OMG. My hubby and I went round and round about it too in the beginning. He finally gave in, but not because he "agreed" LOL! BUT, now we've been members for over 12 years now. If you just added the room rate for the vacation's we've taken, we've already spent what we paid in. We've been able to take grandparents and extended family on vacations there, which we would never have been able to afford if we were paying cash for it.
Don't forget too you get discounts on purchases while you're at the resorts, and some food too. Once they ran a golf special for DVC and it was $50 to get the card, and every time you golfed after 3 or something it was like $15 and had free club rental! Hubby was in heaven that year. When we went in 2018, my mother in law was adding up the 10% off discounts and she was shocked we reached 200 fairly quickly. DVC also gets free resort parking now too! All those little discounts add up.
AND, it turned out my daughter's sport was competitive cheerleading, so we were in Orlando yearly (sometimes twice) for that. No parks for us, but free hotel rooms for sure!
We even went to Vero Beach for a week, paid nothing for our room, and brought food for the kitchen. We had a perfect beach vacation our kids still talk about AND it was by far the cheapest we've ever spent for a vacation.
We just bought more points!
A fellow swim mom has 3 contracts. It's genius actually. They rent out one every year, and that cash goes to pay for the rest of their vacations! So they go to WDW on points, use the rental income to pay for their dining plan and their tickets! The extra contract she said waxes between a rental, or using the points, depending on the vacation they were planning. No joke, she fought with her hubby too in the beginning. LOL! Then she said when they got to my stage (buying the 2nd set of points), she said he began to see the benefits of it and was the one to offer up the idea of the 3rd rental contract.
People are so negative about time shares, but Disney does it right in my opinion. We're super happy about being members. If you have any questions, I'd be glad to answer them for you!