All from resale or half and half?

[jsbowl16]

I am thinking about buying 150 Boardwalk DVC points. Would you buy 75 points from Disney at the higher cost and then the other 75 from resale or just do all resale? Obviously resale is cheaper up front but we buy season passes every two years and then do two trips for each season pass one at the beginning of August and then the other at the end of the following July. With the difference in price between DVC gold passes and Platinum regular passes, the DVC gold passes would save us money in the long run but if they remove that option or change it to a minimum of 100 points for the DVC gold pass, then the resale would be the better way to go. Any opinions? Will it be difficult to find an amount as low as 75 DVC points for Boardwalk on resale?

 

[Great3]

If you are for sure going to be buying season passes anyways, and for sure going to WDW for a long time, than I would buy the 75 points direct. That's the only time a direct purchase really makes sense to me, and I am definitely in the buy resale camp. It's just to me that even with the DVC discount, Gold AP's are still way to expensive for my taste (and I had seriously considered it before), but with this recent AP's price jump, I decided to no longer give any consideration to buying AP's anymore.

As for 75 points resale for Boardwalk, I don't know, so someone else is going to need to chime in, because I haven't been monitoring resale long enough.

Edit to add: All the usual caveats apply though, consider the financials, can you afford DVC comfortably, and many other factors already discussed here in these forums.

Good Luck with your purchase decisions.

Great3

 

[Jkarrows]

I would say take a look at what you get from buying Direct, do not look at the extras as it has been stated before these extras can be taken away at any point, look at what you know your get without the extras, if whats on offer is worth buying then do the 75 direct and 75 resell, if what you are offered direct does not make it worthwhile then buy resell, the extras being offered have been covered in detail before and Disney has in the past either taken an extra away or reduced or amended them, I for one would not judge my direct purchase based on the extras that could go in the future.

Good luck.

 

[CarolMN]

It's easy for us to say buy resale or 1/2 resale - those options are certainly less expensive. However, you will need a lot of patience to do that, especially if you plan to buy 75 direct & 75 resale, and plan to match use years. (Buy the resale contract first to make matching use years easier). Resale BWV 75 point contracts are rare. I don't recall ever seeing one. You may need to settle for 50 or 100 or 150 point contracts unless you are willing to wait a very long time. Good luck!

 

[CookieandOatmeal]

Very recently there were two BWV contacts that were for sale that were 50pt contracts but they don't come by often. I think your best bet is to think about doing 100pt resale and 75pt direct. It doesn't hurt to have a little cushion and 25pts isn't that much over what you had wanted.

 

[PsycProfPlum]

We just bought 100 points a couple of months ago at BWV via resale to go with points we already had at SSR, neither comes with Gold Pass perks. With the annual pass increase, this has been on my mind too. I think it depends somewhat on how you visit Disney. With work schedules, my family had been doing 3-5 long weekend or 4 day trips per year. As we are only eligible for the Platinum Pass, now we are on the hook for $1,119 each per year if we keep doing that. It wouldn't take long for us to break even if we had done 1/2 and 1/2 to get access to the Gold Pass instead. Plus there are some other perks we miss out on by not having the blue card. We are now considering maybe now doing just one long trip and no AP.

On the other hand, no perks are guaranteed and next year Disney could just abolish any DVC discounts so it's tough to buy based on that. A year ago, I thought it would be foolish to buy direct. Now, not so much. Next year, it may seem that way again.

The way things are now, if I were you, I'd probably do the 1/2 and 1/2. Just be sure to buy resale first as Disney can give you whatever use year you already have (instead of you having to stalk a 75 point contract with a specific use year). 75 points are not super common resale.

 

[TexasChick123]

I’d buy 150 points via resale at BWV. Since there’s only 23 years left on it, I wouldn’t purchase direct at $190pp. We got the perks from our first resale contract and have bought AP’s all of 1 time. They just expired, and we didn’t renew because we won’t be back for over 6 months. Like others have said, all perks can be taken away without notice. Also, you may find that you end up wanting to go during a Gold Pass blackout time, and you need the platinum.

Small BWV contracts are extremely rare. They do exist, but they’re tough to find and usually don’t have a lot for sale. Most contracts are for 200 points or more. You’ll be surprised when you see how difficult it is to even find a 150 point contract. I know because I was in your shoes not too long ago. Good luck with your decision!

 

[jerseyduke]

Probably resale. But if you did split I would buy resale first. With the new changes, Disney can move points between use years, so they can just match your contract. Looking for a small contract and a specific use year is not a easy task

Perks are not guaranteed, but i can not see them going away any time soon. As long as Disney is trying to sell DVC its a marketing tool. And with reflections looking like sales will start in 2022, and being a big resort, probably wont sell out for 3 or 4 year, thats 2025 to 2026.

Also, Disney has gone out of their way to make Direct Points and resale points 2 different classes, killing the perks on resale points. If they kill them on the Direct side, they will undo what they have done, and there will not be a difference between them.

They could end them, but I dont see it happening.

 

[kniquy]

the DVC gold passes would save us money in the long run

To see if it makes sense to spend more money buying direct really run the numbers. You need to see how much more you are going to spend for that direct contract (somewhere around $4000 more) and figure out how many AP purchases it would take to re-coupe that extra amount. You are not getting any more years on the contract compared to buying resale. I am not sure how many passes you are buying each year but it does look like if you don't own direct then you have to get the platnium pass (unless you are a FL resident) = $1119. As a direct owner you can buy the Gold pass at $699. So a savings of about $420 per pass - So you would have to buy 9 passes to break even with the extra you have paid -- so it could make sense depending upon how many passes you are buying. A family of 4 would save you $1680 -- So now that I am looking at the numbers it might make sense. If you wanted better direct savings and a longer contract you could buy OKW - I think it is $155 per point and the contract is extended to 2057. This might be something to consider and you could use each contract independently with banking or borrowing. Pretty much the time of year you are traveling there is lots of availability.

Any opinions? Will it be difficult to find an amount as low as 75 DVC points for Boardwalk on resale?

This will probably be tough because smaller contracts go quick. The other thing to consider is which UY you will buy - so if you are buying a small contract for a specific UY (August might be your best option) -- you might find you are trying to find the unicorn contract.

 

[katandmouse]

I would suggest spending some time scoping out the resale market first - get on all the email lists, etc. Smaller contracts at BWV are not as common, so if you see one in the 50-100 point range I’d jump on it. But keep in mind too those smaller contracts typically go for more $$ than 150+ ones, so there won’t be quite as much savings (still better than all direct, but not as much). So really do the math beforehand as to what price and # of points you want, so you’re ready to act fast when you see it.

If you split, definitely get the resale contract first - much easier to get exactly how many points and matching UY direct from Disney than the other way around.

With the AP increases and difference between DVC discounts, it is more compelling to buy direct now. Disney has me considering adding on direct now... Then again, who knows what the price/discount difference will be in another 2 years; it might not be so much. But I agree that I don’t think Disney would do away with perks completely - they want to make it as big of a draw vs resale as they can.

Also wanted to add, if you buy 75 direct and qualify for perks now, you should be grandfathered in to any changes if they up the minimum in the future (so you should keep getting the perks). At least, that’s how it’s been so far.

 

[GoofyCoaster]

There is a huge premium on the small point BWV contracts. Be prepared to pay $145+ per point and there’s little room for negotiation because it will sell at full price within a couple days of listing. We bought a loaded 65 point resale earlier this year and if I had to do over I probably would have just bought 75 direct for the blue card and gold AP option or would have purchased 100 points resale to avoid the premium on the small contracts.

 

[jerseyduke]

There is a huge premium on the small point BWV contracts. Be prepared to pay $145+ per point and there’s little room for negotiation because it will sell at full price within a couple days of listing. We bought a loaded 65 point resale earlier this year and if I had to do over I probably would have just bought 75 direct for the blue card and gold AP option or would have purchased 100 points resale to avoid the premium on the small contracts.

And that is exactly why, when buying direct, you should consider breaking up larger contracts into smaller once. Somethings guides will never tell you.

 

[PsycProfPlum]

Take a look at the ROFR thread for a good indication on resale prices. Our 100 points purchased a couple of months ago was at $136/point which was on the higher side because we had to have a specific use year (most contracts that size seemed to be coming in around $132-133 at the time). I also found more contracts at 100 points and under than I expected too based on comments here. Just be sure you are looking at 4-5 different agencies listed in the sticky thread. They aren't as rare as I thought they might be if you are flexible on the number of points (e.g., looking at a range of 60-100).

 

[Frederic Civish]

I'd do both, but make sure they are both in the same Use Year, so that you can put them under the same membership number.

It will be easier for you to find a 75 point contract on the Resale Market, first and then have Disney match the Use Year with your Direct Purchase, than the other way around.