I'll open with our Contextual Details and go from there.I need help forming an opinion, hive mind activate! Thanks in advance.
Question 1: Is buying into the Grand Californian as our home resort worth the additional price per point over most Florida properties? This is a $15-20k decision for us, so...help!
Question 2: Is booking Grand Californian within the 7 mos window (if not one's own home resort) really that much of a challenge?
Contextual Details:
- We live in Seattle and love Disneyland. West coast travel is easier/cheaper for us.
- When we go to WDW, We'd likely explore and experiment around various WDW properties vs return over and over to just one resort.
- We will almost certainly buy all/bulk of our points on resale market.
- We want to have about 300-350 pts per year.
Talk to me. I'm all (mouse) ears.
The direct sales person I talked to said the waiting list was closed so resale might be the only option here.I had great success booking last year at 7 mos for 1 and 2 beds but this year, nope! I'm going to try one more year and if it's as tight when all the rooms are in service, I'm going to buy, maybe even direct if the prices are close and the inventory as slim.
The direct sales person I talked to said the waiting list was closed so resale might be the only option here.
Exactly. When we told them originally on the tour that we were firm and only interested in VGC because we are West Coast they were ready to sell us some.Ask for another guide, one that will do an informal waitlist
I live in SF Bay Area, recently purchased Aulani and also deciding whether or not to add a little VGC. If I attend a tour at Aulani, is there a better chance to get VGC direct add-on?
There is no waitlist for VGC and my guide recommended buying resale.
I also did a cost comparison of the average resale purchase price, length of contract left, and annual dues and found that there was only about $5-6K/100 points in difference between the cheapest resort and the most expensive resort after 30 years (when we personally might be slowing down in age). That's not enough of a savings to gamble where I want to stay each year.
I'd like to see the specifics also since I'm wiling to bet the TVM wasn't accounted for and that the cost was averaged over the 30 years, an approach I personally wouldn't agree with for either item. The up front difference alone on VGF and SSR is that much. In 30 years that $5K difference up front between SSR & VGF will be worth in the neighborhood of $50K if invested. The dues difference isn't much but is misleading because it takes a lot more points to stay at VGF than at SSR by roughly 50% thus a slightly higher dues per point but a lot more total. I think the real difference between SSR & VGF as the extremes resale is more in the $200K range roughly studio to studio for a week. Since one should only buy VGF to main (? only) stay at VGF and if they buy SSR, they're more likely to be using other locations, the real differences will be less for most people because they're likely to buy more points than just the minimum (and should) while at VGF there isn't any need to buy extra other than a cushion to guard against reallocations.Is that something you could share? (the comparison)
Thanks
I'd like to see the specifics also since I'm wiling to bet the TVM wasn't accounted for and that the cost was averaged over the 30 years, an approach I personally wouldn't agree with for either item. The up front difference alone on VGF and SSR is that much. In 30 years that $5K difference up front between SSR & VGF will be worth in the neighborhood of $50K if invested. The dues difference isn't much but is misleading because it takes a lot more points to stay at VGF than at SSR by roughly 50% thus a slightly higher dues per point but a lot more total. I think the real difference between SSR & VGF as the extremes resale is more in the $200K range roughly studio to studio for a week. Since one should only buy VGF to main (? only) stay at VGF and if they buy SSR, they're more likely to be using other locations, the real differences will be less for most people because they're likely to buy more points than just the minimum (and should) while at VGF there isn't any need to buy extra other than a cushion to guard against reallocations.
That was the example, at the extremes per the quote you responded to. Since it was be a cash difference up front, it should be invested if not used thus it would be a direct and valid comparison. The $50K in 30 years would be affected by inflation in 30 yr from now dollars it'll be about half of the total $50K. Obviously if you reduce difference to almost nothing on both the up front cost and the points costs, the dollars change dramatically. Obviously this is just one factor of many but it does serve to reveal the REAL cost of such a long term commitment. And it does serve to highlight the difference between buying to stay at SSR or OKW compared to the highest end options. In reality my costs are significantly less than even the lowest quoted here since most of my stays are by exchanging in but that's a whole other discussion with more education needed, more risk, more uncertainty and less choices.5K becomes about 50K in 30 years if invested at 8%, and only if you invest the money in year 0 (not reinvesting the maintenance savings). Plus, you should really subtract away the effect of inflation.
I think your argument, which might make sense for VGF, would not be as compelling, made for VGC (on which, I believe, we started this discussion). VGC gets a premium because there aren't many alternatives for visiting DLR.
That was the example, at the extremes per the quote you responded to. Since it was be a cash difference up front, it should be invested if not used thus it would be a direct and valid comparison. The $50K in 30 years would be affected by inflation in 30 yr from now dollars it'll be about half of the total $50K. Obviously if you reduce difference to almost nothing on both the up front cost and the points costs, the dollars change dramatically. Obviously this is just one factor of many but it does serve to reveal the REAL cost of such a long term commitment. And it does serve to highlight the difference between buying to stay at SSR or OKW compared to the highest end options. In reality my costs are significantly less than even the lowest quoted here since most of my stays are by exchanging in but that's a whole other discussion with more education needed, more risk, more uncertainty and less choices.
One just needs to understand that the real dollars for any luxury purchase has significantly more cost long term than on the surface. If one adds other debt or financing to the equation, it further adds to the cost. In effect, every time one buys something with debt in their life, they are effectively financing a cash purchase that their highest interest rate.For sure! If we evaluated the lost opportunity cost for investing vs. ANY luxury purchase, there would be no question at all! Investing and renting instead of purchasing and owning would win hands down. Buuuut, how can you value peace of mind? Which is why I would buy.
Buying points to stay anywhere would be a different comparison as well, I agree. I was only comparing the cost of different points to stay ONLY at VGC. So I would need X amount of points to stay there, regardless of what home resort they originally had.
My spreadsheet is several months old, and had spring's resale numbers on it, so I'll try cleaning it up and put in some new numbers to see about posting. I didn't evaluate any of the resorts that have 25 years left since those weren't even a consideration for me.