Renting points for cruise $$

[pwoodham]

My family is planning a reunion cruise in November, 2004. We need two rooms, costing about 1000 points total. We do have enough points, with banking and borrowing, to book the cruise. My question is whether I should try to rent the points instead and pay cash for the cruise.

If I rented enough to pay $$, I'd have to rent a year's worth of borrowed points. I'm a little concerned about doing that, considering I'd be in a fix if my renter cancelled. I'm also aware that renting points has it's own set of "costs", mainly my time in securing reservations for the renters. Although I have rented points once, and it was a very positive experience. Because of the large number of points I'd need to rent, I'm sure there would be several transactions to keep track of.

I'm wondering just how much $$ I could save by renting the points. Are the posted cruise prices the ones that are usually actually charged? I've been on 2 other cruises (not DCL), and paid signficantly less than their "published" prices. Is that true for DCL? Our only cruise on DCL was done with points, and I'm certainly willing to do that again if it seems the most reasonable thing to do.


TIA for your expertise!!

 

[tarzanman]

I would recommend using one of the Dis travel agents (Web Master Cathy Canada is one). She will help you book the cruise. As far as the points versus cash, you should really try to rent your points to pay for the cruise, you will come out with more points left at the end.

 

[WDWguru]

Don't really have advice on whether the points are worth spending on the cruise, but you should be aware that you can book some people on points and others with cash. As long as one adult per room is booked with points, the rest can be booked using cash via member services.

 

[Johnnie Fedora]

Quote:
"If I rented enough to pay $$, I'd have to rent a year's worth of borrowed points. I'm a little concerned about doing that, considering I'd be in a fix if my renter cancelled."

You could also be in a similar "fix" if you pay for the whole thing with points. You would have to borrow points to book the cruise, and if you had to cancel you couldn't return the points to their use year. Also, they would now be reservation points and you couldn't use them for a DVC resort reservation. I would hate to have to spend 1000 points that way. No bang for that buck!!

IMO, I would rent them out.....but you could also do a combination of booking one cabin with the borrowed points, and renting out your current years points to pay cash for the other cabin. By doing this, your not making a reservation for a renter using borrowed points. Also if you have time, try to find a single renter who can use your points before either your 100% or 50% banking windows end.

We rented out a combination of current and borrowed points to book our 2003 cruise. We saved 200 points off the DVC point price. Now we are enjoying a 7-day cruise in Nov and 9 nights at WDW starting next week (3 nights OKW Studio/6 nights at BCV 1-BR).

Good Luck with your decision.