For years I’ve been hearing about the magic of renting Disney Vacation Club points to save money on your Disney stays. I finally got the chance to rent DVC points which helped me save some money on our family’s recent trip to Aulani, a Disney Resort & Spa in Hawaii, so I thought I’d write up the experience. In this post I’ll outline how to rent DVC points and discuss how much money you can save by doing so. We actually also discussed this on our Disney podcast, Disney Deciphered, which you can listen to here.

Let’s get this out of the way first – you’re never gonna stay on a Disney property for “cheap” unless it’s a very off peak time. In fact, Disney Vacation Club properties are all Deluxe properties, so when people (and Disney) say you can save 50% don’t expect to save 50% off of Value rates. That being said, you can stay at Deluxe properties for much less than they normally would cost. The way I think about it, renting DVC points often subtracts off the “Disney premium” from hotel room costs. This definitely was the case for our trip to Aulani. Let’s get into it.

What is Disney Vacation Club?

Disney runs a timeshare type operation called Disney Vacation Club (DVC). The main thing people need to know about DVC is that instead of getting a certain number of days to stay at certain properties, DVC owners receive a bank of DVC points every year. These DVC points can be used to book Disney properties (and cruises though that’s bad value).

The Disney Vacation Club properties are:

• Aulani (Hawaii)
• Bay Lake Tower (Contemporary Resort)
• Boulder Ridge Villas (Wilderness Lodge)
• Copper Creek Villas (Wilderness Lodge)
• Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge (Jambo House and Kidani Village)
• Disney’s Beach Club Villas 
• Disney’s BoardWalk Villas
• Disney’s Hilton Head Island Resort
• Disney’s Old Key West Resort
• Disney’s Polynesian Villa & Bungalows
• Disney’s Riviera Resort (Opening Dec 2019)
• Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort and Spa
• Disney’s Vero Beach Resort 
• The Villas at Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel (Disneyland)
• The Villas at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa

As you can see, all the resorts are pretty nice properties which is why they’re all deluxe. Note that Aulani, Hilton Head, and Vero Beach aren’t near a Disney park. Of the three, I’d say only Aulani is worth it, Hilton Head and Vero Beach are kind of the black sheep in the DVC family.

Pros and cons of renting DVC points to stay at Disney Vacation Club Properties

Obviously, I’m not encouraging people to buy into Disney’s timeshare system (though I’m often tempted myself!). But what often happens is a DVC member won’t be able to use their points in a given year, so they will “rent” them out. What that means is they’ll book a stay for another person (the “renter”) using their points so their points don’t go wasted. The renter gets a discounted rate while staying at a Deluxe Disney property while the DVC member doesn’t waste his or her points.

Each Disney property has different rates depending on the room type and season. DVC rates are set for a given calendar year and will not change. As a renter, you only need to rent as many points as you need for a given stay. I’ve seen people save up to 50% on their Disney stays, so it can be a pretty great deal. Of course, there’s always a catch. Here the catch is what I said before, that DVC rentals only happen at the nicest Disney properties. Just remind yourself it’s more like you’re getting a deluxe resort for the price of a moderate. And of course, you could save way more money (or just use hotel points) by staying off site, so this is really only for if you want that Disney experience.

Here’s what I see as the benefits and drawbacks of renting DVC points:

Benefits of renting DVC points

• Save money on deluxe Disney resorts
• No parking fees
• Get more of the Disney magic
• Magic bands (Walt Disney World)

Drawbacks of renting DVC points:

• Strict cancellation policy
• Limited availability, can be difficult to find space that lines up, especially in high season
• No housekeeping (they change trash and towels every 4th day)
• If booking close in, you’re probably going to have to resort hop (a non-starter for my family, we won’t do it)

How to easily search for DVC availability

I’ve found it helpful to check for DVC availability before I go out renting DVC points (remember, DVC rooms are capacity limited). To do so, use this website: DVC Availability Tool.  It’s amazing!

You can input your dates and it will show you the availability and the full cost in points for the entire stay. For a rough estimate of how much the stay will cost, multiply by $17 (more on that later).

If you click on the price of the room type you want, it’ll also give you a breakdown of which days are available and which aren’t (hence the resort hopping comment in drawbacks).

If you see rooms you like available, you can rent in one of two ways.

Renting from a private party (normally a friend)

To rent from a private party, it’s fairly simple. Make sure they have enough points to cover your stay and that they’re willing to rent you the points. Agree on a rate to pay for the points (you typically want to make sure it’s less than $17/point).

Since you checked availability for your dates, just feed them your dates, property, and room type. They’ll also need the names of everyone in your party. They can book online on their DVC website or they can call.

They’ll receive the confirmation e-mail but since your names are on the reservation you just need to show up when it’s time to have fuuuuuuun! (Don’t worry, this is a normal thing, and Disney is very used to it).

A couple of caveats. Obviously your friend is going to have to book for you so there will be some friction there (if they don’t follow up). Also, some people book with total strangers on forums like DISboards, but I am not trusting enough to do that, personally.

(Update: Commenter Disney fan notes that prices on the DISboards are often very good, as low as $10 because people are trying to jettison their points. Still a bit out of my comfort zone but the risk may certainly be worth the reward. Thanks, Disneyfan!)

Renting from a DVC rental company

The two main DVC rental stores are DVC Rental Store and David’s Vacation Club Rentals. You’ll see the latter talked about more online because they offer an affiliate program (that’s a clean link up there, though).

Both are reputable and have been used by lots of people. The benefit of DVC Rental Store is you don’t have to pay a deposit to request a quote or search. With David’s, you pay a deposit of $119. If availability is found to fulfill your request then that money goes to your final bill. Of course, since you’re using the calculator above, you don’t really need to pay a deposit to search, just look for availability yourself. DVC Rental Store also offers a form of insurance in case you need to cancel.

Price-wise, David’s is a little cheaper. 11 months out, Disney opens up its DVC rentals to DVC members but they can only book at their “home” resort (where they own). 7 months out all DVC members can book all properties (with some new exceptions that doesn’t matter for the purposes of renting from a rental company).

DVC Rental Store prices vary depending on how many points you are renting and how early you are renting them. So for the most part, if you’ve found your own availability, David’s probably will be cheaper.

Like I said above, availability really gets tough close in. The reality is it starts drying up at around 7 months out, since all DVC members can book. If you have your heart set on a certain property and know when you’ll be traveling, I’d suggest paying the extra $1/point to book at greater than seven months out.

An Example

Since this all got kicked off with a discussion about Aulani, I thought I’d take a look at some comparisons. I’ll assume $17/point for reference in this example. I cherry picked some dates with good availability to make things easier.

For three nights checking in November 5th, a studio costs 63 points (no standard view available), a 1 bedroom villa costs 111 points, and a 2 bedroom villa costs 153. The hotel room doesn’t have availability but note that would cost 17 points per night. The villas have the benefit of having a full kitchen and laundry – a real life and money saver!

So translated to dollars, the studio costs $1,071 or $357/night, 1BR $1,887 or $629/night, and the 2BR $2601 or $867/night.

On the Aulani site, standard hotel rooms and the DVC studios cost $494/night, the cheapest 1 bedroom villa (suite) is $849/night, and the cheapest 2 bedroom villa is $1,164/night. Tax is about 15% so it’s more like $568/$976/$1338 for studio/1BR/2BR. So not quite 50%, but pretty good savings. You can also often do better at other Disney properties. (When renting DVC at Aulani you’ll also have to pay a small tax on site, it was less than $20/night when I went).

Final Thoughts

Alright, that’s should serve you well as a primer for renting DVC points. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me on Twitter or e-mail me asthejoeflies AT gmail DOT com. I’d also love to hear your experiences if you’ve rented DVC, I know some people swear by it. What’s the best value you’ve ever gotten? Let me know in the comments!

Never miss a post! Subscribe below and receive an e-mail once a day for new posts from asthejoeflies. Also, follow our family adventures on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Or, if you’re looking for a miles, points, and travel podcast, check out my podcast the Saverocity Observation Deck on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or this Patreon page! 

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Mark this one under developing (since I don’t know if it’s a temporary or permanent change), but a friend of mine just tipped me off that Walt Disney World might possibly have made rider switch a little easier again. Rider switch, or child swap, is a system meant to ensure parents don’t need to wait twice in a line if a child is too young to ride. This used to really help out with Fastpass+ planning strategies. However, last year Disney made a change – they made it so rider switch was only available for an hour or two after the first parent rode. You can check out those changes here (the post was for Disneyland but the same system applied at Disney World).

I had no reason to think rider switch was operating differently until I exchanged some texts with a friend who I helped out with a trip this week. I knew he had a 10:25 AM Flight of Passage Fastpass+ reservation and he planned to get a rider switch. What surprised me was when he texted me at 3:30 PM saying he was just then using his rider switch – way longer than an hour or two after he asked for the rider switch!

So, for the time being at least, when you ask for a rider switch you’re given a “Multiple Experiences” Fastpass+ reservation good until the end of the day. It’s what Backside of Magic likes to call an “anytime fastpass” – the dream. I asked my buddy to grab a screenshot of his rider switch for Soarin’. It indeed was a Multiple Experiences Fastpass+. Although he actually used it on Soarin’, maybe he could have used it on any ride?

He later did the same for Test Track. In fact, they grabbed the rider switch as his wife went into the standby line and she left the line five minutes later. Interestingly, although he received the rider switch in My Disney Experience immediately, it didn’t become active until an hour later. Perhaps it’s because she went through standby not Fastpass. Regardless, it again said “Multiple Experiences” on his app. The description at the bottom of his “Multiple Experiences” reservation was for Test Track, however.

So to summarize:

1. At the very least, it seems that they are no longer giving out timed rider switches presently
2. It seems like your rider switch is “timed” in the sense that it doesn’t appear on your My Disney Experience app until an hour after the other party rode
3. It’s possible the rider switch might be able to be used on other rides?

Anyway, obviously this is just three datapoints from one family, so it’s tough to speculate that this is a permanent change. But my guess is it’s possible the timed rider switch was a little bit too complicated and Disney World has switched to this system. At the very least, this has happened twice on two rides in two different parks. If you have any other datapoints, I’d love to hear them!

Never miss a post! Subscribe below and receive an e-mail once a day for new posts from asthejoeflies. Also, follow our family adventures on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Or, if you’re looking for a miles, points, and travel podcast, check out my podcast the Saverocity Observation Deck on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or this Patreon page! 

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As of today, Oct 16, 2018, Walt Disney World ticket changes are in full effect. They have a newly implemented dynamic pricing model. This means that the amount you pay for tickets will vary depending on when you take your trip. Travel during peak season will result in more costly tickets while off season will be cheaper.

Here’s what you need to know about the changes.

Your ticket price now depends on your trip dates

For the most part, the ticket buying process is the same. If you’re buying from Disney, navigate to their website and “theme park tickets”. At that point, you choose what type of ticket you want (regular, park hopper, or park hopper plus). The thing that’s changed is after THAT point, you’re directed to a calendar. The calendar displays the average per day price of tickets for trips starting on a given day.

In the example above, a 4 day Magic Your Way ticket for a trip start date of 2/3 is $94 per day on average, while a 4 day Magic Your Way ticket starting on 2/17 is $99 per day on average. 

I’m guessing these prices are dynamic, meaning they may change with availability and demand. What this means is if you’re going during off times you’ll save money compared to going during peak times. In the past, you’d pay the same for your tickets regardless of your trip dates.

Honestly, for the average user, Disney made this fairly straightforward. Pick your ticket length, pick your trip start date, and buy your tickets. 

Tickets for off peak dates are cheaper than they were last year (and peak times are more expensive)

While this new system definitely has resulted in ticket price increases, for off peak dates they are actually cheaper in some instances. Take a 4 day Magic Your Way ticket starting on 2/3 as in the example above. Those tickets cost about $397 now, under the old system they cost about $404. So a $28 savings for a family of four. 

Peak dates, however, will run you more. The absolute busiest time at Disney World is the week of Christmas and New Year’s. A 4 day Magic Your Way ticket where your trip starts on Dec 25th will set you back $462, almost $70 more! So it obviously pays now to visit during off peak times.

How do you determine off peak times? Avoid holidays and when the kids are out of school, basically! But another ancillary benefit of this ticket change is you can now figure out what times will have lower crowds – if the Disney ticket price is lower the crowds will be lower.

There’s no cost to change tickets but you CANNOT get a refund if you move to a lower ticket price

From Disney’s ticketing terms and conditions (bolding mine):

You can make changes to your tickets, including your ticket dates, prior to midnight ET of the day before your ticket’s first valid use date, XXX. There’s no change fee to modify, but an additional cost applies for dates with higher ticket prices. No refund or credit is given for changes from dates with higher prices to dates with lower prices.

This means that while changes are free, if your ticket price goes down (whether dynamically or because you choose new dates), you will not get a refund. But if you buy more expensive tickets you’ll get a credit for the value of the original tickets you bought. Something to bear in mind.

Tickets now have shorter expiration dates after first use

It used to be that if you bought a multiday Magic Your Way ticket, you had 14 days from first use to use up all your days. That means even if you bought a 4 day ticket, you could use your 4th day on day 14 of your trip. People would use this to their advantage and swing by Universal Studios or other local attractions while extending their time in Florida.

Disney has officially cut down their expiration dates. Basically, they’re building in some “off days” into your vacation, but you get a lot fewer. In fact, the only multiday ticket that still expires 14 days after first use is only the 10 day one! And remember, now when you buy tickets you have to state the first day of your trip, so you’ll have a hard “use by” date (Disney will tell you when you check out).

Also, if you buy the Park Hopper Plus option (includes waterparks) you get an extra day or two. You can also pay more for “flexible date” tickets, these basically are the old tickets with no start date and 14 day expirations.

Here are the new “use by” expiration in terms of days until expiration:

# of days on ticket purchased	# days you have to use tickets	# days you have to use tickets (Park Hopper Plus)
1	1	2
2	2	5
3	5	6
4	7	8
5	8	9
6	9	10
7	10	11
8	12	13
9	13	14
10	14	15

Parking and Annual Pass price increases

Also of note, parking at the parks now costs $25/day (up from $22). Annual passes have also increased in price, from $904.19 after tax for a Platinum Pass (the one without waterparks) to $952.11 after tax. The Platinum Pass Select (includes waterparks) now costs $1058.61. 

I will update my Annual Pass Savings calculator soon, though for the most part it should work okay. You’ll have to account for whether you are traveling on peak dates or not, if yes, then it will make annual passes look more appealing on the whole for cost effectiveness.

Thoughts and analysis

Overall, I guess it could have been a lot worse. Time will tell how dynamically Disney prices (will prices drop/increase daily depending on demand, for example). For travelers who like to or can only visit Disney during peak times (when school is out), they’re going to need to pay more for tickets. For visitors who visit during off peak times, they’ll probably save a few bucks.

I should also note that in general, I give Disney IT, specifically the website and mobile app, a hard time because generally Disney IT is pretty bad. (Or, alternatively, they aren’t given the resources they need to make the website, you know, work.) But the website ran smoothly with no hiccups, at least as far as tickets were concerned, in all my searches today.

Like all things Disney, people who plan their Disney vacations far in advance will probably come out ahead on the whole while people planning last minute might get burned. If you need help with planning Disney vacation, feel free to check out my Disney planning podcast Disney Deciphered or the new site Miles to the Magic for miles and points savings opportunities.

Will the ticket changes affect your ticket purchasing plans? Or is it much to do about nothing? Let me know in the comments!

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