Timeshare store vs Straight from disney

[Boardwalker]

Anybody with experiences buying from timeshare store? I want to add on but Disney doesn't have much available that I want right now. I'm wait listed for 100-150 points to the boardwalk, but timeshare store has a package I really want. What are the downsides/upsides not buying straight from Disney?

 

[GoofGoof]

The primary downside is that you cannot trade in your resale points for Disney hotel rooms or Disney Cruise Line. All other benefits are the same. You can still book any of the DVC resorts or trade-in your points through RCI. The memberships are virtually identical with the exception of that one trade in limitation.

The biggest upside with resale is the savings. Right now direct from Disney BWV is $135 per point. You can probably get a resale contract for $75. If you are buying 100 to 150 points that's a savings of $6,000 to $9,000 buying resale. You have to really want to trade in for cruises or Disney hotel rooms to make that worth it. You could take the savings and book a cruise or 2 without using any of your points.

I used Timeshare Store to buy my contract. I was very happy with how easy the process was. I would definitely recommend using them.

 

[216bruce]

We bought our VWL points through them a few years ago and everything went very well. I recommend them. Our transaction was before there were any restrictions on how the points were used, things have changed since then as noted above, but if you are using the points to just stay at DVC properties then by all means save the money and do it. The only caveat is that Disney does have the "right of first refusal" on the transaction. They don't often exercise that, but it is possible.

 

[ParentsOf4]

As @GoofGoof notes, DVC points that are not bought through Disney cannot be exchanged for Disney Cruise Line (DCL), Vacations by Disney, or booking Disney hotels that are not DVCs. However, this is not much of a limitation since all of these options are expensive when purchased using DVC points.

Generally, the most economical approach if you want to use your DVC points for (for example) DCL is to rent your points to someone else through David's DVC Rental. David's now pays DVC members $13/point to rent their points at BWV if those points are booked 7+ months in advance. That price is more than double the BWV Maintenance Fee, which is $6.07/point in 2015.

If you intend to use your DVC points for DVC resort stays (Isn't that why you purchased them in the first place? ), then there is no disadvantage to buying resale except that the resale process tends to take longer, typically about 2 months. But of course, since you currently are wait-listed at BWV, then you already are waiting anyway.

I've purchased all my DVC points through resale and have had no problems.

 

[CSUFSteve]

I've had 2 friends buy from the Timeshare Store, and both report positive experiences. For them, the primary consideration was cost, and they did not ever plan to use the Cruise (much has been said about the cruise not being a financially sound use of your points), or stay in non-DVC resorts.

For me, this aspect of buying through Disney was key. I *do* travel to international Disney parks, and using points in Europe and Japan is key to saving $$, and one such reservation alone is nearly the full cost of my maintenance fees. Throw in the added Disneyland and Walt Disney World trips I take every year, and I've definitely been eating away at the principal I paid. Obviously, it all depends on how you not only travel now, but how you want to travel in the future.

I've also gotten lucky with pricing. My last 2 contract-add-ons were last year when Disney honored whatever price was in effect when you put your name on a waiting list. For me, that was VGC, and I actually ended up paying *slightly* less than Timeshare Store prices at the time I bought, plus I got the advantages (for me) of buying through Disney.

 

[GoofGoof]

Here is why I think trading in for a cruise is not a financially sound way to use your points. You would need a lot of points to book a long (7-10 day cruise) or you would need to bank and borrow. For simplicity sake let's assume you buy 160 points at BLT and want to see what your options are for trading in for a Disney cruise.

• A 3 night Bahama cruise for 2 adults in March on the Magic in an inside stateroom (cheapest room) costs $945 booking direct from Disney Cruise Line. The same cruise would cost you 160 DVC points if you traded in. Disney is giving you the economic equivalent of $5.91 per point for your trade-in. Not great value.
• If you rent your points through a repuatable broker like David's you can get between $11 and $13 per point. Assuming you own at BLT and rented in the 7 to 11 month window you would get $2,080 ($13 X 160). That's enough to:
  • Pay for your cruise and have $1,135 left over
  • Book 2 three night cruises with the money
  • Upgrade to a deluxe stateroom with verandah ($1,521) and still have $559 left over.
  • Book a 5 night cruise in the same room classs.
• Current resale prices for BLT are around $100 while direct from Disney is $165. If you wanted to buy 160 points you would save about $10,000 buying resale. You could take 10 3 night cruises on the money you saved by going resale and still have all of your points left to use at WDW or to rent out.

It's a little more work to rent your points out, but in the end it is a huge savings over trading in for a cruise. I've never looked at the numbers for international stays. I know that VGC is very hard to get so if you want to use points at DLR the only option may be to trade in for a hotel room.

 

[EOD K9]

I've rented my points to some very nice forum posters on here. I pretty much said, "Thanks for renting, enjoy your stay, and by the way, you are paying for my cruise". I have stayed in a 1BR park view at the VGC....and wow. Having direct points does help, but maybe its not a bad thing to have a few on a resale contract.

 

[CSUFSteve]

GoofGoof, IMO, international visits have always been a *huge* value. I did the following analysis for a friend I took with me to Tokyo Disney this past May, because she was curious to know what we would have spent on the Tokyo Disneyland Hotel...

We were there 5 nights, Tues through Sat. I'm not totally sure what room category we were considered to be in, as they have two Standard view room rates and two Park view categories, plus a Grand Park view category. We were in a Superior Alcove room. I tend to think, since we had a partial view of both DisneySea and Disneyland, we'd have been considered the cheaper Park view category. Anyway, over all the possible categories, we'd have paid anywhere from ~$2314 to ~$2779.

Disneyland Paris is about the same. And this doesn't even count the stateside trips I take!

Sure, DVC isn't for everyone, but it certainly works for me!

 

[GoofGoof]

GoofGoof, IMO, international visits have always been a *huge* value. I did the following analysis for a friend I took with me to Tokyo Disney this past May, because she was curious to know what we would have spent on the Tokyo Disneyland Hotel...

We were there 5 nights, Tues through Sat. I'm not totally sure what room category we were considered to be in, as they have two Standard view room rates and two Park view categories, plus a Grand Park view category. We were in a Superior Alcove room. I tend to think, since we had a partial view of both DisneySea and Disneyland, we'd have been considered the cheaper Park view category. Anyway, over all the possible categories, we'd have paid anywhere from ~$2314 to ~$2779.

Disneyland Paris is about the same. And this doesn't even count the stateside trips I take!

Sure, DVC isn't for everyone, but it certainly works for me!

There are a lot of different ways to use DVC. It's really true when people say you need to look at your individual needs to decide if it's right for you.

I'd like to get to Tokyo Disney some day. It's on my list, but I'm thinking it's gonna be a while. In a few years my kids will be old enough to tolerate the 6 hour flight to CA so I'm hoping to stay at VGC.

 

[Jim Chandler]

FYI: When you purchase from a re seller do not compare to current DVC price point. Why you ask.... When you buy from DVC it is for the full length of time (49 years) with all the rights. Where as a re sale will be for the balance of the contract and not all the rights.

So $139 per point maybe a good value if you end up buying the same number of points for $75 and half the length of the same type contract with out all the rights.

In addition no one here ever seems to add in the yearly fees.

If you have had a contract that is for 250 points and you paid $25,000 ($100 per point like we did) and used for 10 years with an annual fee of $1,200 that would be an additional $12,000 you paid over those 10 years.Over 49 years at an average of $1,500 in fees that is $73,500 + $25,000 = $98,500.

Now take those same 250 points at $75 per point or $18,750 but for only the balance of 39 years and the additional fees of approx: 39 yrs X $1500 = $58,500 + $18,750 = $77,250 and Less the value of all the rights.
Current value is
250 X $139 = $34,750 + Fees ($1500 approx X 49 = $73,350) = $108,250

You need to know what the original cost of the points were not what the same amount costs now for your real value.

So you better be asking yourself am I actually saving or losing anything or am I (hopefully) at a minimum breaking even in the long run.

 

[GoofGoof]

FYI: When you purchase from a re seller do not compare to current DVC price point. Why you ask.... When you buy from DVC it is for the full length of time. Where as a re sale will be for the balance of the contract. So 139 per point maybe a good value if you end up buy 75 points for half the length of the same type contract.

I'm not following this. The contracts expire at the same time. My BLT contract bought resale expires in 2060 the same as someone who bought directly from Disney. Same goes for almost all DVC resorts.

The only exception is OKW where they offered an extension. In that case the direct from Disney contract will always expire in 2057 now but there could be resale contracts that were not extended that still expire in 2042. Resellers will specify the expiration date for OKW as either 2042 or 2057. The 2042 contracts are generally priced slightly less.

 

[Jim Chandler]

I'm not following this. The contracts expire at the same time. My BLT contract bought resale expires in 2060 the same as someone who bought directly from Disney. Same goes for almost all DVC resorts.

The only exception is OKW where they offered an extension. In that case the direct from Disney contract will always expire in 2057 now but there could be resale contracts that were not extended that still expire in 2042. Resellers will specify the expiration date for OKW as either 2042 or 2057. The 2042 contracts are generally priced slightly less.

Our contract was for 49 years. So if I sell mine now it has 40 years left. If I sell it for $120 or my $100 versus $139. Is it a good value for the buyer????

 

[GoofGoof]

FYI: When you purchase from a re seller do not compare to current DVC price point. Why you ask.... When you buy from DVC it is for the full length of time (49 years) with all the rights. Where as a re sale will be for the balance of the contract and not all the rights.

So $139 per point maybe a good value if you end up buying 75 points for half the length of the same type contract with out all the rights.

In addition no one here ever seems to add in the yearly fees.

If you have had a contract that is for 250 points and you paid $25,000 ($100 per point) and used for 10 years with an annual fee of $1,200 that would be an additional $12,000 you paid over those 10 years.Over 49 years at an average of $1,500 in fees that is $73,500.

Now take those same 250 points at $75 per point or $18,750 but for only the balance of 39 years and the additional fees of approx: 39 yrs X $1500 = $58,500 Less the value of all the rights.

So you better be asking yourself am I actually saving or losing anything or am I (hopefully) at a minimum breaking even in the long run.

The maintenance fees are the same if you buy resale vs buying direct so they aren't really a factor in the decision the original person was talking about.

If you want to look at DVC vs paying cash rates with Disney you definitely need to factor in a rising maintenance fee. You also need to factor in a rising cash hotel rate. I don't think looking at the whole contract makes a lot of sense because it goes out so far, but here goes. For my personal situation (160 points bought @$90 for BLT) if you want to take it out to contract expiry in 2060 I will have paid an estimated $90,000 including the initial purchase price. Seems like an insane amount of cash, but that's 49 years worth of trips. Now if I chose to use it this way I could get about an average of 9 nights a year in a studio for 160 points depending on the time of year and view. So that's 441 room nights. That's an average of $204 a night for my room. Keep in mind the average cash room rate in 2060 will be over $1,300 assuming a 3% annual increase in price. The average studio room at CR would run me at least $300 today even with a nice discount so after tax about $3,000 for the 9 nights. Using the 3% growth rate it would cost me over $300,000 for the same 9 nights a year for 49 years. If I found a room for $85 a night (which comes out to $868 for 9 nights after tax) and I assumed a 3% increase in room rates over 49 years I would get to about $90,000 or what I will have paid in for DVC. In other words for the next 49 years I have locked in 9 nights at BLT in a studio for less than what someone would have to pay for the all stars.

The longer out you stretch the math the better DVC looks. It assumes you will still want to use it in 2060. A more realistic look is to take a 10 year chunk. Over 10 years I will have paid in about $23,000 and should have no problem reselling my points at a conservative $70 per point or about $11,000. Let's assume $5,000 for interest on my original investment. That nets to $17,000 out of pocket. Again I could use it for 9 nights a year or 90 in total. That comes out to $189 a night for my room. No way I'm getting that rate at a deluxe and it would be hard to find it at a moderate these days. Still a great way to save money staying at deluxe resorts.

 

[GoofGoof]

Our contract was for 49 years. So if I sell mine now it has 40 years left. If I sell it for $120 or my $100 versus $139. Is it a good value for the buyer????

Gottcha. We are talking about 2 different things. You are comparing buying DVC 9 years ago direct vs buying today resale. For a new buyer the 40 years left is all that matters. Someone buying today can't go back 9 years and buy it. They are comparing direct from Disney today with 40 years left to buying resale today with 40 years left. For AKV if you buy today direct from Disney it's $135 per point. If you buy resale it's probably under $90. You are saving at least $45 a point for the same contract (except for the trade-ins listed above.

 

[ParentsOf4]

Our contract was for 49 years. So if I sell mine now it has 40 years left. If I sell it for $120 or my $100 versus $139. Is it a good value for the buyer????

To @GoofGoof 's point, the length of the membership is the same whether a resort is purchased directly from Disney or through resale.

Direct or resale, the membership at Saratoga Springs Resort (SSR) expires in 2054.

Currently, SSR costs $130/point directly from Disney. Currently, average resale asking price at SSR is $78/point. Actual sale price can be considerably less. For the last month that I have data, average SSR selling price was $6/point less than asking price.

Disney's direct price at SSR was $98/point in June 2005 and $101/point in May 2006. From your post, it appears you paid $100/point.

For the sake of discussion, let's assume you decide to sell your DVC today. Unless you personally know someone who wants to buy your membership from you, you'll need to go through a broker to get top dollar. (For comparison, DVCs often sell for big discounts on eBay.) Broker's charge 10% commission. Let's assume you can actually get the current median asking price of $78/point. With other expenses, you'll pocket somewhere around $70/point.

That means that you would have paid approximately $3.33/point (($100 - $70) / 9) per year over your 9 years of membership, in addition to the annual Maintenance Fee that you pay.

To @GoofGoof 's point, someone wanting to buy at SSR today is either going to have to pay Disney's current price of $130/point or the resale market's asking price of $78/point. In either case, the membership will expire in 2054.

Assuming they buy from Disney. they will pay $3.25/point ($130 / 40) per year for the remaining 40 years.

Assuming they buy resale, they will pay $1.95/point ($78 / 40) per year for the remaining 40 years.

Someone buying at SSR today needs to decide between paying $3.25/point annually or $1.95/point annually.