Potential Resale Buyer- What Will I Miss vs Buying Direct? Also, Need Use Year Advice

[MBTigger]

Even though we wanted more points to stay at Aulani, we made an offer on WDW points. It is just that the 7 month advantage is better at WDW properties (save SSR - but now we are talking about cost)

 

[MBTigger]

the use year is not a trigger for anything, it is the window in which points may be used for a reservation.

When I was first looking into DVC this was my biggest misapprehension. I had certain preconceptions that stopped me from grasping how UY worked on my first read. Once I got brave enough to ask about it here on Disboards I was corrected and educated. Which was why I joined in the first place!

 

[Jimmy Geppetto]

If you are trying to go to anywhere but Aulani, I would not buy Aulani.

I seriously considered a subsidized Aulani contract and decided against it because of Hawaii's laws and risk factors like taxation. Also, Aulani as a timeshare has a troubled history, and might never actually be sold out on Disney's end. I plan to sell, and I don't want to be selling that product.

At a minimum, you need to look into Hawaii's probate and property transfer laws. To me, that was a complete no go, and I wouldn't buy outside of FL.

Don’t forget to mention the probability that Disney will sell Aulani too.

 

[DVCsloth]

One thing I didn't want to miss out on are the Moonlight Magic events. Pretty sure they said they will bring these back. We owned blue card resale points and ended up adding on direct just to avoid any potential hassles about staying using restricted points during one of the events. They probably won't do that though, and we also want to stay at future resorts. We have used our direct and resale to book Riviera twice already.

 

[Ashlotte]

There were shenanigans when Aulani was sold so early purchasers got discounted annual dues subsidized by Disney. Those contracts continue to have lower dues every year.

Disney Vacation Club Annual Dues | DVC Resale Market

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Oh, wow! I'm guessing these only come up for sale rarely?

 

[Ashlotte]

Don’t forget to mention the probability that Disney will sell Aulani too.

Is that something they could do legally?

 

[DVCanadian]

Is that something they could do legally?

Feels unlikely until the current contracts are completed. Not easy to remove a resort for the DVC program.
Being able to have a Hawaiian location is a plus for marketing and the rack rates are enormous, I think Disney is fine.

The boards are full of great information mixed with lots of speculation.

 

[RoseGold]

Is that something they could do legally?

Any of the resorts can be sold or shut down, or just removed from the point exchange.

I am nervous about the tax component

Property taxes and taxes specific to timeshares get passed on to DVC through dues. Right now, Aulani's dues are fairly low. It wouldn't take much shift to make these points non-competitive with WDW points.

 

[The Jackal]

Some believe that AP’s are not coming back any time soon with the new 1St quarter profit report. So there another reason to buy resale. The biggest reason to buy direct might be gone for a while. Save money, try not to worry about ROFR and buy resale.

 

[The Jackal]

One thing I didn't want to miss out on are the Moonlight Magic events. Pretty sure they said they will bring these back. We owned blue card resale points and ended up adding on direct just to avoid any potential hassles about staying using restricted points during one of the events. They probably won't do that though, and we also want to stay at future resorts. We have used our direct and resale to book Riviera twice already.

With so few MM events it really is not worth buying direct for this. The odds of booking a vacation during one of these is very small. MM events are more for someone who lives close and drop everything and book a night for the event. We were lucky to have booked a vacation a few years back and they had a MM event at HS. This was before Star Wars was open. Toy Story Land was packed all night long, the rest was pretty empty. Just remember there is a queue for these events and not all can go.

 

[DVCsloth]

With so few MM events it really is not worth buying direct for this. The odds of booking a vacation during one of these is very small. MM events are more for someone who lives close and drop everything and book a night for the event. We were lucky to have booked a vacation a few years back and they had a MM event at HS. This was before Star Wars was open. Toy Story Land was packed all night long, the rest was pretty empty. Just remember there is a queue for these events and not all can go.

We have been able to catch the last 3 or 4 years at least 1 event. We had 2 of them booked the year Covid hit, and they cancelled them both. We did seem to get lucky the first few events because they happened to fall during our planned trip. The last couple times though they seemed to give more advanced notice. I agree that it is not a good justification for a direct purchase for most but we really enjoy the events and would hate to get shut out of them and staying at the new resorts

 

[The Jackal]

We have been able to catch the last 3 or 4 years at least 1 event. We had 2 of them booked the year Covid hit, and they cancelled them both. We did seem to get lucky the first few events because they happened to fall during our planned trip. The last couple times though they seemed to give more advanced notice. I agree that it is not a good justification for a direct purchase for most but we really enjoy the events and would hate to get shut out of them and staying at the new resorts

For 2020 they had the most events planned. I think it was around 5 or 6 dates if I remember correctly. I think we’re also going for one event in 2020 but the virus canceled everything. They were announcing MM dates at around the end of the year in December, I think. That is only a few months for the early ones in March or April. Before that it was like in March they would say in April on this day there is a MM event. Within an hour or so all available DVC rooms were gone for that one day. The events were very nice and we enjoyed the one we went to. If you do the math probably less than 10% of the members could attend these events. Granted the queue was better than what they had before, which was IT disaster. I think sales has to pick up a lot to bring these back. Maybe VGF 2 will help.