Points vs Cash for a stay that involves weekends

[HockeyKat]

This may be long with lots of math. My basic question with all of this is, is the cash diff worth the hassle of booking a non-DVC room, esp. when you have non-DVC members joining you, and will my case study below illustrate this (I may answer my own question by the end! ).

We close on a resale this week, and DH and I are already planning our September trip (availability permitting, of course). We would like to go for 8 nights/9 days, checking in Thurs and checking out the following Friday.

We had originally planned Thurs-Sat in a studio (56 pts) and Sun-Fri in a 1-bedroom (110 pts) for a total of 166 pts.

DH called today and one of his friends/wife may want to join us. 4 of us can't really do a 1-bed (pullout for 2 large people not really fair), so we would have to upgrade to a 2-bed. Our options are 2 bed for entire time, for 300 pts, or 2 studios for Thurs-Sat (112) and a 2-bed for Sun-Fri (150), for 262 pts.

We were going to try and buy a transfer to make up the either 96 or 134 pt difference, and charge the guy the difference, which assuming $11/pt would be $1056 or $1474, plus he would have to buy the DDP ($640) and a 9 day ticket ($504), for a grand total of $2200 or $2618 (could be higher if price/pt on transfer was higher.

However, I read somewhere that the free DDP may be on during our trip. If so, it may make sense for us to book those first 3 nights as 2 packages in a moderate, so that DH's friend/wife can get their tix, etc., and have him pay for the rooms and call it even on the points.

Now, would this make sense... If I go on WDW website right now, I can book one MYW package for 3 nights at CSR, w/ 9 day PH for $1028. The other MYW would be ours, w/ a 1-day non-PH for us (we have APs), and would be $634. Total cost, $1662. We would subtract our non-PH ticket ($134) since we may be able to use it to trade in on our AP renewal, so cost to DH's friend would be $1528. Add $400 for the 5 days of the DVC-DDP, and he pays a total of $1928.

Not to mention, we save $240 on the 3 free days on the DDP... however, it costs us 14 pts more this way (180 pts vs 166).

I think cash is better, because unless we stayed in the 2-bed the entire time, we would have to move anyhow. Plus we love CSR.

Any comments/suggestions (for those of you who made it this far)??

-Kat

 

[Maistre Gracey]

Personally I feel weekends stays are still a good deal. Not as good of a deal as weekdays, but a good deal none the less.

MG

 

[Anewman]

Last year(AUG) we did a 2 bedroom @SSR for 8 nights, we paid cash(W/discount) for the FRIDAY and SAT nights and used points for the rest of the week. It was all linked so there was no switching rooms involved. We even got the dining plan for length of stay.

 

[HockeyKat]

Thanks for the input!

We are leaning toward doing the 2-bed for all 8 nights, and making DH's friend pay the difference between our original stay (166) and the 2-bed (300), in cash upfront before we make the ressie.

Since our contract came w/ an extra 210 points, we do have the extra this year. We were going to try and plan a May '06 trip, but time is getting short and I feel our chances of finding something worthwhile are slim. I refuse to do June-Aug.

We will probably be nice and split the difference between an all 1-bed (since we get an upgrade this way) and our original plan to have some studio time, and make him pay about $1200.

Now, to keep the $1200 or use it to add-on more points...