For many Disney World visitors, Disney Vacation Club (DVC) has been a great option for those who make the Disney Parks (or cruises) their destination of choice year after year.
DVC Kiosk in EPCOT
DVC allows members to purchase an allotted number of points to use toward booking their vacations at their “Home Resort,” a resort of choice from the list of hotels with DVC-specific rooms and villas. You can use the points from each year to book your stay, and you can even put unused points from the previous year toward a vacation the next year. You can also exchange your points for stays at other Disney resorts, and even use them to book Disney Cruises. Basically, it’s Disney’s timeshare system. If your points and membership go unused, you’ll have the option to sell them. Recently, quite a few of our readers have sold their DVC points and/or membership, and we asked them to share with us why they made that decision. Let’s talk about it!
A lot of the reasons behind selling membership were fairly common among our readers’ answers. This post will highlight the top three reasons why selling a membership might be the best decision — in case you’re debating purchasing a membership, or if you already have a membership and are debating selling it. Let’s go!
Grand Floridian DVC Resort Studio
I Couldn’t Book Where Or When I Wanted — Even At My Home Resort.
Like we mentioned earlier, you can choose a Home Resort from a list of DVC hotels, where you would in theory be given priority over someone without a DVC membership. However, several of our readers found that they weren’t able to book where or when they wanted with their points — even at their home resort.
BoardWalk
Part of the appeal of DVC is to always have your “vacation home” to return to, so it can be frustrating when your membership doesn’t seem to give you any sort of advantage when it comes to booking your stay. This was the most popular answer as to why people sold their memberships. They were paying extra every year when they had the same likelihood of scoring the room they wanted without the costly membership.
I loved it so much that I just moved to Disney World.
Another super popular answer was that several of our readers loved being at Disney World so much that they simply bought property that was all their’s and can now visit Disney World whenever they want!
Welcome to Old Key West!
Of course, moving to Disney World permanently and buying property in the Orlando area kind of renders a DVC membership useless. We suppose that this is a more positive reason to sell a membership!
I Wanted to Swap Home Resorts
Sometimes, you just have a change of heart! A lot of our readers signed a contract for a certain home resort, and then found that they were better suited elsewhere. While you can totally have more than one active contract at a time, many folks find it more affordable to simply sell their current contract to purchase a contract at another Home Resort.
Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort
Some folks said they sold their previous contract and used the money toward a larger contract at a more desirable location based on their own vacation preferences.
Disney’s Contemporary Resort
Well, there you have it! If you’re thinking of purchasing a DVC contract, let it be relieving to know that for the most part, folks didn’t sell their contract for a negative reason — aside from the folks stating that they couldn’t book where and when they wanted. It’s true, though, that some Home Resorts are much more popular than others, especially ones like Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort, Animal Kingdom Lodge, and Contemporary Resort. It seems that there are other resorts that folks have better luck at booking.
Animal Kingdom Lodge
We’ll continue to keep you updated with more Disney news, so make sure to follow along so that you don’t miss a thing!
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Surprised by reasons 1 and 3. Not so much by 2. Member since 2004 at Saratoga Springs. Because our “home” is so large, we have never encountered not being able to book there. My guess is Boardwalk and Beach Club owners encounter that dilemma most often. Those Epcot resorts are in demand. We have booked at non-home resorts (Animal Kingdom Jambo, Old Key West and Bay Lake Tower) seamlessly on occasion. I thought annual dues would have been included in the reasons folks are unloading their memberships.
We love our membership and the access to quality accommodations it provides. ❤️
Wonder how many said the points they bought now don’t cover the vacation because Disney keeps raising the per night points
Bought Bay Lake Tower when we were taking our daughter to Disney for her first trip in 08. She’s enjoyed the Disney World trip every year of her life since then. Now that she’s in college and we don’t go as often, I don’t have any regrets. We just bank, and borrow and combine 3 years of points for big trips, with other relatives and their children, and always have a great time. You can’t put a price tag on fun family memories, but with all the pricey Disney resorts we’ve been to over the years that we wouldn’t have paid for otherwise, we’ve been very happy with our BLT purchase. And even if you wanted to go there on Christmas, you can if you book it eleven months before at your home resort, so availability isn’t the problem, it’s just poor planning
Quit during covid. Just too hard. Booking so far out then banking points or not , can’t get the place that you want. One time we had to stay at 3 different hotels! We were threatened that we would loose our points during covid and the people who weren’t members were simply told to wait and pick another time; fully refunded 🙄 we’re the ones assuring Disney of our money. It all worked out however why were we dumped on and had to write letters or emails! To much work and research for a vacation!
joining DVC MEMBERSHIP was one of the best things I ever did. There is no way i could have afforded to go there with my family year after year
We have 2 home resorts — Beach Club and Grand Californian. The only times we’ve been unable to book at our home resort were times when we tried to plan a vacation on shorter notice. You can book your home resort 11 months in advance and all other DVC properties 7 months in advance. If we book as soon as the window opens, we’ve never had a problem. We purchased the Beach Club points in 2009 and the Grand Cali points in 2012. With the rapidly rising cost of Disney hotel rooms, we are so happy that we have our membership, which has allowed us to travel to one or both US Disney parks every year since we purchased, plus Aulani.
Brian – any owner that sells their DVC because they think Disney is raising the pt/night doesn’t understand DVC. The total number of pts for a resort cannot change (OKW will always have 7.7M, for example). Disney can move around the seasons and make some nights or room categories more pts to help even out demand, but there will then always be a reduction on another night/room category to balance the total number of pts. I have read over time some people that always go the same nights every year and they only bought enough pts to just cover those nights (a short-sighted plan) – and then were short after a reallocation. But that week being more meant there was another week during the year that was lower.
New resorts are more pts/night. But your home resort that you own at – the total pts and total room nights will never change over the life of your contract.
DVC is less desirable because Disney in general is not as much fun. We actually stay at any DVC and go to Universal.
Want to cure #1? Don’t let people rent out points.
I agree with David. Annual dues keep going up and I’m betting towards the end of our 50yr contract the dues will be higher than the original price for buying in. And, Brian, actually the points don’t go up. That was a major consideration when we bought. There is a max point for a given accommodation however they can adjust that max and spread it differently. For example, if a studio can only be a max of 856 points for the year, it can’t go up. They may shift the point value throughout the yr but it will never go over 856…if that makes sense. The only other area I’m surprised not mentioned is about all the perks that have gone away as many have been discussed in DFB.
We have never NOT gotten what we wanted when it comes to booking hotels or cruises. We love DVC and it has given our family a way to travel more easily. We have stayed at multiple places by saving/banking/borrowing when it’s somewhere hi-end like Aulani.
A friend of mine just sold her 350 points for $50k after buying them 15 years ago for only $10k . She just couldn’t pass up that kind of profit!! I’d never sell mine but they have increased the point costs per night so that I have to be savvy to get the resort and dates I want. If they keep increasing, I’ll have to buy more or settle for fewer nights – not fun. Buy from resale rather than Disney – much better price with the loss of just a few party invites. Good deal!!
In regards to Brian’s comment above about someone selling because DVC raised the point requirements that is highly unlikely unless someone bought in completely oblivious to how the product worked. Our contracts state that the total amount of points required for the entire year can never go up other than the natural fluctuation of things like leap year, the number of weekend vs week days in a given calendar year, etc. DVC can reallocate points amongst the seasons to help level out demand (in fact they are contractually required to so as that is in the members’ best interests). But they can’t raise the overall points. Example – Fall and Christmas are the busiest time for DVC. They can raise those points but they have to offset that by lowering a different time of year. Even then, they can only change them by a small percentage each year which is stated in our contracts.
As for availability at your home resort or any other one – the reality is DVC is for long term planners. You need to book your home resort at 11 months. If you want to move at 7 months, you need to be online at 8 AM at the 7 month timeframe. Even then, you could be limited to what is available. If you aren’t in a position to plan that far ahead (and a lot of people are not) then DVC probably isn’t a great choice. We’ve had good success moving at 7 months, but in the end we are always very happy at our home resorts (Copper Creek at Wilderness Lodge and Hilton Head). My advice – buy where you want to stay!!! A lot of people pick up cheap Saratoga Springs resale contracts thinking they are gaming the system only to find out they are stuck there. Buy.Where.You.Want.To .Stay. And you’ll be happy!
Brian said: “Wonder how many said the points they bought now don’t cover the vacation because Disney keeps raising the per night points.”
No member would be saying that because it doesn’t happen. Legally, each DVC resort has a set number of points, which means the number of points required per night cannot increase over time. Disney could reallocate the points within the resort, but that means that if point requirements were to slightly increase for some rooms, then point requirements would have to decrease for other rooms so that the overall number of resort points remains the same. In fact, one of the great benefits of DVC is that while membership dues may increase a little each year, once the DVC points are purchased, DVC members don’t incur increased lodging costs (and room taxes) in the future the way hotel guests do.
I’ve started staying at Universal and driving down to Disney. I love it. You can get so much more for your money. I stayed at Dockside and got a suite for $119 a night. Have an annual pass so parking was free! Win win!
We started DVC years ago. Now we have 6 home resorts , some we bought from Disney, some off-market. We’ve never been sorry…ever. The rooms are bigger and better, more suitable for families( no, we don’t try to fit everybody in a studio!). Our kids are grown, with children, and they still enjoy it. For fun, my husband will look up the nightly rates for the resorts….and laughs,
No way we could go to Disney World without DVC!
I wonder if anyone used the fact that they changed from RVC to Interval International. There is no more Concierge. The place we stayed in Lake George is not on the hotel list. Complaints to Disney fall on deaf ears
That and you can rarely find things you can book in a reasonable time frame with II.
We have been DVC owners since 1996. I recently have been contemplating selling . Why. Because I’m not enjoying our Disney vacation any more. Overcrowding causes long lines at the park even with lightning lane.The lack of themeing when they renovate the resorts. Started with the sitting area in the enchanted rose . Now it continues with the coffee shop at the Boardwalk . The same for the Sarasota Springs sitting area and quick service area. No Disney magic and imagination. We visit the parks a few times a year and buy annual passes to make the visits worth our while. The last straw was Disney intention to delete fluency and connective storylines by adding Indiana Jones and Encanto to Animal Kingdom. Where is the connection there.