Poll: In making a purchase decision, which of the following are your top three considerations?

[npatellye]

I selected price, deed expiration, and room type. Price first, for obvious reasons. Deed expirations because our kids are still in elementary school and we hope to be going to Disney until at least our 70s, so that rules out all of the 2042s as we would only be in our very early 60s by then. Room type because, even though we planned to do studios for the first couple of years (that didn’t work out as planned and we did 1 bedrooms right away), we knew we would need 2 bedrooms by the time our girls were 10 and 8. We tried a studio and quickly realized that, for us, 7-10 nights (average length of our trips) in a studio isn’t going to work.

 

[cbyrne1174]

When people say BWV std, AKV value, etc are hard to get without owning there, they mean it's hard to get several nights out a week together, which is what most want. But a night or two here or there is not out reach if you're not picky. Your situation as a local has advantages, you can be very flexible, especially if you only book a night or two at a time.


Do consider that dues outside the beach-front resorts will tend to equalize over time. Newer resorts are often conservatively priced but then see only modest increases, or even decreases, while the older ones catch up to them. Deviation from average shrinks over time (there is analysis on this you could lookup online). Lastly, the point charts matter. VGF has relatively lower dues but you need more points there. If you normalize the point charts, you see that most resorts cost about the same to operate and the expensive chart resorts (RVA, PVB, VGF) have had lower-than-average increases in dues, and will likely continue that trend.

My perspective isn't because I'm local though. It's because I'm cheap. I just get an OKW or SSR trade whenever I want to stay on property a while. I can just use the 1 bedroom portion of my Marriott for $1300/week in a 1 bedroom at OKW or SSR, otherwise I use my Wyndham points and stay at Bonnet Creek for $60/night in a 1 bedroom when its 35% off on weekdays 30 days before check in.

Also, as I'm planning my first Oahu trip, I'm only looking at staying 2 nights at Aulani. I just can't justify the price difference in my head with Ko Olina (they are literally right next door to one another). My SSR points cost me roughly $11.7 per point per year when factoring in buy in costs + annual dues and my Marriott deed was only $1800 with no expiration. Aulani is going to cost me $245 a night in a studio (21 points a night), whereas Ko Olina will only cost me $100/night for 7 nights in the same type of accommodation and rating (4.6 on google with 4 stars) if I trade the studio portion of my Marriott lock off. Is Aulani worth 2.5x the price of Ko Olina? I really don't think it is. That's why I want to just check out of Ko Olina, hop over to Aulani, use the amenities there for 3 entire days straight (sun up to sun down), then check into the Wyndham in Waikiki for $156/night for a 1 bedroom and stay a total of 14 nights for $1970.

 

[Red Dog Run]

Am I the only one that would love to own at all of them? Not happening, but still would love to. I fabricate a need for every scenario I can dream of. Then, I look at my bank account. So- price/point value, and dues. I am changing from my original answer. After paying OKW and AKV dues compared to BLT, I got the message.

 

[perchy]

This question is too hard. Lol

 

[awestbrook23]

For me, I consider the points chart for my family of 5 combined with the deed expiration and resale restrictions. For our direct points, Riviera was instantly out. Grand Floridian's point chart was too high for the price per point, and Poly had no 1-bedroom options. Copper Creek was the next choice, but unfortunately, you have to have a 2-bedroom there just to sleep 5, which would have required us to buy 350 points at that one resort. So we ended up landing on Animal Kingdom Lodge. We got 175 pts on a 37-year contract with a very friendly points chart, no resale restrictions, and a good price. Of course, we did end up still adding resale contracts at BRV and BCV for their location and studio capacity, and we bought a few resale SAP at BLT, too.

 

[Duckbug.Ducktales]

For me, I consider the points chart for my family of 5 combined with the deed expiration and resale restrictions. For our direct points, Riviera was instantly out. Grand Floridian's point chart was too high for the price per point, and Poly had no 1-bedroom options. Copper Creek was the next choice, but unfortunately, you have to have a 2-bedroom there just to sleep 5, which would have required us to buy 350 points at that one resort. So we ended up landing on Animal Kingdom Lodge. We got 175 pts on a 37-year contract with a very friendly points chart, no resale restrictions, and a good price. Of course, we did end up still adding resale contracts at BRV and BCV for their location and studio capacity, and we bought a few resale SAP at BLT, too.

Haha, so three categories weren't enough for you either

 

[Orion Nebula]

100% price for me, and now seeing that the "affordable" resorts like SSR might be jumping a lot. I guess that pushes me to having more options now... sigh

 

[DduzDis]

It was mostly location and a bit of nostalgia for us for BLT. Our first trip my wife and I stayed off site and rode the monorail through the Contemporary and thought it would likely never be affordable for us. We worked our tails off and rented points there many moons later. We knew then that we needed to revisit the DVC idea. We got spoiled with the walk to MK and we love the Crescent lake area. We stayed at BCV one trip and found ourselves hanging out at the boardwalk watching entertainment in the evenings. I toured the BWV 1 br on our way out that trip and found a contract that worked for us when I got home. Price was reasonable on both at the time we bought though I paid more per point at BWV than was average at the time after I had a Feb UY contract slip through my hands the first time. My Poly purchase was strictly because I love it and I wanted to own there for shorter trips for MK parties or EP festivals.

 

[kboo]

I picked theming and decor, location, and deed expiration. Not price, even though $ matters, because the home resort advantage matters to me. In other words, while the price (per point, total cost, etc) matters in choosing a particular contract to make an offer, it doesn't really matter (to me) for the part of narrowing down the home resort. If it were a higher price resort and the $ amounts were a constraint, I'd buy fewer points, or try to negotiate down some more. In the first 1-2 years we owned DVC we were mainly "resale" - bought when 25 points direct got you most of the important blue card benefits - and I had massive FOMO wondering whether I should have bought SSR at $80-95pp for SAPs. We also really loved BWV and BCV and they were priced under $100pp resale when we were first looking, but we never got to contract on something that was the right # of points in the UY we wanted when we first considered BWV and BCV resale. Ultimately ended up with BLT.

Then, later, when we reconsidered adding a second home resort, we decided not to consider BCV/BWV due to deed expiration, and we ended up with VGF.

When RIV came online, we got a good pre-sale price plus lots and lots of FPs, and so we got our EP/HS location in the end. Since then, we still love staying at BWV and BCV but have had good success using our BLT points there. Happy that our girls will inherit deeds that expire in 2060, 2064, 2070 - which should still have some value if they decide to sell them when they are adults.