Thank you for the responses! So much good information in this thread. We are locking in our booking for Poly today, so we will be taking that trip. I wanted to atleast stay in one of the monorail resorts before seriously considering buying there. Full disclosure, I thoroughly enjoyed French Quarter (not bcz of theming or anything, as we live in south Alabama and have been to the real one many times) because we were not in the room very much, did not spend a ton of time at the resort, and Sassagoula was awesome. I had a beignet sundae every night! My wife did say that she felt "cramped" in the room, and I certainly don't disagree with that. I guess what I'm saying is that I want to see how much nicer the resort is and how much more convenient the location/travel is compared to the (near double) price tag.
I would like to respond to some of the comments with some more questions, anyone feel free to answer as you can.
For renting points, is availability generally there? Realistically, I never had much hope in finding a
DVC rental 3 months before a trip, but what has generally been the cutoff? Is there some/a lot of availability 5-6 months out? Or is it pretty much that you need to book 11 months out if you want to get what you want? Great point about the boys getting older and having less flexibility with school/function scheduling and such, I agree with that.
"Rent half of what you need so the upfront investment isn’t as much then borrow every other year and rent on years that you already borrowed from." Just making sure I understand this comment correctly. This is saying to just rent the points based on the trip we want to take? As in, have a trip scheduled with rented points through somewhere like david's?
I understand the time value of money/opportunity cost concept, and there's no arguing against that math. However, it also assumes that one would actually take that $ and only use it as an investment vehicle. While the future is uncertain, and we all need as much retirement money as possible, my wife contributes to her matched 401k, I have a defined benefits pension plan, and I also have money automatically deferred into a 457B every paycheck. I am less concerned with the time value of this money, should we decide to make a purchase. As one poster said, "the experiences and memories with family are worth more that any amount of money." I agree with this statement completely.
In terms of purchasing... I have really started looking hard at listings, dvcrofr, these message boards etc., trying to learn as much as possible in order to make an informed decision. We are taking this trip in February, so I am not in any kind of rush to buy, but I also want to learn what I can about a good deal vs great deal, what to look for etc. in order to not miss out on an opportunity.
Some of my current thoughts:
-In my situation, being an owner of "0" points, stripped contracts seem worthless to me, unless it was a supreme deal, and I was also buying another contract with it. Most of the stripped contracts I see are priced comparably to regular ones.
-Loaded contracts just seem like they provide significantly more value, even over just regular ones.
-Without significant price discounts (like VGF over the summer) I just do not see the value of direct purchasing over resale. At all. Even with restrictions factored in.
-I will find out firsthand in February, but I really feel like the convenience of the monorail resorts is a big +. We are not bougie at all, but I do not mind spending money on something, as long as I feel like I am getting good value. For instance, I'm very much a "when I'm on vacation, I'm on vacation" type of person. If we drive, I want to park the car and not crank it again until we are leaving for home. Non-Disney property resorts were never even considered, even though I know they represent significant savings. While I will honestly say that I commend Disney for our experience with bus transportation, as it was surprisingly efficient in my opinion (maybe we were just lucky?) but we certainly lost a ton of time with bus travel, and when we went to the park, we were pretty much there for the day.
All of that being said, it seems like we missed the boat on VGF, so future resale may be better than current there. Focusing on Poly and BLT, what would be considered a target?
For instance, BLT, Mar use year, 200 points, $135 pp, 277/201/200, $27k seems like a pretty good deal to me? Also, Poly, Dec use year, 200 points, $133pp, 200/200/200 $26,600 as well. Am I on the right track? I know a lot of ppl are saying prices should fall, but I don't know how they are compared to historical averages, so I certainly don't have an opinion there.
Thank you to anyone who reads and responds to this book! haha
)
