Four Questions To Ask When Buying Disney Vacation Club

A friend recently got back from his first vacation at Disney World with his kids. “It was the best vacation of my life,” he said to me. “I have some questions about Disney Vacation Club.” Despite the advertising, DVC isn’t Disney’s best-kept secret. But how to make the decisions that lead to signing a contract might not be so obvious.

How many points? At which home resort? Where will you buy them? I’ll go over four big things you should consider when laying down your hard-earned money for DVC.

The Basics

In case this is the first article you’ve looked at, let’s cover the ABCs of DVC. The short version is that Disney Vacation Club is Disney’s timeshare.

• Stays at Disney Vacation Club resorts are booked with points instead of cash.
• The number of points needed depends on the resort, the dates, and the length of stay.
• To become a Disney Vacation Club member, you buy a bundle of points as an ownership contract. Every year, the contract grants a fixed number of points for use.
• In addition to the up-front buy-in cost, members need to pay yearly dues on their points.

Like other timeshare, there’s borrowing and banking, cancellation policies, etc. But we’re not going so far into the weeds today. Instead, let’s get started with …

Is Disney Vacation Club Right For You?

Maybe you’ve been thinking about it for a while and feel confident in your decision. However, if you just got back from an amazing first vacation and are eager to buy so that you can return again and again, it might be a good idea to pull the emergency brake. Take a pause and try to imagine the future without rose-colored glasses on.

How sure are you that Disney will continue to be a preferred vacation over the years? We bought when our kids were between 5 and 12 years old. The value of our DVC ownership has gone up for us as they became old enough to come and go from the parks on their own. But in more than a decade, their preferences have changed. They don’t all come with us every time now either.

Would you be just as happy staying in cheaper resorts? Some DVC Villas have separate bedrooms for parents, and full kitchens so you can manage some meals in the room. But some are just glorified hotel rooms. If staying at a Moderate resort would leave you just as satisfied with your trip, Disney Vacation Club might be overkill for you.

Was there something unique about your recent trip that might not be the same on future visits? Did you experience super low crowds, or exceptionally pleasant Florida weather in August? If these changed on future trips, would you still be happy with your vacations?

Will regular trips to Disney World interfere with visiting other destinations? Disney World is not the whole world, and the whole world is big. Over time, your wish to explore it might conflict with Disney Vacation Club ownership.

How sure do you need to be?

These aren’t Disney Vacation Club-specific questions; they apply to any timeshare purchase. The good news is that getting the answers wrong isn’t as likely to be a painful mistake with DVC.

There are two main reasons for this. The first is an active rental market. It’s usually possible to rent your points for enough money to cover your dues, giving you options other than “use it or lose it”.

The second reason is resale value. There’s also a very active resale market for Disney Vacation Club contracts. If you decide in 10 years that you’re no longer interested, it should be easy to sell your contract. After that amount of time, you might even come out ahead on the whole shebang.

Still, it might be wise to hold off on buying if any of those questions give you pause. Consider leveraging the rental market to take another trip and confirm your interest. We’ve been happy with our ownership and don’t regret it at all. But we also don’t regret waiting until after our third family visit to buy. Taking your time can help ensure that DVC is the right fit for you and your family.

How Much Do You Care About Staying at a Specific Resort?

Exploring different resorts can be a lot of fun. With Disney Vacation Club, your “home resort” determines when you can book your stay. Members can book 11 months in advance at their home resort, and 7 months out at other resorts.

Perhaps you always want to stay at Beach Club because your kids love the fantastic pool. If you have your heart set on repeat stays at a specific resort, you should probably choose it as your home resort. But if you think you’ll want to stay in different places, then your home resort will matter less. This gives you more freedom to consider the price of points and the resort’s dues in your decision.

Still, standard timeshare advice suggests buying somewhere that you’d be “willing to be stuck staying”. We don’t tend to vacation at peak times and usually have no trouble booking other resorts at the 7-month mark. But in 2022, amid post-COVID restrictions on point usage and a surge of owners looking to use points for postponed trips, we ended up spending our entire two-week trip at our home resort. Good thing we love it.

Should You Buy Direct or Resale?

The first time that a bundle of points is sold into a contract, Disney Vacation Club sells it. Disney also sells points that it gets from buying back contracts that owners want to sell. If you buy your points from Disney, it’s called “buying direct” whether or not you are the first owner of the points. However, many owners sell contracts without going through Disney. Buying one of these contracts is called “buying resale”.

If you buy resale points, they will be quite a bit cheaper. But if you buy a DVC contract from Disney, you’ll be eligible for extra benefits. These extras fall into two categories: ways that you can use your points, and perks known as Membership Extras.

Points bought on the resale market today can only be used for stays at Disney Vacation Club resorts. Points bought from Disney can also be used for cruises, or stays at other Disney resorts that are not part of Disney Vacation Club.

It’s common to hear that using your points this way is a bad value. That’s based on comparing, say, the cash price of a cruise, the points price of a cruise, and the rental value of the points. When you do this math, you often find that you could rent the points, pay for the cruise in cash, and still have money left over. But there’s a convenience factor to skipping the extra steps and using the points directly.

Membership Extras range from discounts to access to special events. Taken together over many years, these perks can add up to significant savings. However, buying resale can mean significant savings right now. You’ll need to make a personal decision about how much Membership Extras mean to you. Right now, you need to buy at least 150 points from Disney to qualify for Membership Extras.

The last thing influencing your direct vs. resale decision might be your timeline. Points at newer resorts that Disney is actively selling will be easy to get from Disney. Disney also sells points from older resorts, but there may not always be a contract immediately available. It’s kind of like buying this year’s model car from a dealer versus a specific used year, make, and model. Conversely, points from newer resorts can be harder to find on the resale market.

How Many Points Do You Want to Buy?

This is the last question, but once you answer it you may need to go back and revisit the other three. If your budget doesn’t match up, you might need to reconsider some of your answers.

How often would you like to visit? For how long? Where would you like to stay? Those answers, plus a review of the resort point charts, will tell you how many points you’d need to make those trips.

If you’ve decided to buy at a home resort that isn’t where you think you’ll stay, remember to factor that in. A week in a studio in August costs 102 points at Saratoga Springs. If you think you’ll mostly be staying for a week in August at the Riviera, you’ll need to buy the 125 points required for that reservation to get the job done – even if you choose Saratoga Springs as your home resort because the price per point is cheaper.

What to Take Away

So, what does all this mean for you? You’ll notice that I didn’t address whether Disney Vacation Club is a good value. The financial considerations are similar to other timeshares, and there are a lot of non-monetary aspects to “value”. I’m assuming you’ve already decided you’re comfortable with the value of a DVC purchase.

I also didn’t talk a lot about money. But the questions I discussed will impact how much money you need to join Disney Vacation Club. Your choice of home resort affects the per-point price of both your initial purchase and your annual dues. The total number of points also influences these costs. And your choice about whether to buy direct or resale can make a big change in your upfront cost. To make the rubber hit the road on your DVC purchase, you’ll need to figure out how to align your choices with your finances.

Are you thinking about buying into Disney Vacation Club? Have you already bought a contract? Let us know about your questions and experience in the comments!