Why Buy When You Can Rent?

[shonnons]

IMHO, if BLT or VGC is what u really want, buy from Disney.

Most other resorts you can buy resale and save a bunch of $.

FYI,

AKV has been very hard to buy resale. Disney has been very aggressive. I have recently had 4 times Disney has exercised it ROFR. In talking with Jaki the only contract she had seen go through as of late was $89 pt. and for $3 a point you may want to just go to Disney if you are looking at AKV. I am now buying through Disney at $92 pt.

 

[disney_mommy]

Thanks, everyone, for the replies. I see the common idea here is control. And, as a control freak, I completely understand!

I guess I've been very lucky to find an owner that I trust. She has been very patient with me and answered all of my questions (and there were a lot!), and even canceled, returned my money, and rebooked for me a few months later. Who knows how many times she's had to make a call to Disney for me?

For those that bought, how many times a year do you go? I usually only go once a year, tops, so renting is probably my best bet.

Let me ask another question about how you buy points. Again, I have no idea how this works, but if someone can give me a brief rundown, I'd appreciate it - so, you buy so many points for a price - say $18,000. Once you pay off that initial $18,000, then all you have left are yearly dues, right? And you get to use that same amount of points every year, for a certain number of years, like 50 or so? And you can roll them over to the next year?

 

[Chuck S]

Let me ask another question about how you buy points. Again, I have no idea how this works, but if someone can give me a brief rundown, I'd appreciate it - so, you buy so many points for a price - say $18,000. Once you pay off that initial $18,000, then all you have left are yearly dues, right? And you get to use that same amount of points every year, for a certain number of years, like 50 or so? And you can roll them over to the next year?

Basically, yes. Say you have a June use year and a 200 point contract. Every year on June 1st, you'll receive 200 points that can be used for reservations from June 1st to May 31. They can be banked for one year, in effect giving you 400 points to use the next use year. You could also borrow from the following use year to make a reservation, so you could have 600 points available to you if you took a vacation every 3 years.

You may bank your points during the first 8 months of your use year. If you fail to bank them, you must use them or lose them by the end of the current use year.

Banking and borrowing are final transactions, the point can not be returned to their original use year.

 

[littlestar]

If you go resale, you can buy as little as 25 points. Then you could do add-ons through Disney if you wanted to for as little as 25 points at a time. If you finance through Disney, they require a minimum add-on of 50 points.

A small resale purchase is something to think about. I've heard of people buying just enough points for a studio for five nights a year.

Good luck.

 

[robinb]

I guess I've been very lucky to find an owner that I trust. She has been very patient with me and answered all of my questions (and there were a lot!), and even canceled, returned my money, and rebooked for me a few months later. Who knows how many times she's had to make a call to Disney for me?

Yes, you are very lucky. The vast majority of DVC owners would not allow you to cancel, would not return your money and would not work with you again even if they did. If you plan to rent in the future you will be hard pressed to find another owner who will bend over backwards to call and call and call for you for a mere $9.50 per point. Honestly, she's a saint .

So ... I think you should take that into account with your rent v/s buy equation. One more thing ... I see from your signature that you cruise quite a bit. Buying DVC to use on the cruise line is not recommended.

 

[crisi]

We only use our points every other year for a week at WDW. We take other vacations - and often Disney vacations - in the alternate years, but pay cash (cruises, ABD).

We have enough points to stay every other year in a two bedroom for a week - with a few left over. Which means every few trips we add an extra night.

 

[Jason@dvcstore]

FYI,

AKV has been very hard to buy resale. Disney has been very aggressive. I have recently had 4 times Disney has exercised it ROFR. In talking with Jaki the only contract she had seen go through as of late was $89 pt. and for $3 a point you may want to just go to Disney if you are looking at AKV. I am now buying through Disney at $92 pt.

FYI: The Timeshare Store, Inc.® just had an Animal Kingdom 160 point contract waive (waived on 12/3/09) at $81 per point. It was a December use year and the buyer paid the closing costs of $475 and seller paid all the dues for 2009.

BUYER TO RECEIVE 1 BANKED POINT FROM THE 2008 ALLOCATION, 160 POINTS FROM THE 2009 ALLOCATION, 160 POINTS FROM THE 2010 ALLOCATION AND ALL POINTS FROM CLOSING FORWARD.

Jason

 

[Petraman]

... One more thing ... I see from your signature that you cruise quite a bit. Buying DVC to use on the cruise line is not recommended.

I have always found this type comment intriguing. It is true that you will not get the value per point that you would get from going to a resort, but you still wwill get your yearly value.

If you are like me, I bought into DVC as our yearly family vacation. We will only be taking 1 trip per year, and this will be our main vacation every year. But we also love the DCL. Even though we could buy our cruise with cash for almost the same as with points, we would have to come up with that $$ and then have to rent out points to recoup costs... for us just simpler to book our cruise and enjoy our ownership.

Example:
We're booked on Nov 2011 Disney Dream trip... inside stateroom.
If we paid cash for trip today the cost would be $1500 without insurance or transport.

We used our DVC points. The yearly points value (based on yearly annual dues) was $1130.

Bottom line: If you want to buy and use your points for cruises, you won't lose money, just won't get quite the bang for your buck as you do with WDW onsite villas.
But I guess if you buy points to cruise quite a bit or you know you are going to cruise like every other year, it would make sense to do waht crisi has done. Buy enough points to go DVC every other year, and leave other year open to pay $$ for whatever trip

 

[crisi]

Petaman - are you calculating TVM on your intitial investment? That is often where "it is a good deal to cruise" breaks down.

The other issue is that the points it takes to cruise go up each year, so if you intend on using points to cruise regularly, you will be buying more points, or evenutally pay cash for some of your fares.

 

[Petraman]

Petaman - are you calculating TVM on your intitial investment? That is often where "it is a good deal to cruise" breaks down.

The other issue is that the points it takes to cruise go up each year, so if you intend on using points to cruise regularly, you will be buying more points, or evenutally pay cash for some of your fares.

The point I was trying to make was not the "value" of cruising with points.

I was just pointing out that for people like us who own points and that is our vacation for the year, we can't just go out and pay $$ to cruise, unless we bank our points or rent them.

I did not put in initial costs because in reality I have already paid that expense, so when we go on cruise, my only cash outlay is my yearly dues.

So if you are crunching numbers for your trip with an abacus to see if you got best deal, then don't cruise with points.... if you own points and want to go have a great time with less hassle and simply enjoy your points, I see no problem doing it. IMHO..

BTW, interestingly enough, the points for the cruises actually went down a little for the Disney Dream. I guess maybe because they can fit so many more on it... who knows. But in the future I am sure points will go back to increasing..

 

[Brian Noble]

I did not put in initial costs because in reality I have already paid that expense, so when we go on cruise, my only cash outlay is my yearly dues.

Suppose you go to WDW every other year, and DCL on the "off" years. You could buy points for an "every-year" vacation. Or, you could buy half that amount to cover your WDW vacations, and put the money you *would* have spent on the other half, plus the dues you did not have to pay every year, in an interest-bearing account, and pay for DCL out of that.

In most cases, under reasonable assumptions about long-term interest rates, the second plan will leave you with money left over at the end of the DVC contract term. That's the sense in which using points for a cruise is a "bad deal".

That said, there's nothing wrong with using your points the way you choose---but for someone who is considering a purchase (like the OP) it is worth making clear that DVC points are best used on DVC resort stays. So buying the "right size" for your resort-specific needs is wise.

 

[robinb]

I was just pointing out that for people like us who own points and that is our vacation for the year, we can't just go out and pay $$ to cruise, unless we bank our points or rent them.

But if you do rent your points, you will "use" fewer points in the rental process than to "buy" the cruise outright with points.

 

[shonnons]

FYI: The Timeshare Store, Inc.® just had an Animal Kingdom 160 point contract waive (waived on 12/3/09) at $81 per point. It was a December use year and the buyer paid the closing costs of $475 and seller paid all the dues for 2009.

BUYER TO RECEIVE 1 BANKED POINT FROM THE 2008 ALLOCATION, 160 POINTS FROM THE 2009 ALLOCATION, 160 POINTS FROM THE 2010 ALLOCATION AND ALL POINTS FROM CLOSING FORWARD.

Jason

They must not like me because I have been bought back at 80, 83, 84 and 85 for 160pt and 200pt contracts all but one Dec UY. My husband has asked me if maybe I pulled Mickey’s tail once when I was a kid.

 

[disney_mommy]

Hmmm... I have a lot of information to mull over. I just can't put out the money right now, so I will definitely continue to rent from my saintly owner. If I do buy, it will definitely be for AKV. Littlestar, I will keep thinking about your idea - it makes sense for me.

 

[ldo]

enough points for EOY. It's a smaller purchase price, smaller annual dues, resale was lower than thru DVC. Here's an ex. of why owning is good. We reserved for SIL for June, she decided she didn't want to go, we canceled and booked for Christmas-NYE, then we decided that would not work, canceled and booked for Spring break and then added an extra studio for 2 days for my parents. These were 5 minute calls to MS.
Also, if you are an owner, you can have points transferred into your account and you control those points---similar cost to renting. Note--only 1 transfer per year---but, if you have a time where you need more points for a bigger trip, it's a nice option. good luck. Elaine (ps--thanks, Jason, for posting on these BBs--we bought from you several years ago).

 

[Jason@dvcstore]

Elaine (ps--thanks, Jason, for posting on these BBs--we bought from you several years ago).

You're welcome and glad to see you are enjoying the points. Enjoy the Holidays!!!

Jason