Pros and Cons of Multiple / additional DVC resort point locations

[Bicfam]

I have been reading these threads for a while, as we are hoping to purchase in 6 months to a year.

My question to you all who know a lot more about DVC then I is: "What are the pros and cons of owning points at multiple resorts?"
And if you do get points at multiple resorts. What do you need to do to make it easy to use? Sounds like getting same UY is important. Other insights?

Thank you for your help!!!

 

[rusafee1183]

I have been reading these threads for a while, as we are hoping to purchase in 6 months to a year.

My question to you all who know a lot more about DVC then I is: "What are the pros and cons of owning points at multiple resorts?"
And if you do get points at multiple resorts. What do you need to do to make it easy to use? Sounds like getting same UY is important. Other insights?

Thank you for your help!!!

I am still relatively new to the process, but one thing you will need to do is make sure you look at points charts before you decide how many points to get. You will need enough points at each resort to make it worth your while. If you add on only 25 points, even with banking and borrowing you will only have 75 and will need to decide if that will get you what you want

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[chalee94]

My question to you all who know a lot more about DVC then I is: "What are the pros and cons of owning points at multiple resorts?"
And if you do get points at multiple resorts. What do you need to do to make it easy to use? Sounds like getting same UY is important. Other insights?

pros: you have access to different resorts at 11 months out

cons: you need a lot of pts because you cannot combine pts from different resorts at 11 months out, only at 7 months out. so if you have 200 SSR pts and 25 BLT pts and want to book BLT at 11 months out...you only have access to pts from the 25 pt BLT contract.

same UY is the only other issue - if you have different UYs, they are under different member numbers and cannot even be combined at 7 months out - you'd have to make separate reservations and ask MS to link them (unless you use up your once-per-year transfer).

 

[dbs1228]

Charles covered the logistics of it.

I own at BLT 285 and SSR 160 (had 290 just sold a 130 point SSR different UY contract). We generally stay for 10 nights in a 2 bedroom once a year and so over the past 4 years we would use points from BLT yr 1, SSR THV yr 2, BLT yr 3, SSR THV yr 4. We have gone more then once a year but this is the pattern. It helped that both SSR contracts were resale and fully loaded. We also stayed in the GV over NYE at BLT so we used banked 2011 points all 2012 and most of 2013. We are in the process of buying BWV 225 points in hopes to get a GV every 2 to 3 years over NYE or a time when college DD's can come and alternate BLT and BWV we will use SSR for our extra vacations we take or extra nights over the holiday time in a smaller villa.

With this plan I do see needing more points down the road but my goal is to be around 1000 - 1200 by retirement (hopefully 10 years). Now the key is to convince DH (who loves Disney) to keep adding!

 

[SpaceMountain77]

cons: you need a lot of pts because you cannot combine pts from different resorts at 11 months out, only at 7 months out. so if you have 200 SSR pts and 25 BLT pts and want to book BLT at 11 months out...you only have access to pts from the 25 pt BLT contract.

This is a key point. At 7 months, weekly stays can be challenging at the more popular resorts.

 

[Bicfam]

pros: you have access to different resorts at 11 months out

cons: you need a lot of pts because you cannot combine pts from different resorts at 11 months out, only at 7 months out. so if you have 200 SSR pts and 25 BLT pts and want to book BLT at 11 months out...you only have access to pts from the 25 pt BLT contract.


THANK YOU

I didn't know you couldn't use pts from other resorts until 7 months. Rookie.

If we need 210 at a place I like the idea of having 105+ at two places and banking them so every other year we could stay at different places.

So same use year and enough pts to book what you need is key. Is banking and borrowing easy enough to do as long as you do it in time??

Thanks again for these novice questions and your help.

 

[Bicfam]

DBS. Thanks for the info. 1000 pt goal NICE

Everyone needs a goal. : )

 

[Missyrose]

pros: you have access to different resorts at 11 months out

cons: you need a lot of pts because you cannot combine pts from different resorts at 11 months out, only at 7 months out. so if you have 200 SSR pts and 25 BLT pts and want to book BLT at 11 months out...you only have access to pts from the 25 pt BLT contract.


THANK YOU

I didn't know you couldn't use pts from other resorts until 7 months. Rookie.

If we need 210 at a place I like the idea of having 105+ at two places and banking them so every other year we could stay at different places.

So same use year and enough pts to book what you need is key. Is banking and borrowing easy enough to do as long as you do it in time??

Thanks again for these novice questions and your help.

Yes, banking and borrowing are very quick transactions. You've got the right idea with the two contracts of 105 points. We did something similar with our points. We've got a 150-point BWV for fall Food and Wine trips, which are typically anywhere from 7 to 14 nights. We now have an 80-point BLT contract and a 65-point VGF contract that we'll use for winter/early spring trips in alternate years so we can use two years' worth of points from each resort. So year 1 will be VGF, Year 2 BLT, Year 3 VGF.

 

[rosanab1031]

Just added on today and I am already LOVING it!

I became a member last year with my home resort of Aulani. I have 60 points with this membership which basically means a nice vacation every other year

Today when we went in just to discuss some vacation details for next summer with our guide, we ended up adding on 50 more points with GFV This was totally unplanned, but with the amazing deal they have going on for current members we just couldn't help ourselves

So, the pro for me here is that now we have a contract in which we can book out up to 11 months for GFV at WDW during Christmas time which is much harder to get at the 7 month mark

 

[Minniesgal]

It depends how you use it. We own at AKv to stay at WDW. we are happy to stay there and happy to move our booking elsewhere at 7 months if we can.

We added on at VGC. The only reason was to stay at VCG booking at 11 months. We only bought enough to do this once every 4 years so I didn't care about the same UY but we got the same anyway.

We want to add on a small amount of points at VGF again to go once every 4 years and we will have to buy the same UY but others would have worked.

So our plan is to go every two years, one trip will be WDW or maybe Aulani and VCG and the other trip will be WDW with a few days at VGF to chill before we leave. We can do this because we travel across 2 UY (Our UY is August and we do 1 week in July 1 week in August)

I think the best advice you can get is to have as clear an idea as possible how you see yourselves using these points that will make it clearer where and how many to buy.

 

[Bicfam]

It depends how you use it. We own at AKv to stay at WDW. we are happy to stay there and happy to move our booking elsewhere at 7 months if we can.

We added on at VGC. The only reason was to stay at VCG booking at 11 months. We only bought enough to do this once every 4 years so I didn't care about the same UY but we got the same anyway.

We want to add on a small amount of points at VGF again to go once every 4 years and we will have to buy the same UY but others would have worked.

So our plan is to go every two years, one trip will be WDW or maybe Aulani and VCG and the other trip will be WDW with a few days at VGF to chill before we leave. We can do this because we travel across 2 UY (Our UY is August and we do 1 week in July 1 week in August)

I think the best advice you can get is to have as clear an idea as possible how you see yourselves using these points that will make it clearer where and how many to buy.

Minnie's Gal
Interesting how you do it over two UY's. thanks for sharing. And your insight if you plan to keep them "separate" UY not a huge factor. Enjoy!

 

[lovin'fl]

I am a big fan of owning smaller contracts and at multiple resorts. We bought in 2006...200 OKW and have since added: 50, 50 and 25 HH plus 100 AKV. I want to add 55 to 100 more at BCV or BWV (likely BCV since that's DH's fave resort and will help me convince him to add on again).

We use our points all over the place. By our December trip (AKV), we will have tried all the East coast DVC except VGF. We also use points for family (MIL and FIL every year, who LOVE OKW near the HH as well as SIL2 for 2 Xmas trips now). We have our own plan that we fell into and will continue as long as the kids (all 3 in HS next year) continue to be able to (or want to) go with. We do a beach trip using DVC one year and the following year we buy APs (or PAPs) and do 2-3 short WDW trips (one being Xmas with my inlaws....though this year might be the last for that as it's been a pain in the neck to plan ). We found that we are not into VB all that much, so we will stick with HH for our biennial beach trips and hope to get a GV for next August. This year was a PAP year and we did 5 nights at BCV in Jan and DH and I will do 3 nights at BLT in Oct (for F&W) and then the big inlaw Xmas at AKV for 5 nights in Dec (yippie ).

We have made the multiple home resorts work for us. We have been able to book many places (even VB for the summer and BCV) at 7 months out...just might have to be flexible with dates. We have used banking/borrowing and have done split stays. We regret, or I regret, buying OKW. We much prefer the Epcot resorts (BWV and BCV) and likely will be trying to solely book there in the future (we wanted to try all the resorts and will have done so after this year). We will likely use AKV for inlaw stays as SIL1 owns there and SSR and we're not fans of SSR and she's not a fan of OKW.

I like the smaller contracts because we can sell off 1 or 2 if we find we have a few too many points in the future (though I don't think we will). The smaller contracts go faster and for a little more money. And I wish we had all 1 UY, but our OKW are June and the rest are Aug (wish it was ALL Aug). But it hasn't been too bad working with the 2 UY...it's all well laid out on the member website (and I print up a chart to track points). And with 2 UY we have the ability to transfer twice per UY (though we have never transferred yet). We had to book the 5 nights at BCV (this Jan) with some OKW and some HH points. It was 2 separate resies that they linked. We stayed in the same villa but had to go to the desk to get new key cards loaded with our credit card (and the mousekeeping thought we were checking out and kinda bugged us).

 

[nalajms]

Another alternative is split stays. We go at least 2x a year. We own bigger contracts at BWV and AKV. Added on a 50pt at VGF. The plan is to stay a few nights at VGF for MK then move to the other for the rest of the trip.

Our BWV contract is bigger than AKV because I want the ability to book a GV in the future. So a 50/50 split may not work for you.

Something to keep in mind: For a contract like VGF, it wouldn't have mattered if we got a different UY since I wouldn't use those points for anything other than VGF.

 

[Bicfam]

Lovin'fl

Good items. Thanks
A question. If you buy a big contract, can you sell of a portion of the points, or do you have to sell all your points at once? Those selling 25 or 50 points. Is that a portion possibly of a bigger contract or points they bought that size?

 

[rusafee1183]

Lovin'fl

Good items. Thanks
A question. If you buy a big contract, can you sell of a portion of the points, or do you have to sell all your points at once? Those selling 25 or 50 points. Is that a portion possibly of a bigger contract or points they bought that size?

Hi Bicfam, no - unfortunately you can not break up a contract. That's why several smaller contracts is always a better idea. It makes it easier to get rid of if need be

 

[Sur]

Another alternative is split stays. Something to keep in mind: For a contract like VGF, it wouldn't have mattered if we got a different UY since I wouldn't use those points for anything other than VGF.

We will have points left after booking VGF and will combine those with one-time-use points to stay first night elsewhere (when we arrive late in the afternoon). I wish DVC owned the Hyatt at MCO airport... we'd use a few points there for late arrivals!

 

[longrf01]

If you opt to concentrate instead of diversity, you might consider having several smaller contracts at the same resort. This could be helpful if you decide to downsize later or want to divide the points up among your offspring. For estate planning reasons* you might transfer 50 points a year to each child while you're still alive, or if you anticipate the need for Long Term Care in several years you can start distributing your assets (points) so they don't have to be liquidated.

* = I'm not an attorney, accountant or other estate planning professional and have no expert knowledge in this area.

 

[drusba]

We own two resorts (BWV and AKV). The rule I followed is that I would not buy a second resort until I had enough points at one resort (BWV) to reserve annually a 2BR during magic season. I like the simplicity of just being able to reserve what I want when I want at 11 months out. Trying to play the borrowing, switching resorts every other year, or always trying to reserve at the 7 month window takes more effort than i want to devote to getting reservations. Moreover, we have two use years, purposefully done to assure that our reservations would not be close to the end of a use year no matter what time of year we went.

 

[DizGirl20]

This is my story: We have 2 contracts at AKV and 1 at GFV, all with a Feb UY. I bought AKV because its our favorite and GFV because I think it will be tough to book during Spring Break and I wanted home resort priority there.

About 2 years ago we were looking to add on. Found a VWL contact with Oct UY but we grabbed it because it was super cheap and included the prior years points! It was too good to pass up, despite it being a diff UY.

Having multiple contracts with different UY isn't ideal but its doable. In fact, I find it kind of fun to play around with all our options. To me it's worth it to have variety and we got 2 of our contracts for a bargain on the resale market (makes me feel better about paying what I did for VGF)! My recommendation would be to have a min 100 points at each resort. That way when you bank and borrow you have enough to get a nice long stay in somewhere! Best of Luck to you...

 

[Dean]

I am still relatively new to the process, but one thing you will need to do is make sure you look at points charts before you decide how many points to get. You will need enough points at each resort to make it worth your while. If you add on only 25 points, even with banking and borrowing you will only have 75 and will need to decide if that will get you what you want

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Pro's are simple (ignoring any benefits of a certain purchase itself) - home resort options and having smaller contracts.
Con's a little more complicated. You've already figured out the 11/7 month window issue. There's the effort of accounting for the various contracts and the likelihood you'll be in a borrowing/banking situation which will add risk to the process. While having smaller contracts gives one future options, it comes with a cost, a cost that's rarely worth doing it that way unless you're buying retail as a single group or buying enough points where you're buying 150 or more at a time at multiple locations OR you can find someone selling who has them broken down already and the closing company will tie them in together for a single fee (or close to it).