Using Points for DCL

[Showe]

Not sure if this should be here or the DCL forum but - I am curious about purchasing insurance. Lets say I purchase ins for an upcoming cruise so I would include airfare, cruise etc. How does this work when i "purchased" our cruise using our vacation points. Lets say we for some reason cannot make our trip and have to cancel like a week or two before. Does travel insurance allow for my used points? since I would be canceling the cruise in such a short jperiod of time do I get my points back or do I lose them totally? I have held off getting ins for our upcoming cruise becuase to be honest I have never purchased insurance before for any of our trips. I thought insurance was a necessity for those paying cash for their entire trip.....any advice would be appreciated.

 

[abner1776]

I am sure some more experienced DVC'ers will have better info, but I recall that once you use your points outside of the DVC resorts, you cannot then bring those points back to use at one of the DVC resorts. The points become "tainted"(what is the correct term, anyone) and then can only be used for another cruise or another resort in the Disney Collection. (Help me out here folks...I'm drowning in my own limited knowledge).

 

[Donna]

Not sure if this should be here or the DCL forum but - I am curious about purchasing insurance. Lets say I purchase ins for an upcoming cruise so I would include airfare, cruise etc. How does this work when i "purchased" our cruise using our vacation points. Lets say we for some reason cannot make our trip and have to cancel like a week or two before. Does travel insurance allow for my used points? since I would be canceling the cruise in such a short jperiod of time do I get my points back or do I lose them totally? I have held off getting ins for our upcoming cruise becuase to be honest I have never purchased insurance before for any of our trips. I thought insurance was a necessity for those paying cash for their entire trip.....any advice would be appreciated.

The points become reservation points but i'm pretty sure you still have to cancel them within DCL's guidelines for you to keep them. Can't remember them offhand, is it 30 days? Outside those amount of days, your insurance would kick in. When you got your DCL confirmation, was there something in there about purchasing insurance? I'm pretty sure that insurance just allows you to keep those points, but even keeping them, they do become reservation points and can only be used for another cruise, disney hotels, etc., anything other than a DVC resort.

 

[Showe]

ok, i just found my paperwork that has the cancellation policy...it states that if we cancel within 74-45 days of sailing date we forfeit 24 pts per person (we are doing the 4-night cruise)...within 44-8 days of sailing we forfeit 50% of reservation pts per person....cancellation w/in 7-0 days we get NO REFUND. So what then does travel insurance cover...what if someone gets sick and its in that 0-7 day period do we lose it all or does insurance cover that and do we get our pts back ? ( i know they go back into the holding tank so to speak and have to be used for the disney collection.)

Our cruise is in June and of course you never anticipate anything happening but "what if " is on my mind today. (I guess probably becuase I have been home with two sick kids now for FOUR long days.)

 

[Donna]

ok, i just found my paperwork that has the cancellation policy...it states that if we cancel within 74-45 days of sailing date we forfeit 24 pts per person (we are doing the 4-night cruise)...within 44-8 days of sailing we forfeit 50% of reservation pts per person....cancellation w/in 7-0 days we get NO REFUND. So what then does travel insurance cover...what if someone gets sick and its in that 0-7 day period do we lose it all or does insurance cover that and do we get our pts back ? ( i know they go back into the holding tank so to speak and have to be used for the disney collection.)

Our cruise is in June and of course you never anticipate anything happening but "what if " is on my mind today. (I guess probably becuase I have been home with two sick kids now for FOUR long days.)

That is what i think the travel insurance will cover (not sure what incidents it covers), if you have to cancel in those time frames, you retain your points. They will be retained as reservation points though, as you know. But that is better than nothing, you could even take another cruise with them.
Good luck with the sick kids. Been there, done that and it ain't fun!

 

[Disneyaholic]

The cruise (or other) travel insurance has a lot of restrictions on it. You can't cancel "just because"... it has to be for a documented medical reason or a death in the family or something. We wanted to purchase insurance many years ago because we didn't know if my son's baseball team would be in state playoffs or not. We were told that something like that is definitely NOT covered by the insurance. Neither is a work "crisis" or anything like similalr.

I believe that instead of returning your points, they only pay a certain dollar value per point. It used to be $5 per point (barely covers your maintenance fees, let alone the value of using the points!), but hopefully that amount has increased now? What I'm not sure about is if you were to cancel within the time frame to get a refund of 1/2 your points -- I guess they would pay for the other half???

Good luck.

 

[Showe]

The cruise (or other) travel insurance has a lot of restrictions on it. You can't cancel "just because"... it has to be for a documented medical reason or a death in the family or something. We wanted to purchase insurance many years ago because we didn't know if my son's baseball team would be in state playoffs or not. We were told that something like that is definitely NOT covered by the insurance. Neither is a work "crisis" or anything like similalr.

I believe that instead of returning your points, they only pay a certain dollar value per point. It used to be $5 per point (barely covers your maintenance fees, let alone the value of using the points!), but hopefully that amount has increased now? What I'm not sure about is if you were to cancel within the time frame to get a refund of 1/2 your points -- I guess they would pay for the other half???

Good luck.

nice to know. I wondered if they just didn't assign a dollar value to the pts and go from there. I really am not anticipating anything and I know certain things are covered and not covered...I just wanted to be prepared for the what ifs....

thanks for all of the insight