Renting points to go on DCL!?!?!? How?? Is it worth the headache??

[yitbos96bb]

What bothers me even more than the value thing is the cancellation thing. You book a cruise months and in some cases, years ahead. You never know what can happen. And if it does happen that you have to cancel, the value is down even further. At least when you book with cash, you can cancel up until the 90 days out without any penalties.

Fair points... One of the reasons I would always pay the fee for Travel insurance whether I went with Points or Cash for a cruise. Of course the points I believe are only paid out at $5 pp if cancelled, which is a big degredation of their value.

 

[yitbos96bb]

I"m with you. Paying $4,000 for something worth $2,500 is heart attack zone for me!

Even easier than renting is transferring points. I've never rented to anyone but I have transferred points to a fellow member as well as had points transferred to me from a fellow member. That's even easier than renting!

Agree 100% there. The only hard part with transferring is that Disney has hardened up on that lately and are really enforcing the once a year... at least in my experiences. So for the OP, it wouldn't be easy to find someone who would want 360 to 560 points transferred. But if she could, then absolutely, that's easy.

 

[rescuetink]

Here is my break down: We plan to sail 11/2011 and for the 4 of us it would cost 561 points. I'll have 167 points left over from 2010, 200 points from 2011 and borrow 194 points from 2012 (I have 200 pts a year at BLT).

To pay cash it would cost us $3,669.73 for just the cruise, I wanted to compare apples to apples so I did not include ground transportation or insurance.

Ok... first off calm down. You are getting freaked out over something that is very easy. In fact, once you do it the first time, you'll never worry about it again.

As I said, you are in a much safer position than the person renting as you control the points. There is very little they can do to cause you a problem and even if they did, if you do it right, you'll have their deposit and could still rent their points. Rentals happen all the time with out any problems. If you want to try it with some of your 09 points, I will be happy to assist you in any way I can.
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1523638&highlight=Tax+Implications+points+rental&page=2

Read this thread about the taxing. It's a mixed bag of advice, although I found BPMorley's (an ex IRS worker) post especially informative and entertaining. PM me if you want my opinion on it.

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=895654&highlight=dvc+rental+contract

Here is a thread on DVC Rental Contracts - As a Seller, I've only used them once and have never had an issue at all, even with an Ebayer I sold an existing reservation to that I couldn't use due to my wife's pregnancy (she would have been 36 weeks at the time of the trip... literally made the ressie a week before we found out). I've had great experiences with DISers and prefer to rent to them here... Ebay is only used because of the DIS's rule about existing reservations.

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1709083

Here is the official Rental Board thread...

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1255828

Here is the official Rental Primer - This is a MUST READ.

Ultimately, I like renting to DISers with an established reputation... at least 50-100 posts. But I have rented to Newbies too and had no issues.

The biggest thing to remember is you have a while for your cruise. If you want to try doing a small rental, I will be happy to help you in anyway I can. Once you do it, you'll find its very easy...

For me it consists of this:

1) Post the Rental Thread.
2) When someone agrees to the pricing terms, talk with them and find out what they are looking for... ME, DDP, etc. Call MS and verify availability.
3) Have them do a contract (Ok I'm bad about this step, but best practices state to use one) and give a 50% deposit.
4) Call and make the Ressie.
5) Wait for the confirmation letter, make a copy and mail to them.
6) This is optional, but at a month out, I'll email to see if they need any changes to ME, DDP, etc. Otherwise, that's it.
7) After their vacation, send an email followup... again its optional.

That's it. Seven steps...at most you'll spend 3-4 hours on it... probably less.

Remember the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Don't Panic!

Thanks YITBOSS... I may just take you up on your offer!! It still seems very involved and confusing for a novice like me, however my wife will be elated if I can rent the points and cover the cost of our air fare for the four of us!!

I will be using my 2009 points for a WDW trip this may, so I have the points left as noted above. I have never PMed so I'll figure that out and contact you when I have more time!!

THANKS ALL!!! I love the opinions and information that your all willing to share here on the Dis!!

 

[Crystal_27]

That's funny... To me it would be a horrible feeling using something worth $4000 or so in value to pay for a $2500 cruise. It's amazing what bothers and comforts different people. No right or wrong way, just which is better for the person.

Actually, we only used 300 points for our cruise, so our points value was "only" worth about $3,000. For me, not having to deal with the renting was well worth the loss of $500 (or so) in value. Had it been closer to $4,000, I might feel differently...

 

[WolfpackFan]

That's funny... To me it would be a horrible feeling using something worth $4000 or so in value to pay for a $2500 cruise. It's amazing what bothers and comforts different people. No right or wrong way, just which is better for the person.

Doesn't bother me at all. Our cruise next year "cost" 284 pts. total. For me, it's "worth" the 284 pts. Yes I could rent the points and then pay cash, but I just don't want the hassle. Paying the premium is worth the convenience to me. I've never done well in dealing with people and usually get taken whenever I buy a new car. In fact, I just bought a new Saturn and it ended up costing me a lot more than it's worth . With my luck, I'd probably ask for $10 a point and folks would only offer me $5 and I'd probably take it . I guess the bottom line is in my mind I don't equate my points as having a dollar value, I look at it as a resource to book vacations.

 

[Anal Annie]

Here is my break down: We plan to sail 11/2011 and for the 4 of us it would cost 561 points. I'll have 167 points left over from 2010, 200 points from 2011 and borrow 194 points from 2012 (I have 200 pts a year at BLT).

To pay cash it would cost us $3,669.73 for just the cruise, I wanted to compare apples to apples so I did not include ground transportation or insurance.




Thanks YITBOSS... I may just take you up on your offer!! It still seems very involved and confusing for a novice like me, however my wife will be elated if I can rent the points and cover the cost of our air fare for the four of us!!

I will be using my 2009 points for a WDW trip this may, so I have the points left as noted above. I have never PMed so I'll figure that out and contact you when I have more time!!

THANKS ALL!!! I love the opinions and information that your all willing to share here on the Dis!!

WE cruised once on points and doubt we'll ever do it again. We did a 4 night cruise in July 2008 & back then it "cost" us 397 points for a Cat. 10. We only own 250 points so that was well over 1 1/2 years worth of points for just 4 nights. I didn't want to start borrowing points so then we did 2 DVC cash ressies in order to go to WDW. I told DH no more cash ressies - next time we do an add-on instead. Well, THAT plan wouldn't save us anything & really isn't a solution! Once we got caught up on our points again last year we were able to take 3 trips on our measley 250 points for a total of 14 nights. Soooo we started weighing 4 nights to 14 nights. 4 nights....14 nights. Every year....every other year. Every year....every other year...4 nights vs 14 nights. OH and the cruise point charts have since gone UP - that same cruise in 2010 would've cost another 67 points!!

I do not want to mess with renting & claiming the money as income & deal with the worry I would have over our renters. After thinking about it I am NOT willing to lose 10 nights of vacation AND have to skip a year. The cash price of the cruise is a much better deal - esp. if you re-book on the ship for the rebooking discount & onboard credit. Personally, we don't want to give up 3 years of vacations for just one year (and for a shorter vacation at that).

With the Dream coming out in 2011 the cruise prices are becoming more reasonable & I think are a better value. We actually did back-to-backs on the Wonder that year - used points for the 4 n cruise & paid cash for the 3 night one in the same cabin. I think we paid some ridiculous price of like $3,200 for that 3 night cruise... MEANWHILE we now have a 10 n Med cruise booked with our rebooking discount in the same Cat 10 for just under $6,000!! Doing the math, our 3 night cruise was $1,066 per night while our 10 is only about $590 per night!!! We MAY flip the 10 night to one of the 7 night ones & that would only be $557 / night. I think that shows the shorter cruises are less of a value as well as a tremendous drop in prices for 2011 and would still rather keep our DVC points to use within DVC from now on.

Just my thoughts.