Do you think about points differently than cash

[Fmer55]

Originally Posted by Presley

I am in complete denial about any cash value of my points. I bought in for the sole reason of having a "vacation home." I don't mind what they are valued at. if it gets me what I wanted ( a vacation) when I bought them, they are priceless to me.

Perfectly said, the whole reason i would up with DVC was i tried to make the family into a ski family with a house in Upstate NY or the Poconos. After a couple of trips i realized it wasn't going to happen so i am now spending money on my disney vacation/retirement home.

[lsbgvadvcer]

I don't think of it in terms of 'cash' but I do try to make sure we're getting the most value out of our stays. We are currently planning a trip with good friends for January and a trip with the BIL and SIL (as graduation gifts) for next summer. We'll pay for the rooms on both trips with points and I'm pretty certain we wouldn't do that, definitely not for the January trip, if it weren't for the DVC. Like others have said we bought the points so we could vacation the way we want, and also to share with our loved ones. It feels really nice to be able to do that and to let other people experience our favorite place.

[bernie]

I never would be able to stay at the dvc resorts if paying cash. I just book where i want to stay and dont think of money at all. That is the beauty of having points and especially when they are all paid for. All i need is my ap, my flight and food which is enough at that but I do not ever have to add in the cost of a hotel which can be substantial. so i have said it many times dvc was the best investment for my family . we have had many wonderful vacations because of it.

[Sir Aaron]

Originally Posted by tomandrobin

I treat cash and points the same....sort of.

I assign a cash value to my points and use that as determining factor when renting, looking at cruises and ABD.

I do this. I assign a rental rate of $10pp to my points. This determines if it is a good choice to use points. With DVC, it's obviously a no brainer. Rooms are better than paying cash, virtually all the time.

I haven't ever stayed at WDW outside of DVC, but I was paying cash to stay at DLH. And if I didn't own BLT, I'd probably pay cash to stay at the Contemporary or something close to it in price.

I like luxury and DVC was a way to get it at much lower prices.

[jaaact]

I try to think of it as cash and my wife brings me back to reality. When I booked booked our upcoming 1br, 8 night stay at Kidani (for just the two of us) I looked at the cost of the actual reservation and found that it would be nearly $5000. She quickly reminded me that we would never spend $700 a night on room and we'd be perfectly happy at a moderate (like we always did pre-DVC) at only 20% of the actual cost.
But you get spoiled so fast!!

[knateb]

[quote=OttawaWendy;675384]I think about the cash value of the points.


So, I value points as essentially = my per point purchase cost x a rate to represent lost investment income on that principal + this year's MF. Roughly that's $6.50 or $7.00 per point, based on my initial buy-in cost (resale) several years ago. I dollar cost average my two purchases. To be fair, I don't work this out to the penny, but I have a general sense.

I could use a value of $12 per point or so, which is what I get if I rent the points, but that's effort, and I did buy the points to use them. I think both valuation methods are reasonable, but maybe this is a point in favour of your thinking.

If I could get a cruise for 400 points, or $1500, there's no way I'm using points, as that represents either $2800 or $4800 in points, depending on how valued. I'd rather use those 400 points for a vacation that would cost me more than $1500 in cash, or to rent them (and I only need to rent 125 points to raise $1500, so now I get a cruise plus a vacation that costs 275 points).

[3srwild]

Well...speaking as someone who has paid rack rate for a dvc room
I am pretty free with my points and cash when it comed to vacation planning.
However, the points are much easier to part with for me. I also bought enough points to be able to take my family and friends with us every now and then. We want to share our disney experiences with the people we love and feel it makes the moments even better for us. Its money already spent to us, even though I know that's not really accurate from a financial standpoint. I'm much more cautious and careful with our other investments, but this purchase is all about fun.
And as many of you have stated, our friends and family would never accpet the cash value for the points but are willing to share the rooms with us. We don't have that many points, so we can't and won't give away our points at the expense of our own vacation but we are able to take others along for the ride.

[Chriskre]

I do think about the value of my points and much more lately now that I've become aware of the value of trading in, instead of using my own points.

I consider the buy in cost as sunk money when calculating how I will use my points. If when I sell I get something back, great! If not then that's okay too, which is why I only consider the MF cost when calculating my stays.

Unfortunately I've only got enough for studios most times which makes renting my points to subsidize my vacations thru exchanges make more sense. This is the first year I've rented my points and it was pretty easy to rent to friends so I'll probably do it again next year and just trade in thru RCI for what I want using one of my other ownerships. My friends are thrilled to get a studio so cheap renting from me and I'm thrilled to use that cash to pay the MF's on something that got me a 2 bedroom instead. Win-win for sure.

It's not that I'm not using my own points because I am still doing that, but as far as adding on, no I'm trading in, cause it just makes way more sense to me. I can't see investing anymore right now unless Poly tempts, me but who knows when that will be. I haven't done a cash ressie since I bought DVC around 7 years ago and will probably not do another ever again. If I'm paying cash then I'll usually stay off site in a bigger unit for half the price. The only way I'd pay cash again is if the conventions that I attend offer a group rate, then it makes sense to pay $200 for a Contemporary room.

[ovalhead96]

I have stayed at all levels at Disney on a cash basis..

I based my decision on the best deal I could get.

Two years ago I stayed at Jambo for 6 nights with a base ticket for 3 people

They offered a 750 gift card for free, so I stayed at Jambo with tickets and almost enough for food for a week for just about 2 grand.

This took a lot of work checking each day to see what the prices were, and evaluating the different deals they were offering. (also had 40% off delux).

Last year, the deals were not as good, so we went to a moderate for even more money..

Now I don't have to think about it. I just pick a resort and if I have the points, and the room is there I just book it.

Much less work and more time to spend on MouseOwners...