Staying outside of the "world"

[luna99]

I'm trying to convince my husband to get DVC with me but he keeps saying that he doesn't want to have to vacation at disney all the time...

so I told him there are places all over the world where we can use our DVC points...europe, hawaii, etc..etc.

how easy is it to transfer your points to stay in another location and is it worth it if we alternated years.. say one year at disney the next in another location?

thanks!

 

[Deb & Bill]

The number of points for non-DVC vacations changes all the time and it usually goes up. So you can't plan on using x-many points this year for a trip to wherever and then do it exactly the same two years from now. Also, if you trade out to another timeshare, you have to have someone from that timeshare want to trade into Disney for about the same time you want.

It's not the best use of your points to trade out. Some people have gotten some pretty good trades, but they had their points tied up for a year or two before the trade came through. And it wasn't always the resort they wanted, but maybe close by.

 

[Happy Birthday Cat]

We don't vacation only at Disney but own DVC. Buy enough points so that it makes it worthwhile for you, even if it's enough to stay every other year. Look at buying a resale if you will need under the DVC minimum (you should look at resales anyway). If you go less than every other year, it may not make much financial sense to purchase DVC.

HBC

 

[Buckeye Fan]

Never done it myself (we just purchased this past January), however, my SIL/BIL have been owners since 1993 and do it all of the time. They have gone to Europe, Aruba, Hawaii (twice), Portugal, and Paris. They usually travel during the summer and my SIL says the more open your window of time and the more places you ask for, the greater your chances of a hit. I will tell you that she is the utlimate planner, so I'm sure that she was planning at least 9 - 12 months out.

At the time, they owned 296 points at OKW. She said that to trade out for a week in a 2-br, she was generally using 230 - 260 points, depending on the location and season. 296 gets them a 2-br at OKW during Magic Season (most of June, July, August). Again, we've never traded, but she says she felt the value of the resorts they stayed at was comparable. Others on the boards will say that you lose value trading out, but they've had wonderful vacations both on and off Dis property. Good luck!

 

[FreeTime]

We have only traded out 1 time and it cost us less points then the same week would have cost us at our DVC resort. However, we were very flexible with our dates and resorts. When I made the reservation I said I would take June, July or August at any resort at South Lake Tahoe. It took a couple of weeks to come through.

 

[Cruelladeville]

I have used my points once to stay on Mackinac Island at the Grand Hotel, and another time I stayed in Chicago for a weekend, when I had extra points,but I wouldn't normally do that. I found that renting out the points, and using the money to stay at the hotel is usually cheaper--not Chicago, but most of the time. It all depends on the resort, though.