What's the downside?

[dcfromva]

My sister's family scheduled a trip to WDW in July. We were really happy to find out that we could get time off work and we could join them. But, all our points are already booked for this year. I briefly thought about rescheduling our New Years BCV villas trip to use the points for July, instead. DH said, "No Way!", he was looking forward to spending New Years at EPCOT again this year! He didn't want to borrow points from next year because what would we do next year for our WDW vacation?! (I'm not the only Disney fan in this household ).
So, we booked a room which will cost us $1170 (including tax) for 6 nights. Then, I got to thinking--what if we bought 150 more points. The down payment would be $1260 and we could use the points to cover 5 of the 6 nights at the hotel (although I don't have any idea about availablility). Our out of pocket cost would be an additional $264 than what we had originally planned to pay(plus maint. fees and payments)... But wouldn't that be better than just loosing the $1170? Under this scenario, we would be staying at the same hotel. I figure that the actual cost (incl the maint fee and 1/39 of the total price) of the points for this stay would be within about $4.00 of the cash price.
What am I overlooking?

-DC

 

[InstImpres]

The only down side, is if you can not afford the on-going maint. and mortgage payments.

One other thought...I don't know how many points this stay s you are looking at, but you could buy 100 instead of 150 and borrow from the new points. Since DH isn't expecting those, he can't already hae them counted into next year's plan.

If money isn't an issue, I say go for it. I find the extra points are encouraging me to have more needed R and R in my favorite vacation spot;

Good luck
Sandy

 

[chris1gill]

Well, don't forget, you'll now have the mortgage on those 150 points for how many years?? And, of course you'll have to pay the maintenance fees as well!! Do you think if you purchased the additional points, that you would use them in the future? Is it worth spending 12 grand (or whatever the cost), when you could just pay the cash rate (a one time pay out) of 1100.00?

Having said all that, if you think it makes sense & you think that you WILL use these points & you really WANT these points, then I would go ahead & purchase half of what you need for this upcoming trip... use the current points & borrow the rest from next year....

I'd seriously think of buying myself, but, well, I love DVC

 

[CarolMN]

Have you thought about renting points for this "extra/unplanned" trip? 6 nights in a studio at BCV would be 112 points (assuming only one night is a weekend night). If you can get a standard view at BWV (unlikely) or a studio at OKW, it would be even less points. Either way, you'd have nicer accomodations than a hotel room, pay less $$, and have no ongoing payments (assuming you otherwise wouldn't buy more points). Since July is fast approaching, maybe you can find someone who will charge less than $10/point.


Good luck - whatever you decide

 

[jaysue]

I second CarolMN, to buy the points based on a straight up one year comparison to a hotel/resort stay does not ring true with me.

It appears that you may not use the points once you buy them on a productive consistent basis. My advice would be hold off for another year and if you find yourselves in the same position of not having enough points then considering purchsing.

Thanks
Jason

 

[BCVOwner2002]

Although you can afford the down payment, can you afford the rest of the payments you will have to make to pay for 150 additional points? Could you get by with just 75 more? If the answer to the second question is yes then you could buy 75; use those and borrow next year's 75 points. This way, you wouldn't be interferring with next year's vacation points except for the new points and since DH wasn't counting on those for next year you'd be all set. Just another scenario to your points. Annmarie

 

[Cruelladeville]

Can you afford the payments? If you can, then do it!!! Renting isn't an improvement over being a cash customer, in my opinion, since the cost is the same. You WILL use those extra points, believe me. I started with 170 pts, am up to 700 now, and I have to plan carefully to have enough pts for all we want to do. If you have a year when you don't plan to use the points, rent them on the rent/trade board, or rent to your sister, or give them to me--one of us is sure to find a use for those pts.!

 

[SlyHubby]

unfortunately I have to disagree Cruella.

in this case, I would suggest looking into renting points or just paying the cash.

you are looking at a one time expense for this (out of the ordinary) stay and then jumping to a $11,000+ financial decision which will commit you to even more Disney vacations and cost in the future.

not that people aren't entitled to do whatever they like with their money, but, sometimes the "happy talk" around here really does get out of hand. things like "you can never have too many points". yes, you can have too many.

buying 150 more points to save $1200 typifies "penny wise, pound foolish" in my mind - you are going to spend $12,000 to save $1200. that's what it boils down to.

 

[JOC]

Originally posted by SlyHubby

not that people aren't entitled to do whatever they like with their money, but, sometimes the "happy talk" around here really does get out of hand. things like "you can never have too many points". yes, you can have too many.

SlyHubby,
How refreshing to hear a different view about points!

P.S. Just curious, but do you by chance have too many points?

 

[dcfromva]

It just occurred to me that I left out a couple of important considerations in my thought process. I have been thinking about getting a 100point add on since last April. (In fact I had started the paperwork for a contract, but didn't complete it mainly because my guide didn't return my phone calls in a timely fashion and I when I called her back, I always got the voice mail --but, that is a whole 'nuther story. I thought I would give my guide one more chance and then I am going to call the main number and ask for a different guide.)

The other thing that I was thinking about was getting a different use-year to cover Christmas vacations to include extended family members (currently, my use-year is Feb and Dec vacations make me nervous, just worried about a cancellations outside of my control.....) I think you have to get 150 minimum points in order to get a different use year.

Last year, we seemed to have enough points. Probably because we also had a 7 day and a 3 day complimentary visit. Our past vacation habits-we generally visit DL once or twice a year and WDW 3 or 4 times a year.

I don't know if we will ever get tired of Disney. We used to go to DL all the time when we lived in L.A. (before DS made his appearance). We've made over 22 trips to WDW and we still like to go there.(Don't worry,we also go to other places, too. We like to collect stamps at National Parks.)

I just figured I would use discounted cash rates to suppliment our additonal Disney trips that we didn't have enough points for... but, when I looked at how much money we would be putting out, I started to wonder why we shouldn't just add more points each year.

-DC

 

[jaysue]

If you are looking for a good guide, Byron Helgeson did a great job for us and the person who referred us into DVC as well. When I did a call out for opinions on him there were at least 15 positives and no negatives

thanks
jaysue

 

[WDWguruDH]

We did exactly this...we were going to take an Alaskan cruise and instead of paying cash for the cruise, we used it as a down payment and did the cruise on points. We were planning on doing an add-on in the next year anyway, so it worked out to be substantially cheaper in the long run. If you were going to do an add-on sometime soon anyway and can afford the additional expense right now, it makes sense to me!

 

[SlyHubby]

Originally posted by WDWguruDH
If you were going to do an add-on sometime soon anyway and can afford the additional expense right now, it makes sense to me!

that I agree with. If you were going to add on anyway, then it makes sense. if it was a one time event that you were trying to justify buying more points because of, then I think it would be the wrong thing to do.

He didn't want to borrow points from next year because what would we do next year for our WDW vacation?!

if you were planning to add on anyway, then why not just borrow the points from next year on your existing contract, and use the new points for next year's trip? why should your DH be worried about next year's trip if you'd have another contract to cover that? does DH know of your plan to add more points?

 

[dcfromva]

SlyHubby,

does DH know of your plan to add more points?

Weeeell.... I'm not sure. I may have mentioned it in the past couple of days, but I don't know if it sank in or not... (I think he'll figure it out for sure when I ask him to sign the papers. ) He doesn't usually concern himself with the finances.
You know, I don't think I had thought about all the resources available to me in terms of the borrowing and then replacing the points with the add on. DH usually just goes with the flow (that is why it took me by surprise that he expressed an opinion about point usage--I guess he really likes his DVC )

-DC