The Long Term Savings of Disney Vacation Club

Often overlooked is the long term savings that Disney Vacation Club provides.  There are lots of benefits to owning DVC, but the biggest financial benefit is that the total number of points it takes to fill up a Disney Vacation Club resort in an entire year can never increase.  What this provides is a hedge against inflation for the owner, and this provides the biggest savings.  Please note this benefit is only with the Disney Vacation Club resorts as points for other collections can increase over time.  Also, I use the term “hedge against inflation” rather than “inflation proof” as DVC  owners will pay dues that tend to go up with inflation.  However, the dues are often only a fraction of the costs of the room rates.

The best example I can provide is with the Contemporary.  When it was first opened in 1971 the rooms in the tower went for $29/night, and today those same rooms go for nearly $500/night.  That represents an approximate 6.5% annual increase in the room rate.  If you were to take that same room rate increase and extrapolate 20 years, that same room would be over $1,600/night.  And while no one can guarantee if that increase will continue or not, the great thing is that DVC Members don’t have to worry about it.

Moreover, if you were to purchase Bay Lake Tower on the resale market today with just 160 points your potential savings could be over $500,000 over the life of the membership!  In this example, you could take your 160 points and stay for 9 nights in a lake view studio in Adventure Season (January, September, December 1-14) each year.  A tower room at the contemporary that same time of year is $482/night and has a 12.5% resort sales tax on top of that.  For 9 nights that would costs approximately $4,880.  And lets assume that you are a great shopper and gave always save 20% off the rack rate and get the entire stay for $3,904.  If you were to apply a 6.5% increase to that stay and continue for the next 43 years (which is the remaining amount of years in a Bay Lake Tower contract) the costs would be over $650,000!  Now contrast that with buying a 160 point Bay Lake Tower contract on the DVC Resale Market for $110/point or $17,600 total and paying dues of $5.62/pt. going up approximately 5% a year.  That total over the 43 years in a Bay Lake Tower contract would be approximately $130,000 and thus a savings of over $500,000!

There is a link below to a DVC Savings Calculator where you can change assumptions of price, dues, rental rates, discounts and inflationary increases and see the results for yourself.  Enjoy and thanks for reading!

DVC Long Term Value Calculator

View DVC Resale Market Listings