Real world number crunching

[Crystal_27]

I just had to post this information for any potential DVCers out there who are worried about the "value" of their DVC purchase. We are planning our 2010 trip to Disney, and are planning (as of now) to stay for 2 weeks at Christmas. We bought into BLT this year, and paid right at $21,500 for our points. If all goes as planned, we will be using our partially banked 2009 points, our 2010 points, and about 50 borrowed 2011 points to stay in a 1 bedroom at BLT for 14 nights the week before Christmas and the week of Christmas. For laughs, I checked the rack rate for the 1 bedroom for our trip and it was... (wait for it) right at $11,000!! With the cost of one trip, we are basically halfway to breaking even with DVC. I'm so lovin' DVC right now.

 

[ToddyLu]

Like you I added up our upcoming trip. We are staying in 2 studios at AKV with SVs 10/28-11/06. I believe our rooms cash would have been $3600 EACH. So we fill like we got our rooms this year for the cost of our MFs for our 2008 points (about $600). We bought 210 points in June (got 210 2008 points also). So we are using our 2008 points plus borrowing 63 points from 2009. Yes DVC cost us $20,000 ( not including interest). Well worth it in our book. I hope you have a fab trip. DHs dream this year was doing MNSSHP on 10/31---we'll be there!

 

[rentayenta]

Did the math with our upcoming March 2010 Mexico trip- 7 nights (DVC exchange) and October 2010 THV/SSR- 12 night trip and and just those two trips alone (rooms only) equal over 1/3 of what we spent on DVC. Why rent when you can own?

 

[whitfamily]

This year we will have paid roughly $2400 in financing and MF's (we bought in April). Our two trips would have cost us nearly $3500 in rooms. Include the AP discounts vs the normal MYW tickets we used to buy and we saved $1000. So, we got nearly $5500 worth of hotels and tickets for less than $3500 this year. Saving will only get better and once we pay off our loan we'll be doing great!

 

[Dean]

I just had to post this information for any potential DVCers out there who are worried about the "value" of their DVC purchase. We are planning our 2010 trip to Disney, and are planning (as of now) to stay for 2 weeks at Christmas. We bought into BLT this year, and paid right at $21,500 for our points. If all goes as planned, we will be using our partially banked 2009 points, our 2010 points, and about 50 borrowed 2011 points to stay in a 1 bedroom at BLT for 14 nights the week before Christmas and the week of Christmas. For laughs, I checked the rack rate for the 1 bedroom for our trip and it was... (wait for it) right at $11,000!! With the cost of one trip, we are basically halfway to breaking even with DVC. I'm so lovin' DVC right now.

To me, the value is what you could get X for, not what some company says it's worth. For a 1 BR at Xmas, that number is likely the same but not for the times around it. You can likely take the week of Xmas at face value and count the other week about half the rack rate or slightly more to get a better representation of your true $$$ value. Even that assume you put real value in staying on property but obviously most DVC members do. For exchanges it varies but is often pennies on the dollar, esp to easier to get places and times.

 

[chefhah]

We bought BLT this year for $17,500. We are leaving for a short trip next week, have another in December and our free incentive cruise right after that -- all on our 2009 points (well, we had to borrow 8 pts). I figure those trips would have cost us $12,000.

 

[Jason@dvcstore]

I just had to post this information for any potential DVCers out there who are worried about the "value" of their DVC purchase. We are planning our 2010 trip to Disney, and are planning (as of now) to stay for 2 weeks at Christmas. We bought into BLT this year, and paid right at $21,500 for our points. If all goes as planned, we will be using our partially banked 2009 points, our 2010 points, and about 50 borrowed 2011 points to stay in a 1 bedroom at BLT for 14 nights the week before Christmas and the week of Christmas. For laughs, I checked the rack rate for the 1 bedroom for our trip and it was... (wait for it) right at $11,000!! With the cost of one trip, we are basically halfway to breaking even with DVC. I'm so lovin' DVC right now.

Thanks for sharing. Hoping your family enjoys all your future vacations and all the savings.

Jason

P.S. Wishing the Dolphins would have giving the Falcons a better game (noticed you are from Atlanta).

 

[tecodis]

I just had to post this information for any potential DVCers out there who are worried about the "value" of their DVC purchase. We are planning our 2010 trip to Disney, and are planning (as of now) to stay for 2 weeks at Christmas. We bought into BLT this year, and paid right at $21,500 for our points. If all goes as planned, we will be using our partially banked 2009 points, our 2010 points, and about 50 borrowed 2011 points to stay in a 1 bedroom at BLT for 14 nights the week before Christmas and the week of Christmas. For laughs, I checked the rack rate for the 1 bedroom for our trip and it was... (wait for it) right at $11,000!! With the cost of one trip, we are basically halfway to breaking even with DVC. I'm so lovin' DVC right now.

The real question to determine your breakeven value is:
Would you have realistically spent the $11,000 if not a DVC member?
If not, then your breakeven point is still a long way off.


I had attempted to determine my breakeven point for DVC. Lots of "assumptions" are made with a breakeven analysis which look into the future. Mine totally depended on whether I considered rack rates or discounted rates, what rate of inflation on the rates and maintenance fees I used, the number of points needed in future years, etc. Wildly varying results! Best to just stick with breakeven on actual usage during my DVC membership. So I have a long way to go to reach breakeven!

 

[rentayenta]

The real question to determine your breakeven value is:
Would you have realistically spent the $11,000 if not a DVC member?
If not, then your breakeven point is still a long way off.


I had attempted to determine my breakeven point for DVC. Lots of "assumptions" are made with a breakeven analysis which look into the future. Mine totally depended on whether I considered rack rates or discounted rates, what rate of inflation on the rates and maintenance fees I used, the number of points needed in future years, etc. Wildly varying results! Best to just stick with breakeven on actual usage during my DVC membership. So I have a long way to go to reach breakeven!

In bold is a great question and for me, I can answer yes I would have realistically spent what we plan to spend and then some on vacation accommodations in 2010. I was just itching to start staying Deluxe. With a growing family of 5 the POR was quickly becoming too small and no longer an option. The kids are still too young to get 2 rooms at a Value or other Moderate so Deluxe was the only way to go from here.

 

[crisi]

The real question to determine your breakeven value is:
Would you have realistically spent the $11,000 if not a DVC member?
If not, then your breakeven point is still a long way off.

For us, what DVC has allowed us to do is affordably change the way we vacation. But we'd never put the four of us in a two bedroom suite without DVC - we'd be four people in a room at the Poly. Which would, in all likelyhood, be cheaper than the dues on our points and the purchase price. It would also be cheaper because we'd go to Disney less often, we wouldn't bring friends and pay for their room.

Not that we are complaining, but my "real world" analysis would be the DVC has added pretty significantly to our vacation bills, BUT we get value for the added cost.

 

[Coach81]

We are very happy with our DVC purchase as well (150 at SSR). This coming Dec we will be visiting Disney for the third time in '09!!! We are excited about where we are with our DVC and we are looking forward to many more wonderful family vacation trips!!!

Glad you are also pleased with your decision!!! Have a great trip!

 

[disneynutz]

One of the factors that people fail to include in their analysis is the requirement that they vacation every year at WDW and the additional money required during that vacation.

Would you vacation every year if you didn't own at the DVC? Do you love Disney that much that you want to vacation at WDW every year for the next 10, 20, 30, 40, or 50 years?

 

[Aubie881]

Just bought a small resale 50pts, total cost $3322, includes closing cost, no financing. MF about $320 per year. We will travel every other year. We would normally stay at a moderate for 7 nights at a cost of about $1450. MF's every two years $640, savings $800. Apply this to our initial cost and break even is about 4 trips. Not to bad of a deal. Just wondering how long it will take before we add on.

 

[JasonDVC]

After our last trip off-site at a low budget hotel, I decided that I would never stay at a low-budget place again and wanted to stay on-site deluxe. Needless to say, a week later we were DVC members.

So, what I do is I check what the exact trip I am taking would have cost me in cash as listed on the Disney website. For example, my next trip in April would cost me $7932 in cash booked through Disney's website. At that rate I will have "broken even" in just under 4 trips!! I also add in MF costs so that might kick it up to 5 trips.

All the other stuff about" added expenses because you know go more often" is fluff. I am only looking at what the accomodations cost is. What's to say, if you were not a DVC member, that you wouldn't have gone somewhere else for vacation any given year. You still would be paying expenses, you just happen to do it to go to WDW.

 

[mjfox]

I just had to post this information for any potential DVCers out there who are worried about the "value" of their DVC purchase. We are planning our 2010 trip to Disney, and are planning (as of now) to stay for 2 weeks at Christmas. We bought into BLT this year, and paid right at $21,500 for our points. If all goes as planned, we will be using our partially banked 2009 points, our 2010 points, and about 50 borrowed 2011 points to stay in a 1 bedroom at BLT for 14 nights the week before Christmas and the week of Christmas. For laughs, I checked the rack rate for the 1 bedroom for our trip and it was... (wait for it) right at $11,000!! With the cost of one trip, we are basically halfway to breaking even with DVC. I'm so lovin' DVC right now.

You did forget one thing... A one bedroom at BLT is about 150% larger than a Tower room at the resort. The DVC rooms are smaller than the hotel rooms at the Contemporary but a one bedroom is larger than a single hotel room. You would almost have to use 1.5 rooms at the hotel to compare apples to apples/oranges.

When I do a comparison I will use a studio point chart to see how long I can stay and then look at a rack rate less 20% you could get from specials or AAA discounts.

You still should have a payback of 3-5 years including MF. But I only look at this for fun. As long as you continue to go and enjoy your membership it is worth it.

 

[vandy]

We did the same type of comparing when we purchased DVC. We also took into account the yearly dues though, with a slight increase each year. Even with this included in our costs, we still came out ahead with a 2BR DVC villa versus at the time, two rooms at a value resort. DVC's value improved when compared to a moderate and of course was a no-brainer when compared to the deluxe resorts. At first, DVC gave us a 10-14 day vacation every other year at WDW, but with add-ons we now go for that length every year, with the option to use a few points for a quick trip now and then.

Another post stated that the extra dollars you spend since you are going to Disney is just 'fluff' as you would be spending vacation dollars anyway. Depending of course on your other vacation, this at least is true for our family. For example, we took a short 4 day trip to the Wisconsin Dells and stayed in 3 BR villas at the Wilderness resort and Kalahari resort. Now, the rooms were bigger than a 2BR DVC villa, but our rooms also cost us around $1,500 for those 4 nights, then you need to include any area attraction costs and they can be expensive!

Maybe it doesn't work for everyone, but DVC has been a great value for our family!

 

[Lost in Neverland]

Like the OP we priced out our upcoming vacation to see what it would be OOP. I nearly fell out of the chair. Our first two nights at OKW in a 2 BR would be $545/night and then the next 6 nights in a 2 BR LV at BLT another $665/night. At that rate we will break even for our DVC in three trips.We do normally stay in deluxe resorts and with our DVC it allows us to go more often. The point of having the additinonal expenses because we go more is a mute point because we always had 2 or 3 trips per year. So we would have the expense anyway at least with DVC I get great rooms without any additional OOP.

 

[DeeCee735]

Back in 2000 we were considering a 1/2 land 1/2 sea vacation for 2001. We priced it out. We were also considering DVC (I wanted that way more than the one trip). We bought our first contract into DVC in May 2000. We have an October UY. So we received year 2000 points in May (and had already travelled there in the prior month, so we weren't going back til the following Feb), banked them. Used our 2001 points and borrowed our 2002 points for our Feb. 2001 trip (knowing we weren't going back til after Oct. 2002, and would have to borrow ahead for that years trip). We paid cash for our points, no financing. With that one trip, 1/2 land, 1/2 sea in a one bedroom for 3 days at BWV standard view, and 4 days at sea in a family deluxe stateroom, it covered 1/2 the cost of our DVC! 1/2 the cost in ONE TRIP!! Woo Hoo!

I know we borrowed a year ahead, but we'll be in our 80's when it expires, so we don't really even count that. Then, of course, there's the 4 small add - ons since, . We didn't finance anything, so no interest, and have been there so far, probably 20 times. Mostly one bedrooms, I think we did studio's 2x! It's definitely paid for itself by now, with so much more to come! I love my DVC too!

 

[Golden Rose]

We used to consistently spend at least $600 a night when we travelled with my DM, as we needed either a suite or two bedrooms. We always stayed at Deluxes, and since it became available, we always stayed at Club level. We purchased DVC about a year ago. If we had not purchased, we would have made two trips between the second half of 2008 and the end of 2009. (We did take a third trip in this period because we had the extra points and we'd bought APs, so we could do it for the price of transportation and food.)

Based on what we'd spent before, not on the actual price of the DVC rooms, we'd have spent ~$7200 ($600 per night, 12 nights) before fees and taxes. We have to have an internet connection at all times, so that perk saved us another $120 if we'd had one room, $240 if we'd had two rooms. The DVC golf membership saved my DM and her DH close to $1000 in greens fees, which they would have paid, regardless of DVC membership, as well. We also saved $300 on our APs. So, even very conservatively, we would have spent at least $8600 on room and perks in this year and a half period.

Plus, we got to bank points and get a bonus trip this year, because of developer points and the banked points on the resale contract we purchased. Now, admittedly, without having bought DVC, this additional trip would probably have been a cruise. We would have taken some vacation, but it probably wouldn't have been WDW. This trip was just me, DH, and DS, so we just needed one room. If we'd booked it at WDW, we'd have spent another $1800 on the room. (6 nights at $300 a night.) We actually decided that even with the great cruise deals offered this year, we weren't going to beat just the cost of food and transportation; the DVC, AP, and TiW card combined to make WDW the cheapest vacation we could take. Since we would have taken some trip, I feel pretty comfortable adding the room value to our total for what we would have spent on vacations in this 18 month period. (We'd have spent more than that on a cruise.)

That brings our total of actual value to us to at least $10400, although, of course, we'd have spent more than that if we'd paid for the actual rooms we had in this period. We won't have that many points any other year, since we had developer points and banked points from our purchases, so I suspect our real break even point will not come until year 7, or so. It will take a little longer if they eliminate some of the perks (namely, discounted APs, free internet, and the golf membership.) Even so, that is pretty impressive.

As for, do we really want to vacation at WDW for the next 40 years... well, I've wanted to for the first 40 years, I don't know why that would change!
(Ok, I'm not quite 40, but even so...)

 

[jodifla]

I agree. I'm flabbergasted each time I have to stay in a rinky-dink Days Inn room for almost $100 bucks a night.

DVC has been a real value to us, especially because we bought in the first time we looked. A first run through the numbers told us it made sense for us.

Not because it would let us vacation so cheaply, but because it would allow us to GREATLY increase our style of vacationing.

Goodbye, U.S. 192, hello, on site properties! Goodbye, one room hotel rooms, hello, 2 bedroom suites!