Question on DVC resale

For those liners that have bought DVC points on the resale market.

A little back round first, I am currently in the market to buy DVC points. I have been researching for several months and I am confident I know how everything works. I am semi-retired and am fortunate to be able to down to the world often, 5-6 times a year ranging 7-9 days per trip. My wife joins me twice a year and the remaining trips I usually go solo, unless I can talk another family member into going. My kids are older, out of the house and not very interested in going. Unfortunately there are no grandkids in my immediate future but hopefully there will be someday. That being said I rarely need anything bigger than a Studio which I currently rent thru David’s

So here is my question: I plan on continuing to stay at BW for the foreseeable future. In order to keep the initial buy in lower I was thinking of buying into OKW, SS or AKL. Since it is not my home resort, in your experience difficult is it to find availability for a Studio at BW 7 months out? Or, should I just pay the extra up front cost at BW so that I would be able to book 11 months out?
Thanks for any insight you can offer.

Studios are the most popular room category. I think the question you need to ask yourself is, how would you feel if you were unable to book a Studio at the Boardwalk - would you be happy to stay at SSR or OKW? If you specifically want to stay at the Boardwalk I say spend the extra money to get that 11 month booking advantage and peace of mind. If you’re really not that bothered and are happy to stay wherever there availability, then let the wallet decide. :slight_smile:

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I am by no means a DVC expert, or novice for that matter, but I’ve been doing a lot of research about it lately and over and over I see agreement with what Iecras said: Pick a place that you’d be happy to get “stuck” staying at, otherwise you are setting yourself up for disappointment.

Having said that, if you are willing to make trips relatively on short notice, I believe you can always get on a wait list for openings when they come up, so that could work out for you.

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I am going to jump in here too. I am currently tracking prices with a plan to add resale points next January. I am currently tracking AKL, SSR, OKW, and BR. I have also looked at OKW direct. I will your OKW on my next trip, but I think I have settled on AKL. I am going to buy where I want to stay. I am assuming that 7 month studios are going to be rare (as a Copper Creek owner I would be happy with an easy 11 month window). I am also looking at years left on the contracts and the possibility of future limits . If I bought today I am confident that I could get AKL for about $10-15 more than SSR. To me, knowing I can book a resort I love- always- makes it a good deal.

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BW is my home resort and I always try to book at 11 months out as my family only needs a studio as well. The times I haven’t been able to book at 11 months I find the dates are spotty even at 8 months before that 7 month window opens. There is some availability at 7 months, but you better book right when the window opens. With that said, I have had quite a few wait lists come through once the 7 month window has opened. I can only guess this is because people book at their home resort, in this case BW, in case they can’t get into the other resort they want. Then if there is availability the rooms open up at BW. I would also say it depends on when you are wanting to go. We always go in the fall during Food and Wine so BW is extremely popular during that time. I think if your heart is set on BW then that is where I would buy just because it is so popular. That’s just my two cents :slight_smile:

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I think SWGE is going to be a game changer for availability for a while.

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Wow , thank you so much for the extremely quick responses. Looks like you all are saying the same thing. To be honest I have not stayed at either OKW or SS and I don’t know if my wife would be happy there. Like me she would prefer BW but is happy to stay at AKL. I have no issues booking 11 months out, actually I prefer to so like @PrincipalTinker said I buy where I want to stay. It may be more initially but worth it in the long run.

I do plan to buy more than one contract instead of one big one. Most likely 3 at 160 points each. This way I can spread the cost over a few years instead of one big hit. Also it seems that if I ever do decide to sell, a smaller contract would be easier to sell. If my vacation habits change I can sell 1 or 2 contracts and still hold on to 1 or 2. I think I may do is buy into BW this year, AKL next, then BW again. I would be happy to split my trips between the 2.

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This is exactly what we did - we have four smaller contracts (160/160/130/150) across two resorts for a total of 600 points. If we ever started going less frequently :scream: we’d be able to downscale with no problem.

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I agree

Great minds think alike

That is the direction I am going in.

One other question. How important is use year? Do you have all different ones. Also would like to ask @PhotoFGIT since your home resort is BW and you like to go for F&W is your use year 11 months before you usually go? I also go to F&W every year and I know how hard BW is to get then. For me I go every year the first week of December. So should I look to get a contract with a January use year?

I don’t think there is a January use year? Even if there is, @OBNurseNH made a great point the other day. If you use your 2019 January use point to book December 2019 and if something happens and you have to cancel at less than 30 days, you most likely will lose those points. If December is your use year and you go in December, you can book your Dec. 2019 trip using your Dec. 2019 points. If something happens you will have until the end of Nov. 2020 to use those points- I think?

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Ah, excellent point. So you are actually borrowing the points at the time you book. All starting to make sense. Thanks

Use year matters if you tend to travel at the same time of year every year. This has to do with the way points are treated if you have to cancel a trip less than 30 days from your checkin date. Basically, the points go into a holding account (you can’t bank them at this stage) and there are restrictions on how they can be used from that point. So, if you always travel at a particular time of year it makes sense to have a use year that falls before your regular travel time. If you normally travel at different times of year it’s less important.

As for actual use years, not all months are available. There are no January, May, July or November use years.

You can have contracts with different use years, but this effectively becomes two separate ownerships which you will need to keep track of, especially since the banking deadlines will fall on different dates. You also can’t use points from two different memberships to make one reservation - you would need for Member Services to transfer points from one membership to another for you. Our four contracts are all the same use year, so they’re all under the same membership number. We saw no reason to do it any other way (we bought all our points direct from Disney).

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I am guessing that if nothing else it is easier to keep track of if they all have the same use year. I do travel different times of year however the most important for me is the first week of December because its Christmas time, but more important its the trip my wife will always go with me. Odd though, why no Jan, May, July or Nov?

If Christmas is the most important time for you to travel I would go with something like a September or October use year. If you also like to go for F&WF regularly August might make more sense. :slight_smile:

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Just to follow up- my Copper Creek contract is August. I wanted to use my remaining 2018 points for a night a BWI so I rolled those points to 2019 and used them to book the night (it counts when you use them not when you book). Since that time I cancelled that night (points went back to 2019) and I used them when I booked a long weekend in February 2020 (still my Aug. 2019 use timeframe).

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Here are some interesting charts regarding use year’s at different resorts. For whatever reason, the points are not evenly divided among use years. This will give you an idea of how popular each use year is so you can watch the resale listings. We wanted either August or September use year at SSR which were relatively popular but if we wanted April I think we would have had to wait a little longer!

I wonder if there will be any long term impact now that DVC can change the use year of resale contracts they are taking and selling direct?

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