SAP or PVB points - goal is 1 week in a bungalow every 2-3 years

[CWTC]

Hi all -

Does anyone know or is there a way to easily find out Poly Bungalow availability at 7 months? Our home resorts are BCV (grandfathered resale), VGF (direct), and BLT (resale). We bought the BLT contracts to be used as SAP. We generally stay in a 1 BR for a week 2 or so times per year. We had a bunch of soon to expire COVID points and are currently staying in a Poly bungalow for 8 nights. We are in love and want to find a way to stay here every other year or so in addition to our other trips. The standard poly studios don’t fit our vacation style and we would not be happy staying in those. So, would we generally be able to get a PVB bungalow at 7 months (in early May or September/October)? Or would a resale PVB contract be a better choice even though we have no intention of staying in a studio. Using “buy where you want to stay,” we also would not buy SSR or OKW SAP - we’d likely be buying more BLT or VGF if we are not getting PVB points. Restrictions on resale are not an issue for us - no desire to stay at RIV or the new one at DL.

The bungalows seem to have low occupancy right now but its hard to tell if the guests are just out and about or if a bungalow is unoccupied. How many bungalows go to cash guests vs unoccupied? And how easy/hard at 7 months?

thanks in advance!

 

[lovethesun12]

Hi all -

Does anyone know or is there a way to easily find out Poly Bungalow availability at 7 months? Our home resorts are BCV (grandfathered resale), VGF (direct), and BLT (resale). We bought the BLT contracts to be used as SAP. We generally stay in a 1 BR for a week 2 or so times per year. We had a bunch of soon to expire COVID points and are currently staying in a Poly bungalow for 8 nights. We are in love and want to find a way to stay here every other year or so in addition to our other trips. The standard poly studios don’t fit our vacation style and we would not be happy staying in those. So, would we generally be able to get a PVB bungalow at 7 months (in early May or September/October)? Or would a resale PVB contract be a better choice even though we have no intention of staying in a studio. Using “buy where you want to stay,” we also would not buy SSR or OKW SAP - we’d likely be buying more BLT or VGF if we are not getting PVB points. Restrictions on resale are not an issue for us - no desire to stay at RIV or the new one at DL.

The bungalows seem to have low occupancy right now but its hard to tell if the guests are just out and about or if a bungalow is unoccupied. How many bungalows go to cash guests vs unoccupied? And how easy/hard at 7 months?

thanks in advance!

Based on everything you said, personally I would just buy PVB points. VGF would be more expensive than poly so doesn't make much sense as SAP, and BLT and poly are very close in cost right now if you look at the prices they've been selling for on this thread.

That said, there are disadvantages to owning at different resorts I guess, so it would partially depend on how much that bothers you.

 

[RoseGold]

LOL, just go stay at an actual bungalow in South Pacific for less.

But yea, if you want to do this, I would go all SSR. Unless you are booking 4th of July or Xmas or something, you will be fine. Right now, it's wide open at 5 months, and missing Thanksgiving at 6. Even that you could probably walk. You need a big contract to sling around walking a Poly bungalow.

Even Xmas (8 mo) FL spring break and Easter (10 months) are wide open.

 

[lilsonicfan]

this is a really well put together guide to availability, to give you an idea: https://www.dvcfieldguide.com/availability-tables

 

[we"reofftoneverland]

SSR

 

[RichVIII]

First I envy your position. For most of us, the bungalows we stare at from a distance or droll over on a tour.

The link above is awesome but I think you are good to go with nearly any points (so the cheaper the better - but only cheaper WDW resorts). Poly points are pretty reasonable at the moment but you don’t need the 11 month advantage for bungalows. The expiration makes places like CCV, Poly and Grand more aligned to keep up your bungalow habit. BLT would give you options for the Grand Villa (which are much harder) than a bungalow if you started to love those.

Again…jealous!

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

I often joke about becoming a DVC tycoon specifically for the purpose of staying in the bungalows.

I’m thinking you’re going to need about 1200 to stay for a week (if I have done my math correctly here)— if you’re looking to buy 500+pts, the dollar per point calculus may change a bit. The higher $$ contracts don’t move easily so you might be able to lowball some resorts better than others. The flip side is you might want to buy 2-3 contracts so you aren’t trying to unload a 500 point contract down the road.

I feel like if you aren’t getting *at least* a 30% discount on other resorts (and you can regularly plan 8m in advance), you should buy at Poly—even though they are not as popular now, the booking system (or relative demand) might change in the future in a way that makes home resort advantage more important.

I personally would consider aulani resale to save 30-45%, but I’d also be happy to take family trips there in their ocean view villas if bungalows didn’t work out one year.

Also, put some thought into your travel periods and use year—if you have to cancel after banking period it’s a LOT of points to sell or use quickly.

 

[CWTC]

Thanks everyone for your thoughts!!

We were assuming/planning that we’d be buying a few smaller contracts not one jumbo contract (this is how we have things set up now - 2 contracts per home resort) - because the bigger ones are harder to sell. We also would keep same UY - easier to manage.

I would love to do the actual Four Seasons Bora Bora but spouse hates sitting on beaches, going to pools, snorkeling etc. Disney is a balance because we can do the parks and then his room down time is my pool time. Even when we went to Aulani he spent most of the day in our room watching TV and gaming while I was pool or beach side although there are more non beach things to do in Hawaii than actual Bora Bora. So, sadly I cannot justify a Bora Bora trip for him to sit in the bungalow all day.

Thanks for the availability link - great info there!

Good point on the grand villas - that then makes more BLT points (or VGF) more attractive than PVB points because we could switch it up and get a grand villa at one of the resorts. That logic then also puts AUL in play - we hadn’t considered buying non WDW/DL points but enough for a grand villa at AUL in lieu of a PVB bungalow occasionally does have merit.

Thanks all for your thoughts!!

 

[RoseGold]

I would love to do the actual Four Seasons Bora Bora but spouse hates sitting on beaches, going to pools, snorkeling etc. Disney is a balance because we can do the parks and then his room down time is my pool time. Even when we went to Aulani he spent most of the day in our room watching TV and gaming while I was pool or beach side although there are more non beach things to do in Hawaii than actual Bora Bora. So, sadly I cannot justify a Bora Bora trip for him to sit in the bungalow all day.

Rack rate on the bungalows is something like 2.5K, so I guess that makes them an actually good use of DVC points, if you were actually going to pay that. When a regular Poly room is $1,000, that suddently doesn't sound so bad.

The St. Regis Bora Bora is like half the cost. I looked it up when someone commented this on another bungalow post, haha.

The BLT theme park GV is one of my bucket list rooms, and one of the reasons I bought in. I tracked it constantly, back when the trackers worked. It was always booked holidays, but sometime it would be free for random weekends. There aren't many, so it can have weird availability. It also books where points are low, like 88 in January, 108 in October. You can book it if you buy in the relatively expensive part and are somewhat flexible. So, maybe you need BLT points for this? I think BLT is a good pick for SAP anyway.

 

[pianomanzano]

I would

Rack rate on the bungalows is something like 2.5K, so I guess that makes them an actually good use of DVC points, if you were actually going to pay that. When a regular Poly room is $1,000, that suddently doesn't sound so bad.

The St. Regis Bora Bora is like half the cost. I looked it up when someone commented this on another bungalow post, haha.

Our nightly rate for an overwater bungalow in the Maldives for our honeymoon was half the Poly bungalow rate, meal plan and drinks included.

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

Not sure how recently you guys have been looking at overwater bungalows in Bora Bora/Maldives but they have spiked in recent years. Years ago I stayed at the St. Regis Bora Bora and slightly more recently the Four Seasons Kuda Huraa, and even back then the overwater bungalows with pools went for over $1000/night in season. You might be able to stay on property for less than $1k a night on rare occasions—but you’re not going to be in a 2 bedroom over the water. If you travel in peak seasons it could be closer to $4k and sometimes above. Then you add another 1500+ per person in flights (and that’s if you’re willing to fly long distance in coach).

For our family, my husband is happy to hang out on the beach, but we have two kids under 10 and find that remote island sleepy beach is not as relaxing and romantic with two kids—but even more, there’s the day lost on each side of travel with connecting flights, boats, etc. I don’t expect the Disney lagoon to be quite as gorgeous or exotic—but it makes more sense to go for a long weekend and in a few years we can drop our kids at MK for the day while we chill on our deck.

 

[CWTC]

Thanks everyone! At this point we are really thinking of Aulani - higher dues but cheaper to buy. Plus if we can’t get a poly bungalow, oh dear I guess it’s Hawaii instead! Alternatively BLT for the GV as @RoseGold mentioned as above!!!

Also we are on day 8 of our trip and the plunge pool has been clutch given the recent heat!!