Advice for selling points to a friend

[Spring0799]

Hi everyone. Haven't been here in a while looking for some advice.

I'm going to Animal Kingdom lodge April 2018 for a week. I own at The Grand Floridian. I'm taking my friend and her family and they need there own room, we each have lots of kids, lol. I saved my 2016 points, will use all of 2017 and almost all of 2018. Not sure what I should charge for the points. It's 178 points in total for her room and another 237 for mine and I only own 150. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I have to think of the cost but also the fact that I probably won't be able to go again until 2018. Ugh...sad

Thank you!

 

[MrsSilvaStrat]

Folks selling on this board average at about $14-15 per point. Last minute and lower point sales can go anywhere from $11-13 depending on the seller's urgency. Higher end resorts with more popular demand and/or earlier booking time (11 mos. out) can go for $16-17pp. This just based on my subscription to this board and overall thread lurking

 

[guerns17]

I was going to say 14/ point for AKV. Although if she's a friend I might cut some slack and do 13.50/ point but that's just me.

 

[ajfd]

For every point that your friend uses you are going to have to replace at market value if you want to use them prior to 2018.
Market value is about $14/pt.
If you sell for much less than that you are, in effect, trading your own future vacation for your friend's current one.

At $14/pt you are about 40% below rack rate which handily beats any offer available through Disney.

 

[MrInfinity]

This is completely open and depends what you're trying to do and what you're both used to. At $15pp, you'd be asking $2670. If the friend is used to staying in Values for $150/nt, that's going to be a hard sell. Since presumably you want to make it happen and there's implied compromise here, look at your costs and see what makes sense. These will cost you around ~$7 for the maintenance. Maybe $11? That's half-way between the $7 and the $15 they'd have to pay to rent them from someone else. Don't think of it as shutting yourself out of a future trip just because you've used your points. You'd be getting ~$2k in cash, so that will buy you 5 nights in a Deluxe or a week anywhere else.

 

[Disbug]

What about pricing out a DVC member CRO price? Is it going to be the same as the rack rate? Or do we receive a discount?

 

[MrInfinity]

What about pricing out a DVC member CRO price? Is it going to be the same as the rack rate? Or do we receive a discount?

We don't get a discount per se. CRO prices are absurdly high, presumably to make buying DVC look like a better value.

 

[disneynutz]

Depends on your relationship. Nothing worse than your friend maybe thinking that you took advantage of them. We overheard a conversation at SSR where family members were discussing how their sister had ripped them off because she get points for free.

You might want to let your friend get her own reservation by renting from another owner.

Bill

 

[Dean Marino]

All a personal suggestion....

From Time to time, my dear wife and I have extra points. Sometimes, one of my married children could use a few points....

What we do:
1) Take dues for the use year in question, calculate $ per point.
2) Multiply by number of points.

That's the price. We make ZERO dollars on Family members.... we just re-coop what would have been our real cost.

Now, this is for FAMILY members. Were I dealing with a friend? Not entirely sure how I would approach this. SOME friends ARE family....

 

[Matty B13]

$15 a point really isn't that bad a deal for anyone, since it is probably 50% off of a regular room at the resort your staying at, plus you end up being the travel guide for your friends in most cases (Disney rookie's). I think if you are up front about the costs, it really shouldn't be a problem, Disney isn't giving a 50% discount off of hotel rooms at any of their resorts.

 

[cw62803]

With all the costs involved: purchase price divided by years, closing costs, and annual dues, I figure my SSR points cost me about 9-10 dollars per point. That's what I would charge a friend if my friend wouldn't accept the reservation as a gift.

 

[cvjw]

We don't charge friends or family anything for using our points. If we invite people, we pay. That is part of the reason we bought dvc points to begin with.

If you are going to charge your friend retail price to use your points, why not just have her rent her points from a broker. You seem unhappy about borrowing all your points, and you would not have to if she rented someone else's points. Then you would have your points left over for another trip.

 

[kniquy]

If she is using a room and you have your own room then the points calculation is simple -- as to what to charge. Give them a deal but do get a little for the inconvenience of using your points and maintenance fees. I would go with $10-12 per point so her paying $1780-$2136. You can show her comparisons - renting that same room from say davids dvc and what direct disney would cost, so that she can see you are giving her a deal.

Hopefully she understands she is getting a great deal on a deluxe resort. If she is not happy with the cost then offer up the option that she get a value room for probably the same price. Dealing with money and friends can sometimes be difficult but hopefully they understand that your DVC membership is not a total freebie.

 

[CraigInPA]

The hardest thing to explain to someone who isn't a timeshare owner is that the points they are using are not "free". First, I explain that there are "maintenance fees" paid every year. Second, I explain the time value of money. As a result, my BLT points are worth at least $10 each in bundled cost. Yes, that makes a room at BLT cost more than a value resort. But, for anyone who has stayed at both value and deluxe resorts, they can see the HUGE difference in what you get at a deluxe resort and why it makes sense to stay there (especially when the cost to do so is >50% off rack rate).

 

[skippytx]

We're going next year with some family and we'll be using our points for their room. I'm asking 13 dollars a point from them and they're totally cool with it. They were going to rent points anyway, so they save a little money, and I come out in a similar position as renting the points to someone else. The biggest benefit of using my points for their reservation is we have a better shot at getting the rooms we want at BLT. We're going Thanksgiving week, so I'll need to be online at the instant booking opens to get what we want.

 

[miTnosnhoJ]

I would set a fair price, say $15 per point, and give them the option to book their own room through CRO if they need a point of comparison.

 

[skier_pete]

I don't know, if it's a friend - I would only at most charge a friend my cost. That's the maintenance fee (which I think is $6.59 per point in 2017) plus whatever it costs you per point for your buy-in, which is a number you would have to calculate based on the amount you paid for the contract and the number of years on it when you bought. I paid roughly $2 per point per year when I bought in at AKV (for $74 per point), so my per point cost is $8.59. This of course doesn't factor inflation Now as others have pointed out, a "fair" price is probably $13-14 per point as that's what they would have to pay through a rental company, but then you are making a profit off of your friend, which would not be something I would do. I would suggest charging $10-$12 per point, depending on what you paid for buy-in.

 

[Darklord77]

Did you invite them to go or did your friend ask to go with you? We invited friends to stay at a Treehouse with us for 6 nights a few years ago. We never expected anything because we invited them to go with us. We were going to stay in a THV anyway so we weren't giving anything up in terms of future vacations. They still made us take $600 from them. If they only knew the true cost of 6 nights in a THV.

 

[skier_pete]

Did you invite them to go or did your friend ask to go with you? We invited friends to stay at a Treehouse with us for 6 nights a few years ago. We never expected anything because we invited them to go with us. We were going to stay in a THV anyway so we weren't giving anything up in terms of future vacations. They still made us take $600 from them. If they only knew the true cost of 6 nights in a THV.

Some people may choose to invite friends and not charge, but I think there is nothing wrong with inviting friends and having them pay their way as well, as long as this is all agreed to up front. I assume the OP already had this discussion with their friends, and was only asking for advice on how much to charge.

 

[kristenrice]

You might want to let your friend get her own reservation by renting from another owner.

Bill

You could also consider finding an owner willing to transfer points to you and make your friend's reservation with those. That way, you are not on the hook with your points AND you are the one managing the reservation. I've done this twice when my family members want to come along too. That way, if they have to cancel, I can help them arrange a "make-up" trip.
I have a trip coming up in October that is just my friend and I. For this trip, we are sharing a studio and I told her that I would cover the lodging. In return, she "bought" me a military salute ticket (I paid for it but I was not eligible to buy it myself)...which effectively saved me $250! That's a fair value for 1/2 the cost of a value studio for 5 weeknights, IMHO.