New purchase question

[Kaigler]

To buy a fixed week, wouldn't you need to buy a minimum number of points for a weekly stay every year?

 

[ziravan]

Right, I understand. I was debating between June and December. I'll want a December UY for us now.

Your UY should theoretically precede your routine travel dates. If you typically travel in Jan, a Dec UY is great.

If you typically want to travel during F&W or in the Fall, Dec isn't a great option. Why not? If you book in Nov and can't go, then you must use your points or lose them by Dec; it's too late to bank them. Your banking deadline is four months before the end of UY, or July 31 for a Dec UY.

But. If your UY were August and you routinely book Nov, if you can't go, then you have 9 more months to use the points in this UY, and 4 more months to decide to bank them, extending their potential life to 21 months.

If you plan to typically travel in the Fall, demand (don't ask) for an August UY. That will give you 2014 points AND a good UY.

Also, if you plan to travel in the Fall and you are buying in the 150-200 point range, I'd strongly consider a fixed week.

There's very little downside. I bought a fixed week 44 Lake View. That's the first week of November. F&W each year and depending on how the week falls, MNSSHP some years and MVMCP others. Plus. F&W Marathon weekend prebooked, each year.

 

[ziravan]

To buy a fixed week, wouldn't you need to buy a minimum number of points for a weekly stay every year?

My Week 44 fixed week is 168 points for a Lake View studio.

The potential need for using my fixed week will almost certainly not come into play until after PVB sells out. (The jam on studios at VGF started showing as it neared sell out.) I've already released 2015 and 2016 guarantee for the points.

 

[Kaigler]

We are mostly planning on June/July. A December UY won't interfere in any way as far as I can tell. Do you see any problems with that?

 

[ziravan]

Dec sound good for Jun and Jul trips. Summer is WDW's busy season, but it isn't DVC's busy season. The busiest time for DVC is the last three months of the year.

Based on what I know now, I wouldn't buy a fixed week for June or July.

There's the rub, though. You're buying a fifty year contract. Who knows what might happen in five or ten or twenty years that changes everything. For example, one of the reasons Fall became busy for DVC members is we're all point hogs and those are cheaper months. What if DVC decides to do a major reallocation to make Fall points more exoensive and Summer points less? What if they start to offer discount passes for members only in the Summer? It MIGHT be that in ten years having a fixed week for Summer might be more prudent than Fall.

Then again, maybe not.

 

[Dean]

I was talking to a Disney agent today on the phone trying to understand what I would receive in terms of points immediately after the purchase. I am looking at a 200 point contract. ( I know the value of resale but we want Poly)

I was trying to determine the best Use Year month and trying to figure out if there was an advantage to buy a December use year or February based on my question above. We would typically visit in March.

If I understood him correctly he recommended a February use year. He said I would receive 200 pojnts for the use year of 2015 (paying prorated annual dues - purchase in August so 5/12 of the annual dues) and then I would receive another 200 points in February 2016. Does this make sense?

And I assume I would immediately bank the 200 2015 points into the 2016 year. So I would have 400 points available to use from Feb 2016 to January 31 2017.

Please let me know if I am missing something.

THanks

If I were set on buying the poly, I'd buy a fixed or two depending on specifics. A studio during March in a fixed week should be close to 200 points give or take by the time you add the 10% higher points you have to get for the fixed week. If you're pretty set on March, I'd buy the Feb UY. It'll give you better "insurance" in case you have to cancel for March trips and it'll only cost you 25% of one years points to wait. The fact you get 2014 points with the Dec UY and 2015 points with the Feb UY cons you into thinking you're getting a years worth of points but you really aren't, only 3 months. The dues would be the same either way in this scenario.

 

[Plan Man]

If I were set on buying the poly, I'd buy a fixed or two depending on specifics. A studio during March in a fixed week should be close to 200 points give or take by the time you add the 10% higher points you have to get for the fixed week. If you're pretty set on March, I'd buy the Feb UY. It'll give you better "insurance" in case you have to cancel for March trips and it'll only cost you 25% of one years points to wait. The fact you get 2014 points with the Dec UY and 2015 points with the Feb UY cons you into thinking you're getting a years worth of points but you really aren't, only 3 months. The dues would be the same either way in this scenario.

I don't understand the fixed week option can you explain it tome.

 

[Plan Man]

What I meant was I need more detail 10% more points compared to what

If you cance your week do you have the same advantages of banking and borrowing.

 

[supersnoop]

I don't understand the fixed week option can you explain it tome.

Essentially, your week is automatically booked for you for the next 50 years. You can choose to cancel it, but you never have to worry about being blocked out.

 

[sndral]

...

If, after PVB sells out, it becomes as difficult to rent studios as VGF (and I think that's a bigger possibility than most people do), ...

I'd be surprised if PVB's 360 studios are ever even close to as rare and thus as hard to get as VGF's 47 possible studios (realistically 47 is too high, because anytime anyone reserves a 2 br. lock off @ VGF it removes a 1 br. & a studio from inventory.)
I suspect that the Poly/GF/BLT relative booking ease will be much like the BWV/BC booking pattern ie the smaller BC (282 possible villas) is harder to get than the larger BWV (532 possible villas.)
My guess is that once the newness of PVB wears off that amonst the monorail DVC choices BLT with 428 possible villas will be easiest to book, PVB with 380 possible villas will be second easiest and VGF with 147 possible villas will be very hard to book w/out 11 month home resort advantage, IMO.
If we just compare studios, PVB with 360 should be easier to get compared to BLT's 133 possible studios and VGF with only 47 possible studios will be very tough to get at 7 months.

 

[ziravan]

I'd be surprised if PVB's 360 studios are ever even close to as rare and thus as hard to get as VGF's 47 possible studios (realistically 47 is too high, because anytime anyone reserves a 2 br. lock off @ VGF it removes a 1 br. & a studio from inventory.)
I suspect that the Poly/GF/BLT relative booking ease will be much like the BWV/BC booking pattern ie the smaller BC (282 possible villas) is harder to get than the larger BWV (532 possible villas.)
My guess is that once the newness of PVB wears off that amonst the monorail DVC choices BLT with 428 possible villas will be easiest to book, PVB with 380 possible villas will be second easiest and VGF with 147 possible villas will be very hard to book w/out 11 month home resort advantage, IMO.
If we just compare studios, PVB with 360 should be easier to get compared to BLT's 133 possible studios and VGF with only 47 possible studios will be very tough to get at 7 months.

BLT and VGF both have 1BR and reasonable 2BRs to counter the choice of studios. You'd need at least 900-1200 points to book a week in a bungalow and very few PVB contracts contain that many points.

But. 25%, or 1 out of 4 million points are Bungalow points. The vast majority of owners booking will be studios and that means studios will be 25% oversold.

Now add to that the fact that my personal preference, Lake Views, only represent 16% of total points, and of those 72 rooms, as many as 1/3rd of those should be reclassified as Bungalow views, and those rooms are going to disappear at 11 months in the Fall.

But not mine. It's guaranteed.

 

[ziravan]

What I meant was I need more detail 10% more points compared to what

If you cance your week do you have the same advantages of banking and borrowing.

Yes. If you opt out of the guarantee, then you have the points and they work exactly like any other Poly points. Same banking and borrow rights, and same 11 month/7 month booking windows.

Take my fixed week. I bought a week 44 Lake View for 168 points. Unless I opt out, that week (the first week of Nov) will be booked for me at the 12 month mark.

Let's say that room is available at 11 months. I can opt out of the guarantee, and turn right around and book the same week for 153 points, the current point cost for the same use if not buying fixed.

Then I can bank or otherwise use the remaining 15 points.

If I never need the guarantee then those 15 points serve as a pad on me buying a week's worth of points.

If it ever becomes difficult to book at 11 months (and there are 25% more Poly points than there are studios), then those 15 points ensure my place in line: and that's a bargain.

If you plan on staying routinely from Late Sept to Mid January, I'd buy fixed. That's what I did and I'm very happy with that decision.

 

[River Country]

Is the fixed week able to be sold on the resale market or do you just sell the points and lose the guarantee?

 

[ziravan]

Is the fixed week able to be sold on the resale market or do you just sell the points and lose the guarantee?

Fixed week is part of the contract. You can sell them but they'll sell as fixed weeks. That might make it more difficult to sell but I wouldn't think much more. It's still points.

And if it is difficult to book that might make them more valuable.

My guess is that a week 50 VGF fixed week studio contract would carry a premium these days.