead of buying the BLT points I really wanted at 125. I knew I wasn't going to be as happy at SSR (which is a nice resort) as having BLT as my home resort. The initial 5K averaged out over the years, and taking into consideration the overall costs of the trips, I decided spending the extra 5K for BLT points was worth it. Dues are roughly the same between both properties so it was really just the one time cost.

If you're already spending at least 20K to buy 200 points, and signing up for annual dues in the 1200 to 1700 dollar a year range, really think about the difference long term in buying your "desirable" resort, and less desirable resort contracts. You may realize that buying all the points at your desirable resort makes more sense
 
Last question (for now). I've read a lot about people advising to buy at the resort they like staying at the most. I can totally see the wisdom in that since it sounds like availability at the dvc resorts is getting harder to come by at the 7 month mark. My question is then how do you ever get to stay at/experience the other dvc resorts? If I own BLT but want to try the Poly, I would have to wait to the 7 month mark and hope there is something available. Wouldn't I also be risking that there wouldn't be availability at BLT at 7 months too and not get either resort?
 
Last question (for now). I've read a lot about people advising to buy at the resort they like staying at the most. I can totally see the wisdom in that since it sounds like availability at the dvc resorts is getting harder to come by at the 7 month mark. My question is then how do you ever get to stay at/experience the other dvc resorts? If I own BLT but want to try the Poly, I would have to wait to the 7 month mark and hope there is something available. Wouldn't I also be risking that there wouldn't be availability at BLT at 7 months too and not get either resort?

You would book BLT at 11 months and attempt to switch at 7 months. If unsuccessful, you would retain the BLT reservation.
 
Last question (for now). I've read a lot about people advising to buy at the resort they like staying at the most. I can totally see the wisdom in that since it sounds like availability at the dvc resorts is getting harder to come by at the 7 month mark. My question is then how do you ever get to stay at/experience the other dvc resorts? If I own BLT but want to try the Poly, I would have to wait to the 7 month mark and hope there is something available. Wouldn't I also be risking that there wouldn't be availability at BLT at 7 months too and not get either resort?
The Disney waitlist tool works well. You can book your home resort first then try to switch at 7 months to the resort you want to try. If it’s not available at that point you can waitlist the stay and specify that you want the home resort stay automatically cancelled if your waitlist request comes through. Fully, automatic, Disney will keep checking for you, and you will be notified if you are successful.
 
Last question (for now). I've read a lot about people advising to buy at the resort they like staying at the most. I can totally see the wisdom in that since it sounds like availability at the dvc resorts is getting harder to come by at the 7 month mark. My question is then how do you ever get to stay at/experience the other dvc resorts? If I own BLT but want to try the Poly, I would have to wait to the 7 month mark and hope there is something available. Wouldn't I also be risking that there wouldn't be availability at BLT at 7 months too and not get either resort?

As mentioned - book your home resort at 11 months then try and change at 7 months. When you plan on visiting also does still make a big difference. Last 3 months of the year are hard to get studios at 7 months everywhere and other rooms can be more difficult too. Other spring/summer the availability is not as tight although it doesn't mean that everything will be open as a possibility.
 
One bedroom villas are easier to book at seven months out than studios. I've gotten a one bedroom standard villa at GFV in May twice now at seven months out. But I did book it exactly at seven months out as close as possible to the start of the booking day (8AM ET on line, 9AM ET to Member Services via the phone). From Mid-Sept through the marathon in early January (and any other RunDisney event) it is hard to change to another resort at seven months out. It's possible, but difficult.
 

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