When do you decide you have enough DVC points?

[Straulin]

I know you’re just kidding, but I vaguely remember someone somewhere saying you can only spend a certain number of weeks per year on property, so that you can’t legally become a resident of Reedy Creek.

Your really messing with my lottery dreams... back to Golden Oak I guess.

 

[DonMacGregor]

I think it’s about 45 to 50% of your points when consider tax implications.

For me, having to deal with one or more 1099’s, plus having Uncle Sam take his cut, would just be too much of a hassle.

 

[Jack Kerouac]

Nobody can really answer that question for anyone but themselves, but generally people wish they had a little more (or a lot more) than they do, the dreaded add-on-itis.

I used to be heavily into cycling, and the running joke to answer "how many bikes do I need?" is "n+1, with n being the number you currently have"
So I guess the equivalent in DVC would be "n+100"

I love cycling and thought the n+1 was real. Then I realized I just wanted a steel Surly. My wife let me get one last year and now it’s just n for me. My guess Disney isn’t going to be like that for most of us.

 

[DonMacGregor]

I love cycling and thought the n+1 was real. Then I realized I just wanted a steel Surly. My wife let me get one last year and now it’s just n for me. My guess Disney isn’t going to be like that for most of us.

 

[🍀TwinsMom]

In my family I am the Disney fanatic, and our 1 child, girl, loves it too. My wife is super nice and is tolerating all of this, . It's so hard to decide, I know I want to do a monthly weekend trip, but don't know if booking all 12 trips 11 months in advance is crazy.

I meant to respond to this earlier. Studies have shown the planning and anticipation of taking vacations are actually more of the net positive than TAKING the vacations. So, if you’re thinking of booking every month for the 11-month booking advantage, that may actually give you a lot of long-lasting satisfaction with your purchase. I LOVE the mental gymnastics of planning new activities/restaurants/snacks, etc., and now my daughter researches with me watching Molly on YouTube! It’s a fun bonding thing we enjoy, as well as collecting ears, crocs, and jerseys.

I’m thinking DLT points won’t go to waste with you guys.

 

[crisi]

How often do you go?

Can you bank and borrow and take 1 trip every 3 years?

We use DVC points every other year. I don't think three years works well because you end up losing points or not having quite enough, but every other year works great in terms of managing points with banking and borrowing. Since we joined you can rent OTU points from Disney, which makes every three years more possible and since we joined, its easier to rent points as well, so I suppose you could buy for every three years and then a little to rent out the extra every other year to get points in balance. For about the past five or so years we've been using the points for HHI or Aulani instead of WDW. We are big travelers, but we like other places in addition to Disney properties and vacations. I know there are people here to travel more than we do and can fit in both more Disney than we do as well as other destinations, but this works for us.

 

[BamaGuy44]

I meant to respond to this earlier. Studies have shown the planning and anticipation of taking vacations are actually more of the net positive than TAKING the vacations. So, if you’re thinking of booking every month for the 11-month booking advantage, that may actually give you a lot of long-lasting satisfaction with your purchase. I LOVE the mental gymnastics of planning new activities/restaurants/snacks, etc., and now my daughter researches with me watching Molly on YouTube! It’s a fun bonding thing we enjoy, as well as collecting ears, crocs, and jerseys.

I’m thinking DLT points won’t go to waste with you guys.

Oh, the planning and anticipation is half the fun for us for sure. I used to let DW do all the research and planning which she loves. She's that person everyone we know goes to when they are going to Disney and she helps them plan it all out. But recent years I've enjoyed it too. Our granddaughter will be almost 4 when we take her next year, and DW has been planning the trip in her head literally since DGD was a fetus lol

Last year we did our first post-closure trip with park reservations, genie+, 2pm park hopping, etc and the logistics were a little more than even we enjoyed lol. We did a few days at Universal before Disney, and what a contrast. When we go there our planning consists of deciding if we want to stay at Hard Rock or Portofino this time, and maybe a dining res or 2. Nice, but does take some of the fun out of the planning part, not gonna lie.

 

[Brian Noble]

I saw a post by someone with a significant number of points and they mentioned selling some number of points every year to offset the yearly dues

Every time I look at this, I come to the same conclusion: it is not worth it.

When I do the math, the after-tax ROI on point rentals for a resale ownership is surprisingly* close to (and often a little bit lower than) the long term after-tax return of a broad-based, low-fee index fund**. In other words, you could take the money you would spend on buying the extra points and managing a small-scale rental business and instead just plow it into an index fund and pay your dues out of that. You'd end up in about the same place, and the index fund is a LOT easier than dealing with rentals.

---------
*: Maybe this shouldn't be such a surprise.

**: This is true for the "dollars-per-point" rental model, It might be less true for the per-reservation rental model when you restrict yourself to studios. But that's still a lot of work, and it's hard to do unless you happen to be a broker with a lot of web traffic.

 

[Lorana]

How do you all decide when to stop buying DVCs and keep some flexibility with regular hotels?

When my annual dues bill hit. ;-)

Seriously, though, I am always tempted to add a little bit more, but I finally hit the point where we could take several trips a year, bring friends and family at least once, and be able to spoil ourselves a little bit, too. Next UY for us might actually cause us to borrow some points, though, as we have a big Thanksgiving trip with my DH's family and an Aulani trip with my family, and a friends trip over a school break, and whenever I need to borrow, I get tempted to add on more points instead.

However, my oldest is in college now, and my youngest is going in three years. Prices have gone up a fair bit too, and dues annual increases average 5.85% across all the resorts I own (6.79% if I exclude RIV & CCV from that), and so I've also hit the point where I don't think the value is there. Especially as APs have remain paused, and so I cannot get APs for my kids (my DH and I have them), which makes me less inclined to do lots of long weekend getaways as we had initially planned to do, as regular ticket prices is getting ridiculous.

I honestly expect us to downsize at some point in the next 5-10 years if the continued price increases on tickets, food, etc continue, and especially if dues continue to increase at the pace
Also, while we are happy to rent out our points, we also travel to other places internationally and domestically, at some point the rental cost vs dues cost I suspect will make renting not as viable as just downsizing.

 

[Cfabar1]

Hard to say…. Being a FL resident…., and will depend on what other resorts happen post 2042….

Until now, I think 3 weeks in a 2 bedroom each year would probably be my max. 2 weeks probably makes even more sense…. There are other trips to have, family trips, cruises, etc. I love visiting WDW, but wouldn’t want to spend every day I have off at WDW.

 

[🍀TwinsMom]

Oh, the planning and anticipation is half the fun for us for sure. I used to let DW do all the research and planning which she loves. She's that person everyone we know goes to when they are going to Disney and she helps them plan it all out. But recent years I've enjoyed it too. Our granddaughter will be almost 4 when we take her next year, and DW has been planning the trip in her head literally since DGD was a fetus lol

Last year we did our first post-closure trip with park reservations, genie+, 2pm park hopping, etc and the logistics were a little more than even we enjoyed lol. We did a few days at Universal before Disney, and what a contrast. When we go there our planning consists of deciding if we want to stay at Hard Rock or Portofino this time, and maybe a dining res or 2. Nice, but does take some of the fun out of the planning part, not gonna lie.

I agree with Universal being way easier and less stressful. We haven't bothered with Genie+ and Lightning Lanes yet, but we're leaving tomorrow for a week at GF/RR, and I may bite the bullet and try either/both to make sure we do hit what we want. Not looking forward to the upcharges and learning yet another moving target of Disney IT.

 

[ML_LovesDisney]

We've had about 260-520 of varying amounts over the last 12 years and I would say I love 400 points at 2 different resorts. Before we just sold a contract, we would've been at 520 and the dues were getting to the point where I didn't want to pay that much. Also, when I start to see that points are almost "going to waste" and I have to rent them out. That's how I decided, because we do like to go on other trips too.

 

[JGINPL]

I am just closing on a 50 point contract that will get me up to 300 points. I do feel like this should be enough for me for awhile. My largest contract is 100 and smallest 25. But I got a lot of the resorts I love staying at. Who knows though time will tell if I decide I need more.

 

[HappyDisneyWife]

Hi All, wanted to get people's feedback on when you decide to stop buying more DVC points.
…
How do you all decide when to stop buying DVCs and keep some flexibility with regular hotels?

So, my initial thought was “when I stop needing to borrow so much!!” There truly is no such thing as too many points for me (we own just over 1,000 and only rent points out to family members when they want to go- not when we “need” to- bc that would never happen!).

That being said, I own at WDW DVC resorts. WDW & DL are night & day different- especially in the DVC world!!

I’d love to own at VGC, but wouldn’t make it out to CA often enough for it to make sense & there are so many great hotels out there which are a similar distance as the DLH that it would make pulling that trigger pretty hard… even for me. If you were talking more VGC, that would be a harder call (for me personally), but DLH’s DVC is a much harder sell when you are comparing to other hotels in the area, IMHO.

 

[NVDISFamily]

I think we are a little insane but it's fun. Started this year. At 1270 points so far but I could see that number going to 2000 to 2500 ish over the next 5 to 10 years if all the plans keep progressing on the life/career front. Part of the goals is to sponsor family for reunions and such over the years and then in 20 years you will find us pulling the points together and hanging out in a CCV cabin in the Jan/FEB off season if all goes well

 

[theMoreDisneytheBetter]

We are also over 1,000. I don’t remember the last time we banked points (excluding covid) and have never rented points out.

Selfishly I want 125 points at Riviera and Copper, maybe another 25 at VGF, and 150-200 at Poly 2. But I can’t figure out how we could use them all, let alone pay for them all as my son goes to college in a few years, so it probably won’t happen.

 

[DonMacGregor]

We've had about 260-520 of varying amounts over the last 12 years and I would say I love 400 points at 2 different resorts. Before we just sold a contract, we would've been at 520 and the dues were getting to the point where I didn't want to pay that much. Also, when I start to see that points are almost "going to waste" and I have to rent them out. That's how I decided, because we do like to go on other trips too.

We are at 450 between 2 resorts and that’s good for now with 10 nights in a 2BR split into 2 trips in any season. We still do lots of other vacations throughout the year (overlanding, snowboarding, trips abroad, etc.) so we’re not obsessing with getting our Disney fix in (living 15 minutes from Disneyland doesn’t hurt.)

 

[hhoman]

Hey all, thanks for all the input… how do you all rent out points? What services do you use, how easy is it?

 

[Bjaiken77]

We have 550, which is a good amount for us. We don’t need that many points, but it allows up to bump up our accommodations or bring friends along. On our last vacation, we brought some friends along at no cost (they flipped the bill on groceries).

I got more joy than I would have imagined watching my friends, family, and their kids stay in deluxe accommodations they would not otherwise. It’s a blessing to be able to do that.

 

[Nabas]

“We” have plenty of points for us.

But it’s our adult children who keep using them that makes us wonder if we need more!