Can't believe it, but we may finally do it....

[Bing Showei]

I actually thought about this. Not sure how that will work in 2042 and neither did my guide. An extra $1,250 USD ($1700 CAD) seemed like a lot for me just to "guarantee" myself the perks for the last 12 years of the contract, especially with no guarantee that there would actually be perks by then to protect.

How is that $1,250 offset by the ADs’ differential over the next 23 years? Haven’t done the math, but I’m guessing it may not take that long to catch up.

While it’s true no one knows what 2042 will hold in terms of “perks” or “restrictions,” restrictions won’t become more laxed. Over the last 8 years we’ve seen resale contracts stripped further and further of any perks, and minimum requirement for blue card increase. In 2042, who knows? Maybe there are no perks. But if there are, you’ll probably need more than just another 25 point contract. Assuming you don’t tire of timeshare ownership.

Given that you plan to use VB very specifically for VB, why not buy it resale at an even lower cost to offset the ADs, and then buy all 75 as SSR which should grant you access to the future resorts you value for those last 12 years, give you more options for an 11 month booking window at an on-site resort... just in case you decide to bring family or fall in love with bigger accommodations.

 

[CanadaDisney05]

How is that $1,250 offset by the ADs’ differential over the next 23 years? Haven’t done the math, but I’m guessing it may not take that long to catch up.

While it’s true no one knows what 2042 will hold in terms of “perks” or “restrictions,” restrictions won’t become more laxed. Over the last 8 years we’ve seen resale contracts stripped further and further of any perks, and minimum requirement for blue card increase. In 2042, who knows? Maybe there are no perks. But if there are, you’ll probably need more than just another 25 point contract. Assuming you don’t tire of timeshare ownership.

Given that you plan to use VB very specifically for VB, why not buy it resale at an even lower cost to offset the ADs, and then buy all 75 as SSR which should grant you access to the future resorts you value for those last 12 years, give you more options for an 11 month booking window at an on-site resort... just in case you decide to bring family or fall in love with bigger accommodations.

Good points. I'll be honest, I haven't checked the resale market very often for 25 point contracts at Vero Beach. Are these common enough to spend time trying to find?

 

[Marv_barr]

We also just went through the same thought process. We have rented points a few times over the last 2 years to give DVC a try and decided to make a purchase. We are also Canadians and debated the direct vs resale purchase. After much debating we just purchased 75 direct points at OKW.

welcome home.

 

[kniquy]

I know this is a lot of detail, but this is a big purchase for us, so I was hoping to get some feedback, positive and negative on this decision. Thanks again to everyone.

Goal

• Travel to WDW 3 out of every 4 years.

I think you have put a lot of though into this purchase, but the one thing I can not get past and feel it is worth bringing attention to is your frequency of your travels. If you are truly only planning on going every 3-4 years then DVC often is not the safest choice. The reason is if you have to bank, use current points and borrow to put a trip together then you run a very high risk of losing points if you needed to cancel. You already mentioned that SO is a teacher so your travel times are very limited. Lets say you do buy that March UY and you plan a trip for end of August, so July rolls around and you have to cancel the trip -- you would then have to first off cancel 31 days prior or the points would go in holding, then if you did that you would have to book a trip prior to Feb 28th of the following year to avoid losing those banked and borrowed points. It isn't impossible but you would be pretty limited from September to early January due to it being a very busy DVC time coupled with your SO school schedule - so if you couldn't reschedule then only your current year points could be banked for further use.

It is a matter that should be considered. If it means you buy resale now to afford a larger amount of points to go more frequently- maybe just looking at one SSR contract resale would make more sense vs direct SSR and Vero - Vero is very easy to book at 7 months and the MF are very high compared to SSR.

I know you do plan on adding on more points down the road but in the mean time you do need to be very careful with your bookings and use of your points so that you don't lose points.

 

[CanadaDisney05]

I think you have put a lot of though into this purchase, but the one thing I can not get past and feel it is worth bringing attention to is your frequency of your travels. If you are truly only planning on going every 3-4 years then DVC often is not the safest choice. The reason is if you have to bank, use current points and borrow to put a trip together then you run a very high risk of losing points if you needed to cancel.

Maybe I wasn't clear. Our plan is to take 3 trips in every 4 years span. Basically giving us one free year to do something other than Disney.

You already mentioned that SO is a teacher so your travel times are very limited. Lets say you do buy that March UY and you plan a trip for end of August, so July rolls around and you have to cancel the trip -- you would then have to first off cancel 31 days prior or the points would go in holding, then if you did that you would have to book a trip prior to Feb 28th of the following year to avoid losing those banked and borrowed points. It isn't impossible but you would be pretty limited from September to early January due to it being a very busy DVC time coupled with your SO school schedule - so if you couldn't reschedule then only your current year points could be banked for further use.

With the help of this thread, I'm thinking a February use year would be the best choice (please critique) for the following reasons.

1. If we have to cancel our July/Aug trip more than 30 days out, we are still in the banking window for a few months, which gives us time to reanalyze.
2. If we have to cancel our July/Aug trip less than 30 days out (hopefully this would only be in extreme circumstances), there is still 5-6 months to rent out the points before they expire. You are right, we likely wouldn't be able to cobble a way to use them in that time frame.
3. While 90% of our vacations will be in the summer, there is a potential that once in a while we may do a March Break vacation. Having a use year before April makes this possible.
4. There seems to be much more Feb use years out there at Saratoga than March. This will make it easy to find resale points with the same use year down the line.

maybe just looking at one SSR contract resale would make more sense vs direct SSR and Vero - Vero is very easy to book at 7 months and the MF are very high compared to SSR.

On a direct 75 point SSR contract, ignoring the assumed spread between US inflation and maintenance fees inflation, the break even on the maintenance fees is about 16 years. With only 23 years remaining on the contract, the difference is only about $525 USD on a 25 point contract over 23 years. The cheaper upfront cost (especially with the current USD/CAD exchange rate, there may end up being zero long term difference), is worth it.

On a resale 75 point SSR contract @ 120 PP (hopefully with full 2019 points), the upfront cost difference is about $2,500, but there would be a ~$75/yr difference in maintenance fees (25 points at Vero vs SSR). In the second year alone, we will save about $1,100 on ticket costs using the membership perks.

One of my biggest reasons for going direct is the ability to use those points to book at Riviera, Reflections, and any other new resorts over 23-35 years of ownership. It's easy to say now that it's not a big deal with only one resort that hasn't even opened yet, but in 15 years, there may be 6 to 7 new resorts in different parts of the world. I would hate to not have the flexibility to try that, even if it's for a nominal premium.

Even more importantly in 2042, 3 of the 10 legacy WDW resorts may disappear. If current restrictions stay the same or even tighten up, your going to have a whole bunch of resale owners from the 9 remaining legacy resorts plus all of the new resort direct members trying to transfer at 7 months. The only difference is you will not be able to transfer to any of the new resorts, while they can transfer to all. This may make it nearly impossible to book anything but your home resort. It's hard to really know what will happen at that point, but I'd like to keep some flexibility.

Thanks for the input!

 

[PolyRob]

Posting over here from the cost per point thread...

When you said you were contemplating 25 SSR, would that be just 25 points? Or your 50+25 so 75 total? Was SSR currently available for you to purchase?

If you are considering VB, why not join the waitlist? There is absolutely no commitment. If you get the call that points are available and change your mind you can always decline them.

 

[CanadaDisney05]

Posting over here from the cost per point thread...

When you said you were contemplating 25 SSR, would that be just 25 points? Or your 50+25 so 75 total? Was SSR currently available for you to purchase?

75 SSR vs 50 SSR + 25 VB. Ideally, I'd prefer saving the $1,250 upfront.

I did like the idea of having two very small contracts to make resale very easy if need be. However if I did go for one 75 point contract at SSR direct, I'd save about $234 in closing costs.

If you are considering VB, why not join the waitlist? There is absolutely no commitment. If you get the call that points are available and change your mind you can always decline them.

Will probably join in the next day or two. Just sleeping it over. Would like to have made my decision before joining, that way if they call, I don't have to rush myself.

 

[PolyRob]

Ahh, ok. Definitely a hard decision especially when you already have a lot planned out. If you really want the 50 SSR and 25 VB, I would wait for what you had your heart set on. It may even be difficult to find a 25 point VB resale to line up with a direct purchase.

 

[emilymad]

We also started small. We bought 100 points at SSR. A year later we bought another 50. Now 8 years later we really need to add another 150. I haven't pulled the trigger yet as prices now are much higher than they were 8 years ago.

We had plans to bank and borrow to go every other year. We wanted to be conservative in our initial financial outlay. Reality ended up being much different. We use points every year between either WDW or HHI if not multiple times a year. We have supplemented our DVC stays with cash stays. While this has given us a lot of flexibility we could have easily bought those extra points with the money spent on cash stays.

I think it sounds like your plan is good but how much margin have you built in? As point charts change and new resorts like Riviera (which costs a lot of points) are built more points are needed. We should have bought at least 20% more points initially then we did.

 

[CanadaDisney05]

New question. What are people's suggestions for use year. As my above posts states, we generally travel in July/August. Perhaps the odd trip in March.

Ideal use year I gather would be Feb or March as discussed above.

The one thought I had, is that it is currently August, if I grabbed a December use year, I would still get 2018 points. Is an extra 75 points upfront worth the use year? I only see one scenario where this becomes a problem

Cancel a normal July/August booking within 30 days. Could be hard to rent out points over the fall period with only a 60 day booking window. Do I realistically see this happening? Probably not. But 35 years of ownership is a long time.

 

[CarolMN]

New question. What are people's suggestions for use year. As my above posts states, we generally travel in July/August. Perhaps the odd trip in March.

Ideal use year I gather would be Feb or March as discussed above.

The one thought I had, is that it is currently August, if I grabbed a December use year, I would still get 2018 points. Is an extra 75 points upfront worth the use year? I only see one scenario where this becomes a problem

Cancel a normal July/August booking within 30 days. Could be hard to rent out points over the fall period with only a 60 day booking window. Do I realistically see this happening? Probably not. But 35 years of ownership is a long time.

I think December can easily work for you since you have until the end of the following Juy to bank (as long as you cancel 31 days or more in advance). The "fly in the ointment"could be that Disney doesn't have 2018 points to give you. Often as the "rollover" month approaches, people have to wait to purchase because Disney doesn't have the current use year points in inventory. You can't blame them as they want to turn those points into cash rather than wait in hopes someone will purchase before the end of the use year (when the points lose all value).

When you call to purchase, you can ask the guide if a December purchase is possible immediately, and if not, February or March makes a good plan for you, too. Good luck!

 

[kboo]

If you generally travel in July/August, getting a December UY will FOREVER put your August trips past your banking window. Either you won't take trips in August any more (best points value over the summer), or you'll be always hoping something doesn't come up that you are scrambling to figure out what to do with your points. To me, it's not worth the extra 75 points this year. Plus, having "extra" points in a loaded contract is a sure fire way to jump start the addonitis. You get used to having "more" points and then when you have used them,

I still go with February, because if you decide to add on via resale in the future, there are a LOT more Feb contracts than March.

 

[ray3127]

New question. What are people's suggestions for use year. As my above posts states, we generally travel in July/August. Perhaps the odd trip in March.

Ideal use year I gather would be Feb or March as discussed above.

The one thought I had, is that it is currently August, if I grabbed a December use year, I would still get 2018 points. Is an extra 75 points upfront worth the use year? I only see one scenario where this becomes a problem

Cancel a normal July/August booking within 30 days. Could be hard to rent out points over the fall period with only a 60 day booking window. Do I realistically see this happening? Probably not. But 35 years of ownership is a long time.

I would absolutely take the extra 75 points... then again, I think UY discussions are severely overblown. But even in your situation, you aren't putting yourself at great risk.

If you don't have a use for them, or want to fight add-on-itis, then rent them out and reduce your upfront cost by $1,000+.

 

[CarolMN]

If you generally travel in July/August, getting a December UY will FOREVER put your August trips past your banking window. ........(snip).........

No it won't. It's only an issue if he has to cancel 30 days or less prior to arrival, but IMHO, that's a tough thing to recover from no matter when it happens.

As long as he cancels at least 31 days in advance, he can still bank any current use year points used for an August vacation.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

New question. What are people's suggestions for use year. As my above posts states, we generally travel in July/August. Perhaps the odd trip in March.

Ideal use year I gather would be Feb or March as discussed above.

The one thought I had, is that it is currently August, if I grabbed a December use year, I would still get 2018 points. Is an extra 75 points upfront worth the use year? I only see one scenario where this becomes a problem

Cancel a normal July/August booking within 30 days. Could be hard to rent out points over the fall period with only a 60 day booking window. Do I realistically see this happening? Probably not. But 35 years of ownership is a long time.

Buying a Feb or March UY also gets you current points - they just happen to have a different number in front of them. ie, if you buy the December you'll get the next set in 3 1/2 months. If you buy Feb then the next set is only 2 months later or March is just 3 months later. And the pro-rated dues will all be exactly the same for any of the UY's. So is it worthwhile to get a UY that isn't bad but isn't the best just to get the next set of points another 2 or 3 months earlier? Probably not.

 

[lisaviolet]

I have a March UY.

In the beginning it had no impact. I travelled summer and March break. For years.

And really smirked about excessive UY chatter on here. In an obnoxious judgmental manner. As in mumbling who cares.

I took my first DVC December holiday about ten years ago and now I am hooked. No longer smirking. March UY sucks for those trips. Especially since I have never banked a point in 14 years! Meaning I am a borrowing queen.

Obviously you have stated that summers will be your focus so I am only hurting your head. And who knows when you will vacation over time. Or if you will ever cancel one. But your first vacation being December caught my eye (so magical and addictive).

And summer trips can often be walk five minutes and have your sunscreen melt off. Or you are in SAB and lightning clears you out. Boo! Laughing. Summer trips can get old fast. But maybe you love them at WDW. I do love hot Florida nights though.

In addition, March UY is the worst for searching for resales. And you never know if you will want more in the future.

-----------------------

Such an exciting time. Congratulations.

 

[suemom2kay]

I like your plan. Looks reasonable and well-thought out. Good luck! Hope to add my voice to the chorus of "welcome homes" soon.

Ditto!

 

[zavandor]

Buying a Feb or March UY also gets you current points - they just happen to have a different number in front of them. ie, if you buy the December you'll get the next set in 3 1/2 months. If you buy Feb then the next set is only 2 months later or March is just 3 months later. And the pro-rated dues will all be exactly the same for any of the UY's. So is it worthwhile to get a UY that isn't bad but isn't the best just to get the next set of points another 2 or 3 months earlier? Probably not.

With a December UY he would get 2018 points now and in December he would get 2019 points.
With a February UY he would get 2019 points and in February 2020 points.
This means, he'll get a full year more of points if we count the full membership between now and 2042 / 2054. It is however true that the extra points will be enjoyed 22 years from now and if for any reason he has to cancel one trip and lose the points because of the bad UY the difference would be made up, cancel two trips and he's under.

Another thing to consider is that you might change your travel patterns. I bought a December UY because I found a good deal on it and I was planning to travel mostly in January with the occasional trip in September. It turns out I mostly travel in September and sometimes in January. With my September trips I'm a bit more at risk of losing my points, another UY would have been better, but I didn't know at the time and the deal I got was good, so no regrets here.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

With a December UY he would get 2018 points now and in December he would get 2019 points.
With a February UY he would get 2019 points and in February 2020 points.
This means, he'll get a full year more of points if we count the full membership between now and 2042 / 2054. It is however true that the extra points will be enjoyed 22 years from now and if for any reason he has to cancel one trip and lose the points because of the bad UY the difference would be made up, cancel two trips and he's under.

Another thing to consider is that you might change your travel patterns. I bought a December UY because I found a good deal on it and I was planning to travel mostly in January with the occasional trip in September. It turns out I mostly travel in September and sometimes in January. With my September trips I'm a bit more at risk of losing my points, another UY would have been better, but I didn't know at the time and the deal I got was good, so no regrets here.

There have been a lot of things thrown around for the end of the contracts. As you mentioned it is a long ways away. It's pretty much a given there won't be rooms to accommodate everyone at the end to use all their points. I'd much more heavily weight things now vs 3 1/2 decades from now.

 

[CanadaDisney05]

Update:

We finally did it! Thanks everyone for the help.

Purchase
75 direct
125 resale (still has to go through ROFR)
All at Saratoga, February Use Year.

Reasons for change from original decision:

1) Decided the longer contract at SSR was worth it. In retirement we may either use it, or sell it for whatever we can get for it at the time.

2) Really wanted to get some direct points. Having access to future resorts was important to us. Figured 75 was the perfect amount. Through banking/borrowing, we could still do one of the DVC 2.0 resorts once every 3 years, or do split stays. 75 also gave us access to the blue card. With a family of 4, and the ability to use an annual pass over 11 months, the discounted Gold Pass is actually a pretty big money saver. While I understand this could be eliminated tomorrow, even using it once was a big saver. I also was able to get a new credit card that came with bonus points, and free foreign exchange. By using the credit card on the direct purchase, I saved an additional 2.5%.

3) Finding a 75 point contract on the resale market to get us to the 150 we planned for was difficult. They are fairly fast to go when they became available, and the prices were a bit higher. I decided it was just easier to buy the second set direct as well. The price differential wasn't enough (when factoring some of the extra savings on closing costs, FX fee, CC points, etc...) to justify the headache of resale.

4) After thinking about that for a little while, I decided to look at slightly larger resale contracts. The price per point was lower, and since buying the second 75 point contract direct wasn't offering me much that I didn't get from the first contract, I figured paying the same amount for more points was worth it. The extra roughly $30 USD per month in maintenance fees isn't too big of a deal for my budget, and I figure it will always be nice to have some extra points to play with. Worst case, we rent them here and there.

Looking forward to our first DVC stay! Thanks everyone for all the help.