Would SSR work for us? When to buy?

[MamaBear12]

We’ve been toying with purchasing DVC (resale) for a couple years now. Just finished up a trip to WDW today and have pixie dust in our eyes, lol. We typically go every 12-18 months, so thinking we’ll be ready to purchase in 9-12 months in anticipation of our next trip. We plan to mostly stay in one- and two-bedroom villas depending on if it will just be our family if 4 or if we’re bringing others. We won’t likely book 11-months out (unless planning a holiday trip...we travel late spring or summer otherwise and would buy a December UY). My favorite resort is AKV, but we want to stay at *all* the resorts. We would be fine with staying at SSR if we couldn’t book elsewhere. So, here are my questions:

1) Given the 2020 point increase in 1-bedrooms at several resorts, am I correct in assuming they’ll likely be *easier* to book at the 7-month mark (barring certain DVC high seasons of course)? In which case, it would be more cost-effective to buy SSR points to use for 1-bedroom bookings across DVC, correct?

2) Given our purchase timeline, would it be wise to wait until the 2021 point chart comes out? I see that many are speculating that 2020 might just be phase 1 of the point changes and 2021 will have additional changes.

3) Is it better to purchase at the end of the year or beginning of the year? Do prices tend to drop a bit before MFs are due?

Thanks!

 

[JETSDAD]

We’ve been toying with purchasing DVC (resale) for a couple years now. Just finished up a trip to WDW today and have pixie dust in our eyes, lol. We typically go every 12-18 months, so thinking we’ll be ready to purchase in 9-12 months in anticipation of our next trip. We plan to mostly stay in one- and two-bedroom villas depending on if it will just be our family if 4 or if we’re bringing others. We won’t likely book 11-months out (unless planning a holiday trip...we travel late spring or summer otherwise and would buy a December UY). My favorite resort is AKV, but we want to stay at *all* the resorts. We would be fine with staying at SSR if we couldn’t book elsewhere. So, here are my questions:

1) Given the 2020 point increase in 1-bedrooms at several resorts, am I correct in assuming they’ll likely be *easier* to book at the 7-month mark (barring certain DVC high seasons of course)? In which case, it would be more cost-effective to buy SSR points to use for 1-bedroom bookings across DVC, correct?

2) Given our purchase timeline, would it be wise to wait until the 2021 point chart comes out? I see that many are speculating that 2020 might just be phase 1 of the point changes and 2021 will have additional changes.

3) Is it better to purchase at the end of the year or beginning of the year? Do prices tend to drop a bit before MFs are due?

Thanks!

Just wondering why you would buy a Dec UY if you're travelling spring and summer? Something closer to the beginning of your usual travel would be more ideal.

 

[MamaBear12]

Just wondering why you would buy a Dec UY if you're travelling spring and summer? Something closer to the beginning of your usual travel would be more ideal.

We do go in December or early January some years, so a Dec UY would cover those travel times as well as spring and summer.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

You have a lot of variety in your plan - try different resorts, different times and maybe different villa size. And you're not on a specific annual trip. For those reasons I don't think there's much of a reason to wait to see the 2021 points other than if you feel if they do increase the 1BR's again that it would change your decision to purchase. You'll be looking for a contract of a decent size and probably using either banking or borrowing fairly frequently because of the variety of rooms you plan on staying in.

Since you'll be ok with SSR stays I'd agree it's probably going to be the most economical way to own and use it for various DVC resorts. For Spring and Summer the 1Br's are relatively easy to get but you might find yourself planning earlier once you're an owner. At least at the 7 month window would be more helpful to increase satisfaction with DVC. Dec holiday trips should be booked at 11 months at your home resort and then just see if you can change. If you can't do that then it could be an issue.

It seems that at the end of the year there gets to be an increased inventory of resale listings but if you find an appealing contract I wouldn't wait just to see what few extra dollars could be saved then.

 

[zavandor]

2) Given our purchase timeline, would it be wise to wait until the 2021 point chart comes out? I see that many are speculating that 2020 might just be phase 1 of the point changes and 2021 will have additional changes.

The 2020 reallocation did 3 things:
1) reallocated points between vacation home sizes to favor larger units at the expense of 1BR and studios. If they do this again this might be favorable for you since you would look to stay in 2BR too. I don't think they'd increase 1BR anyway, studios are more at risk of further increases
2) they have reallocated seasons: this is likely to happen again. Disney has just released free dining for the summer, which I think is unprecedented, seasons that existed 25 years ago do not make sense anymore. They can only reallocate up to 20% each year, I don't think they've finished yet.
3) they have increased the lockoff premium to increase the points required to book studios and 1BR, creating points out of thin air. I fear this will happen again, but only to increase studios, in order to decrease the differential between the two.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

Frankly, they NEED to reallocate seasons. Fall frenzy won't be touched by this last round.

 

[MamaBear12]

I don't think there's much of a reason to wait to see the 2021 points other than if you feel if they do increase the 1BR's again that it would change your decision to purchase.

This is my concern as far as initial points purchased. We plan to buy a little cushion just in case, but I don’t want to over/under buy significantly. I know we could always add on in the future though, so maybe I shouldn’t worry about potentially buying too few points initially.

 

[MamaBear12]

2) they have reallocated seasons: this is likely to happen again. Disney has just released free dining for the summer, which I think is unprecedented, seasons that existed 25 years ago do not make sense anymore. They can only reallocate up to 20% each year, I don't think they've finished yet.
3) they have increased the lockoff premium to increase the points required to book studios and 1BR, creating points out of thin air. I fear this will happen again, but only to increase studios, in order to decrease the differential between the two.

Thank you for the summary. So, you think 1-bedrooms will likely stay where they are as of 2020 point chart? Do you think summer will see a point decrease?

Frankly, they NEED to reallocate seasons. Fall frenzy won't be touched by this last round.

We don’t travel in the fall, so if they do increase points needed for fall booking I guess this might work to our advantage as far as spring and summer points go. Might it increase demand at the 7-month window for spring/summer? Or do you think most of those affected would still travel in the fall, but just plan shorter trips?

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

This is my concern as far as initial points purchased. We plan to buy a little cushion just in case, but I don’t want to over/under buy significantly. I know we could always add on in the future though, so maybe I shouldn’t worry about potentially buying too few points initially.

How are you calculating the points you need, and thus a cushion, when you don’t have a fixed resort and even week that you plan to always stay? I guess my point is that your going to be less affected by point changes because you don’t have a specific anything your looking for. If you buy to cover a 1BR SSR premium view plus a cushion to cover increases, 2br stays and more expensive resorts then a point reallocation might just mean you stay standard view instead. You’ll be continually playing with banked and borrowed points once you start moving around.

Any of us here will be at a healthy amount of speculation about point changes - I’d guess that zero people saw increases to 1BRs coming. The best guesses because allocations can bump up against limits is that it might be a repeat of what we saw this round although doing so would push more 1 BRs up and 2 BRs down and you might just find more 2brs cheaper than 1brs. I’m not expecting that scenario, but I didn’t expect to see some 1brs cheaper than some 2brs at the same resort.

 

[MamaBear12]

How are you calculating the points you need, and thus a cushion, when you don’t have a fixed resort and even week that you plan to always stay? I guess my point is that your going to be less affected by point changes because you don’t have a specific anything your looking for. If you buy to cover a 1BR SSR premium view plus a cushion to cover increases, 2br stays and more expensive resorts then a point reallocation might just mean you stay standard view instead. You’ll be continually playing with banked and borrowed points once you start moving around.

Any of us here will be at a healthy amount of speculation about point changes - I’d guess that zero people saw increases to 1BRs coming. The best guesses because allocations can bump up against limits is that it might be a repeat of what we saw this round although doing so would push more 1 BRs up and 2 BRs down and you might just find more 2brs cheaper than 1brs. I’m not expecting that scenario, but I didn’t expect to see some 1brs cheaper than some 2brs at the same resort.

That makes sense. Thanks.

 

[Deb & Bill]

If you plan on going during December, plan on booking SSR at 11 months out and not being able to change to a different resort. It's a very busy time.

 

[DisneyDiana]

As an AKV owner, I have to mention that if you prefer Jambo over Kidani availability at 7 months for studios has been getting tighter even in the summer months. Since you're interested in 1 bedrooms, at this point, you should be fine. I just wanted to be sure you were aware of this before settling on SSR and you mention AKV is your favorite.

 

[MamaBear12]

As an AKV owner, I have to mention that if you prefer Jambo over Kidani availability at 7 months for studios has been getting tighter even in the summer months. Since you're interested in 1 bedrooms, at this point, you should be fine. I just wanted to be sure you were aware of this before settling on SSR and you mention AKV is your favorite.

We’re leaning towards buying AKV now to have the 11-month window there for occasional holiday trips. We want to “sleep around”, but AKV is definitely our favorite! Decisions, decisions...

 

[zavandor]

If you plan on going during December, plan on booking SSR at 11 months out and not being able to change to a different resort. It's a very busy time.

I would add "at the moment".
DVC has started reallocating points between seasons, making adventure and choice more expensive while dream and magic cheaper.
That could be just the first step. In a few years early December could became magic season, causing many to rethink they preferred travel times.

 

[Matty B13]

I would add "at the moment".
DVC has started reallocating points between seasons, making adventure and choice more expensive while dream and magic cheaper.
That could be just the first step. In a few years early December could became magic season, causing many to rethink they preferred travel times.

Makes you wonder if we will see the list of seasons for from 5 to 3, or less.