Flash Sale vs Other Incentives

$215 per point for 150 points seems kind of high when you consider the expiration of the resort is 2054 and if for some reason you wanted to rent points, you could get more money for your rental if you had the 11 month advantage somewhere else like Poly.

If I weren't worried about resale restrictions (but it sounds like you are, and I totally understand and agree) - I might actually consider the Cabins at Fort Wilderness, especially if they end up with a combined association between Lakeshore Lodge and the Cabins. At 150 points, you'd be paying $208 per point and you'd save a little bit extra if you have a Disney Visa that gives you an additional $1000 off. At 200 points, you'd pay just $205 per point. The Cabins have a 2075 expiration date. The biggest drawback is the annual dues which might be offset if Lakeshore Lodge is combined with the Cabins.

If resale restrictions are a worry, then I'd personally buy direct at Poly which has a 2066 expiration. The pricing is more expensive than SSR at $235 per point for 150 points and $231 per point for 200 points but the contract would be worth more if you ever sell it (average resale price for Poly is ~$160pp) and the rental value would be higher for Poly at 11 months than SSR. Annual dues wise, Poly is also currently cheaper than SSR at $8.34 per point vs $9.19 per point (not a huge savings, but it adds up over time) . This is where the Cabins currently are the weakest at at whopping $12.28 per point - so the cheaper buy in price doesn't really help you when you're spending a lot more per point on dues.

At the end of the day though, what direct benefits do you really want? You need to calculate if the direct benefits are worth the money to you. When you can buy 150-200 Saratoga points for ~$100 per point on the resale market, it makes it really tough to justify direct points unless you know you'll take advantage of direct benefits.

The biggest direct benefit imho is the Sorcerer Pass. If you're not a Florida resident and will buy a Sorcerer Pass instead of an Incredipass then you're saving roughly $280 per pass per person each year. If you're a family of 4, thats a savings of $1120 per year in today's prices. At 150 points, thats $17,250 more you're spending on a SSR direct contract vs resale and it would take you 15 years to make up the difference buying 4 Sorcerer passes per year vs buying 4 Incredipasses (at today's prices). Thats a long time before the break even point.

You do get some other direct benefits of course, namely being able to stay at any of the new resorts, lounge access, potential to attend Moonlight Magic etc - it depends what kind of value you put on those benefits. The other benefits like being able to trade in your points for a cruise or a stay somewhere other than DVC is not worthwhile as you would do better by renting your points and swapping for something else like a cruise using something like the DVC Rental Store Swap Program

Again personally for me - if I wanted to buy direct right now, I'd be buying Poly direct.

Can you get magical beginnings to get the price down to $205pp?

Personally…. given that SSR resale is around $100pp, I think that a $105-$115p spread is a LOT vs resale and you depreciation hit would be massive if you ended up needing to sell.

You said you go 2-3x per year, is the AP savings part of the equation?

How long would the AP and dining/merch discounts take you to break even?

Could it make sense to just grab some RIV resale on the cheap since the depreciation hit has already occurred?

@Ryan C

Thank you so much for such a thoughtful response! This gave me a lot to chew on. Poly is my favorite resort by far so I love your logic here!

I’ll be honest, I’ve always said I’d never buy direct. And I meant it! But here I am 😅 I do have a little FOMO though our trips as resale owners have changed the way and frequency at which we vacation, so it’s not like we’ve been suffering.

When I ranked the direct perks for myself, I could live without most of them. But the annual pass is the one I keep coming back to, as well as discounts on merch. (I do not have a Disney Visa and likely never will). I likely won’t get the AP every single year, but I’ve always wanted it at least once. As a family of 4 from Atlanta, we’re looking at potentially $2,000+ in savings from the incredi-pass discount. That’s hard to ignore.

But honestly? The bigger thing driving us toward direct is the long game. Our current contract runs to 2054/57 and I’ve been thinking a lot about how our DVC world gets smaller over time, especially post-2042 when WDW options drop from 10 to 7 resorts. We are not 11 month planners, we typically book 7 months or less. We look for a flight deals and breaks in our schedule and plan fairly last-minute trips. I don’t want to find ourselves increasingly locked out of options as we get closer to the end of our contracts. (Also, Grand Cal is impossible to get into, so DLH availability would help us finally get out to DL.) Buying direct now, while prices are where they are, feels like it protects what we’ve already paid in and keeps our options open.

I know you’re not supposed to buy for the perks since they can change. But the booking flexibility piece feels more structural than perk-based to me. I don’t perceive Disney ever pulling back on these resort restrictions. Does that reasoning hold up in your opinion, or am I overthinking it?

We got our first direct contract during a AKL flash sale 3 years ago. With the incentives and Magical Beginnings, it brought the cost down to $143 per point. Less than a year before that there was heavy ROFR activity and we had bought a resale AKL at $136.

Last year we also bought 150 points VDH direct for $197 during the summer incentives.

Through some diligence and patience, great deals can be had during seasonal incentives and flash sales. Often approaching resale prices.

The SSR flash sale isn’t terrible. As I recall, if you buy 200 points and choose magical beginnings, you can get the effective price/point down to $150/point - if you don’t sell back the current years worth of points, it’s $170/point. But, resale SSR is still much cheaper. I actually just went under contract on a fully loaded 200 point SSR contract for $85/point. So, that’s an $85/point spread between direct and resale. That’s actually a bigger drop in value than you’d get if you bought RIV. Plus, RIV points get you better access to resort view rooms which cost less points. SSR home resort priority is basically worthless.

So, if I wanted direct points, I’d look at Poly or RIV. I wouldn’t choose CFW - the dues are too high and whether it is added to LSL is too much of a gamble IMO.

I keep hoping for another AKL flash sale.

I’d bet money there will be one sometime before the end of the year. There was one late last summer.

I'm not sure... with the refurb getting good reviews, I'm wondering if they need to put incentives on AKL. It might be available but not at a fire sale low price. I've said before that I'm disinterested in staying there, but the refurb has changed my mind. I'm hoping to stay there next year.

I don't think there will be a fire sale, but I think there will be a "flash sale" similar to the one's we've seen so far this year on CCV, SSR, and BLT. But, you never know. Maybe people are paying the full $215/point "sold out" price.