Purchase direct Vs Resale? - HELP

[disney_lover_UK]

We are planning on making our first DVC Purchase on our next trip in April to WDW and are looking at Animal Kingdom which i believe is $188 per point direct! We really want the full Disney treatment (e.g. the blue card/ discounts and parties) but for our budget we know you can get a lot more points through resale!

Has anyone purchased through resale and any help would be great!

[Jasonharry]

We purchased through dvcresalemarket and found the whole process really straightforward.
It took quite a while, ROFR took a month and the sellers took a long time to sign paperwork so about 3 months, but the agents kept us informed at every step.
We had looked at all pros and cons, and decided we wouldn’t get that much benefit from the blue card, to make up for the huge price difference

[skstorm]

We bought resale in Jan 2019 and did our first DVC trip in August 2019 best thing we ever did. The savings can be huge so you need to weigh up how much you would get out of the perks and also bear in mind they can be removed or changed.

[YorkshireT]

When you say you want the ‘full Disney treatment’ you need to carefully consider what that entails and the cost.

The biggest downside to buying resale now is that you cannot use those points to stay at Riviera and future resorts. Depending on your point of view, Riviera may not be a big loss, it is expensive to stay there points wise, and the resort has split opinion. Reflections the next one may be more uniformly liked. However buying direct at Riviera onward has an even bigger downside many would a argue- the resale restrictions damaging your resale value, but you don’t look to be considering Riviera anyway. If you were it’s the only one I’d personally buy direct- no question.

Moving back to the full Disney treatment, would you go at least twice in a year every year on non Gold pass blackout dates (not at Xmas, Easter etc)? If yes, then the annual pass discount is a good discount to get, but forget it if you are not going twice a year. And even then the discount is not huge over 2 lots of UK tickets. if you go on blackout dates you’ll need the platinum pass, and need to go three times in a year to make it worth it.

Other discounts are 10% off at restaurants, and 20% off merchandise. I buy zero merchandise most of the time, and only eat half the time at table service, so the discounts I personally see are minimal.

Next the events- Moonlight Magic. This is the party you mention. Will you plan your entire trip around one of these? If not, the chances of you being there when one is on is actually quite slim. For example, over a 12 month period starting 20 December 2019 I am visiting WDW on 3 separate trips and Disney California on one. I am not there when any Moonlight Magic event is on. I have never been there when one is on. These events seem to benefit people within a short distance to WDW the most.

The final perk is the Epcot Lounge. That’s a nice free perk, but not worth much. It’s also only likely there because there was an empty sponsors lounge above Figment and it’s almost certainly going to be knocked down at some point, and will probably then disappear.

So that’s your perks, and your ‘full Disney Treatment’. Is that worth nearly $16000 extra on a 200 point contract? Only you can answer that question but you’d have to eat a hell of a lot of meals and buy a lot of annual passes to get that sort of money back.

Finally, be aware what ‘perks’ and the full Disney treatment really are. When you buy direct you actually sign a waiver agreeing that you are not buying direct to get the perks. Let’s consider the logic of that one- Perks are marketed and people buy for these perks, but sign waivers saying they legally agree they are not buying for this purpose? Only in timeshare land!

This is because everyone buys the exact same contract direct or resale, the exception now being Riviera where the resale buyer cannot join the exchange club to stay in other Disney resorts. The perks are just non contractual freebies, basically designed to sell more timeshare direct.

As a result, they can be taken away any time. Moonlight Magic is paid for by DVD as a timeshare marketing event- even if that isn’t obvious that is the reason they put it on- to tell people at point of sale it is a perk of buying direct, and also to sell DVC to non member attendees. The president of DVD was quite open about this at a member meeting a few years back. Same with Epcot Lounge. As soon as they decide these items are not giving a good return in investment they are gone.

The other perks and discounts can and have in the past been taken away any time. Your discount on restaurants could disappear tomorrow, although that one is less certain than the Epcot Lounge disappearing. The annual pass discount could disappear, be restricted to only certain types of passes, or more blackout dates applied. More likely the passes are shooting up in price faster than UK tickets so increasingly look unattractive to the UK visitor.

So personally I think it’s impossible to justify buying Animal Kingdom direct at $188 a point. The only place I would buy direct now is Riviera if I was buying it, which I wouldn’t be, due to its restrictions. I have direct and resale points BTW.

As to your original question, yes I have bought multiple resale contracts it is very easy. We are happy to help on here when the time comes.

Edit - on the list of perks I missed off using points for cruises, Adventures by Disney etc because that is usually such poor points value, it’s a pointless perk as you are much better renting the points and paying cash. Resale buyers get RCI membership and access to Top of the World Lounge.

[saratogajan]

We also bought resale, although it was before the restrictions came in, but I totally agree with all Yorkshire Ts advice. The only thing I would also add is buy at the resort you want to stay at as it’s getting very difficult to get a studio at particular times at the 7 month date. I’m another who wouldn’t touch riviera due to resale restrictions. We used Dvcresalemarket direct from the U.K.and found it very easy.

[YorkshireT]

Originally Posted by saratogajan

We also bought resale, although it was before the restrictions came in, but I totally agree with all Yorkshire Ts advice. The only thing I would also add is buy at the resort you want to stay at as it’s getting very difficult to get a studio at particular times at the 7 month date. I’m another who wouldn’t touch riviera due to resale restrictions. We used Dvcresalemarket direct from the U.K.and found it very easy.

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Good advice, studios are difficult to get and so buying where you want or don’t mind staying is recommended- but in summer there is often choice. There is however a consistent upward pressure on studio availability- as prices go up and these resorts need more points per night, more and more people buy for studios.

So expect studio availability to possibly get worse, albeit DVD May finally be starting to build a lot more studios on newer properties, starting with California.

One beds are a different proposition on availability at 7 months and there’s no evidence I’ve seen of that tightening up. So if you are buying enough points for a 1 bed, advice is to research and consider Saratoga points as the possible best option. For example, I’ve never had a problem getting in a 1 bed at Boardwalk or Beach Club, even at Xmas.

But research is the key, because it for example you must stay in Copper Creek at Xmas, or BLT at New Year (even though I just did that with my Saratoga points) even in a 1 bed there are a couple of resorts that are hard to get at peak peak times.

If you like Animal Kingdom it’s pretty easy to get even in studios most times of the year, in fact I’d be surprised if you couldn’t get Kidani or Jambi bang on 7 months at all times of year even in a studio, but certainly a 1 bed. So do you need to buy points there given the higher dues? Again, research is the key. For 1 beds I wouldn’t buy at AKL to stay there, for studios I might as it isn’t as certain on 7 months also bearing in mind anticipated studio availability tightening.

Spend at least 8 weeks of intensive research before pushing the button. Consider Skier Pete’s 7 month availability charts. I’ve found ‘spotty’ on his charts usually means available at 1pm UK time 7 months out (I’ve had this online conversation with him and he accepts this point saying he couldn’t capture the data often as soon as the window opened). Remember the studio availability may well tighten further.

Consider dues cost and use an online compound interest calculator at 5% to see how your dues may look in 20-30 years. You will pay a lot more in dues than buy in cost. That $1 extra on dues now may not look like much but compounded over 30 years it looks like a lot!

[tigger48]

Lots of great advice here already OP which I’d echo. We have both direct and resale contracts (bought direct first). We also wouldn’t touch Riviera despite its long expiry date - the reason put simply is the resale restrictions.
Think about where you want to stay not just now, but say in 5/10 years time and the answers may be very different. I think I read somewhere that the average time someone holds a DVC contract for is c10-15 years. How will the dynamics of your travelling party change? Think carefully about how many points you need/want I’m pretty sure the 2 figures will be different 😆! People warned us about addonitis we thought no way, but they were right. Perhaps also consider the various expiration dates of the different resorts versus your life plans. Spend some time visiting the various resorts (if you haven’t already) to get a better idea of where “home” should be. Yes for 1 beds and most studios you likely will be able to swap out at 7 months, but if you can’t, it’s best to be happy with your home Resort too. There is definitely no rush to buy. Direct or resale there’s always going to be someone happy to sell you a contract, just make sure it’s the one that’s right for you. Happy researching!

[eaglesrest]

The 'buy where you want to stay advice' is almost like a DVC mantra, but I don't think it always applies, particularly for us Brits who visit infrequently.

As mentioned before, you can usually get where you want if staying off-DVC peak, and/or in 1 bedrooms.

We bought at SSR for cheap as chips resale, but still managed to bag 2 weeks at BCV in a 2-bedroom, and 2 weeks in a 1-bedroom over memorial weekend.

We have 415 points, with 340 resale and the other 75 bought direct at SSR. We have the 'perks' and have used them for TiW, Moonlight magic and the Epcot lounge.

In reality, we got the TiW by blagging it even before we got the blue card, and the Epcot lounge is practically worthless. MM at Epcot was brill though. If we go more frequently once the kids have flown, we might end up getting the Gold annual pass which again would help to justify the small extra outlay by buying those 75 points direct rather than resale.

In truth, our biggest reason for going direct was Moonlight magic, and the fear of missing out on some cool new future perk.

[disney_lover_UK]

Thank you all for taking the time out to reply! Got a lot of thinking/ research to do!

What are the top recommendations for resale brokers?

dvcresalemarket.com/ seem to be one I keep going back to look at?

[YorkshireT]

Originally Posted by disney_lover_UK

Thank you all for taking the time out to reply! Got a lot of thinking/ research to do!

What are the top recommendations for resale brokers?

dvcresalemarket.com/ seem to be one I keep going back to look at?

See more...

Go with the best deals. The main ones are DVC Resalemarket, Buy and Sell DVC (DVCScott and Jason on here), Fidelity Resales (DVC Store.com) ResalesDVC (Tutas) there's a newer one called DVCShop I have seen a bit.

First thing to do is sign up to the apps and email alerts- these often show the new listings before they hit the website.