Resale Benefits for Cruises and Europe Getaways

[Icecoldpenguin]

My fiancé and I are considering buying a DVC membership. We are looking into direct and resale. One thing we can not find concrete information on are the benefits related to using points for stays not at WDW or Disney Land. We are curious about using the points for disney cruises, adventures by disney or the other locations that the DVC offers around the world such as europe, australia and south america.

If we buy a resale can we use our points for those type of trips out of country or on the disney cruise line?

any help my fellow DISers can give us would be fantastic as we are trying to do this to possibly take advantage of it for our stay for our wedding and honeymoon at disney in december of 2012.

happy new year and may the force be with you,

Teresa

 

[lilpooh108]

My fiancé and I are considering buying a DVC membership. We are looking into direct and resale. One thing we can not find concrete information on are the benefits related to using points for stays not at WDW or Disney Land. We are curious about using the points for disney cruises, adventures by disney or the other locations that the DVC offers around the world such as europe, australia and south america.

If we buy a resale can we use our points for those type of trips out of country or on the disney cruise line?

any help my fellow DISers can give us would be fantastic as we are trying to do this to possibly take advantage of it for our stay for our wedding and honeymoon at disney in december of 2012.

happy new year and may the force be with you,

Teresa

You will not be able to use your resale points for the items in the Disney Collection (such as other Disney hotels and the Disney cruises), ABD or the Concierge Collection. You can use your points for RCI exchanges.

 

[disneynutz]

You need to spend some time researching how many points are required for the trips that you mentioned before you rule out buying resale.

Bill

 

[JimMIA]

One of the great benefits of buying resale is that you can't use the points for the overpriced options you mentioned -- ABD, DCL, Disney Collection, etc. If you research the points cost of those options as others have suggested, you'll see what we mean.

For cruises specifically, it makes far more financial sense to rent your DVC points and pay cash for your cruise -- and you can do that with resale points.

You can use resale points for RCI exchanges worldwide, but before you get swept away by the hype of "500 Kingdoms," you should understand what DVC's "Lite" version of RCI really is.

First of all, you will have access to only about 600 of the more than 4,000 RCI resorts worldwide. You mentioned Europe, but there are only a handful of RCI resorts in Europe which are available to DVC owners and I've never heard of a DVC owner actually being able to reserve at one.

Second, timeshare exhanges are often not great values in any timeshare system. With DVC, in the vast majority of cases, you will be trading down to a less-desireable resort than DVC. The real value of ANY timeshare is generally in using that timeshare within its own internal system. For DVC, that means the 11 DVC resorts.

Third, the timeshare exchange landscape you would be using through RCI is complex and constantly changing. What is true today could change completely next week. And timeshare exchanges require even more advanced planning than regular bookings. Successful exchangers often start their searches 18 months or more in advance.

Fourth, as a DVC owner you will not have an individual RCI membership. That means you have to go through DVC MS, and the only thing you will have access to is that limited number of resort exchanges. You will not have access to RCI's substantial other benefits including deeply discounted cash reservation options. For example, one of our regulars here recently got a full week in a 2 BR at Wyndham Bonnet Creek (a beautiful resort barely offsite at WDW) for less than $500 on an RCI Extra Vacation offer. You won't have access to those deals...in Europe, the Caribbean, all over the US, etc.

In doing your research, I'd recommend a couple of things.

• Understand that buying DVC is a 30-50 year financial committment to a timeshare. Look at the longterm benefit of that purchase, NOT how such a purchase might affect your upcoming honeymoon.
• Consider ONLY the use of your DVC points at DVC resorts. If DVC doesn't make sense to you for that purpose, it doesn't make sense, because NONE of the other stuff is guaranteed regardless of how you buy your points. DVC could take away any "perks" from any owner -- direct or resale -- and they have frequently.
• When you do the math, consider any future resale price zero, and don't forget the annual dues. The annual dues will dwarf your initial purchase price and will comprise most of your cost of ownership.

 

[Lynne M]

One of the great benefits of buying resale is that you can't use the points for the overpriced options you mentioned -- ABD, DCL, Disney Collection, etc. If you research the points cost of those options as others have suggested, you'll see what we mean.

For cruises specifically, it makes far more financial sense to rent your DVC points and pay cash for your cruise -- and you can do that with resale points.

You can use resale points for RCI exchanges worldwide, but before you get swept away by the hype of "500 Kingdoms," you should understand what DVC's "Lite" version of RCI really is.

First of all, you will have access to only about 600 of the more than 4,000 RCI resorts worldwide. You mentioned Europe, but there are only a handful of RCI resorts in Europe which are available to DVC owners and I've never heard of a DVC owner actually being able to reserve at one.

Second, timeshare exhanges are often not great values in any timeshare system. With DVC, in the vast majority of cases, you will be trading down to a less-desireable resort than DVC. The real value of ANY timeshare is generally in using that timeshare within its own internal system. For DVC, that means the 11 DVC resorts.

Third, the timeshare exchange landscape you would be using through RCI is complex and constantly changing. What is true today could change completely next week. And timeshare exchanges require even more advanced planning than regular bookings. Successful exchangers often start their searches 18 months or more in advance.

Fourth, as a DVC owner you will not have an individual RCI membership. That means you have to go through DVC MS, and the only thing you will have access to is that limited number of resort exchanges. You will not have access to RCI's substantial other benefits including deeply discounted cash reservation options. For example, one of our regulars here recently got a full week in a 2 BR at Wyndham Bonnet Creek (a beautiful resort barely offsite at WDW) for less than $500 on an RCI Extra Vacation offer. You won't have access to those deals...in Europe, the Caribbean, all over the US, etc.

In doing your research, I'd recommend a couple of things.

• Understand that buying DVC is a 30-50 year financial committment to a timeshare. Look at the longterm benefit of that purchase, NOT how such a purchase might affect your upcoming honeymoon.
• Consider ONLY the use of your DVC points at DVC resorts. If DVC doesn't make sense to you for that purpose, it doesn't make sense, because NONE of the other stuff is guaranteed regardless of how you buy your points. DVC could take away any "perks" from any owner -- direct or resale -- and they have frequently.
• When you do the math, consider any future resale price zero, and don't forget the annual dues. The annual dues will dwarf your initial purchase price and will comprise most of your cost of ownership.

I vote for a sticky.

OP, this is the best summing up of the resale vs. direct argument you'll see.

 

[Icecoldpenguin]

You will not be able to use your resale points for the items in the Disney Collection (such as other Disney hotels and the Disney cruises), ABD or the Concierge Collection. You can use your points for RCI exchanges.

Thank you we were just curious on that point.

You need to spend some time researching how many points are required for the trips that you mentioned before you rule out buying resale.

Bill

We have already found a resale we like and have inquired into it. We definitely would prefer resale over direct it seems to be a better deal.

One of the great benefits of buying resale is that you can't use the points for the overpriced options you mentioned -- ABD, DCL, Disney Collection, etc. If you research the points cost of those options as others have suggested, you'll see what we mean.

For cruises specifically, it makes far more financial sense to rent your DVC points and pay cash for your cruise -- and you can do that with resale points.

You can use resale points for RCI exchanges worldwide, but before you get swept away by the hype of "500 Kingdoms," you should understand what DVC's "Lite" version of RCI really is.

First of all, you will have access to only about 600 of the more than 4,000 RCI resorts worldwide. You mentioned Europe, but there are only a handful of RCI resorts in Europe which are available to DVC owners and I've never heard of a DVC owner actually being able to reserve at one.

Second, timeshare exhanges are often not great values in any timeshare system. With DVC, in the vast majority of cases, you will be trading down to a less-desireable resort than DVC. The real value of ANY timeshare is generally in using that timeshare within its own internal system. For DVC, that means the 11 DVC resorts.

Third, the timeshare exchange landscape you would be using through RCI is complex and constantly changing. What is true today could change completely next week. And timeshare exchanges require even more advanced planning than regular bookings. Successful exchangers often start their searches 18 months or more in advance.

Fourth, as a DVC owner you will not have an individual RCI membership. That means you have to go through DVC MS, and the only thing you will have access to is that limited number of resort exchanges. You will not have access to RCI's substantial other benefits including deeply discounted cash reservation options. For example, one of our regulars here recently got a full week in a 2 BR at Wyndham Bonnet Creek (a beautiful resort barely offsite at WDW) for less than $500 on an RCI Extra Vacation offer. You won't have access to those deals...in Europe, the Caribbean, all over the US, etc.

In doing your research, I'd recommend a couple of things.

• Understand that buying DVC is a 30-50 year financial committment to a timeshare. Look at the longterm benefit of that purchase, NOT how such a purchase might affect your upcoming honeymoon.
• Consider ONLY the use of your DVC points at DVC resorts. If DVC doesn't make sense to you for that purpose, it doesn't make sense, because NONE of the other stuff is guaranteed regardless of how you buy your points. DVC could take away any "perks" from any owner -- direct or resale -- and they have frequently.
• When you do the math, consider any future resale price zero, and don't forget the annual dues. The annual dues will dwarf your initial purchase price and will comprise most of your cost of ownership.

Thank you so much! This is very helpful. The good news is we will be paying outright for whatever we buy whether it is resale or direct. After that the annual dues are something we will just pay at the beginning of each year. I think you have some major points where we can travel cheaper to europe and on cruises than it would be to use our points. The point of having the DVC membership for us is the fact that we love Disney so much and that is our vacation destination almost all the time.

I do not know what RCI is so I would have to look into that but I doubt we would even try to use it. I think we would just use our points to go to Disney and take our families.

I vote for a sticky.

OP, this is the best summing up of the resale vs. direct argument you'll see.

I agree I like the sticky comment this will really help others I think.