Questions about using points at non-disney sites.

[hptasznik]

We are researching purchasing a re-sale of DVC points. However, we have a few questions as part of our due diligence:

1. Approx. how many points do you use at other non-disney resots (ex. Grand Wailea in Hawaii, Fairmont in San Fran, Mexico, etc). How about a 7 day cruise, how is this calculated?



2. Is it hard to use your points during prime times such as Christmas and Easter? How far in advance do you have to book and will you get "closed" out? Do certain ownes get priority based upon which location their points were purchased through?

3. Does the loation at which you purchase points have any relevance?

 

[BEASLYBOO]

1st You should purchase where you want to spend most of your time, that's where you will have an 11 month owners priority booking window, rather than 7 months at other resorts.

2nd, The best bang for your points is to stay at DVC resorts. Hotels (Fairmonth etc.) etc. have huge point requirements, not cost effective and not the way most DVC'rs use their points. Also, let's say you want to stay at the Poly, it's high points per night, plus $95 transfer fee.

Cruises, again high points, but if you own a lot of points than it doesn't matter.

 

[hptasznik]

If we purchase r400 points, would we have enough for a 7 day cruise?
Or staying at a non-disney resort.
we just don't know if we will do a disney vacation each and every year and if we buy 400 pts. we could do 2 vacations a year (one non-disney for adults).

thank you for your help.

 

[thepops]

It can be hard at the very popular times if you don't plan in advance. Christmas, Easter, New Years Eve will most likely require you to book right at the 11 month mark (to the day), especially if you are looking for a very specific category (like Animal Kingdom Concierge).

 

[Deb & Bill]

Rather than buying 400 DVC points, why not just buy 200 DVC points for a once a year trip and then take the rest of the money and invest is a good trading timeshare outside of DVC? DVC is expensive to trade. And there are a lot of less expensive timeshares you can purchase for trading out.

You can probably do a 7 night cruise on 400 DVC points, but you won't get the best stateroom, especially if you have two or more people in your party.

 

[hellerjw]

If we purchase r400 points, would we have enough for a 7 day cruise?
Or staying at a non-disney resort.
we just don't know if we will do a disney vacation each and every year and if we buy 400 pts. we could do 2 vacations a year (one non-disney for adults)..

The cruises would of course depend on how many people you were taking and the cabin category you wanted. The better the category and the higher the number of people traveling, the higher the point costs.

For example, in 2009 a 7 day cruise to the Eastern Caribbean for 2 adults in a Category 11 (cheapest cabin) during the cheapest season is 131/points per person. The same cabin during the most popular time is double that at 271/points per person. So, as you can see 400 points wouldn't go very far on a cruise.

DVC has to negotiate the cruise rates with Disney Cruise Line each year and they have consistently gone up in point requirements each year. So even if 400 points works for you today, it might not be enough for the same cruise 5 or 10 years from now. This is also true with the non-DVC hotels and resorts. The point costs are very high, usually incur a $95 booking fee and can change from year to year. This is why trading out is not a very good use of your points on a consistent basis. A trade-out every now and then isn't bad, but buying DVC with the intent to trade-out yearly is very costly point-wise.

However, you could have 2 weeklong stays at a WDW DVC resort in a 2BR villa during the lowest DVC season for those same 400 points. Back down to a 1BR or studio and those 400 points could potentially allow you to stretch your yearly stays to 3-5 weeks at a variety of DVC resorts.

 

[fers31]

Using the above example (271pts/pp) would cost a couple 542 pts for the lowest category. If you rented your points out for $10 p/p (fair amount) would give you $5420. You could get this same cruise room online for probably $800/pp for a total of $1600. So, you've then wasted over $5000 worth of points for a $1600 cruise. Never a good idea (monetarily) to use points.