Thinking of adding on at Polynesian--advice needed!

[You DO Have Wings!]

Hi all,

I’m thinking of making a small add-on purchase on the Polynesian Villas and would appreciate the advice of the experts on this board. My family and I are owners at AKV (bought in 2007 direct from Disney) and love our membership. We stayed Sun-Fri in a Standard View studio at the Poly this last February for the first time and loved it. I’m interested in purchasing a small contract (45-50 points) so that with banking and borrowing, we can go there for a similar stay every third year, probably in a Lake View studio. Some concerns:

• I know that since the Poly DVC has opened, there’s been little difficulty booking there at the 7-month window. After the resort fully sells out, looking 5-10 years into the future and beyond, is the expectation that it will become much more difficult to book a studio there? If so, I would be more inclined to buy points there now for exclusive use at the Poly. If it’s more likely that the Poly will remain a relatively easy booking at 7 months, I may buy some less expensive points at another resort (AKV, probably) but still earmark them for staying there.

• I don't totally get why, but it seems like on the boards, there’s a lot of talk about an eventual point reallocation at the Poly that would make studios more expensive and the bungalows cheaper. I will probably never stay in a bungalow, so if I buy a small add-on there and this occurs, it will impact me a lot and probably mess up my “once every third year” plan. How likely is this really to occur? The Poly studios are already tied with GFV as the highest priced per night at WDW—do people really see them rising a few more points per night beyond that? I know no one knows for sure, but I am trying to get a sense of how realistic it is that this might occur.

We would likely use these points to travel in the spring or summer—maybe once in a blue moon at Christmas time.

I really appreciate any advice the experts can give me as I weigh this purchase. Thanks in advance!

 

[disneynutz]

Buy the same UY, title the contracts like the original.
If you want the Poly, buy there, see if resale is available.
Disney can and will change the point requirements if it makes business sense to do so. If the bungalows don't fully book, you can expect a reallocation.

Bill

 

[_auroraborealis_]

It's hard to say if Poly gets hard to book most of the year. If you want Food & Wine, a runDisney weekend or early December, I do think you will need home resort advantage. There were weeks this year that were booked before 7 months, aligning with those periods. I certainly would expect to stay at my home resort for Christmas time.

Poly will remain popular, particularly at 7 months. It's a top rental request and I don't see that going anywhere.

And a reallocation at Poly wouldn't surprise me. I'd expect to see the Studios go to three View classes, frankly; I'm not sure if Lake would end up getting higher. I suspect it'll be a bit more like BWV if it happens, where BWV has a Standard, Pool/Garden, and BW view. Now, sure, at BW Pool and BW view are the same points, but that they are defined separately leaves room for reallocation. At Poly, everyone wants west side Tokelau, and it seems like no one wants SE Pago Pago. When booking Lake, everyone wants a high floor, and I have definitely seen some complaints about the point cost to land on 1st floor LV. I could easily see a Standard, Preferred and Lake View split occur at Poly.

 

[CMNJ]

Hi all,

I’m thinking of making a small add-on purchase on the Polynesian Villas and would appreciate the advice of the experts on this board. My family and I are owners at AKV (bought in 2007 direct from Disney) and love our membership. We stayed Sun-Fri in a Standard View studio at the Poly this last February for the first time and loved it. I’m interested in purchasing a small contract (45-50 points) so that with banking and borrowing, we can go there for a similar stay every third year, probably in a Lake View studio. Some concerns

1. I know that since the Poly DVC has opened, there’s been little difficulty booking there at the 7-month window. After the resort fully sells out, looking 5-10 years into the future and beyond, is the expectation that it will become much more difficult to book a studio there? If so, I would be more inclined to buy points there now for exclusive use at the Poly. If it’s more likely that the Poly will remain a relatively easy booking at 7 months, I may buy some less expensive points at another resort (AKV, probably) but still earmark them for staying there

2. I don't totally get why, but it seems like on the boards, there’s a lot of talk about an eventual point reallocation at the Poly that would make studios more expensive and the bungalows cheaper. I will probably never stay in a bungalow, so if I buy a small add-on there and this occurs, it will impact me a lot and probably mess up my “once every third year” plan. How likely is this really to occur? The Poly studios are already tied with GFV as the highest priced per night at WDW—do people really see them rising a few more points per night beyond that? I know no one knows for sure, but I am trying to get a sense of how realistic it is that this might occur.
We would likely use these points to travel in the spring or summer—maybe once in a blue moon at Christmas time.

I really appreciate any advice the experts can give me as I weigh this purchase. Thanks in advance!

Obviously anything we say is all pure conjecture since nobody knows what the future will bring but these are my thoughts and why despite really liking the Poly we are looking to add on elsewhere

1. The resort is not currently sold out yet so it is much easier to book at 7 months. Once the resort sells out presumably more people will be utilizing the 11 month advantage therefore leaving much less availability than we are currently seeing. As a "near park resort" it will inevitably be more popular and I'd guess follow booking patterns similar to other near park resorts. I seem to recall other posters talking about it being not that hard to book VGF during the selling phase (and we know how impossible that can be to book now). The only real unknown is if there are a lot of current Poly buyers who are only buying Poly because that's what Disney is currently selling but really prefer 1 or 2 BR units. If there are enough of those buyers then there could be a decent amount of availabilty at 7 months (if they are buying Poly with the intention to trade out a lot.)

2. As for a point reallocation nobody can say for sure what booking patterns will look like in a few years. The real concern is that not enough Poly owners are buying points to use in a bungalow. Yes there are only 20 bungalows but they are worth a ton of points (I forget the exact number but someone posted it previously if you want to do a search). The concern of many (myself included) is that there will be significantly more Poly owners wanting to book Poly studios than there are to go around. There are a huge number of studios but when you consider the huge number of points allotted to the bungalows you see where an issue can arise (once again pure speculation since we don't know other buyers' intentions). DVC is supposed to act in the best interests of the members so if that problem does occur they absolutely could reallocate. They recently reallocated Aulani, created new catergories at SSR as part of a resort wide reallocation, and reallocated at SSR a while back to balance treehouse demand. On the other hand demand for studios vs 1 BR at other resorts is unbalanced as is demand for fall vs the rest of the year yet DVC has made no changes (thus far). So while many of us think it probably will happen eventually we might all be wrong

 

[DenLo]

It seems like the bungalows are being booked, not necessarily at the 7 month mark but often a few months ahead. And then only a few days here and there are still available when checking ahead for several months. I don't know if that is because of cash reservations taking them over or what or people being desperate to book during DVC popular months. Maybe it is because the bungalows are new. But I have always been surprised at the popularity of grand villas as they are usually more expensive than getting two 2BRs and a one bedroom ( or sometimes you have to get a studio) at the same resort where the families can have some privacy (or so you can separate the bickering family members) with the separate villas.

I expect with time drusba or skierpete will have the stats available for us to more accurate information. But right now they seem pretty popular to me.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Drusba addressed quite a bit about the Poly in this post today on a different thread. http://www.disboards.com/threads/all-resorts-booked-from-oct-to-jan.3539095/page-4#post-56362253

 

[ziravan]

DVC has a rebate special going on through Oct 10.

This is the offer for current members. There's a different offer for new members.

You Will Save...
100 to 149 Vacation Points $850
150 to 174 Vacation Points $2,000
175 to 199 Vacation Points $2,250
200 to 249 Vacation Points $2,750
250 to 299 Vacation Points $3,250

So. Math.

Buy 50 points for $171 = $8550

100 points is $17100 minus $850 rebate is $16,250 or $162.50/point

150 is $25,650 minus $2000 equals $23,650 or $157.67/point.

Now if you buy a UY later than August, you'll get 2015 points. If you were to buy 150 with 2015 points and immediately rent out 300 at $15/point, you'd still have 150 points to borrow and use immediately and your cost looks something like this:

$23,650 - $4500 = $19,150 or $127.67/point. If you're financing, the $4500 rental almost pays back for 20% down.

Get real aggressive and rent out all 450 points (if you bought an Oct UY, you'd have to borrow 2018 points to stay in Oct 2017) and you're talking about $23,650 - $6750 = $16,900/point or $112.67/point for use beginning with 2018 UY (2015-2017 points rented)

None of that of course includes closing costs and that assumes you do the legwork yourself to rent and not use a broker (using a broker would give you about $4/point less income).

 

[ziravan]

To your questions, Poly will be oversold on studios. 25% of Poly points are for Bungalows but 25% of buyers aren't buying enough points to stay at bungalows.

Poly owners are buying studio points.

This means that Poly studios will almost certainly fill up before 7 months during Fall Frenzy (mid-Sept - mid-Jan), Easter/Spring Break, and possibly other times as well.

Once sold out, I think most points traded out to book other resorts will first go to 7 month avail at bungalows because that's what primarily will be left after Poly owners exercise more booking for studios than studio availability.

So. Poly owners trading out largely will be offset by other owners trading into and sampling bungalows at 7 months. Yes. Some studios will be avail during off season. But.

If you want to consistently stay in a studio at Poly, you should buy there.

And. You should buy more than 50 points. You will probably need them and there's the rebate that will make points cheaper now assuming 100 point buy-in.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

As an aside, I find it entertaining that in all of the high sales months for Poly, they've had rebates running. It's clear that the whole $171/point is too high; even with rebate, point cost is really high, but it does seem to drive more purchase. I have to wonder what this means for C3V.

 

[You DO Have Wings!]

Thank you very much to all who have contributed to this thread so far! I'm grateful for the different points of view and glad I asked. You've given me much to consider.

 

[MadScouser]

We had a tour of poly when we where there in August. Seriously tempted to add on a small contract (say 50 pts), but being a UK DVC'er means that the FX rate is not good right now, and holding out for the rate to get closer to 1.50 again, or maybe they may ease the $171 per point a few dollars