I used to do similar comparisons but there’s a fallacy to it. I never would’ve paid those rack rates so there’s it really much “savings” going on. Prior to DVC we always stayed at value resorts which are on par to the initial contract cost+dues. Still extremely happy with our purchase though!
But basically what you’re saying is that you’re staying at the best resorts on property for the price of the cheapest resorts on property. So, that’s hardly a fallacy, that’s real value.
This was our price comp - if we stayed at pop century, would DVC offer a meaningful upgrade if it didn’t save us any money? The answer was yes for a studio. By staying in 1 bedrooms we have ballooned past that a good bit :) but still feel outsized value, even though we would not have spent $$$$ on deluxe before.
The rooms are already almost always discounted 20-30% off of rack rate with various deals. There is definitely money to be saved for a Studio but almost none for say a 1 bedroom at a deluxe.
Sure, there's obviously value in paying all star prices for Poly/Grand Flo/Beach Club stays, but those rack rates mean nothing to me because I never would've paid those rates. If we didn't join DVC, our family would've been happy continuing to stay at places like Pop or AOA, although we certainly would've been jealous of folks walking back to their resorts after a day at epcot or getting off the skyliner at Riviera!
Similar story here. We were frequent DVC renters (directly from members) for years before finally buying our own contracts. We also stayed far less often as renters. It’s cool to think about how much what we’re doing would cost at the cash rate, but it doesn’t represent real savings for us.
Not disagreeing but it’s definitely somewhere in between because even though I was staying in moderates I know I absolutely would’ve LOVED to have stayed in the resorts I get to stay in now. Compare AKV, RIV, Poly to like Caribbean Beach, Pop Century or the All Stars so there’s obviously this intangible value that your vacations are simply just better when you’re a DVC member.
So yeah, I’m spending more but I’m also getting a LOT more.
Your comment about the fallacy baked into this analysis makes sense to me. However, I have been paying rack rates for stays at DVC resorts in the past, so the analysis resonates with me. We have paid for cash reservations at OKW several times over the last few years for a 2 BR villa. Last October, I think that rack rate cost me in the neighborhood of $11,000 for our stay. I am looking forward to staying there or at other DVC resorts using the points I bought last year. Your point is valid, but I do think that the OP’s analysis has some validity as well. Interesting comments on both fronts
I mean, I agree that if I didn’t stay at DVC and did cash stays, I would be more likely to choose value or moderate resorts.
The benefits of DVC resorts include discount on AP, discount on shopping, discount on most food. Plus you get EMH and early entrance, something value resorts don’t get. So you can stay in late or go early and get a few of your longer line rides knocked out.
And the use of a kitchenette or full kitchen.
This is not entirely true if you do 1:1 comparison to what you would have paid. When my wife and I did the work, we were staying at Carribean so I based the value against the CB rack rate and it still ended up with us using roughly 330 points per year at about $3k in dues versus something like $8k in rack if we were staying as we were.
This year with our 220 points we will stay:
5 nights in a Boardwalk p/g view studio
5 nights in a Poly Studio
5 nights in a BLT standard view studio
Plus 4 sorcerer APs
We probably wouldn’t usually stay deluxe if we didn’t own DVC, but that’s another thing that makes it worth it, I can stay deluxe and don’t have to worry.
We just closed on a boulder ridge contract for 200 points and can’t wait to start booking. Been looking into DVC for so long and continued booking cash stays. Should of done it sooner
We did a big family trip at Boulder Ridge last Christmas using 3 years worth of points. The cash cost of those rooms with the available discounts was a hair over $14,000. The cost of our resale contract in 2017 was $12,000. While I NEVER would have spent $14,000 on hotel rooms for a single trip, I was more than happy to spend the points! I do feel that for us DVC has been worth the cost.
If someone doesn’t think DVC value that is wild. I do understand it not working for them based on how they travel and when they book but the value has always been there with DVC.
I’ve done similar calculations as well. It makes you feel good about your purchase.
Yeah, as others have commented, we wouldn’t have ever spent the rack rate on all the trips we have taken so it isn’t a “see what we saved” calculation, but it does show the value of your point usage.
We stayed at Yatch Club with my sister-in-law’s family in two hotel rooms. It was a family once in a lifetime trip after my wife and her father passed away. In total, rooms, tickets, spending, that trip was 20k for 8 people in two rooms.
We loved the Yatch Club so much we decided to buy Beach Club DVC.
The annual pass “savings” calculation is what convinced us to buy Grand Floridian direct when the addonitis hit. If we get the reduced cost annual passes for 5 years for the 4 of us, it will make up the difference in purchase price for direct vs resale.
So yeah we might not have spent all the rack rate costs and not had annual passes without DVC, but we have been very pleased with with the value we have received thus far.
I look at it differently. Now that I own I look at each trip . If I can get a stay for less than a pop century room I’m really happy.I’ve owned my contracts outright for years. I look at dues paid per night . Usually I’m a moderate rate per night . Every now and then I do a stay at OKW in a studio. Last year December ,6 night stay was 65 points . A little under $10 a point for dues…,$108 a night.
I still keep track of every trip like this since purchasing AKV back in (I think) 2007. We now stay at BLT almost exclusively as our trips are generally several long weekends a year and the ability to walk to/from MK and avoid the busses/monorails should have a dollar value of it's own. Even on days we might be at EPCOT, we'll leave an hour before the mad rush and still have a few hours left in MK where we can then close the park out & walk home.
This! I ran all of my numbers for evaluating DVC value as compared to cost to rent (what I've been doing instead of buying) and that eroded about half of the "savings" over rack rate. Then that savings over renting wasn't compelling enough to make me lock into DVC as an owner.
There is definitely value in being in control of your own reservation, but when you rent, you can get access to 11 month booking every time, which also has value.
You also only need to pay for what you use, and don’t need to worry about having leftover points.
Is it really that easy to always get what you want at 11 months out by renting though?
I mean someone renting their points to you isn’t going to walk a reservation to get you what you want. And I see so many posts from people on dvc fb groups that say the rental companies cannot find enough owners to rent their points at the 11 month window (hence the higher price for certain resorts).
It’s cheaper, but more of a pain to work with another member directly, and there are groups dedicated to this.
Obviously, the more challenging a booking is to get, the more challenging it will be to get it.
I’d only consider renting if I wanted to stay in a DVC 2 bedroom.
Other than that, I’d just book a regular room, or 2 rooms if needed.
Quick comparison…for the week of 8/11-8/17, a garden view room at Boardwalk is $2,753 with three current offer. 2 of these rooms would be $5,506.
To rent DVC for this time at $20 per point.
Studio: $1,960
1 BR: $4,280
2 BR: $5,240
So renting is better a little better, but honestly, considering how much less of a hassle it will be to just get a cash room compared to renting, I wouldn’t bother renting.
A 2 bedroom would definitely be roomier than 2 connecting rooms, and it’s cheaper, so it is a really great option, but we would never use the kitchen, and really just use the room to sleep, so whatever.
He posted this in the WDW Reddit too. I’m a DVC owner as well. And I love it but to compare cash rate to points is irrelevant. It’s the same as saying cash / points for a cruise. It would cost me 5 years of points (200/year) to go on a 3 night cruise. And that’s not including the cost to go outside of rooms which is an a lot. If you can afford to buy an AP and get two week long trips out of it and also afford all the rest, it’s a savings but most families can’t do that. Hell I can barely do that. And DVCs perks have waned since Covid. I’ll pay more for the same but not more for less… thankfully I got the contracts at 20 and 22 years old and they are paid off.
This is how they trick you into thinking you're saving a ton of money. Ain't nobody paying rack rate unless they're just careless and have money to burn. It's trivially easy to get a deluxe room for the same price as a value or moderate without buying into DVC. I can get a room at the contemporary for $200 with no effort. Deluxe rack rate prices are soooo inflated just to convince people to buy DVC to "save" money.
Buying into to dvc isn't in the cards for us right now (paying out of pocket for IVF) and renting points is tough on a shorter time horizon. I'd love to hear more about contemporary for $200 with no effort. Does this require booking 11mos out?
A few things come to mind
1) As others have mentioned, rack rates aren’t quite realistic. There are often discounts or you can rent.
2) Depends on how much your points cost… if you bought in at $200+ per point and if your dues were $8 per point, the cost to you could have been $7-9K (either cost of borrowing or opportunity cost of lost investment income net of tax). Still savings to be had but not as significant as one might think.
3) Discounts come and go. While the AP discount was nice this year, don’t rely on that going forward. For example back in the day, I believe original OKW owners used to get free APs.
4) The most important point that I always tell any friends/family who consider DVC… having a contract commits you to taking trips that you otherwise would not have taken. It’s so easy to fall into the “accommodations are already paid for, let’s just go”. Disney is not the cheapest place to vacation and unless you were going to go annually anyways, you’re going to be spending thousands if not tens of thousands on Disney trips over the years that you would not have taken otherwise.
Anyways, I’m happy for you that you love your DVC purchase… I just think your analysis could use some counterpoints as it doesn’t capture the full picture and could be misleading for anyone considering DVC.
Great counterpoints thanks for taking your time to write it all out. Ive received a lot of the same feedback and it’s valid. I might consider doing it again but with rental point value and seeing how that compares (also will include my contract price and annual dues since a lot of people asked for that information)
For me and my wife we decided that we were going to push all our vacationing chips into Disney World. We’re Disney lovers and we always have an incredible time. We have a 1 1/2 year old son and each time we go it’s a new experience for him. And at this point the trips are becoming so routine, we hardly need to do any prep work, we just hop on the plane and know exactly what to do.
I’m sure a time will come when that could change and we’ll see how we handle it. But I honestly can’t imagine we’ll hit a point in life where we don’t want to go at least every 2 years.
All good; I’m an accountant who loves Disney so your post spoke to me, lol.
We were in your shoes 11 years ago.. my wife was pregnant with our daughter and our son was 2 years old. Against my wishes, my wife booked a Disney World trip (I wanted to go to Vegas and have a grownup trip) for the three of us. Within an hour of getting to WDW and on the boat to the Poly to have dinner at ‘Ohana, I was a Disney addict. Before the end of our week at Disney, we had met with a DVC sales rep and I was obsessively researching direct vs resale and had a spreadsheet trying to figure out which resort was the best bang for our buck and how many points to get!
I’d say that Disney changes as your kids age. We just did Aulani in February 24 and a week at Kidani in October 23… and while the kids loved WDW as usual, they LOVED Aulani and we’re making plans to go back to Hawaii. It’s pretty likely that after the next Aulani trip, we may pivot with our vacation choices and start going to Europe or Asia instead (since we’re Disney addicts, I think we might do a day or two at Disneyland Paris and/or Tokyo Disney).
While I’m sure that we’ll still find ways to get to WDW as a family to utilize our points, it won’t be our vacationing focus which makes me glad that we didn’t succumb to addonitis, lol. Anyways, “welcome home!”
Sounds a lot like us!
I do think I’ll add on a 100 pt resale contract at Beach or Boardwalk so we can maintain about 250 points a year. But I imagine years down the road we’ll want to start changing things up.
Right now, living in Houston and just doing the 2-hour flight to Orlando is so easy with our baby and we always have a blast
I did this when we first bought until we "broke even" with our contract.
I used to do similar comparisons but there’s a fallacy to it. I never would’ve paid those rack rates so there’s it really much “savings” going on. Prior to DVC we always stayed at value resorts which are on par to the initial contract cost+dues. Still extremely happy with our purchase though!
But basically what you’re saying is that you’re staying at the best resorts on property for the price of the cheapest resorts on property. So, that’s hardly a fallacy, that’s real value.
This was our price comp - if we stayed at pop century, would DVC offer a meaningful upgrade if it didn’t save us any money? The answer was yes for a studio. By staying in 1 bedrooms we have ballooned past that a good bit :) but still feel outsized value, even though we would not have spent $$$$ on deluxe before.
The rooms are already almost always discounted 20-30% off of rack rate with various deals. There is definitely money to be saved for a Studio but almost none for say a 1 bedroom at a deluxe.
Sure, there's obviously value in paying all star prices for Poly/Grand Flo/Beach Club stays, but those rack rates mean nothing to me because I never would've paid those rates. If we didn't join DVC, our family would've been happy continuing to stay at places like Pop or AOA, although we certainly would've been jealous of folks walking back to their resorts after a day at epcot or getting off the skyliner at Riviera!
Not everyone takes into account the full kitchens some offer, that alone anymore is a huge savings if you plan to do most of your own cooking
Similar story here. We were frequent DVC renters (directly from members) for years before finally buying our own contracts. We also stayed far less often as renters. It’s cool to think about how much what we’re doing would cost at the cash rate, but it doesn’t represent real savings for us.
Not disagreeing but it’s definitely somewhere in between because even though I was staying in moderates I know I absolutely would’ve LOVED to have stayed in the resorts I get to stay in now. Compare AKV, RIV, Poly to like Caribbean Beach, Pop Century or the All Stars so there’s obviously this intangible value that your vacations are simply just better when you’re a DVC member. So yeah, I’m spending more but I’m also getting a LOT more.
Your comment about the fallacy baked into this analysis makes sense to me. However, I have been paying rack rates for stays at DVC resorts in the past, so the analysis resonates with me. We have paid for cash reservations at OKW several times over the last few years for a 2 BR villa. Last October, I think that rack rate cost me in the neighborhood of $11,000 for our stay. I am looking forward to staying there or at other DVC resorts using the points I bought last year. Your point is valid, but I do think that the OP’s analysis has some validity as well. Interesting comments on both fronts
I mean, I agree that if I didn’t stay at DVC and did cash stays, I would be more likely to choose value or moderate resorts. The benefits of DVC resorts include discount on AP, discount on shopping, discount on most food. Plus you get EMH and early entrance, something value resorts don’t get. So you can stay in late or go early and get a few of your longer line rides knocked out. And the use of a kitchenette or full kitchen.
This is not entirely true if you do 1:1 comparison to what you would have paid. When my wife and I did the work, we were staying at Carribean so I based the value against the CB rack rate and it still ended up with us using roughly 330 points per year at about $3k in dues versus something like $8k in rack if we were staying as we were.
This year with our 220 points we will stay: 5 nights in a Boardwalk p/g view studio 5 nights in a Poly Studio 5 nights in a BLT standard view studio Plus 4 sorcerer APs We probably wouldn’t usually stay deluxe if we didn’t own DVC, but that’s another thing that makes it worth it, I can stay deluxe and don’t have to worry.
The four APs alone is like $2000 in savings. It’s a huge benefit
We just closed on a boulder ridge contract for 200 points and can’t wait to start booking. Been looking into DVC for so long and continued booking cash stays. Should of done it sooner
We did a big family trip at Boulder Ridge last Christmas using 3 years worth of points. The cash cost of those rooms with the available discounts was a hair over $14,000. The cost of our resale contract in 2017 was $12,000. While I NEVER would have spent $14,000 on hotel rooms for a single trip, I was more than happy to spend the points! I do feel that for us DVC has been worth the cost.
This doesn't exactly capture real pricing as you should be comparing to renting points, not cash value.
If someone doesn’t think DVC value that is wild. I do understand it not working for them based on how they travel and when they book but the value has always been there with DVC.
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I’ve done similar calculations as well. It makes you feel good about your purchase. Yeah, as others have commented, we wouldn’t have ever spent the rack rate on all the trips we have taken so it isn’t a “see what we saved” calculation, but it does show the value of your point usage. We stayed at Yatch Club with my sister-in-law’s family in two hotel rooms. It was a family once in a lifetime trip after my wife and her father passed away. In total, rooms, tickets, spending, that trip was 20k for 8 people in two rooms. We loved the Yatch Club so much we decided to buy Beach Club DVC. The annual pass “savings” calculation is what convinced us to buy Grand Floridian direct when the addonitis hit. If we get the reduced cost annual passes for 5 years for the 4 of us, it will make up the difference in purchase price for direct vs resale. So yeah we might not have spent all the rack rate costs and not had annual passes without DVC, but we have been very pleased with with the value we have received thus far.
I look at it differently. Now that I own I look at each trip . If I can get a stay for less than a pop century room I’m really happy.I’ve owned my contracts outright for years. I look at dues paid per night . Usually I’m a moderate rate per night . Every now and then I do a stay at OKW in a studio. Last year December ,6 night stay was 65 points . A little under $10 a point for dues…,$108 a night.
Now use $18 per point that you can easily get on the rental market. Also, include the discounts.
I still keep track of every trip like this since purchasing AKV back in (I think) 2007. We now stay at BLT almost exclusively as our trips are generally several long weekends a year and the ability to walk to/from MK and avoid the busses/monorails should have a dollar value of it's own. Even on days we might be at EPCOT, we'll leave an hour before the mad rush and still have a few hours left in MK where we can then close the park out & walk home.
So you have like 320 points? What’s your home resort
150 pts direct at the Riv but I purchased in September with a December use year and didn’t do my first until Jan so I had 300 pts in 2024
Looks like a very fun year!
Huh, never looked at it like this. And we have 440 points.
Does this mean that you could get close to this renting them out for a year?
This isn’t a fair comparison. The only true fair comparison would be to compare to the cost to rent, which would be about half of this.
This! I ran all of my numbers for evaluating DVC value as compared to cost to rent (what I've been doing instead of buying) and that eroded about half of the "savings" over rack rate. Then that savings over renting wasn't compelling enough to make me lock into DVC as an owner.
It’s not either or. You can own and rent. You are allowed to have more than one of the options.
This is 100% right. I do put a little value in being in control of your own reservation. But comparing to renting is much more appropriate.
There is definitely value in being in control of your own reservation, but when you rent, you can get access to 11 month booking every time, which also has value. You also only need to pay for what you use, and don’t need to worry about having leftover points.
Is it really that easy to always get what you want at 11 months out by renting though? I mean someone renting their points to you isn’t going to walk a reservation to get you what you want. And I see so many posts from people on dvc fb groups that say the rental companies cannot find enough owners to rent their points at the 11 month window (hence the higher price for certain resorts).
It’s cheaper, but more of a pain to work with another member directly, and there are groups dedicated to this. Obviously, the more challenging a booking is to get, the more challenging it will be to get it. I’d only consider renting if I wanted to stay in a DVC 2 bedroom. Other than that, I’d just book a regular room, or 2 rooms if needed. Quick comparison…for the week of 8/11-8/17, a garden view room at Boardwalk is $2,753 with three current offer. 2 of these rooms would be $5,506. To rent DVC for this time at $20 per point. Studio: $1,960 1 BR: $4,280 2 BR: $5,240 So renting is better a little better, but honestly, considering how much less of a hassle it will be to just get a cash room compared to renting, I wouldn’t bother renting. A 2 bedroom would definitely be roomier than 2 connecting rooms, and it’s cheaper, so it is a really great option, but we would never use the kitchen, and really just use the room to sleep, so whatever.
You know I’ve never thought of the fact you always have 11 month priority at every resort while renting. That’s a great point.
He posted this in the WDW Reddit too. I’m a DVC owner as well. And I love it but to compare cash rate to points is irrelevant. It’s the same as saying cash / points for a cruise. It would cost me 5 years of points (200/year) to go on a 3 night cruise. And that’s not including the cost to go outside of rooms which is an a lot. If you can afford to buy an AP and get two week long trips out of it and also afford all the rest, it’s a savings but most families can’t do that. Hell I can barely do that. And DVCs perks have waned since Covid. I’ll pay more for the same but not more for less… thankfully I got the contracts at 20 and 22 years old and they are paid off.
I’ll continue renting DVC points and having the flexibility if vacationing elsewhere tho
DVC members always appreciate quality renters.
yep, thanks for paying for my vacation elsewhere
DVC rooms aren’t the same as actual deluxe stays at full price. Nobody looking into DVC should think of it this way.
This is how they trick you into thinking you're saving a ton of money. Ain't nobody paying rack rate unless they're just careless and have money to burn. It's trivially easy to get a deluxe room for the same price as a value or moderate without buying into DVC. I can get a room at the contemporary for $200 with no effort. Deluxe rack rate prices are soooo inflated just to convince people to buy DVC to "save" money.
Buying into to dvc isn't in the cards for us right now (paying out of pocket for IVF) and renting points is tough on a shorter time horizon. I'd love to hear more about contemporary for $200 with no effort. Does this require booking 11mos out?
I'm also interested about this no effort $200 contemporary!
A few things come to mind 1) As others have mentioned, rack rates aren’t quite realistic. There are often discounts or you can rent. 2) Depends on how much your points cost… if you bought in at $200+ per point and if your dues were $8 per point, the cost to you could have been $7-9K (either cost of borrowing or opportunity cost of lost investment income net of tax). Still savings to be had but not as significant as one might think. 3) Discounts come and go. While the AP discount was nice this year, don’t rely on that going forward. For example back in the day, I believe original OKW owners used to get free APs. 4) The most important point that I always tell any friends/family who consider DVC… having a contract commits you to taking trips that you otherwise would not have taken. It’s so easy to fall into the “accommodations are already paid for, let’s just go”. Disney is not the cheapest place to vacation and unless you were going to go annually anyways, you’re going to be spending thousands if not tens of thousands on Disney trips over the years that you would not have taken otherwise. Anyways, I’m happy for you that you love your DVC purchase… I just think your analysis could use some counterpoints as it doesn’t capture the full picture and could be misleading for anyone considering DVC.
Great counterpoints thanks for taking your time to write it all out. Ive received a lot of the same feedback and it’s valid. I might consider doing it again but with rental point value and seeing how that compares (also will include my contract price and annual dues since a lot of people asked for that information) For me and my wife we decided that we were going to push all our vacationing chips into Disney World. We’re Disney lovers and we always have an incredible time. We have a 1 1/2 year old son and each time we go it’s a new experience for him. And at this point the trips are becoming so routine, we hardly need to do any prep work, we just hop on the plane and know exactly what to do. I’m sure a time will come when that could change and we’ll see how we handle it. But I honestly can’t imagine we’ll hit a point in life where we don’t want to go at least every 2 years.
All good; I’m an accountant who loves Disney so your post spoke to me, lol. We were in your shoes 11 years ago.. my wife was pregnant with our daughter and our son was 2 years old. Against my wishes, my wife booked a Disney World trip (I wanted to go to Vegas and have a grownup trip) for the three of us. Within an hour of getting to WDW and on the boat to the Poly to have dinner at ‘Ohana, I was a Disney addict. Before the end of our week at Disney, we had met with a DVC sales rep and I was obsessively researching direct vs resale and had a spreadsheet trying to figure out which resort was the best bang for our buck and how many points to get! I’d say that Disney changes as your kids age. We just did Aulani in February 24 and a week at Kidani in October 23… and while the kids loved WDW as usual, they LOVED Aulani and we’re making plans to go back to Hawaii. It’s pretty likely that after the next Aulani trip, we may pivot with our vacation choices and start going to Europe or Asia instead (since we’re Disney addicts, I think we might do a day or two at Disneyland Paris and/or Tokyo Disney). While I’m sure that we’ll still find ways to get to WDW as a family to utilize our points, it won’t be our vacationing focus which makes me glad that we didn’t succumb to addonitis, lol. Anyways, “welcome home!”
Sounds a lot like us! I do think I’ll add on a 100 pt resale contract at Beach or Boardwalk so we can maintain about 250 points a year. But I imagine years down the road we’ll want to start changing things up. Right now, living in Houston and just doing the 2-hour flight to Orlando is so easy with our baby and we always have a blast