Renting DVC Points Questions

[stefan74]

I have a reservation for a room at the YC. I now have two more people coming. Instead of getting two separate rooms at the YC I was looking into a two bedroom villa; the ones that have two queen beds in one room and a king bed in the other separated by kitchen/living area.

Is it cheaper to rent points then to go through AAA?
If I were to rent points, would I have to buy my MYW, Memory Maker and Dining Plans separate?
I read a disclaimer on another website which stated "The MDE and MB programs, which are currently being offered during a "test" phase to certain members who are booking reservations for guests has had some inconsistencies when trying to attach the odd guest reservation. The MDE and MB programs are outside of our rental agreement and neither we nor our booking members can guarantee the success of the program during the "test" phase. We thank you for your understanding and are anxious for the working program to be rolled out by Disney sometime in January 2014." and it made me nervous. Should I be worried about this if I rent my DVC Points?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

 

[wannabeBelle]

I cant speak to most of your questions, as I rarely deal with DVC but I do know that the Dining plan must be purchased by the OWNER of the DVC points so you actually have to do at least the rental of the points and the purchase of the dining plan though that individual. Hope this helps! Marie

 

[jlsHouston]

I rented points for part of our stay over Thanksgiving. We got a separate magic band package for that part of the ressie. We had the option of purchasing the DP thru the member whose points we rented but I was using gift cards and the TIW card that trip....The MB experience to the resort was filled with issues to the point where at day 3 the manager had to unbook the entire DVC ressie and redo it manually for us to be able to room charge. The MB had to be left off the ressie. Now this did not affect FP+, since the MB's still were attached to my profiles and our tickets and my AP and we had no issues at the park. We could only use our KttW cards for room entry and charging. At that time in November it was explained to me that there were still issues pulling info from the DVC site into the MME cloud or vice versa and when it didn't work, it really didn't work.
The positive side was I stayed at BWV on points for 7 d/6n and had a heckuva room rate using member points versus the Disney web site. I think everyone will tell you that renting points is almost always going to be a cost savings over booking elsewhere.
My DVC room was a studio and I didn't much care for the layout...but having a mini kitchen was nice and you get access to free laundry which probably saved me another $50 bucks. The 2 bedroom's look really nice at all the DVC resorts...

 

[ParentsOf4]

Renting DVC points will be much less expensive.

For example, a 2-bedroom at the Beach Club Villas (BCV) is $1058/night during the summer from Disney. Renting points, it's $700/night, possibly even less depending on who you rent from.

DVC rentals are done using "DVC points". As an example, a 2-bedroom at the Beach Club is 350 points for a week in the summer. Well established businesses such as David's DVC Rentals charge $14/point. That should be considered the top of the market. With careful shopping, it might be possible to get points for a few dollars per point less.

A 2-bedroom villa is essentially 3 rooms so even if the prices seem high, it's not out-of-line for WDW's prices at their Deluxe Resorts.

As @wannabeBelle mentioned, you'll have to work through the renter to book your Disney Dining Plan (DDP). You can buy tickets direct.

There are intricacies associated with renting points:

• DVC rooms book very early. Typically, by 7 months before the arrival date, the only rooms available are at Sarasota Springs Resort (SSR), Old Key West (OKW), and Animal Kingdom Villas (AKV). (These are WDW's largest DVC resorts.)
• Cancellation policies for DVC point rentals are almost non-existent. I believe through David's you can buy trip insurance.
• You do not receive daily mousecleaning, only new towels after 4 nights. (Personally, we prefer this. No tipping and no stranger in your room every day.)
• Research who you are renting from. Take care not to get swindled. For piece of mind, you might be better off going through a well-known DVC rental broker like David's.

 

[kasey1988]

You would have to buy them all separate. The dining plan option needs to be purchased by the dvc owner, so you would need to purchase disney gift cards or give them your credit card information. I wonder if you could use prepaid visas, as I would be comfortable providing a stranger by credit info!

 

[ParentsOf4]

I read a disclaimer on another website which stated "The MDE and MB programs, which are currently being offered during a "test" phase to certain members who are booking reservations for guests has had some inconsistencies when trying to attach the odd guest reservation. The MDE and MB programs are outside of our rental agreement and neither we nor our booking members can guarantee the success of the program during the "test" phase. We thank you for your understanding and are anxious for the working program to be rolled out by Disney sometime in January 2014." and it made me nervous. Should I be worried about this if I rent my DVC Points?

We are DVC members and had a few issues during our Thanksgiving stay, most commonly, not all cards worked as room keys. This was something that concierge at each resort (we stayed at the Grand Floridian and Boardwalk) was able to correct in a few minutes.

I recall one instance when someone's card did not work to redeem a FP+ selection on one attraction (it worked for the other 2 that day) but since it worked for the other 5 of us, they let us through after a few seconds of trying.

Disney continues to have all sorts of problems with MyMagic+. Lots are having no problems whatsoever during their stays but I hung at concierge to get a sense of what was happening and their were a steady stream of guests at both the Grand Floridian and Boardwalk having issues with their MagicBands and/or KTTW cards.

This is not specific to DVC but, as @jlsHouston notes, there have been issues with linking together the DVC and WDW systems.

Again, for us, our issues were solved in a few minutes.

 

[jlsHouston]

I went to this site called mouseowners...and a perfect stranger had the perfect days at the perfect price for me. He booked me to the ressie and I got an email from the DVC rental place and it was even showing up on the website under my profile and about 2 days later I overnighted him a check for the rental.
But there are no guarantees doing it the way I did it....David's rental is totally legit...

 

[jlsHouston]

The thing I would say about doing DVC versus thru Disney is the FP+ and the MME deal is not going to be a HUGE deal breaker over the quality of your trip. You get MB's if you stay onsite and the MB's are what give you access to FP+. The issues at the resorts linking the bands to the rooms that do come up pretty much the resort manager is going to resolve them if you go to the manager. At BW, the concierge people tried and tried. The front desk tried a little then when I got the manager, he did his "fix" and put a $ 50 credit on my account for the time I wasted dealing with the issue, which wasn't even necessary really...I mean the BW people are really the nicest resort people along with the AKL ones.
I would never hesitate to book DVC points to save some money. It's a great option

 

[stefan74]

Renting DVC points will be much less expensive.

For example, a 2-bedroom at the Beach Club Villas (BCV) is $1058/night during the summer from Disney. Renting points, it's $700/night, possibly even less depending on who you rent from.

DVC rentals are done using "DVC points". As an example, a 2-bedroom at the Beach Club is 350 points for a week in the summer. Well established businesses such as David's DVC Rentals charge $14/point. That should be considered the top of the market. With careful shopping, it might be possible to get points for a few dollars per point less.

A 2-bedroom villa is essentially 3 rooms so even if the prices seem high, it's not out-of-line for WDW's prices at their Deluxe Resorts.

As @wannabeBelle mentioned, you'll have to work through the renter to book your Disney Dining Plan (DDP). You can buy tickets direct.

There are intricacies associated with renting points:

• DVC rooms book very early. Typically, by 7 months before the arrival date, the only rooms available are at Sarasota Springs Resort (SSR), Old Key West (OKW), and Animal Kingdom Villas (AKV). (These are WDW's largest DVC resorts.)
• Cancellation policies for DVC point rentals are almost non-existent. I believe through David's you can buy trip insurance.
• You do not receive daily mousecleaning, only new towels after 4 nights. (Personally, we prefer this. No tipping and no stranger in your room every day.)
• Research who you are renting from. Take care not to get swindled. For piece of mind, you might be better off going through a well-known DVC rental broker like David's.

I heard about David's through All-Ears and that is what prompted this question. Thanks

 

[stefan74]

The thing I would say about doing DVC versus thru Disney is the FP+ and the MME deal is not going to be a HUGE deal breaker over the quality of your trip. You get MB's if you stay onsite and the MB's are what give you access to FP+. The issues at the resorts linking the bands to the rooms that do come up pretty much the resort manager is going to resolve them if you go to the manager. At BW, the concierge people tried and tried. The front desk tried a little then when I got the manager, he did his "fix" and put a $ 50 credit on my account for the time I wasted dealing with the issue, which wasn't even necessary really...I mean the BW people are really the nicest resort people along with the AKL ones.
I would never hesitate to book DVC points to save some money. It's a great option

I would hope the MB issue would be resolved by the time I go in December.

I am used to make one reservation with everything linked and having things go smoothly. Renting points is kind of out of the box for me since I would have to purchase the MYW and Dining separate from what I am used to.

If I plan to rent points I will do so through David's of course.

 

[stefan74]

One more question, what about the Memory Maker, do I need to purchase that separately and from whom, DVC member or Disney itself?