Why DVC? vs Rent Points vs other

[MrHappy]

For my last trip in May I rented DVC points for a split stay at GFV and BLT. I believe I got a very good deal compared to booking directly through Disney, proven by the example below.

We've gone the last three years and would like to make it an annual tradition. So I started thinking if there was some type of loyalty program for better pricing. I started reading through the DVC site. However, I'm failing to see why anyone would do this.

For example, I inputted buying 125 annual points, with dues that equals $4159 annually (10 year financing). A stay at Poly Studio Lake view in October takes 130 points. So that's essentially $4159 for 6 nights.

Whereas a Lagoon View (room only) through the Disney site is $4058.

The same stay renting points is $2,210 (130 points x $17per) through DVCrentalstore.

We're talking about a ton of money either way, but with DVC you have a 10 year commitment. I know this is just one example, so another scenario may look different. My question is why would anyone become a DVC member? What am I missing?

Thanks for your feedback!

 

[dreamfinder]

Because of the benefits after you have paid off the DVC purchase. Yes, upfront point rental, or even just a normal room booking will almost definitely be the same, or a better deal for the first how every many years until you pay off the purchase. But even with the oldest contracts that end in 2042, you should still have years to travel where you just are paying dues.

So in your case, a 125 point contract at Poly would run you $171 a night. For a total of $21,375 plus whatever interest. Those same $125 points would run you $762.50 in dues a year ($6.10/pt right now, overlooking the inevitable yearly increase). So if you did finance, and had to pay 11,000 in interest over the 10 years of the loan, then yeah, your first 10 years would cost you $4,159 each year. This is one of the reasons why most of us on the DVC forum won't recommend you buy DVC if you need to finance it. But say you did, and paid it off after 10 years. Your contract is still good until 2066 I believe. So 2026 you are paid off. Then you have 40 years, 2026 to 2066 where you only need to pay dues each year. So even accounting for a dues increase to $8/pt (which should take 10-15 years at least since recent increases have been in the 10-20 cent yearly range) you would only pay $1000 in dues a year for those 125 points. That's half the cost of the rental, and a quarter of the cash cost.

And most of the DVC was closer to a 50 year commitment new, some of the older contracts are now down to 26 years (2042 expiration). So even on an older contract through resale, you should still have 16 years of dues only trips if it still takes you 10 years to pay off.

Lots more running of numbers over on the DVC board.

 

[disneyeater]

The short answer is buy resale, don't finance, and don't divide the cost of something that has at least 26 years of value by 10 years.

 

[ParentsOf4]

The short answer is buy resale, don't finance, and don't divide the cost of something that has at least 26 years of value by 10 years.

Whether direct or resale, a DVC purchase can be viewed in terms of a breakeven date. "How many years will it take before my DVC purchase starts saving me money?"

Having a fairly sophisticated Excel spreadsheet to calculate this and having plugged in the numbers, I recall that a financed direct purchase of PVB has a breakeven period of decades when compared to simply renting DVC points.

After that, the savings are substantial.

The real question is: How sure are you that you will be vacationing at WDW for the next 20 years?

The reality is that with DVC's strong track record of holding value and inflation, there's a decent chance that, in 20 years, your PVB purchase will be worth more than what you paid, almost certainly not much less. If this happens, then you can sell your PVB purchase in a couple of decades and realize a really good rate for 20 years of WDW hotel stays.

It's all a gamble though; nothing is certain except death and taxes.

 

[jpittore1]

We didn't finance our DVC membership of 200 points and thru tracking our dues and total cost, our 6th trip was free and we have 30+ years to go with just annual dues....

 

[MrHappy]

We didn't finance our DVC membership of 200 points and thru tracking our dues and total cost, our 6th trip was free and we have 30+ years to go with just annual dues....

Without getting into any private financial info, if the membership was $30,000 and by the 6th trip your membership was paid for that essentially means trips 1-5 were a $6,000 value. Right?

 

[dreamfinder]

Without getting into any private financial info, if the membership was $30,000 and by the 6th trip your membership was paid for that essentially means trips 1-5 were a $6,000 value. Right?

Except 6 years ago AKV was $120 per point I believe, putting it closer to $24,000 initial buy in. See chart here -> https://dvcinfo.com/financial/history-of-dvc-direct-sales-price/ And one could have definitely bought points resale for $80 or so (maybe less) at that same time.

 

[FrostyNaples]

When you buy DVC, resale or otherwise, your locking in today's costs for your future vacations.

Booking resorts Disney direct, and DVC rentals (great alternative BTW), those prices are dynamic, and over time, will never be lower than a properly designed and utilized DVC membership.

Understand, you need to fully figure out how you like to vacation, and forecast that many years into the future to come to a solid plan for joining DVC. There is no one fits all here.

Yes the upfront investment is gross, but when you figure out how much your actually spending over 10,20+ years of vacations out of pocket not being a DVC member, it will make so much sense.

Buying into DVC can be temporary, if you plan to resell down the road. So the buy in investment may or may not even "cost" you anything, and all you've done is saved sums of cash by not having to pay for on property stays during your years of fun.

I like to look at the buy in as a purchasing a membership card. That card gets you free hotel stays. 10,15,20 years later, you have the option to resell your membership card, and get a refund (sometimes for more than you paid to get it to begin with).

And no, dues also don't amount to a savings killer annually. That's like an HOA fee if you will. And still doesn't cut into your savings like you think it would.

I wouldn't finance it, and certainly not through Disney at their ridiculous interest rates, THAT is a savings killer and takes much longer for your break even to arrive.

 

[Noellikechristmas]

I have also been toying with the idea of buying DVC points. My husbands issue was 'what if you don't want to go? or want to vacation somewhere else?' and my thing is, you can always rent those points out and pay for a couple years of dues and have no costs.

I pretty much have my husband convinced by showing him a chart...in the end, I'm just not sure I want to put that large lump sum down.
But my spreadsheet showed - if I bought enough points for a studio for the week 120-150. We went every other year and either rented the points out to our friends or on-line at $12 pp.......At the end of the contract, the total amount of dues was just slightly lower than the money I would receive for renting out my points every other year. But...I know myself too well and I think once I have a taste of DVC, I'll probably want to spend more time there or get bigger accommodations. Of course I don't have inflation on there...Anyways...run the numbers, make spread sheets...compare cost of renting....do you want to pay more just to not have a contract?

 

[LuvtheGoof]

For my last trip in May I rented DVC points for a split stay at GFV and BLT. I believe I got a very good deal compared to booking directly through Disney, proven by the example below.

We've gone the last three years and would like to make it an annual tradition. So I started thinking if there was some type of loyalty program for better pricing. I started reading through the DVC site. However, I'm failing to see why anyone would do this.

For example, I inputted buying 125 annual points, with dues that equals $4159 annually (10 year financing). A stay at Poly Studio Lake view in October takes 130 points. So that's essentially $4159 for 6 nights.

Whereas a Lagoon View (room only) through the Disney site is $4058.

The same stay renting points is $2,210 (130 points x $17per) through DVCrentalstore.

We're talking about a ton of money either way, but with DVC you have a 10 year commitment. I know this is just one example, so another scenario may look different. My question is why would anyone become a DVC member? What am I missing?

Thanks for your feedback!

One thing you have to consider is that not only are regular cash room prices going to go up, but so will the cost of renting points. Yes, dues go up every year, but lately not anywhere near as much as Disney's cash prices for rooms. So while you may do better by simply renting for the next few years, it won't be that way in 5 or 10 years. You will have to decide if you are OK with spending the money upfront, for huge savings in the future. That is how you save with DVC, not in the short term, but in the long run.

If you know that you will not be going to WDW 10 or 20 years from now, then DVC might not be for you. If you are OK with staying off-site or in a value resort, then DVC is definitely not for you.

 

[EOD K9]

We're talking about a ton of money either way, but with DVC you have a 10 year commitment

I'm just curious, does the OP think that your membership is only good for ten years?

 

[MrHappy]

I'm just curious, does the OP think that your membership is only good for ten years?

I was referring to a 10yr finance term.

 

[Tom]

I was referring to a 10yr finance term.

If you finance through Disney. Also, the annual dues continue for the life of the contract. Just making sure that's also clear, because it factors into your decisions.

For the record, we're happy DVC owners. Bought 200 points at SSR in 2008. Never looked back.

 

[jpittore1]

Except 6 years ago AKV was $120 per point I believe, putting it closer to $24,000 initial buy in. See chart here -> https://dvcinfo.com/financial/history-of-dvc-direct-sales-price/ And one could have definitely bought points resale for $80 or so (maybe less) at that same time.

We typically get a one or two bedroom at AKL and we felt it was a great value. Because we didn't finance and with the discounts going on we paid $100/point. They also gave us the last year's points in our "bank" to rebate the vacation we were currently on when we bought, this gave us an extra vacation. We have also used the RCI option and Disneyland hotel exchange. If we didn't buy direct from Disney the exchange would not be possible.

 

[GoofGoof]

For my last trip in May I rented DVC points for a split stay at GFV and BLT. I believe I got a very good deal compared to booking directly through Disney, proven by the example below.

We've gone the last three years and would like to make it an annual tradition. So I started thinking if there was some type of loyalty program for better pricing. I started reading through the DVC site. However, I'm failing to see why anyone would do this.

For example, I inputted buying 125 annual points, with dues that equals $4159 annually (10 year financing). A stay at Poly Studio Lake view in October takes 130 points. So that's essentially $4159 for 6 nights.

Whereas a Lagoon View (room only) through the Disney site is $4058.

The same stay renting points is $2,210 (130 points x $17per) through DVCrentalstore.

We're talking about a ton of money either way, but with DVC you have a 10 year commitment. I know this is just one example, so another scenario may look different. My question is why would anyone become a DVC member? What am I missing?

Thanks for your feedback!

You are missing the value your points have after 10 years in your calculation. For simplicity sake let's say your plan is to sell your 125 points resale after 10 years and you get $15,000 when you sell the points (roughly $125 a point). If you paid an average of $4,159 for 10 years your total paid in would be $41,159 less the $15,000 resale. That gets you to $26,590 total paid or an average of $2,659 per year. Still more than your $2,210 for renting points but your rental rate will go up. Let's assume $1 every 2 years. Still probably only gets you to around $2,500 on average to rent the points. The advantage to renting is there is no commitment. If you decide after 5 years to stop going you don't need to sell a contract.

If you buy resale the break even vs renting points is under 10 years. Direct from Disney it's a lot longer now since the points cost so much.

 

[Seanual757]

We purchased March 2015 approx. $33k for VGF. We have booked a total of 6 DVC trips (I have 2 more trips of the 6 to take this year) our last stay was a few weeks ago @ AKL 2 night in 1 bedroom, our stay before that was VGF 2 rooms that one trip alone would have cost us out of pocket close to $13k for the rooms alone. We will break even next March on our DVC we will have ours paid off at the end of this year. This will allow us 48 more years of enjoyment @ VGF just paying annual dues. I also purchased Polly last month before the rates went up this DVC membership is paid off so we have 50 years to enjoy this with just our annual dues.

Why you might ask well with 4 children the youngest being 9 days old we have lots of Disney trips planned and we only live 20 minutes away so for us it’s a win win our oldest is 8 years old so we still have a good 7-10 years left with her enjoying. After the kids get older we will start taking advantage of RCI.

We average 4-5 trips per year 1 of those trips is a week during Spring Break, the rest are 2-3 day trips (July 4th, End of Summer, Fall, and at times a trip just before summer starts). Living so close makes sense for us since we drive 20 minutes and do not have to pay for airfare or rental cars.