We made a last minute swerve from BLT resale to OKW direct. My budget-minded husband liked the more-for-less point chart math. I’m highly susceptible to sliding scale marketing incentives (does it help that I know I’m being played?). For EOY we really don’t need much- my family is more sensible than me and says a 2 bdrm is enough space for 6 (as I silently scream “but look how cheap the grand villas are! we’d never get that at BLT!”). So how much do I round up on a contract to allow for point variations?
My “standard” 8 night stay in a 2-bdrm costs 311 points beginning in 2022. Is 320 EOY (a 160 pt contract) sufficient for point shuffling? What do you do with the random bits of points left over? Or do you go under and buy the additional so there’s no wasted points? (In this case a 150 contract and buy 11 points to cover the difference).
I know purchasing DVC (to do it, where and how much) is all highly personal but crowd sourcing wisdom and points of view has been really useful!
When I asked the same question, people advised me to buy just a little more than I needed. You can (usually, probably not during COVID) buy up to 24 one-time-use points to complete a reservation when you don’t have quite enough points.
You can bank points you don’t use, so if you’re planning to travel every year, you should be able to use all your points eventually by continually banking. You’d only lose them if you skip a year and don’t have enough to rent out. Presumably it would be a small number of points.
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We just signed our contract and we went back and forth deciding between 150 points or 175 points. I may regret this later but we decided to go a little less and do 150 to start. We figured most years 150 would be enough but we may have to borrow a few points from the next year occasionally.
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So. For your family of 6, what age is everyone? The reason I ask is because we typically travel as a party of 7 (5 of us with 2 Grandmas). Our first contract was 200pts. It was enough for a 2 bdrm for one week in the middle of the point chart. Now that my kids are bigger, they are not sharing a bed. For our next trip we’re looking at a 3 bdrm or a 2 plus a studio. We’ve added on twice and we’re still doing dvc point gymnastics. What we have is more then enough for OKW, but not for BWV. They shifted around the points charts last year which put a lot of people’s panties in a bunch. If you’ve figured you need 311 points for your “standard” vacation, bump the numbers into the next most expensive point bracket and use that. You could either get more than you need knowing that you’ll use them, or resign yourself to the fact that you’ll probably add on as your family dynamics change so it doesn’t really matter what you do now.
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We have a family of four (older kids, boy and girl) and a set of grandparents. It’s the future proofing- or the attempt thereof- that’s driving me batty! The potential future family combinations with point allocation changes, schedule changes, the variables go on and on!
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You can never future proof it. But you can add on. Get what you need for now. Adjust in the future if and when necessary.