VC points, Dinning Plans and other questions

[Neska]

Hello everyone!
My DF and I have been looking into renting VC points for our wedding weekend. My DF is a little hesitant diving into this process, but the whole thing sounds like a deal to me. I've read Carrie's book and I follow the podcasts... if she says it works, then I give her my trust.

Some of our family and guests are curious about it too. We're having trouble though answering their questions. My family thinks that there must be a mistake that the prices are so good. His family thinks that they're way too expensive. LOL! Guess we can't please everyone.

So if you've rented points before, especially if you've gone through David's Disney Vacation Point Rental site, I hope you can help us out with some questions.

1. We know that you can get the dinning plan added through David's site, but do we have to get it through him? I'm concerned because some of our guests are switching to other WDW resorts after the wedding and I'm not sure if they would lose there plan. My DF can't decide if the dinning plan is connected with your ticket or your room reservation. Which is it?

2. How is the overall experience working with David's site? We realize that his point value is more expensive, but we feel more secure working with a business than an individual.

3. What is a good way letting our guest know about the option to rent points without making it too complicated or scary?

Thank you for helping us answer these questions. It's starting to get a little overwhelming and I want to let my family and guest know that there are more options out there instead of them just throwing there arms in the air and say that they're not going. That's all ready happened once. (>_<)#

 

[MrsDrewsky]

Hi, I can help a little. My dh and I rented points from David's site last September.

- David is the middle man for the dvc owners to sell their points. The owner who you're renting the points from will be the one adding the dining plan to your room reservation. So the room is what the dining plan is attached to, not the tickets. You will tell David you want to add the dining plan, he'll give the owner your cc number, and the owner will add it to the reservation. To keep your cc info private you can choose to buy a Disney giftcard for the amount needed and give that to the owner instead.

- if someone does a stay through David's vacation club site and another through Disney they would just add the meal plan to each stay. One thing with renting points through him is you have to pay for the full amount upfront, and if you have to cancel you will not be refunded. I would recommend trip insurance.

- to explain it to your guests I would just refer them to his site. He has a great FAQ section, or even send them to the disboards DVC forum.

Hope that helped a little

 

[Neska]

Thank you so much! You've been a great help!!! (^_^)

 

[Jilian]

I don't know about David's site but I'm renting points through the timeshare store and they are normally $12/point but as the date gets closer they often have discoutned last minute points for $8/point, so if you're ok with waiting until closer to the date you may get a really good price. What I did was to book a resort stay (room only) that could be cancelled with full refund up to 5 days before and then when the points went on sale I booked the points and cancelled the room only reservation and got a full refund. The only risk is not getting the DVC resort that you want if you are going during a busy time of year. But in that case just book a Disney resort that you really like and would be ok with being stuck in if your DVC choice is unavailable.

 

[rosworms]

i have a question about this too. i heard that upon signing the wedding contract, DFTW needs confirmation of you staying on disney property. how do you do this with renting DVC?
i want to do this so bad, but i am so scared of screwing everything up...

 

[NeverlandClub23]

I've rented before and am currently renting points for a stay this December (for our wedding). I've never rented through David before so I can't comment on that. I've decided not to give my friends/family the information on renting for a few reasons. Mainly because I don't want to field all of the millions of questions they are going to ask . But I think directing them to David's website would be the best way to go about it.

DVC rooms are different then the regular rooms at Disney resorts. Even though you can sleep 4 people in a studio (which has one queen bed and a sleeper sofa), doesn't mean you have the room like you would at a regular resort with two queen beds. Also, housekeeping isn't but for every few days and I know that even if I told some of my guests that they would still be making comments like "I can't believe we can't get daily housekeeping here" or the like. You also can't cancel or change a DVC reservation. So if something comes up, you or your guests are out the money (unless you buy travel insurance).

I tried to go through another DVC rental company (like David's), as the points were cheaper to rent than David's, but the company seems to have a hard time getting points to rent out. I ended up just going through the rent/trade board here and got a great deal at $10 a point. It can be done safely through the rent/trade board, you just have to make sure to cover all your bases. It would've been an extra $474 to rent the same reservation through David's, but then you do get that extra layer of security (which really is just that he/they have a contract with the person renting out the points; you could still be stuck without a reservation when you go to check in).

If you do decide to rent through a private renter make sure to do AT LEAST the following:

• Check references
• Check the Orlando Deed Records to make sure that person even has a DVC contract
• Have a written contract between you and the person renting their points
• Check your reservation number with Disney before forking over any cash

Good luck! Renting is a great economical way to get to experience nicer resorts, as long as you know what you're getting.

The dining plan is tied to your room reservation. So when they checked out of one place, even if they were going to another Disney owned property, they would have until midnight of the day they check out to use any dining credits they have left. If they decided to get the dining plan at the next place, they would get the credits at check-in and then have until midnight of the day they check out to use all of their dining credits. Hope that makes sense!

Do your guests have to stay at Disney for a room block requirement? If not, maybe they could rent an off-site condo or house with a pool? There's amazing rental deals in the Orlando area. Or if there's enough of them going (and if you're comfortable doing this), maybe you could rent a Grand Villa at a DVC resort and then split the cost between everyone staying there. Just some ideas .

 

[Jilian]

i have a question about this too. i heard that upon signing the wedding contract, DFTW needs confirmation of you staying on disney property. how do you do this with renting DVC?
i want to do this so bad, but i am so scared of screwing everything up...

I'm almost 100% positive that DVC counts as staying on Disney property. It is owned by Disney. You check the confirmation in the Disney system so you'd have a Disney confirmation number that they could check to verify.

 

[lurkyloo]

Exactly. Stays at DVC resorts on points count toward DFTW's hotel requirement. When you rent DVC points, you are given a reservation number just like the one you would get if you made a Disney hotel reservation, and you just give that to DFTW.