Choosing the Right Points for Your Disney Vacation Club Membership

[PCMomto4]

I am pretty sure that I remember someone on here talking about buying into the Disney Vacation Club. We have decided to buy into it also but are trying to figure out how many points to buy and was hoping for some advice. We have already been preapproved, just need to let them know how many points and wire them the 10% down payment!

 

[PampChefJoy]

We are members - we've been for 10 years. I can help!What type of accomodations will you typically be booking? Studio, 1 bd or 2 bd
How many days will you stay per trip? and how much will that be Sun-Th and Fri/Sat?
How many times a year will you go?
What time(s) of year will you go?We started with 150, then bought another 100, then another 50, and then sold 150, so now we have 150 again... which barely covers a 2bd stay for us anymore since they shifted the points around. Am contemplating buying more points again, lol...

 

[PCMomto4]

Well we are a family of six, however right now they are 7, 5, 2 and 3 months so we can do a one bedroom right now but eventually will need a two bedroom. WE are only two hours away so we will probably go several times per year but we don't necessarily have to use the points each time, some of the times we will probably just book a moderate resort.

We were thinking about purchasing 200 points to begin with and then pay them off in the next two years and then purchase more points when we get them paid for. Who did you sell your points to another person or did Disney buy them back?

 

[PampChefJoy]

We sold through the Timeshare Store to another private party. Disney did not refuse our price, which I think was $80/pt. This was for the villas at the Wilderness Lodge.

So do you have access to the point charts? What you need to do is add up the # of points required for the # of days you want to stay at the diff times of year. We bank and borrow because we only go every 2 years at this point, but if you go more often, you probably want to have enough in your annual allotment to cover just that year's usage alone.

We usually wind up renting out our points if we have too many to use. I have rented to a gentleman in NJ twice now and he is not interested in buying but has pledged to always rent any extra points from me so I am considering purchasing some more to buffer our needs, knowing we have a backup renter.

 

[PCMomto4]

We are going to sit down tonight and figure out the points, we are buying at the Animal Kingdom Villas. I want to make sure we have enough to cover a full week at high season in a 2 bedroom, I figured I would rather have too many points than not enough.

I am sure there will be some years that we need a few more because we are wanting to do California one year, Hilton Head and then Hawaii when the kids are a bit older (I am sure we will need to end up buying mega points from someone for that).

How does it work when you buy points from someone? If I wanted to buy some of your extra points one year, how we would do that?

 

[PampChefJoy]

You read up at MouseOwners.com - The Web's Most Friendly and Reliable Source for Information on the Disney Vacation Club (DVC) for specifics on how-to -- there are people who post wanted and for rent points. I rent out for $10/point and require prepayment with a 60 day cancellation clause. That way, I can make sure that they won't back out on me and leave me stuck with points I cannot turn around and re-rent. Now that I have a "regular" renter, I can trust that he will pay me when he says he does. In fact, he paid me early this last time.

If you were to rent from me one year, as a member, Member Services will transfer the actual points out of my account into your account. However, the points carry my use year and my reservation privileges, so if you wanted to book AKV at 11 months, you could not use my points. You could either book BCV (beach club, our home resort) at 11 months using my points or you could wait till 7 months to reserve at the AKV or any other DVC resort. This is why it's important to buy your points at a location that you know you will want to stay, and why some people seek Boardwalk Villas (probably the most popular) via resale... for the 11 month booking window.

I really love being a DVC member. For us, it made sense to do so because we knew we'd always go back at least every other year. It's not so much an investment as a prepaid accomodation. (Although as an investment, I think we made decent return on our Wilderness lodge points when we re-sold them... VWL are pretty popular too -- kinda wish we hadn't sold them!)

You can probably add on at AKV for awhile so if you don't get enough initially, you can add on (minimum is 25 points), and adding on through Disney is super easy transaction. They also don't hit your credit score or report, so you don't have to worry about qualifying for another major credit purchase and having it affect your score, which is a really good incentive to finance an add-on What are points running now anyway? The good part is that the ownership lasts till 2052 (mine are only till 2042, not that I'll need them much past that, but the ownership interest is a will-able thing so my kids can still enjoy them).

 

[PampChefJoy]

Oh hey, by the way, do you have someone that referred you, or if not, can you put our name down?

 

[PCMomto4]

Hey Joy, do you have an email that i can email you through?