Too late to buy for Feb trip?

[correctcraft97]

Hi All,
I have been debating and following for a long time now to purchase a resale contract. Originally I had planned on sitting out taking a trip in 2018 and buying a contract sometime that year. My schedule has now allowed me to take a vacation in February (my favorite Disney time).
My question is.... since I will be paying for a week in February, is there enough time to actually find the right contract and pass to book a February trip? I know it would be very rushed but I keep thinking that the money I spend on a cash trip could be put on a contract.

 

[DisneyKLN]

Hi All,
I have been debating and following for a long time now to purchase a resale contract. Originally I had planned on sitting out taking a trip in 2018 and buying a contract sometime that year. My schedule has now allowed me to take a vacation in February (my favorite Disney time).
My question is.... since I will be paying for a week in February, is there enough time to actually find the right contract and pass to book a February trip? I know it would be very rushed but I keep thinking that the money I spend on a cash trip could be put on a contract.

It's definitely possible. We purchased our first resale contract on 9/2 last year and were able to close the contract and book a few nights in February. However, the available inventory is pretty small right now. Wish you the best of luck finding a contract that meets your needs.

 

[1momof3boys3]

If it doesn't close in time, I have heard of people renting points and then once the contract closes you rent those points to get some money back.

 

[correctcraft97]

That's a great idea. Of all the ways I was trying to find to justify going ahead to buy, I totally missed this one

 

[_auroraborealis_]

I think the answer is "it depends."

If you were buying direct, the answer would be "totally," because you could close next week and they'd do a "welcome home" booking, where they manipulate inventory to get you in somewhere.

Resale is harder. First, you have to find the contract. If you found a good one today and bid, you'd then be reliant on the seller getting back to you quickly (doesn't always happen). Assuming the best, you'd enter ROFR Thursday or so. That's 30 days. The seller had best be in the continental US, or else assume closing is longer.

Generally, a good resale process will take about 120 days to get your points in your account to book. Could be shorter. But that puts you November/December before booking, which puts you staring at the hole that is Breakage. At 60 days, any open room goes into "book by any means" mode.

I'd think your best availability by November/December would be a 1BR at Saratoga or OKW. So you'd need to be able to have the points for a 1BR.

 

[MrInfinity]

I guess to me the real question is where you want to stay... Say you close by the end of Oct and you pass ROFR, which is the best case scenario... that gives you 4 mo lead time on your booking. You're so far into the 7 months you won't find much available. For comparison, I just ran a week in Jan, now... at BC, BW, BLT, Poly, and SSR. Only thing avail in any room category for the week was 1B's in SSR. Those are the least economical room category, so they tend to be available any time. SSR studios could be found in smaller chunks. Studios at the more desirable places are all around 2 consecutive nights available, that's it. So if you're thinking a smaller 2-3 night trip and your dates are flexible, you could probably make it happen. But a connected week outside of SSR is unlikely. Even 1B Lake Views in BLT are already mostly gone in Jan, and pretty picked over for Feb.

 

[drusba]

auroraborealis' post is spot on. If you have to wait until at the earliest Nov to make a reservation, a likely outcome if you have not even made an offer yet, it could be difficult finding much left except SSR 1BRs and and possibly OKW 1BRs. Moreover, even those have a real risk of being gone if the time you want includes the four or five days around Presidents' Day or, even worse, any part of the Princess half marathon weekend.

 

[correctcraft97]

That's what I was afraid of. It seems as though I should take my time looking for the right contract and rent points for the February trip. I dont want to rush into the wrong contract and regret it later. Thank you all for the great info

 

[CarolMN]

That's what I was afraid of. It seems as though I should take my time looking for the right contract and rent points for the February trip. I dont want to rush into the wrong contract and regret it later. Thank you all for the great info

Wise! !

Good luck with your search!

 

[bobbiwoz]

Buy 50 points at CC direct? Or does initial contract have to be more?

 

[4luv2cdisney]

Hi All,
I have been debating and following for a long time now to purchase a resale contract. Originally I had planned on sitting out taking a trip in 2018 and buying a contract sometime that year. My schedule has now allowed me to take a vacation in February (my favorite Disney time).
My question is.... since I will be paying for a week in February, is there enough time to actually find the right contract and pass to book a February trip? I know it would be very rushed but I keep thinking that the money I spend on a cash trip could be put on a contract.

What resort? How much are you spending on the room portion of your trip? Are you getting APs? How many points do you want / need? Are you planning on doing a direct add on after resale anyway? I would run the math.

If you can get your accommodations with 150 points, it's possible to do that with a 50 point direct purchase depending on UY. So, lets say you spend about $50 more per point buying direct x 25 additional points (assuming you'd buy a 25 direct for benefits anyway) that is $1,250. Now, for a family of 4 buying AP's, you're already recovering $800 of that. Even without AP's, if your going to spend $1250 or more for your room this trip, it's worth it (in my opinion).

 

[correctcraft97]

Ahh, didn't think about this option. I did go through the tour at poly and decided to buy resale. I will research more into this approach. Poly is my favorite resort but I had ruled out direct so I have not gave it any more thought. On resale I was looking at either AKL or BLT due to the price point. If all direct is the same price I would definitely choose poly. I was looking for a 100 point resale. We used to go every other year but have gone back to back the past two years. I suspect that I will scale back to every other year in the near future. It looks like I would use 80 points at a deluxe studio at AKL for 6 nights in my season. How often could I go if I only started with 50? I haven't mastered the bank and borrow system yet.

 

[correctcraft97]

Also, 6 nights in February with a deal I have is going to be $2300. I know that deals are not forever so I can't bank on them being there every time I want to visit

 

[_auroraborealis_]

All direct isn't the same price. Price ranges go from $115 (HHI & VB)-185 (BLT & VGF) per point. Most of the rest are $165 or $176 per point.

 

[4luv2cdisney]

Honestly, it sounds like maybe you could use a little time to research before you buy, but if you are really only needing 80 points every year and sometimes every other year, 60 points is probably plenty.

For example, if you bought direct right now with a Dec UY, you would have 2016 points and 2017 points for Feb.2018 trip. So, 120 - 80 = 40 to bank into 2018. Go again in Feb 2019 on your 40 banked and 40 of your 2018 points. Bank 20 and use those + all 60 of your 2019 in Feb 2020. At that point, you would either need to skip the 2021 trip or start borrowing. I'd skip and start the process over in 2022. So, you'd have trips in Feb of 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2026.......

That's of course in a perfect world where you need exactly 80 points for each trip, etc. and I have no idea how realistic getting that Feb 2018 trip booked is.

 

[correctcraft97]

I think that could work long enough for us to buy a resale to go with it. All good info, thank you. I called direct and got some prices and info for a small contract so I just have to make up my mind. Definitely not going to rush it

 

[correctcraft97]

So I've been digging further into buying a small direct to start and then buying a resale down the road. I talked to an agent and found out that I can buy 50 points and got prices for 3 places that I requested.
BLT $185
Poly $176
AKL $165
I like all 3 resorts with poly being my favorite but I realize that the dues are more and it takes more points for a studio and that many people are not happy with the dvc side. What are your thoughts on paying that much for BLT or even AKL on a direct contract? I would be happy with either and I see studios in my near future until we outgrow. I was told BLT is more because of demand right now. It would seem like BLT would be my most economical option to get on the monorail line but I would like to venture around a little too

 

[disneynutz]

So I've been digging further into buying a small direct to start and then buying a resale down the road. I talked to an agent and found out that I can buy 50 points and got prices for 3 places that I requested.
BLT $185
Poly $176
AKL $165
I like all 3 resorts with poly being my favorite but I realize that the dues are more and it takes more points for a studio and that many people are not happy with the dvc side. What are your thoughts on paying that much for BLT or even AKL on a direct contract? I would be happy with either and I see studios in my near future until we outgrow. I was told BLT is more because of demand right now. It would seem like BLT would be my most economical option to get on the monorail line but I would like to venture around a little too

My thoughts are do what works best for you. Do you know for sure which is your favorite resort. Do you know which UY to buy. Do you know for sure that paying a premium for DVC perks and extras are worth buying direct? Do you know for sure that you want to buy 50 direct or would 25 be better?

Bill

 

[correctcraft97]

We are wanting a December use year and honesty the perks are not important. The main reason I started looking direct is because we decided to go in February. I originally planned on sitting 2018 out but you know how that goes. I was wanting to buy a resale in 2018 but now I have waited too late to buy resale to be able to clear all the hurdles and book a February trip. I would rather put the $2000 toward a contract than to pay cash for another trip. I would rather buy a 20 but I was told 50 was minimum for a non owner. I like all the resorts so that part wouldn't be a deal breaker. 185 seems much though since the current dvc resorts are not selling that high.

 

[1momof3boys3]

We are wanting a December use year and honesty the perks are not important. The main reason I started looking direct is because we decided to go in February. I originally planned on sitting 2018 out but you know how that goes. I was wanting to buy a resale in 2018 but now I have waited too late to buy resale to be able to clear all the hurdles and book a February trip. I would rather put the $2000 toward a contract than to pay cash for another trip. I would rather buy a 20 but I was told 50 was minimum for a non owner. I like all the resorts so that part wouldn't be a deal breaker. 185 seems much though since the current dvc resorts are not selling that high.

Have you compared the point charts? I was debating between BLT and AKV. A smaller contract will go much further at AKV, so I went with that.