Promotions - To wait or not

[TheYellowDart]

Hi everyone-

We are a young family and have been thinking about DVC for about a year. We have two young kids (2,4), make pretty good money and have no debt other than our house. We like to go to Disney once a year for about 10 days. We normally stay at the moderate hotels and have enjoyed free meal plan every year. We are flexible on our dates (and often prefer when no one else is at the park) and really enjoy staying at different hotels. We will like one hotel better than another but it is so enjoyable that it doesnt matter to us where we stay.

So, we have been looking and feel like right now 160 points would work well for us. It would allow us our 10 day trip and is a good point to where if we needed points in the future we could stock up 25 points at a time for a larger place or different times.

Currently we are trying to decide resale or direct... we are leaning to direct because (i know, its a bad deal) but we may want to trade out often later. We only get one real vacation a year because of my job and it might not be disney world one year. We would really like to try out Disney Land sometime (family in cali too) or who knows when our kids are 15 ... so even though it is a worse deal to use those points then it will average out to be a good deal overall and we wouldnt be wasting those points at all.

Anyways, I have been trying to find info on promotions from Disney. Right now it seems they are pretty bad, maybe a few dollars off if you buy way more points than we want or even nothing for the resort we want (SSR, low costs per year and we don't care where we stay and would rather stay somewhere new)

So, have any of you noticed that the promotions change often or there is a great time to buy? Or is there really never a great promo for people like us just wanting 160 points at SSR =)

Thanks!
Kyle

 

[melodyka]

Kyle,
I cannot speak to promotions as I am buying resale. I just wanted to mention that as far as I know, there is not a guarantee for direct or resale that you will be able to trade-out to other resorts for the length of your contract. The only guarantee is that you would be able to book at your home resort. As it stands currently, resales are restricted from the Disney Collection, which means you are not able to use points towards Disney Cruiseline or non-vacation club resorts such as the Polynesian. At any point, Disney can decide to change the rules and limit any member, direct or resale, to only book at the home resort. They can also pull out of RCI exchanges. From what I have read, it is more than likely, they will not restrict the option of booking other DVC resorts including Hawaii, Disneyland, Vero Beach, and Hilton Head. Some theorize that this would actually hurt DVD from selling direct because it would cause a plummet in resale value, and many people would not want to buy something that depreciates so immediately (who knows if they might need to sell someday).

The thing to consider regarding your home resort, is the booking window. Since you will want a room for about 10 days, you may need to book in the 11 month window, which would be available only at your home resort. Otherwise, you may end up having to do a split stay if you book in the 7 month window or not get your top choice.

For us, we chose a resort that would make us happy even if Disney decided to exclude other options from us. However, I am equally excited to try all of the other options & most likely will do split-stays in order to try more options.


You can view current direct prices & promotions here- http://www.dvcnews.com/index.php/dvc-program/financial/pricing-a-promotions

For resale, you would be looking about 50% less per point.

Best of luck to you

 

[TheYellowDart]

Hey Melodyka thanks for the quick reply. A follow up: when we went to the show and tell for DVC the sales guy said if you book around the 7 month mark you will have no problems booking any area and they really fill up around the 3 months mark. Is that not true? If that was not true it is a pretty big drawback for us... we like to stay at a few different places and enjoy the freshness that has. We stayed at Riverside and it was really nice, no problem staying there again but picked Saratoga Springs this year just to try something new.

Do you have problems at the 7 month mark getting different hotels? Remember, we wont really be asking for a hotel unless we heard great things (first stay we are hoping for an AK stay, after that who cares we want to try them all)

 

[melodyka]

Hey Melodyka thanks for the quick reply. A follow up: when we went to the show and tell for DVC the sales guy said if you book around the 7 month mark you will have no problems booking any area and they really fill up around the 3 months mark. Is that not true? If that was not true it is a pretty big drawback for us... we like to stay at a few different places and enjoy the freshness that has. We stayed at Riverside and it was really nice, no problem staying there again but picked Saratoga Springs this year just to try something new.

Do you have problems at the 7 month mark getting different hotels? Remember, we wont really be asking for a hotel unless we heard great things (first stay we are hoping for an AK stay, after that who cares we want to try them all)

no problem!
this thread offers some insight to booking windows & availability: http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2879362
From what I have read here, I would have to disagree with your guide. Also, I have been looking on a friend's DVC member website for about a month & there are certainly some room types/resorts that are just NOT available at the 7 month mark.

 

[montrealdisneylovers]

From what I have read, SSR is usually the resort that can be obtained much more easily on short notice due to its size and distance from the parks. AKV is pretty big too and does not seem to be too big a problem most times.

BWV, BCV and BLT (certain categories in each) are extremly difficult to get without the home resort advantage. If you are looking for variety and are limited as to time of year you can travel, you may want to consider purchasing at one of these resorts instead.

Some people buy smaller contracts at the different resorts, thereby guarenteeing themselves home resort advantage at multiple places. With banking and borrowing points, they alternate resorts every year. Keep in mind that you will have to pay closing costs for each purchase.

Good luck with your decision

 

[disneynutz]

You can do yourself a big favor by taking some time to read the many threads here on the DIS about buying. The additional insight will help you decide if DVC is a good fit for you and your family.

Disney only offers incentives when they need to and right now they are going through a reset of some kind. It could be related to their new head of DVD/DVC or some other reasons. They have become very quiet and their latest new resort at the Grand Floridian is almost on hold and it has been for a few months.

Somethings up, we just don't know what it is.

Bill

 

[Deb & Bill]

Hey Melodyka thanks for the quick reply. A follow up: when we went to the show and tell for DVC the sales guy said if you book around the 7 month mark you will have no problems booking any area and they really fill up around the 3 months mark. Is that not true? If that was not true it is a pretty big drawback for us... we like to stay at a few different places and enjoy the freshness that has. We stayed at Riverside and it was really nice, no problem staying there again but picked Saratoga Springs this year just to try something new.

Do you have problems at the 7 month mark getting different hotels? Remember, we wont really be asking for a hotel unless we heard great things (first stay we are hoping for an AK stay, after that who cares we want to try them all)

You will have problems booking lots of areas at 7 months out. That's why home resort is important. If you want the BLT Theme park view, you need to own there. If you want BLT Standard view, you need to own there. If you want AKV Value villas, you need to own there. If you want AKV Concierge villas, you need to own there. If you want a BWV GV, you need to own there. If you want OKW GV, you need to own there. If you want VWL during the winter holidays, you need to own there.

If you want to stay in an Epcot resort during the Food and Wine Festival time, you really need to own there. If you want anywhere at WDW during the first week of December, you'd better have a home resort at WDW. If you want a Beach Cottage at VB, you need to own there. If you want a BW view or standard view at BWV, you need to own there.

Sure, sometimes you will get a night or two at some of these places I've mentioned, but only a night or two at seven months. And some of these you have to book exactly at 11 months out to get any kind of a stay there. And you still can get shut out.

And if you wait until three months out for some of these places, you won't get anything at all. If you can't book until 7 months out, home resort doesn't matter, but you won't get your first choice unless it is one of the larger resorts like SSR (which has no booking categories) or OKW.

How long do you plan to go to WDW? If you think you might only go for a few years, forget about DVC. Find an owner you can work with and rent a reservation from that owner. Find another timeshare that you can use anywhere else you want to go.

DVC works best for DVC. You are only guaranteed a stay at your home resort. No trading out is guaranteed. No booking cruises is guaranteed (and they take a whole bunch of points-but you don't need a ticket and you get your meals). Booking non-DVC Disney resort isn't guaranteed.

 

[TheYellowDart]

Wow, i didn't know it was that bad... that totally changes our DVC thinking if we cant try out other hotels for our 10 day stay. The reps we talked to made it sounds like we would have no problem trying new hotels for our 10 day stays if we book 7 days out. Obviously we won't be trying to get 3 bedroom anything and with only 160 points to use for 10 days we are looking for studios over the low time periods (first week in December has been good for us, but we are totally open)

We are also hoping to go to Disney every year for 10 days at a time for the next ~15 years... Depending on how much our kids like it then or if they they would rather go to universal then even longer... Hopefully a few years after that our kids will have kids and we can bring them... also maybe buy more points and have larger rooms etc but that is now thinking 20 years into the future, can't plan it that well.

Bottom line is it sounds like we would have a hard time getting anything but SSR 7 months out even at the low times... if that is the case we would be out as we have no problems trying other hotels now booking 7 months out.

Thanks for the advice!

Kyle

 

[Deb & Bill]

Wow, i didn't know it was that bad... that totally changes our DVC thinking if we cant try out other hotels for our 10 day stay. The reps we talked to made it sounds like we would have no problem trying new hotels for our 10 day stays if we book 7 days out. Obviously we won't be trying to get 3 bedroom anything and with only 160 points to use for 10 days we are looking for studios over the low time periods (first week in December has been good for us, but we are totally open)

We are also hoping to go to Disney every year for 10 days at a time for the next ~15 years... Depending on how much our kids like it then or if they they would rather go to universal then even longer... Hopefully a few years after that our kids will have kids and we can bring them... also maybe buy more points and have larger rooms etc but that is now thinking 20 years into the future, can't plan it that well.

Bottom line is it sounds like we would have a hard time getting anything but SSR 7 months out even at the low times... if that is the case we would be out as we have no problems trying other hotels now booking 7 months out.

Thanks for the advice!

Kyle

It's just that the low times for DVC are not the low times for WDW. Early December for WDW is quiet except for the Pop Warner kids. But for DVC it is one of the busiest times of the year. If you don't book your home resort 10 to 11 months out, you won't get a week anywhere.

The only non busy times for DVC are probably mid-January (after the marathon), early February, early May, late Aug and early Sept. The rest of the time it is busy. Since summer time lasts several months, you can usually get something at that time, but don't wait too late.

 

[Dean]

Hi everyone-

We are a young family and have been thinking about DVC for about a year. We have two young kids (2,4), make pretty good money and have no debt other than our house. We like to go to Disney once a year for about 10 days. We normally stay at the moderate hotels and have enjoyed free meal plan every year. We are flexible on our dates (and often prefer when no one else is at the park) and really enjoy staying at different hotels. We will like one hotel better than another but it is so enjoyable that it doesnt matter to us where we stay.

So, we have been looking and feel like right now 160 points would work well for us. It would allow us our 10 day trip and is a good point to where if we needed points in the future we could stock up 25 points at a time for a larger place or different times.

Currently we are trying to decide resale or direct... we are leaning to direct because (i know, its a bad deal) but we may want to trade out often later. We only get one real vacation a year because of my job and it might not be disney world one year. We would really like to try out Disney Land sometime (family in cali too) or who knows when our kids are 15 ... so even though it is a worse deal to use those points then it will average out to be a good deal overall and we wouldnt be wasting those points at all.

Anyways, I have been trying to find info on promotions from Disney. Right now it seems they are pretty bad, maybe a few dollars off if you buy way more points than we want or even nothing for the resort we want (SSR, low costs per year and we don't care where we stay and would rather stay somewhere new)

So, have any of you noticed that the promotions change often or there is a great time to buy? Or is there really never a great promo for people like us just wanting 160 points at SSR =)

Thanks!
Kyle

Retail or resale is your choice but I don't think it's worth $6K for the option of using points for a bad deal. Otherwise DVC may be a good choice and at 160 points or so, you should be OK with your plan. Realize that DVC will likely be more expensive than a moderate and free dining but close to the price of a moderate assuming usual discounts, comparing to a studio. Don't let any minor promotions sway your decision. As for getting in to resorts at 7 months out, it's not hard to try other resorts but it can be difficult to get certain resorts, room types and time of year.

 

[vdub322]

Hi Kyle,
I am very new to this, but I can only speak from my experience. We bought 160 points at AKV directly through Disney just this week. Our contacts came today through Fed Ex. For us, we decided to go through Disney because we already had planned and paid for a (very expensive) rack rate vacation at a DVC resort and time was a factor in converting that reservation into one based on our new DVC membership. We bought on Wednesday, booked our new reservation with our points and cancelled our package on Thursday, and received our documents today.

As far as incentives, our use year begins in September and we got all of the points from 2011 (plus a moderate "so much off per point" discount), so we were able to book our new vacation using 320 points (by borrowing from Sept 2012). We used 287 and are banking 33. We will probably only go every two years.

It was our understanding that if we bought resale we could not use points for the Concierge Collection, the Disney Collection or the Adventurer Collection, but we could at Disney Vacation Club resorts, as well as for RCI exchanges, Club Cordial and Club Intrawest.

I do understand why people buy resale, it just wasn't for us at this point. We couldn't reschedule our upcoming vacation and didn't want to pay rack rate when that money could be better used to join DVC. I hope someday we can use resale to add more points, but the process with Disney went very smoothly.

Good luck and I hope you find a path that's right for your family!

 

[TheYellowDart]

Ah, so if I am reading your post correctly if I call 7 months out there wont be a high chance of saying "sorry, only SSR for you" but they will say "You can stay at these 4 resorts the other ones are booked" if it is that way it makes me feel way better, we would love to have that kind of option. Last time we stayed we said to the agent pick your favorite moderate other than the one we stayed at and just picked whatever he said... we all know they are all awesome.

I did notice that it pretty much is a wash if you get the free dining plan with 4 people for 10 days, but with this it is like locking in the free dining prices for (my) life. I understand that those free dining plans might go away this year and not come back for ten years and I don't want to be that cheap dad (I am that cheap dad) and not want to go over that 1.5k price point.

Also I come from a family of work-o-holics... honestly a lot of this is to force me to not put vacations off over and over and make me go at least once every other year.

Anyways... is that more the case where we will still have a choice at 7 months out (for studios, for now) but we wont be able to pick exactly what we want 100% of the time? If so, thats exactly what we want.

Thanks!
Kyle

 

[Disneypubgal]

Something to think about... as long as your home resort is in WDW, you can always book at your home resort at 11 months and switch to a differnet one if you'd like at the 7 month mark (assuming availablility).... the other posters are correct in that non-busy WDW months are bery busy for DVC. But as long as your home resort is in WDW you can always book and try to move... I have been very succesful the last two summers in switching my BW reservations to BC in the summer and have been equally successful with BLT and the WL in the fall and near the holidays. Keep in mind I did not get Magic kingdom view but I did get a room at Bay Lake... I was on the phone at 9am at the 7 month mark for all of these... What ever you decide good luck to you. I have been a member for 15 years and my only regret is that I didn't join earlier and that I didn't buy some Beach Club Pts!

 

[TheYellowDart]

One more thing I was wondering but couldnt really find a straight answer... Lets say I buy 160 points at SSR for my 10 days... its great and we go travel around for about 5 years but decide we want to buy 25+ points for a larger 1 bedroom at the other hotels. If we but at AK then can we book at the 11 month point with all our points or can you only use the 25 points you have at AK? IE you can only use all your points at the 7 month mark.

Thanks for all the help, this is really helping us decide!

Kyle

 

[Crazy4Disney06]

One more thing I was wondering but couldnt really find a straight answer... Lets say I buy 160 points at SSR for my 10 days... its great and we go travel around for about 5 years but decide we want to buy 25+ points for a larger 1 bedroom at the other hotels. If we but at AK then can we book at the 11 month point with all our points or can you only use the 25 points you have at AK? IE you can only use all your points at the 7 month mark.

Thanks for all the help, this is really helping us decide!

Kyle

Someone please correct me if I am wrong as I am pretty new to DVC, but I do believe the 25 AKV points would only be available for booking at the 11 month window. I don't think the points can be combined unless it is the same resort with the same use year.

 

[melodyka]

One more thing I was wondering but couldnt really find a straight answer... Lets say I buy 160 points at SSR for my 10 days... its great and we go travel around for about 5 years but decide we want to buy 25+ points for a larger 1 bedroom at the other hotels. If we but at AK then can we book at the 11 month point with all our points or can you only use the 25 points you have at AK? IE you can only use all your points at the 7 month mark.

Thanks for all the help, this is really helping us decide!

Kyle

You would only be able to use those points at the home resort (AKV) in the 11 month window. Some people choose to split their contracts and bank/borrow every other year to go to two different resorts. So let's say you get 80 points at AKV and 80 at SSR, this way you are guaranteed to be able to book in the 11 month window at either resort. In 2012 you borrow your AKV points and go there, while banking your SSR points for a trip in 2013. Make sense?

 

[TheYellowDart]

Ah yes, that does make sense ... Thanks for helping me with that. It must get pretty complicated for people with 3 or 4 buys going ;-) Are there any statistics on how fast the resorts fill up? I guess going into this I thought studios in off season would be the easiest to pick up, but it seems like that might be totally untrue?

Thanks again for all the help ;-)

 

[Deb & Bill]

Ah yes, that does make sense ... Thanks for helping me with that. It must get pretty complicated for people with 3 or 4 buys going ;-) Are there any statistics on how fast the resorts fill up? I guess going into this I thought studios in off season would be the easiest to pick up, but it seems like that might be totally untrue?

Thanks again for all the help ;-)

Studios are ofteh the first to fill up. They sleep almost as many as the one bedroom and require about half the points. There still are a lot of members out there who own DVC, not for the luxury stay, but for as many stays as they can get because they don't spend a lot of time in their villa. They only stay there to sleep.

We're not that type of member. We like to enjoy the resort. On our last trip in a GV at OKW, I spent a lot of time in the villa, just watching TV, reading on the porch, cleaning up after the kids (we brought our son and eight of his friends who had just graduated from HS).

I think the last time we stayed in a studio was 2000. Even with our son gone to college, the two of us are planning a trip later on this fall in a one bedroom. We like the king sized bed. But like I said, there are a lot of members (and non-members purchasing a reservation from a member) who are statisfied with a queen sized bed and a double sleeper sofa all in one room.

Two bedrooms also go quickly because they hold eight or nine people (depending on the resort). So one bedroom villas probably fill up last which is fine for me.

 

[CKCruising]

Out of interest, I looked at the availability for the first 10 days of August (5 1/2 months). This morning I can get:

AKL - Kidani or Jambo with or without Savanna view
BLT - Lake View Studio
BWV - Deluxe Studio Garden View
OKW - Deluxe Studio
SSR - Deluxe Studio
WLV - Deluxe Studio

The only one I couldn't get was BCV (4 of 10 nights available).

The availability is definately dependant on time of year, so you have to have an idea of when you would like to travel. I looked at the first 10 days of December , in BLT, and all of the Studios have only 2 or 3 days of 10 available. Note that this might change as people who have these booked switch to other properties, so availability might pop up at 7 months, but there would also be a waiting list of owners to fill too.

Personally, I am on a waitlist for a MK view for New Years eve and I tried to book at 8:15 am on Jan 31st. Sometimes, even the home resort advantage is not enough.

 

[melodyka]

Out of interest, I looked at the availability for the first 10 days of August (5 1/2 months). This morning I can get:

AKL - Kidani or Jambo with or without Savanna view
BLT - Lake View Studio
BWV - Deluxe Studio Garden View
OKW - Deluxe Studio
SSR - Deluxe Studio
WLV - Deluxe Studio

The only one I couldn't get was BCV (4 of 10 nights available).

Just tried this for the week in September 15-22 that is currently the 7 month window and typically considered "off-season"

today you can get:
BLT -studio Lake view
WLV-studio
AKV- Jambo & Kidani studio savana or standard view
BCV-studio
BWV-studio garden/pool view
OKW-studio
SSR-studio


can't get full week at:
BLT-studio standard view (available 5 out of 7 days)
BLT-studio theme park view (available 4 out of 7 days)
BWV-studio boardwalk or standard view (available 5 out of 7 days)



Hope this helps!