How Many DVC Points Should I Buy?

foreign [Applause] [Music] and welcome to this week's episode of the DVC show coming to you from the Bob Varley studio in Orlando Florida I'm your host Pete Warner joined at the table this week by my good friends Paul Krieger hey everybody Amy Krieger hello Marissa valatan hello hello and our producer Mr Johnson hello everyone uh just a reminder this show along with all of our DBC content which includes dbcfan.com our website uh BBC fan YouTube channel and the DBC face DVC fan Facebook group all of which should be paying attention to um it brought to you by the world of DVC which includes DVC resale Market .com if you're interested in buying a a DVC resale contract uh dvcreentalstore.com where you can rent your points out or rent points to save a lot of money over uh going through Disney Direct and monerafinancial.com which is where you can Finance your DBC it's all in one one big happy family One Stop One Stop Shop one snapshot they can handle everything um all right this week we are going to talk about probably the most common question asked especially among first time DVC DVC buyers how many points should I buy I think it's that question of where should I buy or the most common ones yeah um and what's your answer to that Paul how many points should they buy there is no limit I feel like I feel like at the end apparently I as as I have proved um no yeah yeah did you just pull out a Mean Girls quote over there the limit does not exist um no I so many complexities into DVC ownership that I think that's why this question is so popular is that it really depends on your individual situation and I think that's what we kind of wanted to dive into we had a lot of requests for this topic and we did do it many many years ago but that's kind of changed ever since uh a lot of things have changed with DVC and so um you know the the first one I think that we go back to is where do you want to stay what resort are is sort of appealing you in the DVC world because that's that's going to be the first place to start in determining how many points you're potentially going to need and of course you know the general rule of thumb is buy where you want to stay buy where you want to stay um and I apparently want to stay everywhere there's always that there's always that yeah that that becomes a problem and I think that um you know the primary reason that it's becoming more and more important to settle on that answer first is because of what we're seeing with Point charts as Disney Vacation Club puts out new properties um so if you look back in time the Old Key West Boardwalk Beach Club Boulder Ridge even those have very accessible what I would call a very accessible point chart so there are Seasons or times of the year where you could get a deluxe Studio accommodation anywhere from like 9 to 15 points per night which is on the low range of things nowadays we've got newer Point charts coming out for like Riviera for I would even put in the new resort Studios at the Grand Floridian probably in this bucket as well because they're a smaller accommodation but the point charts are a little inflated um so these new properties the point charts are a little bit higher which is going to then affect how many points you end up needing or wanting to buy one of the things that I would say for years is there's never going to be a perfect Point number and I think so many people sit on the ledge of do I buy Disney Vacation Club and they wait years and years to become a member because they can't figure out that perfect amount the thing is like you can do the numbers like backwards and forth and you can find a roundabout good idea but you'll never know especially if you're not a member if you're not a member you have no idea how many points you need because you don't know how much you're going to utilize points for different things or you might upgrade and start loving one bedrooms or two bedrooms but in your head you think you started out at studio so I think the biggest thing if you are new looking into it is get around about and get started yeah you can always add on and there's no reason to like say hey I'm gonna wait till I can afford if I need 500 points for this day I'm gonna wait until I have enough for 500 points start with what you think you can afford what makes sense financially and then figure out how you're going to strategize those vacations you can always add on from there but I think don't get too caught up in like finding that perfect amount because it will well I think people don't realize first timers don't realize the pervasiveness and the power of addonitis um whatever contract you buy whatever contract you buy you're going to want more points it just happens to everyone I don't know anyone I bought one contract well maybe Panda he hasn't I don't know but you know I I I have the add-on items I just can't react to it yeah I don't have the minute I don't have the money for the medicine I'm hoping I will soon yeah so that I mean like I said what was my first contract um Boulder Ridge was I was it was it the Boulder Ridge or Copper Creek was Copper Creek yeah it was 50 points at Copper Creek which was adorable or 75 77. little guy he didn't know what was going to happen I bought Direct um and yeah that I think my next contract was the 700 Point Baltimore Ridge um but you know Adonai this is a real thing and it affects everyone so you're going to want to add on so I think your point is well taken yeah you know buy what you can afford right now learn how to use it yeah exactly yeah learn learn the ins and outs and then you're going to make a decision um of okay I I really don't have enough points and let me add on 50. let me add on 100. um and start hunting down contracts and we've seen people actually you know make this mistake over over the time I have to imagine to a certain degree that's why we ended up with it's a 68 69 point Grand cow contract is because someone did the math and said okay these four days are the days that I'm gonna go and so I just need that number of points which is not the correct way to look at it because Point charts do change um the seasonality of Point charts the total number of points sold does not change but because of where do the certain dates fall within a season uh specifically Easter is the big moving Target year after year which affects spring break and everything like that so where does that move in the calendar year affects those Point charts in some way shape or form so if you think 68 points looks good this year next year it could be 82 that that is for that same week because of how these things move again things have balanced themselves you know that's 68 somewhere else in the point chart things have moved around a little bit but you're likely not going to year after year have that same specific number and what if you're what if your travel plans change what if this year you decide not to go during spring break but you decide to go in the fall or you decide to go over Christmas or something like that all of those different seasons all of those times of year are going to affect the per Point per night per Point cost that you're going to pay so whenever you know we've got many different things that we'll talk through here today but whenever you settle on that number I always recommend to people you know add 10 to that or add 20 to that to give yourself that buffer to your point Pete you're always going to be adding on I've done it four times myself um you know it's going to happen but you definitely don't want to in the short term put yourself in a position where you're you're gonna not be in a good way you certainly have to just look at how often do you plan to visit how often do you visit Disney World now um and kind of look at the point charts and figure out how many points you would need to to cover that um but and again this is where adenitis comes in when you have a hammer everything looks like a nail okay so when you have points and you know you can use them and you you want to use them you want to spend them I go out of my way to like that's why I gotta I gotta dump contracts because I just I have too many points and because I went nuts yeah no surprise there um there's no five in the dial with me it's either zero or ten um and I you know you can say oh I'm only going to go once a year then you go have the experience right you go and you spend those points and you go have that experience maybe twice a year I like this this is nice yeah the resorts are nice the experience of ending your stay and getting that bill to your room that basically has nothing on it um unless you've charged back to your room uh is a really nice feeling and you're like oh okay okay um well it makes your vacation planning like I know for us when we go and do a vacation we calculate in like what it takes like the transportation to get there and what we do and we have so much more of an enjoyable vacation because to your point it's points right and we know you've paid for them and you look at like the cost over time but that feeling of your vacation is so much different it is because you just truly enjoy it without saying like this big expense when you check out and you're always kind of worried about like what will that bill be but it's so funny like you're right like it does it just grabs hold of you you know like it's like when we first bought our DVC we decided on enough points to go once a year one big trip a year and then it turned into maybe two maybe three big trips a year then turned in you know crap let's just move let's just move to Florida yeah and it happens a lot and don't make the mistake of thinking because I've hear this all the time I'm a local I don't need DVC yeah hello uh yeah I'm a local I would love to say I didn't need it but boy am I using it and you know I bought it Riviera and you would think that it would be impossible to get Lagoon view contemporary Fourth of July now the two nights just to sit on the balcony and watch the fireworks God I mean I did wait list it but came through in like 10 days so well being local makes it even worse we're locals and I think in the time that we've been locals we we've bought somewhere in the range of 230 to 240 points yeah so yeah um weekend stays and and you know Halloween party magic and stay for it no we just did two nights for my birthday at Grand Floridian and it's just like it's just a nice escape and you still once you're in the bubble it's still the same magic of you know being in the bubble and and and being that that's why you were a Disney Vacation Club member just to wake up there something that I don't think a lot of people know because before I was DVC I didn't know that you can go onto this website just search availability and go shopping and have a fun time picking that's part of the fun for me is oh I could stay here all this one night here there's one night there you have that control that's you know you don't have to sit on the phone and call anyone it's great yeah if you are new and you don't yet have a DVC account to look at availability and look at points uh like Panda's talking about DVC rental store has a calculator tool that you can use so you could take the calendar and you can plug in you know these dates and these are the resorts and it tells you how many points you would need for that stay so you can kind of use that tool it's it's it's more geared towards like if you're looking to rent but you can also use it to look at it to kind of determine okay it costs this many points to say you know this week at Grand Floridian or this week at Polynesian so that can actually help you decide maybe how many points that you might need because there are you know there's so many factors you know how often are you going when are you going how big of a room do you need you know those things can all play right I think that cat count calculator tool on rental store would be really helpful yes 100 you weren't listening to Paul's point of like the range of points too like if you go back and look at a Boulder Ridge point chart and a Grand Floridian point chart like an easy thing that I always tell people is go to Animal Kingdom go to Savannah view that gives you around about an average so if you're kind of like hey I have no idea what resort I'm going to be staying at and I want to stay at a mall just look at that Savannah View and then look at the time or season you're usually going and then that will give you a good idea of like right around here you will use points a little bit less for like an Old Key West or Boulder Ridge it'll be a little bit more for Grand Floridian but it's a good kind of medium guide yep and you're always going to want to plan for you know what that home Resort is and what booking at that 11 month window is going to look like you know the seven month window is always an unknown um the other thing that was on my list that we've not really discussed is banking and borrowing um and that gives you a little bit more flexibility in this discussion as well so if you're someone that maybe goes once every two years or once every three years for those unfamiliar with how DBC Works um essentially each year you get a certain number of points whatever that number is that you buy let's say it's 150. so every year on that certain date that you get your points you're going to get those 150 points and have access to them um you can also choose to bank those points forward into your next use here so that means that your next year you would have 300 points available to you and technically let's say that you've done that you've banked those 150 points into the next UCR or the next bucket and you've got 300 points there and this year you're like I want to do a big blowout normally I'm a studio kind of person but I'm gonna do a two bedroom this year and bringing the family in all that kind of stuff you've got those 300 points you can actually choose to borrow your 150 points from the following year the following year so now you have a bucket of points that's worth 450 and so DVC now does um you know previously there were some restrictions uh during the pandemic but now that we are back to normal you can borrow 100 of your points you can Bank 100 of your points before your banking deadline which is um I believe four months before the end of your use here but um you know you have that flexibility built into that system as well which should be taken into consideration if you're looking to maybe try to buy less points because maybe you're not traveling year after year but you're still going to buy more down the road everyone does everyone does so just factor that in this is not a one and done you are gonna buy more points um but I think your your point was really well taken that buy what you can afford why would you can afford and if you can't afford it Finance it and that's good for people that are considering direct versus resale I think as well is you know so many people think about their points and they think about member benefits and member perks but take care of the primary obligation first you want to be a DVC member and you have a certain budget that you can afford for that purchase so buy DVC resale now you know you know that that's going to put you into that number of points that's going to allow you to take that vacation year after year and you know what you can then add on at a later time if you want to add on Direct um I I feel like this is something I've asked I've said multiple times but I would love to know the number of hybrid memberships that there are out there because I believe that it's got to be a large priority of members are a combination of direct and resale and they either do it direct and then resale or resale in the direct it really doesn't matter we did kind of we kind of did both at the same time that's when the minimum was a little bit less but um it it made sense for us at that time to buy a larger resale contract and then buy what we needed to become direct members and but you can space that out over a period of years so don't put yourself necessarily in a financial pinch um in this purchase but take all of these things into consideration and and you know make a good decision for you and your family and you know if you have questions like this um about being a DBC member great resources that we have uh the DVC Forums on disboards.com and of course our DVC fan Facebook group uh great places to ask questions get feedback from other members hear other experiences um so you're making an educated and informed decision which is what a lot of people do and so that folks is going to do it for this week's episode of our show we hope you enjoyed it we'll see you again next week with another episode of the DBC show

Channel: DVC Fan

Views: 18,793

Keywords: disney, disney vacation club, dvc, disney 2023, disney vacation club 2023, dvc 2023, dvc member, dvc points, how many dvc points should I buy, how many dvc points should you buy, disney podcast, dvc podcast, disney world, disney resorts, disney hotels, disney world 2023, walt disney world 2023

Id: uIHrVVNufBg

Length: 17min 59sec (1079 seconds)

Published: Mon May 22 2023