Disney vs Resale Advice

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Spook's picture
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Disney vs Resale Advice

So Erik and I have been thinking about buying DVC lately and we did the tour on Tuesday. I know it's almost half the price to go the resale route but for some reason we both feel more comfortable going through Disney. Currently it's $150/point and we think we'd only need 100. They have a deal right now for $3 off per point plus you get last years points. Since we usually stay at value resorts we figure it'd take almost 17 trips to break even then we'd save about $300-400 for every trip after that. Now personally I intend to continue to go as often as possible so 17+ trips seems likely. I'm 28 and I've been 14 times already wink
With resale it'd probably take us closer to 10 trips to break even. Basically I'm just looking for advice on which way to go. What is the difference between Disney and resale? And for those of you who have gone the resale route, how was your experience? What site did you use?

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I have bought five times and sold once. Two of my purchases were direct and three were resales. I have used the Timeshare Store and Fidelity. Both were very good and easy. I have no interest in using points for Disney Cruises or The Adventurers Collection as it is a very bad use of points. At this point, unless I were buying at Beach Club again and wanted a certain number of points and use year, I would be crazy to buy direct. It is the exact same product for 1/2 price.

If you have to have Poly or GF and can't wait for resales to show up, that is about the only reason I can think of to buy direct.

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We used Resales by DVC and the transaction was VERY easy. I would highly recommend doing resale because of exactly what the Colonel said--it's a terrible use of points to use your points for DCL, adventures by Disney, or RCI exchange and those are the only benefits that you sacrifice. You are better off to rent your points to someone and use the money from the rental to apply toward your vacation.

If you buy resale, you do have to go through the Right of First Refusal, which means that if your offer is too low, Disney can buy the contract back from the seller and then resell it themselves for a higher price. The ROFR process is not difficult at all and the resale company handles the entire matter, but it is one layer of approvals that will delay your settlement. I think we submitted out contract sometime in mid-november last year and we officially settled right around Christmas.

As far as the math, we bought 200 Saratoga points for $60/point. Based on the time left on the contract when we purchased and current annual dues, I figured out that each point that we use costs us roughly $6 in current dollars. This means that if we have a year when we can't take a vacation, we could rent out our points via David's Vacation Rentals which pays $8 per point. SO renting all of our points for a given year would net us $400 profit. I think knowing your lifetime point cost is important because the vacation points are an asset that you can either use for your enjoyment or rent to others to generate income. If that potential income is positive, you win! Another important part of this equation is whether or not you have the cash to purchase because financing will significantly increase your cost per point. Also, I would try to buy in somewhere where the dues are less than $5 per point and if you intend to use most of your points in WDW, don't buy Hilton Head or Vero Beach for the cheaper buy-in because a) the dues will eat you alive and b) sometimes you can get a reservation at a non-home resort at the 7-month mark and then again, sometimes you can't. It depends on what you want.

Home resort is important for some people, but unless you always book your vacation more than 7 months ahead and you want to stay at the Wilderness Lodge for Christmas every single year, I don't see the location of the resort as being an important factor. I wasn't crazy about Saratoga Springs as a location and I got very nervous when I wasn't able to switch on our very first trip, but we have two trips booked in the spring and we switched on to Boardwalk and one to Old Key West. We're hoping to switch our trip for next fall to either Bay Lake Tower or Grand Floridian.

For us, we were able to find a contract that made financial sense all by itself, but there are some great benefits that come along regardless of who you purchase your contract from. For starters, we got a Premium Annual Pass for $399/person--just $74 more than a 10-day park ticket with no park hopper. I understand that the PAP was a special promotion, but there are always discounts on annual passes for DVC members. There are also some dining discounts, tour discounts (if you don't already have a Disney VISA), and other perks.

Wow that got really long really fast...I'm not a timeshare fan at all and we debated over buying DVC for about two years. I looked at the math from every possible angle and when it came right down to it, the risk was very minimal on the contract that we decided to make an offer on and it ended up being kind of a no-brainer. We have our first trip on points coming up in just 14 days!!

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December 2013: 10th Anniversary, 1st DVC Stay | April 2014: Birthday on the Boardwalk | May 2014: Star Wars Weekend, Navigating WDW with a wheelchair | August 2014: Villains Unleashed | September/October 2014: MNSSHP, F&W, Tower of Terror 10-miler | March/April 2015: Disneyland and California Coastal Cruise | November 2015: Wine & Dine Half, Food & Wine, 1st Disney Cruise | February 2016: Presidential Classic Gymnastics Meet | March 2016: "Work" Trip, Tours, F&G Festival | April 2016: Conference at Disneyland | Fall 2016: Festive Fall Fun | January 2017: Festival of the Arts | May 2017: AbD Backstage Magic | July 2017: AbD San Francisco | Sorry I had to give up doing trip reports. Too many time commitments right now.

Spook's picture
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We have no desire to travel anywhere but WDW and DL in California some day. Epcot gives us our fill of other places laugh

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That is exactly the way we use our DVC points also.

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RobynPrincess's picture
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I just wanted to echo what the others said. I bought once resale and once direct (as we added on at the grand Wink ) but resale is the way to go if you ask me!

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Our Very Merry 24 nighter Nov/Dec 15
Watson's go West May 15
The one with all the birthdays Oct 14 4 Big Birthdays and a Vow Renewal thrown in
The OMG trip June 14 30th Birthday present from the hubs
Girly trip March 14 A last min cheapy week
September 13 our first all DVC stay
TR May 2013 the last min bargain trip offsite
Oct 2012 TR with a cruise!big family trip featuring the beach club, AKL, the dream and a villa offsite
TR on a budget May - June 2011offsite condo
TR Sept - Oct 2010 big family trip in an offsite villa

The Colonel's picture
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I forgot the Golden Rule... buy where you want to stay.

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Spook's picture
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The Colonel wrote:
I forgot the Golden Rule... buy where you want to stay.

I've heard that before which is why we're only looking at AKL and BLT ( if we do resale).

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If you ever want to stay in a club level room or a value room at AKL you have to own there pretty much, worth thinking about!

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Our Very Merry 24 nighter Nov/Dec 15
Watson's go West May 15
The one with all the birthdays Oct 14 4 Big Birthdays and a Vow Renewal thrown in
The OMG trip June 14 30th Birthday present from the hubs
Girly trip March 14 A last min cheapy week
September 13 our first all DVC stay
TR May 2013 the last min bargain trip offsite
Oct 2012 TR with a cruise!big family trip featuring the beach club, AKL, the dream and a villa offsite
TR on a budget May - June 2011offsite condo
TR Sept - Oct 2010 big family trip in an offsite villa

Spook's picture
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RobynPrincess wrote:
If you ever want to stay in a club level room or a value room at AKL you have to own there pretty much, worth thinking about!

Thanks! We would stay at value rooms too.

Also, since you can make reservations 11-7 months out, do you have to have the points when you book? For example we usually travel November- December so if our use year was say august could we book in April with our points coming in August or do we make sure we get a January-April use year?

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Hi Spook, One of the great things about DVC is the ability to bank and borrow points. Bear with me if I don't have your example exactly correct, but let's say that you have an August use year and you are allocated 100 points on August 1, 2013. You will also be allocated 100 points on August 1, 2014 and August 1, 2015, so for any trip that you take from August 1, 2014-July 31, 2015, you could have access to up to 300 points.

Let's say that you stay with DVC in January of 2014 and use 60 points. (Balance remaining = 40 points; You must bank these points by April 1, 2014 -4 months prior to the start of your new use year- to avoid losing them) You want to take a trip the following April (2015) that will cost 212 points. You would reserve this trip at a non-home resort in September 2014. The DVC reservation system will automatically use your 40 banked points from 2013, then your 100 points from your 2014 allocation, then it will ask you to confirm that you want to borrow 72 points from your August 2015 contract.

Point availability is determined by the dates of the trip, not by the dates of the booking. For example, I can't borrow my 2015 March use year points for a trip next month, but I can borrow them for a trip that I book starting any date after March 1, 2014. Basically, you are able to access up to 3-years worth of points at a time, so if you only book DVC once every 3 years, a 100 point contract essentially gives you 300 points to play with per vacation. It's kind of confusing to think about, but it's a pretty slick system and there aren't a bunch of change fees and hidden costs like there seem to be with some of the other time share products on the market.

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Trip Reports:
December 2013: 10th Anniversary, 1st DVC Stay | April 2014: Birthday on the Boardwalk | May 2014: Star Wars Weekend, Navigating WDW with a wheelchair | August 2014: Villains Unleashed | September/October 2014: MNSSHP, F&W, Tower of Terror 10-miler | March/April 2015: Disneyland and California Coastal Cruise | November 2015: Wine & Dine Half, Food & Wine, 1st Disney Cruise | February 2016: Presidential Classic Gymnastics Meet | March 2016: "Work" Trip, Tours, F&G Festival | April 2016: Conference at Disneyland | Fall 2016: Festive Fall Fun | January 2017: Festival of the Arts | May 2017: AbD Backstage Magic | July 2017: AbD San Francisco | Sorry I had to give up doing trip reports. Too many time commitments right now.

Spook's picture
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So as long as the trip is after you get your points, you can book anytime?

The Colonel's picture
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No you can book your home resort 11 months out, other DVC resorts 7 months out as long as points will be available when you travel. And with borrowing ( as I always am) your points for say, October 2015, are available oct 1 2014. Today you can make a reservation at your home resort for October 18, 2014 using your Oct 2015 points that you borrowed.

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Spook wrote:
RobynPrincess wrote:
If you ever want to stay in a club level room or a value room at AKL you have to own there pretty much, worth thinking about!

Thanks! We would stay at value rooms too.

Just a note here - When you're figuring out how many points that you need to buy, don't count on being able to get a value room at AKL. There are only a handful of them and they go really quickly, so when if that's what you want you need to book it right at 11 months even in slow season.
mickey

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The Colonel wrote:
No you can book your home resort 11 months out, other DVC resorts 7 months out as long as points will be available when you travel. And with borrowing ( as I always am) your points for say, October 2015, are available oct 1 2014. Today you can make a reservation at your home resort for October 18, 2014 using your Oct 2015 points that you borrowed.

I meant anytime from 7-11 months in advance I just forgot to write it mickey

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Kristen K. wrote:
Spook wrote:
RobynPrincess wrote:
If you ever want to stay in a club level room or a value room at AKL you have to own there pretty much, worth thinking about!

Thanks! We would stay at value rooms too.

Just a note here - When you're figuring out how many points that you need to buy, don't count on being able to get a value room at AKL. There are only a handful of them and they go really quickly, so when if that's what you want you need to book it right at 11 months even in slow season.
mickey

It's not a big deal if we couldn't get one. We're pretty sure we want 100 points so we'd be covered for standard anyways. But thanks for the heads up! I'll make sure we book ASAP if we really want/need the value awesome

Spook's picture
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I've just thought of another resale question. When we did the tour, our guide said that you can purchase up to 24 one time use points a year. Is that still possible when buying resale?

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Yes you can still buy one time use points Smile x

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Our Very Merry 24 nighter Nov/Dec 15
Watson's go West May 15
The one with all the birthdays Oct 14 4 Big Birthdays and a Vow Renewal thrown in
The OMG trip June 14 30th Birthday present from the hubs
Girly trip March 14 A last min cheapy week
September 13 our first all DVC stay
TR May 2013 the last min bargain trip offsite
Oct 2012 TR with a cruise!big family trip featuring the beach club, AKL, the dream and a villa offsite
TR on a budget May - June 2011offsite condo
TR Sept - Oct 2010 big family trip in an offsite villa

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at 7 months out

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Thanks mickey

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The Colonel wrote:
I forgot the Golden Rule... buy where you want to stay.

Colonel, may I ask why the Golden Rule is to buy where you want to stay? I understand the reservation time difference between 7 and 11 months. But are there any other concerns with buying at a one of the resorts while staying at a different resort. Some of the resale sites currently look to have great deals at Saratoga Springs. I believe our resort of choice would be to stay at either the Beach Club or Boardwalk because of their proximity to Epcot and Hollywood Studios. Thanks for any advice.

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If you ever want to go for Christmas week or some other high demand week and you want to stay at one of the better resorts, you will probably not be able to get in at 7 months.

BCV and BWV are not an easy reservation at 7 months for any holiday or during F&W. I like to go during F&W and I wouldn't want to stay anywhere else.

Also, although highly unlikely, Disney can change the 7 months and 11 months and make it 7 months and 3 months- really whatever they want to do. They could change the home resort advantage in any way they can justify.

Although I don't agree, some view the ability to trade to non-home resorts as a perk. If it is a "perk", Disney can withdraw or modify that at any time. Or have black-out periods, etc. Then you would be stuck at SSR.

Peace of mind. I know, as long as I make my plans 11 months in advance, I can get BCV or BWV. I don't have to worry about being stuck at SSR or elsewhere. That is worth something to me. I don't want to settle for whatever is available.

If you don't mind where you stay SSR is probably the best buy. I am trying to find a BWV bargain add-on right now myself.

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The Colonel wrote:
If you ever want to go for Christmas week or some other high demand week and you want to stay at one of the better resorts, you will probably not be able to get in at 7 months.

BCV and BWV are not an easy reservation at 7 months for any holiday or during F&W. I like to go during F&W and I wouldn't want to stay anywhere else.

Also, although highly unlikely, Disney can change the 7 months and 11 months and make it 7 months and 3 months- really whatever they want to do. They could change the home resort advantage in any way they can justify.

Although I don't agree, some view the ability to trade to non-home resorts as a perk. If it is a "perk", Disney can withdraw or modify that at any time. Or have black-out periods, etc. Then you would be stuck at SSR.

Peace of mind. I know, as long as I make my plans 11 months in advance, I can get BCV or BWV. I don't have to worry about being stuck at SSR or elsewhere. That is worth something to me. I don't want to settle for whatever is available.

If you don't mind where you stay SSR is probably the best buy. I am trying to find a BWV bargain add-on right now myself.

Thank you. I never gave any thought to Disney changing those timelines. But that is a good point. We'll keep that in mind for sure while we shop.

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Ooooh do I hear an add on coming Ray?

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Our Very Merry 24 nighter Nov/Dec 15
Watson's go West May 15
The one with all the birthdays Oct 14 4 Big Birthdays and a Vow Renewal thrown in
The OMG trip June 14 30th Birthday present from the hubs
Girly trip March 14 A last min cheapy week
September 13 our first all DVC stay
TR May 2013 the last min bargain trip offsite
Oct 2012 TR with a cruise!big family trip featuring the beach club, AKL, the dream and a villa offsite
TR on a budget May - June 2011offsite condo
TR Sept - Oct 2010 big family trip in an offsite villa

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RobynPrincess wrote:
Ooooh do I hear an add on coming Ray?

I'm making bids all over the place, but it's a sellers market at the moment. Something will come through.

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The Colonel wrote:
If you ever want to go for Christmas week or some other high demand week and you want to stay at one of the better resorts, you will probably not be able to get in at 7 months.

BCV and BWV are not an easy reservation at 7 months for any holiday or during F&W. I like to go during F&W and I wouldn't want to stay anywhere else.

Also, although highly unlikely, Disney can change the 7 months and 11 months and make it 7 months and 3 months- really whatever they want to do. They could change the home resort advantage in any way they can justify.

Although I don't agree, some view the ability to trade to non-home resorts as a perk. If it is a "perk", Disney can withdraw or modify that at any time. Or have black-out periods, etc. Then you would be stuck at SSR.

Peace of mind. I know, as long as I make my plans 11 months in advance, I can get BCV or BWV. I don't have to worry about being stuck at SSR or elsewhere. That is worth something to me. I don't want to settle for whatever is available.

If you don't mind where you stay SSR is probably the best buy. I am trying to find a BWV bargain add-on right now myself.

True Story.

I was told by a friend who has DVC that they never have trouble booking at 7 months and switching resorts. Based on the difference in price and dues, we decided that SSR would be fine for us. What I didn't realize is that my friend usually goes for 4-5 days and often reserves a 1-2 BR, which gives her many more options for availability. We could not switch anywhere (without doing a split stay) for our 11-day trip at the beginning of December. It's a low point time and is a time with tons of seasonal extras. We were staying for a long time and we had to have a studio so we could ration our points for 2014: the year of the three trips.

For our 5-day trips in April and May, no problem switching at all (one we switched to OKW, so that doesn't really count bc they have lots of availability, too). It takes more points to book then (less popular for other DVC members to book), we're taking shorter trips, and we needed a 1-BR for April and a 2-BR for May. We can switch for our September/October trip next Tuesday, so we'll see how that one goes.

It turns out that we like SSR just fine, so on the trips that we can't switch, we'll be perfectly happy staying there (knowing how much less it cost us then buying somewhere where I would have originally preferred to own).

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Be good at something. It makes you valuable. Have something to bring to the table because that will make you more welcome. --Randy Pausch

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Trip Reports:
December 2013: 10th Anniversary, 1st DVC Stay | April 2014: Birthday on the Boardwalk | May 2014: Star Wars Weekend, Navigating WDW with a wheelchair | August 2014: Villains Unleashed | September/October 2014: MNSSHP, F&W, Tower of Terror 10-miler | March/April 2015: Disneyland and California Coastal Cruise | November 2015: Wine & Dine Half, Food & Wine, 1st Disney Cruise | February 2016: Presidential Classic Gymnastics Meet | March 2016: "Work" Trip, Tours, F&G Festival | April 2016: Conference at Disneyland | Fall 2016: Festive Fall Fun | January 2017: Festival of the Arts | May 2017: AbD Backstage Magic | July 2017: AbD San Francisco | Sorry I had to give up doing trip reports. Too many time commitments right now.

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I've had 100% successs on the waitlist. The two times I sayed at SSR were last minute things. But all in all- I would rather pay an extra $10 ppt and get what I want.

To me there is such a difference between at week at BCV and a week at SSR that it makes it worth it.

I used to own HHI points that I bought for $39- I used them at BW and BC. Then I sold them for $65 and bought BW points. I like the peace of mind.

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