Maybe the 3rd time is the charm. Few questions remain

[supergoofy]

Just did 3 days at Aulani in a 1 bedroom villa and think we are pretty sold. Have done a tour before but being in the villa sold us. So we talked to the DVC people at Aulani and have come to realize that resell is the way we want to go. With Poly and Aulani being home resorts and neither make sense. Aulani is great but we cant book and do the 7th month switch if we want. And Poly is to much a night. I also have the book of points and feel that we will go every 2 years and use that years points and banked year. So buying a few extra points so we could do 8 or 9 days and if not needed sell or bank them.

With that I have a few questions.

1) Do home resort really matter? Read it does and doesn't a dozen times. I want to home resort at the world I know that much. Other than that I feel that if I can get another resort great if not well Im at the world.

2) Use year is completely throwing me. With an adult child off to college and 2 more at home the best time is summer ie August. But when they leave we would like to do Christmas time when decorations are up and also Food and Wine and heck Im a runner so the marathon would be nice. Frankly we want to go any and all months.

3) Lastly any pitfalls to watch for buying resell? I know banked points are good. And points sooner than later are good. But what to watch out for?

 

[CarolMN]

1. If you truly believe that you won't care which WDW resort you end up "stuck with" if you can't switch at 7 months, then home resort won't matter. If you can't or won't regularly book more than 7 months in advance, home resort won't matter. If home resort really doesn't matter, you can look for the best value at WDW. Usually, that ends up to be SSR, BLT or AKV. You'll need to consider initial price, dues, number of points in the contract (including any points in banked, borrowed, reservation or holding status). Closing costs, administrative fees and dues are negotiable.

2. If you haven't already, check out the Understanding Use Year thread. If you anticipate visiting during almost all times of the year, use year won't be that important to you. It's really a bit of extra "free insurance" for those who travel about the same time of the year. A well chosen use year can give you extra time to reuse points if you have to cancel a vacation. Some are lucky and never have to cancel. My advice would to figure out the most common times of the year you would likely travel and pick a use year based on that, knowing that some trips may result in lost points if you have to cancel. (We have an August use year and it works great for vacations between 8/1 and the following April. Sounds like that might work for you too. We have never traveled in June or July and rarely travel in May).

3. Use a reputable broker that specializes in DVC for your first purchase. Review the ROFR thread so you know the approximate prices of recently sold contracts. For you first purchase, I would avoid any contract owned by divorcing couples, contracts owned by non-U.S. citizens or a contract that is owned by someone going through bankruptcy (ask the broker - he/she should know). If possible, avoid contracts owned by more than 2 people. All of those situations can add time and complications to the process and are best navigated by someone who has gone through the process and is very knowledgeable about the process and willing to do a lot of checking/nagging. (Nothing wrong with going for a good deal with type of contacts mentioned as ones to avoid - they just tend to be the ones where buyers report the most hassles/issues getting through the process, which if all goes well can take about 3 months from offer to being in the system able to book).

FWIW, there is a lot of good info in the DIS's DVC Resource Center. There is a list of commonly used brokers there. Feel free to take advantage of the info. Hope to officially welcome h you home soon.

 

[MrInfinity]

1) Do home resort really matter? Other than that I feel that if I can get another resort great if not well Im at the world.

This is, to me, the most important aspect. Sure you can book anywhere at 7 months. But you'll get the option to book at your home resort at 11 months. This gives you a huge advantage in getting rooms there. For all the times that you're okay with anywhere at 7 months, that's all fine, but the times you want to lock something in earlier, you'll get your advantage at your home resort so it should be a place you can see yourself staying.

2) Frankly we want to go any and all months.

UY is not as important. All it means is you can bank points up till 8 months into your UY. So have a FEB UY? You can bank current points thru the end of Sep. That is significant only in the cases where you might find yourself with unspent points after those 8 months. Like you have a FEB UY, book a trip in December, and then have to cancel that trip, you're now beyond your 8 months to bank, and you've got all these points back from the cancellation. You'll have to use those points, somehow, by Jan 31, or you lose them. Thus, the relevant part of a UY is to pick it to being more or less before the times when you see yourself going most often. That's it really. If you'll go in Aug or Dec most, then pick an AUG UY. It's not exclusive tho, you can go any time. If you're not one to cancel trips, it's not going to matter much at all. We're in this boat, if we book a trip, we're locking it in.

3) Lastly any pitfalls to watch for buying resell? I know banked points are good. And points sooner than later are good. But what to watch out for?

No, not really. Banked points are good, sure, but contracts with points banked are going to cost more, and also be more attractive to Disney at ROFR. So it's a tradeoff. I tend to like more stripped contracts to get the price down and plan for the future. The way I look at it, I can always transfer in a chunk of points if I want points sooner, but buying DVC is buying for the long haul not that trip we're itching to book right now.

 

[ldo]

UY matters a lot if you are a family that has changing plans (like for school, jobs, etc.). We travel Christmas/Spring/Summer, so any UY could have issues. But we decided that a Dec UY worked best for us, as we use our points more for Christmas and Spring break. It also works OK (usually) Aug. travel, as we need to canx 31 days out to not be in holding and still be able to bank out points. So, we would be deciding by July for Aug. travel to change, and July 31 is the deadline to bank Dec UY points. But, if we borrow points, and change our mind, we only have til Dec 1 to use them and Oct-Dec is a busy time @ WDW, so more difficult to book with only a few months notice.

 

[CMNJ]

Just did 3 days at Aulani in a 1 bedroom villa and think we are pretty sold. Have done a tour before but being in the villa sold us. So we talked to the DVC people at Aulani and have come to realize that resell is the way we want to go. With Poly and Aulani being home resorts and neither make sense. Aulani is great but we cant book and do the 7th month switch if we want. And Poly is to much a night. I also have the book of points and feel that we will go every 2 years and use that years points and banked year. So buying a few extra points so we could do 8 or 9 days and if not needed sell or bank them.

With that I have a few questions.

1) Do home resort really matter? Read it does and doesn't a dozen times. I want to home resort at the world I know that much. Other than that I feel that if I can get another resort great if not well Im at the world.

2) Use year is completely throwing me. With an adult child off to college and 2 more at home the best time is summer ie August. But when they leave we would like to do Christmas time when decorations are up and also Food and Wine and heck Im a runner so the marathon would be nice. Frankly we want to go any and all months.

3) Lastly any pitfalls to watch for buying resell? I know banked points are good. And points sooner than later are good. But what to watch out for?

Home resort isn't critical if you are ok staying at your home resort frequently. Of the specific times you mentioned only Aug is "slow" season for DVC. F&W, most of December, and especially the various marathon weekends are extremely popular. Room options at 7 months will most likely be limited for travel during those times. You may have some options but there is no guarantee. If you don't mind staying at SSR then it is probably the best deal financially. If you plan to buy there with intentions of routinely trading out at 7 months for the times I mentioned then you will often be disappointed. I agree with PP that Aug UY would be best if you think you'd routinely travel Aug-Jan. As far as pitfalls go I agree with @CarolMN. Those types of sales can be messy and take longer to complete. There is currently a thread about a resale purchase complication where the seller used the points after the sale had closed (transferred them into RCI) and now the buyer is trying to deal with compensation for the missing points or cancelling the sale. Unfortunately resales are between individuals and buyers are relying on sellers to be honest when listing the contract and throughout the process. Only one of the DVC specialized brokers actually addresses this issue with a special clause that specifies a reduction in the seller's payout if they use any of the points listed as part of the sale. I wish all the brokers would follow suit.

 

[disneynutz]

Being an educated buyer will allow you a better Disney DVC experience.

UY matters when the unexpected happens and having the correct UY is like free insurance. We used our free insurance twice so far, once with a death in the family and the other time when a forced job move happened.

Bill

 

[mustinjourney]

3) Lastly any pitfalls to watch for buying resell? I know banked points are good. And points sooner than later are good. But what to watch out for?

When buying resale, make sure your contract states that if there are any "missing" points than what is in the original contract, then $18 per point will be deducted from the total payment and repaid to the purchaser.

 

[CMNJ]

When buying resale, make sure your contract states that if there are any "missing" points than what is in the original contract, then $18 per point will be deducted from the total payment and repaid to the purchaser.

I'm curious if the other DVC brokers are open to adding that clause to their contracts. To the best of my knowledge only one of the brokers has that clause (we've bought or attempted to buy through a few others that don't have such a clause in the contracts we were provided). At the time we didn't think to add in such a penalty but had requested other minor wording changes and were met with resistance. Both times (2 different big DVC brokers) told us they would not make any changes to their standard contract. So I am curious if they would actually agree to add it to their "standard contract". It seems like it would save them a lot of headaches in the end even if this is an extremely uncommon scenario.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

I would say that if you are booking travel between September and marathon, you absolutely must book your home resort at 11 months. You can try to swap at 7 months, but it's not always guaranteed. When I swapped at 7 this year, it was kind of mayhem, and there were a lot of availability holes for my week by 10AM that day, even at resorts people consider reliably available (ahem Saratoga ahem).

This means that if you're booking fall frenzy and own Saratoga, you book Saratoga at 11 months then try to switch and know that maybe it doesn't happen for you. Owning a non-WDW resort becomes risky if you want to travel on property those 3.5 months of the year.

 

[mustinjourney]

I'm curious if the other DVC brokers are open to adding that clause to their contracts. To the best of my knowledge only one of the brokers has that clause (we've bought or attempted to buy through a few others that don't have such a clause in the contracts we were provided). At the time we didn't think to add in such a penalty but had requested other minor wording changes and were met with resistance. Both times (2 different big DVC brokers) told us they would not make any changes to their standard contract. So I am curious if they would actually agree to add it to their "standard contract". It seems like it would save them a lot of headaches in the end even if this is an extremely uncommon scenario.

My guess is that a lot don't want to mess with their standard contract b/c they don't want to run it by their lawyer (if they even have one).

If you think about it, the Broker should actually prefer that the clause be in the contract so that if something happens to the points following estoppel, the fix is quite easy.

In my view, if the broker doesn't want to add it, then you can find a new broker. There are plenty of contracts out there -- and VERY rarely is there one contract that is "perfect." These points are essentially a commodity -- so if a broker is not flexible or knowledgeable -- that can be the big difference between two similar contracts.

Another option -- you can also remind the broker that if they refuse to add the clause to the contract, then they are obligated to inform the seller as to why the deal fell through. Brokers are REQUIRED by law to submit all offers to the seller -- and in this case -- if they unilaterally decide not to add it to the contract, they are essentially refusing to submit an offer to the seller, which seems to me to be a breach of their fiduciary duty to the seller.

I seriously doubt any sellers would be willing to let a deal go b/c of that clause. And if a seller would balk at that clause -- then run the hell away from the deal.

 

[mustinjourney]

I'm curious if the other DVC brokers are open to adding that clause to their contracts. To the best of my knowledge only one of the brokers has that clause (we've bought or attempted to buy through a few others that don't have such a clause in the contracts we were provided). At the time we didn't think to add in such a penalty but had requested other minor wording changes and were met with resistance. Both times (2 different big DVC brokers) told us they would not make any changes to their standard contract. So I am curious if they would actually agree to add it to their "standard contract". It seems like it would save them a lot of headaches in the end even if this is an extremely uncommon scenario.

Perhaps they wouldn't change the boiler plate part of their contract? But usually they will also have a miscellaneous section where you can add certain provisos -- like which party pays closing costs, MFs, etc...

 

[CMNJ]

Perhaps they wouldn't change the boiler plate part of their contract? But usually they will also have a miscellaneous section where you can add certain provisos -- like which party pays closing costs, MFs, etc...

The one wouldn't specify that the "banked" points on the contract were 2016 UY points banked into 2017 UY (as opposed to 2015 UY points being banked into 2016 UY).
The second was something along those lines but I can't remember the specific wording we wanted clarified. It was on a foreign seller contract (that we ultimately didn't proceed with for numerous reasons) a few years ago so I can't remember as clearly but we were flat out told both times they do not change their contracts. Obviously they list the point status and who pays which costs (dues, closing, etc) but they don't consider those changes to their contract. Those are basically fill in the blank spots on their contract. But I have to say if we ever buy again in the future through one of the brokers without that clause I think I would insist on it and walk if they refused to add it.

 

[Dean]

Just did 3 days at Aulani in a 1 bedroom villa and think we are pretty sold. Have done a tour before but being in the villa sold us. So we talked to the DVC people at Aulani and have come to realize that resell is the way we want to go. With Poly and Aulani being home resorts and neither make sense. Aulani is great but we cant book and do the 7th month switch if we want. And Poly is to much a night. I also have the book of points and feel that we will go every 2 years and use that years points and banked year. So buying a few extra points so we could do 8 or 9 days and if not needed sell or bank them.

With that I have a few questions.

1) Do home resort really matter? Read it does and doesn't a dozen times. I want to home resort at the world I know that much. Other than that I feel that if I can get another resort great if not well Im at the world.

2) Use year is completely throwing me. With an adult child off to college and 2 more at home the best time is summer ie August. But when they leave we would like to do Christmas time when decorations are up and also Food and Wine and heck Im a runner so the marathon would be nice. Frankly we want to go any and all months.

3) Lastly any pitfalls to watch for buying resell? I know banked points are good. And points sooner than later are good. But what to watch out for?

Buying DVC the best way means educating oneself and making the best guess of where you'll be in 5-10 years. Assuming DVC is right for you as it seems (pay cash, OK with the timeshare limitations, use only at DVC resorts, can plan ahead at least 7 months) then it sounds reasonable to proceed. It sounds like August would be best assuming you won't travel earlier in the summer. It sounds like you're looking at around 150-170 points for every other year if the 1 BR is the plan. Make your best guess of home resort but SSR will be cheapest, BLT second long term.

 

[Anal Annie]

UY is not as important. All it means is you can bank points up till 8 months into your UY. So have a FEB UY? You can bank current points thru the end of Sep. That is significant only in the cases where you might find yourself with unspent points after those 8 months. Like you have a FEB UY, book a trip in December, and then have to cancel that trip, you're now beyond your 8 months to bank, and you've got all these points back from the cancellation. You'll have to use those points, somehow, by Jan 31, or you lose them. Thus, the relevant part of a UY is to pick it to being more or less before the times when you see yourself going most often. That's it really. If you'll go in Aug or Dec most, then pick an AUG UY. It's not exclusive tho, you can go any time. If you're not one to cancel trips, it's not going to matter much at all. We're in this boat, if we book a trip, we're locking it in.

Just wanted to say that "things happen". I think most people TRY to be like this but emergencies come up and there COULD be something that makes one have to cancel at the last minute. We also never book a trip thinking "but we may have to cancel". We were unlucky enough once tho to be put in this unfortunate situation a few years ago. We had planned a trip with 3 nights at VGC followed by 7 nights in an OV studio at Aulani followed by 3 nights on Maui. This was a BIG DEAL trip for us. We planned this trip for 2 years and had banked points ahead in order to do it with. Well, just 8 days before we were to leave our DS (16 then I think) had the 1st (of 3) spontaneous pneumothorax's (aka a collapsed lung) and he was not allowed to fly for 3 weeks. So guess what? We had to cancel that trip 8 days out. What happens to your points then when you're under 30 days? They go into holding if you can't re-use them right away. Who can foresee the future like that? Certainly not me. The trip was to start in early August and we have a December UY which meant we had to use all of those points before the end of November. Typically we ARE fine with our Dec. UY as we usually travel at all different times of the year (January, spring break, summer, fall etc.) But the one time we HAD to cancel last minute we had to scramble to book something else. MS helped us figure out what we could do instead and we were able to push the trip back by a week and find an available 1 bedroom at SSR for 9 nights so we could DRIVE and which was almost an even points wash. It pushed our return date right up to the day before school was starting but at least we were able to salvage a trip in some way and not forfeit all those precious points.

BUT my point is that "stuff happens" all the time to people and although you don't PLAN on having to cancel sometimes it just happens. There could be massive weather delays (blizzards or hurricanes) or there could be transportation issues (didn't a major airline just recently have computer issues and have to cancel all flights for a couple days) and of course the dreaded medical emergencies. But don't ever think you're immune to a last minute crisis that causes you to miss a trip. JM2C.

 

[squirrel4569]

Home resort is important because, like others have said, you may have trouble booking during busy times at 7 months or less. In some cases you may have trouble booking between 11 and 7 months. The Grand Californian books up fast. The Grand Floridian and Poly book up pretty quickly because they are newish and have studios that sleep 5. Value rooms at Animal Kingdom book right away due to the low point cost. If you want to go during any of the holidays or times when school is out those can book up quickly. Typical rule of thumb that I think is good advice is to buy where you want to stay, book it at 11 months and then if you want to switch do so at 7 months.

Use year is something that as an owner I'm still kind of not sure about. If you go at a certain time of year then certain use years would be good, but what we discovered once we became owners is that with having the point availability we've changed our travel style somewhat and go at various times of the year. I do like that our bank date is my birthday though, so that makes it easy to remember.

Find a reputable reseller that you feel comfortable with. I've used The Timeshare Store for both of my contracts and so far I've been very pleased with them. They used to be a site sponsor here if I recall correctly.

Good luck!

 

[MrInfinity]

Just wanted to say that "things happen". I think most people TRY to be like this but emergencies come up and there COULD be something that makes one have to cancel at the last minute. We also never book a trip thinking "but we may have to cancel". We were unlucky enough once tho to be put in this unfortunate situation a few years ago. We had planned a trip with 3 nights at VGC followed by 7 nights in an OV studio at Aulani followed by 3 nights on Maui. This was a BIG DEAL trip for us. We planned this trip for 2 years and had banked points ahead in order to do it with. Well, just 8 days before we were to leave our DS (16 then I think) had the 1st (of 3) spontaneous pneumothorax's (aka a collapsed lung) and he was not allowed to fly for 3 weeks. So guess what? We had to cancel that trip 8 days out. What happens to your points then when you're under 30 days? They go into holding if you can't re-use them right away. Who can foresee the future like that? Certainly not me. The trip was to start in early August and we have a December UY which meant we had to use all of those points before the end of November. Typically we ARE fine with our Dec. UY as we usually travel at all different times of the year (January, spring break, summer, fall etc.) But the one time we HAD to cancel last minute we had to scramble to book something else. MS helped us figure out what we could do instead and we were able to push the trip back by a week and find an available 1 bedroom at SSR for 9 nights so we could DRIVE and which was almost an even points wash. It pushed our return date right up to the day before school was starting but at least we were able to salvage a trip in some way and not forfeit all those precious points.

BUT my point is that "stuff happens" all the time to people and although you don't PLAN on having to cancel sometimes it just happens. There could be massive weather delays (blizzards or hurricanes) or there could be transportation issues (didn't a major airline just recently have computer issues and have to cancel all flights for a couple days) and of course the dreaded medical emergencies. But don't ever think you're immune to a last minute crisis that causes you to miss a trip. JM2C.

What you're describing are last minute cancellations (within 30-days) which are not really relevant to the topic of how important a UY is. Of course these things happen... But you would have gone into Holding no matter what your UY... and things still worked out fine. UY only matters for 31+ day cancellations. A different choice of UY would not have helped you, nor anyone when cancelling in the last 30 days. So I wouldn't say that the choice of UY is there to protect you from last minute emergencies, because it doesn't do that. It only protects you from 31+ day changes, which are more planned changes than last minute emergencies.

 

[Dean]

What you're describing are last minute cancellations (within 30-days) which are not really relevant to the topic of how important a UY is. Of course these things happen... But you would have gone into Holding no matter what your UY... and things still worked out fine. UY only matters for 31+ day cancellations. A different choice of UY would not have helped you, nor anyone when cancelling in the last 30 days. So I wouldn't say that the choice of UY is there to protect you from last minute emergencies, because it doesn't do that. It only protects you from 31+ day changes, which are more planned changes than last minute emergencies.

Actually UY is important here also because it gives one more time to use any points that might end up in holding account status. The thing about UY is it is variable as to how important it is for a given person but here's the rub, those where it isn't as helpful or important are often taking more risk being members than those where UY is important.

 

[Anal Annie]

What you're describing are last minute cancellations (within 30-days) which are not really relevant to the topic of how important a UY is. Of course these things happen... But you would have gone into Holding no matter what your UY... and things still worked out fine. UY only matters for 31+ day cancellations. A different choice of UY would not have helped you, nor anyone when cancelling in the last 30 days. So I wouldn't say that the choice of UY is there to protect you from last minute emergencies, because it doesn't do that. It only protects you from 31+ day changes, which are more planned changes than last minute emergencies.

A big part of the point I was trying to make was as much about stuff happening which prevents you from being "locked in". Nobody can say they won't ever have to cancel for some reason. That's impossible.

Actually UY is important here also because it gives one more time to use any points that might end up in holding account status. The thing about UY is it is variable as to how important it is for a given person but here's the rub, those where it isn't as helpful or important are often taking more risk being members than those where UY is important.

^ Yes, if we had been traveling earlier in the summer we would have had more time to figure out an alternative plan. But as it was in our case we literally only had 2 or 3 weeks left before school started to use all those points up - and if there had been zero availability we'd have really been up the creek. There is just not enough time between Sept. and Nov. to plan a long trip without missing school if you have school aged children (missing school was not an option for us). This definitely pointed out to us how traveling in August can be a dangerous scenario for us.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

What you're describing are last minute cancellations (within 30-days) which are not really relevant to the topic of how important a UY is. Of course these things happen... But you would have gone into Holding no matter what your UY... and things still worked out fine. UY only matters for 31+ day cancellations. A different choice of UY would not have helped you, nor anyone when cancelling in the last 30 days. So I wouldn't say that the choice of UY is there to protect you from last minute emergencies, because it doesn't do that. It only protects you from 31+ day changes, which are more planned changes than last minute emergencies.

UY is just as important in the case of last minute cancellations. Because you won't have the option of banking no matter what then having the greatest amount of time prior to the points expiring will assist in using them.

 

[MrInfinity]

A big part of the point I was trying to make was as much about stuff happening which prevents you from being "locked in". Nobody can say they won't ever have to cancel for some reason. That's impossible.

Well, I don't really see the point in saying what others can or cannot do.

Yes, if we had been traveling earlier in the summer we would have had more time to figure out an alternative plan. But as it was in our case we literally only had 2 or 3 weeks left before school started to use all those points up - and if there had been zero availability we'd have really been up the creek. There is just not enough time between Sept. and Nov. to plan a long trip without missing school if you have school aged children (missing school was not an option for us). This definitely pointed out to us how traveling in August can be a dangerous scenario for us.

This has less to do w Use Year, and is more about "when you can go". And you can't go during the school year. So no matter what your UY, if you book in July, and that gets cancelled, you have to book in August. Period. That's not your UY forcing that, it's your schedule. Even if you could book in Oct to go in Nov, that doesn't help you because your real life constraint is that you have to go before school starts. UY is not particularly relevant for you if you would not even be able to go later in the year. See what I'm getting at? You're saying it's important to have a UY that gives you more time. But why? You can't go later anyways so it's not useful to you. And to try to book at Christmas would be unsuccessful due to availability. So a UY doesn't get you any more time if you can't actually go during the extended times. There are many people like you (me for example!) who just have to go during the summer because that's the way life is. For us, the feature of being able to rebook those Holding points later is not a benefit.

UY is just as important in the case of last minute cancellations. Because you won't have the option of banking no matter what then having the greatest amount of time prior to the points expiring will assist in using them.

I get it, but the pp said she could not go past the end of summer. So having extra time to use them was not a benefit.