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Post by helenabear on Oct 7, 2024 15:41:40 GMT -5
I was doing math of resale vs direct for small contracts and believe it or not, direct won out. Right now PVB is still really costly in resale. When I did the math of closing costs and getting 2024 points and no MFs (okay 2 weeks, but that's not much) it was a wash. The majority of my PVB are direct as we bought at the beginning. Then the one resale this summer and now this direct contract. It's small but meant to allow flexibility. Having no major resale restrictions is good too for selling if I needed. But these points will be the last I ever sell! I am also a bit of a geek and like to look up to see what teeny percentage of which unit we own. So I know where in Old Key west, Polynesian, and Copper Creek that we technically own. Admittedly being able to say I technically own a tiny chunk of the Island Tower made me happy too. Silly, I know. Its been awhile since I have done a direct vs resale comparison, but for the Poly Tower, I am sure the direct pricing works out in your favor.
Extra points. loaded immediately, no ROFR, less closing......over the life of the contract, say for a 50 point add-on, almost like rounding up to the closet dollar.
I will be honest, I didn't even look at the total price difference in depth until after I called my guide. It was after Hope mentioning what her guide said that got me curious. Sure enough, my contract and what I would have been looking for (had I even been able to find a perfect contract in the resale market for us), it turned out to be in my favor to buy direct. I went a little further and saw when the break point was where you started seeing significant differences in savings and such. It was somewhere between 100 to 150 points. Of course all depending on the contract you could find and I was mindful to make sure that if contracts were stripped, you added in extra per point for each use year they were missing. I do that anyway when looking at resales because that really helps you look at the cost per point per year. I think anyone looking at 100 or less points, probably going direct is the better answer. Somewhere above that to around 150 points. Definitely do the math to just to be safe. In my math I didn't actually even take into consideration how much I was getting back from rewards on credit cards either. We should be doing mighty fine on rewards this year. The car that we bought for my son, they allowed us to put $3,000 down on our credit card. Even though the car was only $5,000 total LOL. They limited that due to people doing chargebacks when something went wrong with the car. And then this contract went on there too. So we should hopefully see some decent rewards beyond what we usually get per year anyway. Do I love that I spent so much for this contract? No. Back when I lost the one contract to rofr in the spring, I was really upset by that. Looking back it was for the best given the job situation we had over the summer with my husband being out of work for about 4 to 5 weeks and now I technically own a tiny itty bitty piece of the new tower which makes me smile. But I will be on hold for sure with points until after my kid at least graduates college  |
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Post by brp on Oct 7, 2024 15:46:28 GMT -5
Its been awhile since I have done a direct vs resale comparison, but for the Poly Tower, I am sure the direct pricing works out in your favor.
Extra points. loaded immediately, no ROFR, less closing......over the life of the contract, say for a 50 point add-on, almost like rounding up to the closet dollar.
I think anyone looking at 100 or less points, probably going direct is the better answer. Somewhere above that to around 150 points. Definitely do the math to just to be safe. This was certainly the case with our 25 point add on. And, even if I could have saved a small bit resale (unlikely) the convenience of having the points show up in minutes so we could use them for a booking would have outweighed that anyway.
Cheers.
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Post by fuzzylogic on Oct 7, 2024 17:44:28 GMT -5
Do I love that I spent so much for this contract? No. Back when I lost the one contract to rofr in the spring, I was really upset by that. Looking back it was for the best given the job situation we had over the summer with my husband being out of work for about 4 to 5 weeks and now I technically own a tiny itty bitty piece of the new tower which makes me smile. But I will be on hold for sure with points until after my kid at least graduates college That's kind of where I'm at. I love that I've gotten prices I'm happy with on my past DVC purchases. To buy even 100 points now would cost me more than my BLT-160 or BWV-150 contracts. Then again... I was willing to add on a 30-pt direct BLT @ $245... In that light $225 isn't so bad. |
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Post by helenabear on Oct 7, 2024 18:38:55 GMT -5
I think anyone looking at 100 or less points, probably going direct is the better answer. Somewhere above that to around 150 points. Definitely do the math to just to be safe. This was certainly the case with our 25 point add on. And, even if I could have saved a small bit resale (unlikely) the convenience of having the points show up in minutes so we could use them for a booking would have outweighed that anyway. Cheers. Definitely yes on the points there immediately! I got my points before any contracts were even sent for us to sign. There are plenty of 50 point contracts out there that I could have looked at, but they were priced high with many "full price only" still. Knowing Disney ROFR $169 per point, I'm not gambling anyway. That's why I made the deal I did. I'll "offer" $175 but minimal closing costs for me. It was actually a better deal for me to do it too so in my mind I say I paid less than $175 a point lol Do I love that I spent so much for this contract? No. Back when I lost the one contract to rofr in the spring, I was really upset by that. Looking back it was for the best given the job situation we had over the summer with my husband being out of work for about 4 to 5 weeks and now I technically own a tiny itty bitty piece of the new tower which makes me smile. But I will be on hold for sure with points until after my kid at least graduates college That's kind of where I'm at. I love that I've gotten prices I'm happy with on my past DVC purchases. To buy even 100 points now would cost me more than my BLT-160 or BWV-150 contracts. Then again... I was willing to add on a 30-pt direct BLT @ $245... In that light $225 isn't so bad. My first contract was OKW. Right around $60 a point. My average is about $122/point for all of mine so far. Not horrible.... that OKW really helped. |
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Post by jawfish on Oct 7, 2024 22:14:59 GMT -5
I'm really thinking about this now. Should we buy in? We still find ourselves transferring and renting to supplement our stays, so I know we're under- in the points we need... but kids going to college soon, will we reign in our 42 Disney days a year? We already have a happy life at BLT and Boardwalk... my 2nd and 3rd favorite resorts. Poly is of course my favorite, and we've never bought here due to A) No 2Bs and B) the studios being so far from the Ceremonial House. The new tower addresses A) finally, and B) a little, but still leaves you in a side building that's a good walk to the volcano pool (but it will have its own private pool). Booking these 2Bs is a whopping 70 (ballpark) points per night. That's hard to love. 100 points would get basically, 3 nights in a 2B every other year. Alternatively, we'll pay around $4000 cash for such a stay. Comparing to BLT where it's around 55 per night, or Boardwalk 45, this 70 point per night baseline is really steep. Pros... * Due to the high PPN, the 2Bs won't be a hot 11 mo thing... (but will sell out by 7 mo) so I'll generally have my pick of S, P, TP. S's will sell out first, but I prefer P and TP so that additionally works in my favor. Cons... * $25K for 3 nights every other year. * 70 points @ $15pp is $1050. @ $20pp is $1400. A fair value falls somewhere in there. I can book a Poly resort room right now for $558, call it $1200 for 2 rooms. That's pretty much a wash in true cost to stay. Yeah you lose some comforts but for us, 2 rooms is about equal in value to a 2B because 2 rooms in the Resort are closer to the feature pools. So-- I dunno! I did not have any plan to buy Poly, but we have a 3-night stay coming up next spring that will run us $4K -- Our first 2 years of points would cover this and give us that "credit" on the purchase. When you're offsetting an immediate cash stay that adds a nice incentive to add on. And keep in mind, when you buy the points over spending cash, you still have the contract which you can sell later. While there are no guarantees, we could sell our contracts back today, almost 9 years since the first purchase and end up making more than we spent including maintenance fees. I look back now and my $152 per point direct and $155 resale a few years later were both great. Plus we have used this now for years. No other timeshare holds its value like Disney. |
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Post by DrMinnie on Oct 8, 2024 18:23:14 GMT -5
Congrats Helenabear!
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Post by helenabear on Oct 15, 2024 8:49:22 GMT -5
I booked two rooms for different trips next year at the tower. I moved our studio to a one bedroom. So my kid and I each get our own full bathroom this time instead of just own showers. But we loved the longhouses for that so we could each shower at the same time and not have to worry about the other.
Then we did our summer stay and got what I wanted. They actually had standard available for both when I had called. However, one of my calls took about 20 minutes to be answered, maybe a hint last. The other had said I had over 90 minutes wait time left on that one and I had to already been on hold for a while at that point.
So good luck to those trying to book today! I should not have been as stressed as I was though because I got through in time and got exactly what we wanted.
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Post by mcd on Oct 15, 2024 9:03:14 GMT -5
I have been trying to call and can't even get into a hold queue. I'm bummed.
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Post by helenabear on Oct 15, 2024 9:49:28 GMT -5
I have been trying to call and can't even get into a hold queue. I'm bummed. I am so sorry. I started dialing 20 seconds before 9am (takes about 20 seconds to get through first prompts) and got through the stupid announcement they had a couple minutes later then on hold. Our other phone was seconds behind and had a 90 min wait difference. Good luck and keep trying. |
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Post by snystedt on Oct 15, 2024 11:34:56 GMT -5
I called at 9, said a one hour wait, took about 45 minutes, booked a 1 bed theme park view for September. The call only took 5 minutes, the castmember was very nice but did say they expected the lines to be full all day.
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Post by mcd on Oct 15, 2024 12:23:10 GMT -5
I was finally able to get through! I booked the two-person studio for five nights during race week in January. Very excited! I had them check some two bedroom availability for me for June. It sounds like there will still be quite a bit of availability until things open up November 5th for others to book.
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Post by tomandrobin on Oct 15, 2024 12:56:29 GMT -5
I was finally able to get through! I booked the two-person studio for five nights during race week in January. Very excited! I had them check some two bedroom availability for me for June. It sounds like there will still be quite a bit of availability until things open up November 5th for others to book. I hope so.....three weeks is long time to for rooms to book up.
I might change my February date, if not than Memorial Day weekend would work to change to the Poly Tower too.
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Post by helenabear on Oct 15, 2024 13:47:13 GMT -5
I called at 9, said a one hour wait, took about 45 minutes, booked a 1 bed theme park view for September. The call only took 5 minutes, the castmember was very nice but did say they expected the lines to be full all day.  Yes very busy today! I was finally able to get through! I booked the two-person studio for five nights during race week in January. Very excited! I had them check some two bedroom availability for me for June. It sounds like there will still be quite a bit of availability until things open up November 5th for others to book. I am so glad to see this! I know how excited you are for this and I was hoping you would get what you wanted! June when I called which was probably about 9:20 a.m. at that point when we started talking, they had tons of availability and I had the choice between lock offs and dedicated and theme park. The one thing I'm going to toss out and I'm curious to see if it was just the cast member I spoke with or not, he asked if I wanted a lock off standard first. Now I don't know if that means that was the first listed on his list? Or were there some others that were taken. He told me though, he would do the standard one bedroom first since that possibly could be harder to book due to spring break and such I really only had points to do a preferred or a standard for that one I think) and doing that first allowed me to know what I could do since it was my 2024 use year versus 2025 like my June trip mostly is except for the first day. |
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Post by mcd on Oct 15, 2024 15:31:26 GMT -5
Yeah, I am glad it worked out. I am most excited about the (non Bungalow) 2 bedroom availability at Poly for my family of 6. So I think I am going to call back and book a few days in June. But that will be the end of my points availability for awhile. Exciting stuff though!
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Post by Brian5581 on Oct 15, 2024 15:50:42 GMT -5
Congratulations to all who were able to book!
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