Four puchases:
1. June, 2006: SSR, 150 points: $5 per point off, got '05 and '06 points (or 06 and 07; I get confused...basically, current year as well as upcoming year points), for a price of $91/point...plus a tote bag (in the closing papers box), ice cream of our choice, fast passes, and a $50 Disney gift card at the sales center--plus, we absolutely adore our guide (Tim Grabman), so I consider him an incentive, too!
2. January, 2007: Added on 115 points at SSR thru Friends and Family--$15/point off, for price of $86/point...plus got current year points (10 days left in current year!) w/ability to bank them into next use year (10 days later!), plus yet another tote bag
3. July, 2007: 100 SSR points, $10 off (so, $91/point) plus double developer points, and -- you guessed it --ANOTHER tote bag!
4. July, 2007: 50 BCV points (for "emotional reasions")...no incentive at all ($101/point, as I recall), except the increasing-like-rabbits tote bag!
I now have four tote bags...one contains all my
DVC "prior year" paper work; one contains all my current year DVC paper work. Til last night, the other two sat in the plastic bags...but last night, hearing predictions of traffic-crippling snow for today (and having "must do" meetings on my day's agenda), I grabbed those two bags, filled them w/what's needed for myself & my dog, and "evacuated" to a "pied a terre" in town (2 blocks from my meeting sites)...so those tote bags came in handy after all--and they remind me of the sunshine and warmth "at home!"
Happy as can be w/our points, and w/DVC...the only incentive that mattered to me, tho, was the friends & family one last January...I performed "twisted math analysis" and figured $15 off, plus 115 extra points (from getting current year points when there were only 10 days left in the current year) valued at $10/point, got me to some ridiculous price per point like $75 or something (not sure I could duplicate that "math!")...all really just an excuse to talk myself into the purchase, of course!
Since June 2006 we've either taken or scheduled 8 WDW trips (and I still have 300+ points I can borrow from the 09 UY)...so no, DVC didn't save me a penny (want some more "twisted math?" I figured out a way to call our latest trip, this past Jan, "free": DVC points for the villa, frequent flyer miles for the air fare, APs for the park admission, and Christmas gift gift certificates for the dining plan...how "sick" is that in justifying an extra trip to WDW????)