For you West Coast DVCers, how do you justify airfare costs?

[Denise L]

We are planning to go to WDW over Thanksgiving. However, airfare for four on our preferred UA flights is looking like $3000 right now, or $752/pp. I'm sadly thinking that if prices don't go down, I simply can't justify spending that much money to fly . We paid about $450 per person in 2005 and 2006 for the same exact flights and schedule that I am looking at today.

The only positive thing is that the fares have gone down from $900, so I guess that is something.

How do you West Coast DVCers do it? Do you fly less convenient flights to save money? We might be able to try JetBlue and connect through JFK...kind of a long travel day for the kids, though. Saves about $1000, but we may be zombies and grumpy.

I may have to sell my points if we can't afford to fly to Orlando anymore .

 

[BocaBum99]

Easy. Here is the what I would recommend. It's not what I would do because I am not willing to pay $3700 for what I can get for $330:

1) It takes 312 points to stay at Beach Club Villas for Nov 22-29, 2008 in a 2br unit. Let's assume you own 312 points at Beach Club Villas.

2) Sell the 312 points. I just checked the Timeshare Store. You can probably sell them yourself for about $90 per point. That would net you $312 * 90 = $28,000. Let's assume no capital gain.

3) You will also be saving on maintenance fees. That savings would be 312 * $4.80/point = $1500 per year.

4) You normally pay $450 per ticket. So, your normal airline ticket budget is $450 * 4 = $1800

5) With your $28000 in capital, I would invest in several timeshares that can achieve reliably a 25% return on invested capital in rentals. Not a really high bar, but you need to know what you are doing. Your return: $28000 * .25 = $7000. Subtract out 25% for taxes. You then net, $7000 * .75 = $5250.

Now, for an apples to apples trip, you will now have $5250 + $1500 + $1800 = $8550 budget.

6) Now, rent 312 points from a DVC owner at Beach Club Villas for $12 per point. That will cost: 312 * $12/point = $3744

7) Pay for your airline tickets: $900 * 4 = $3600.

Total cost for the same accommodations and airline = $3744 + $3600 = $7344. That leaves you with a balance of $8550 - 7344 = $1206.

8) Take the $1206 and pay for your Disney passes.

This plan works perfectly if you can sell your DVC points for $90 per point and you learn how to purchase timeshares that return 25% or more.

Why own DVC when you can do so much better by owning other timeshares that are much better investments?

 

[benjaminb13]

We are planning to go to WDW over Thanksgiving. However, airfare for four on our preferred UA flights is looking like $3000 right now, or $752/pp. I'm sadly thinking that if prices don't go down, I simply can't justify spending that much money to fly . We paid about $450 per person in 2005 and 2006 for the same exact flights and schedule that I am looking at today.

The only positive thing is that the fares have gone down from $900, so I guess that is something.

How do you West Coast DVCers do it? Do you fly less convenient flights to save money? We might be able to try JetBlue and connect through JFK...kind of a long travel day for the kids, though. Saves about $1000, but we may be zombies and grumpy.

I may have to sell my points if we can't afford to fly to Orlando anymore .

Hi Denise-
I was very close to purchasing AKV and encountered the flight problem.
I was shocked that the prices to florida were even higher than hawaii.
So I just couldnt justify this purchase.
Hopefully Disney comes out with some kind of package that includes a discount in Airfare in order to entice more west coasters into coming to wDW,
Anyway, as you know-I decided instead to purchase a second Hyatt property. Not only is it very west coast friendly, but There seems to be DVC properties available for exchange in II.

 

[SDKath]

You don't need to sell. Just add a couple of days at the beginning or end of your trip so you are flying on a Tue or Wed and returning on a Tue or Wed. Prices are about $300-$400 that way!

By the way, careful with what you suggest Bocabum99. Most DVC locations are totally booked for Thanksgiving unless you are an owner and book at exactly 11 months out. Same with New Year and 4th of July. So it's not as easy as your math makes it out to be. Try owning and working with the system before doing all the math and giving advice about it.

For example, BCV and AKV are both TOTALLY BOOKED for 2008 except for a few random Tue and Wed nights! I just called DVC to try to make a ressie for late October and could only find SSR and OKW as available!

K

 

[Denise L]

You don't need to sell. Just add a couple of days at the beginning or end of your trip so you are flying on a Tue or Wed and returning on a Tue or Wed. Prices are about $300-$400 that way!

By the way, careful with what you suggest Bocabum99. Most DVC locations are totally booked for Thanksgiving unless you are an owner and book at exactly 11 months out. Same with New Year and 4th of July. So it's not as easy as your math makes it out to be. Try owning and working with the system before doing all the math and giving advice about it.

For example, BCV and AKV are both TOTALLY BOOKED for 2008 except for a few random Tue and Wed nights! I just called DVC to try to make a ressie for late October and could only find SSR and OKW as available!

K

Hi Katherine,

Our current plan had been to travel Sat-Friday for 237 pts (6 nights).

With school-aged kids, it's pretty hard for us to leave on a Tues-Wed . Let's say we did it anyhow. That means we'd leave on Wednesday the week before Thanksgiving, and fly home the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. My DH would need to take 5 days off of work (versus 3), and the kids would miss 5 days of school (instead of 2). I'd need to cancel 3 nights at the end and rebook 3 nights at the beginning, one being a Friday night. I would guess that the Wednesday before Thanksgiving is a hard day to get cheap flights too, because folks are traveling. So this scenario avoids that day. 6 nights, Wed-Tues, would run us 250 pts, or 13 pts more.

I checked identical flights on those alternate dates, and it is pricing out at $688/pp, for a savings of $256 ($64/pp).

So for that particular week, the savings of $256 and the added usage of 13 pts, and the extra vacation days for DH and lost school days for kids...it doesn't help us very much .

 

[wmmmmm]

Hi Denise,

There's no easy way since air fares, like gas prices are now resetting to their real prices. My ATA airfare (now history) from Oakland to Honolulu for June was $425 per person. That is not even $100 more than the lowest price fare I ever paid and that was nearly 20 years ago! When I had to re-book at Hawaiian Air, I paid $850. There's efficiency and there's losing money. Since there's really no other way to get around this, (cashing out DVC will only work for one year), I plan to spend higher quality time in WDW. Since I own HGVC and they're very flexible, my original plans were maybe 5-7 days in HGVC and maybe 3-4 days in a 1-bd DVC. With the higher air fares, my next trip may have 5-7 days in a two bedroom unit and 8-9 days at HGVC (EOY in the summer). Good Luck.

PS. That's why we don't go anywhere during the school year. My wife refuses to take the kids out of school even for a day! Our kids' teachers seem to enjoy giving extra homeworks for unexcused absenses!

Wayne

 

[Denise L]

Easy. Here is the what I would recommend. It's not what I would do because I am not willing to pay $3700 for what I can get for $330:

1) It takes 312 points to stay at Beach Club Villas for Nov 22-29, 2008 in a 2br unit. Let's assume you own 312 points at Beach Club Villas.

2) Sell the 312 points. I just checked the Timeshare Store. You can probably sell them yourself for about $90 per point. That would net you $312 * 90 = $28,000. Let's assume no capital gain.

3) You will also be saving on maintenance fees. That savings would be 312 * $4.80/point = $1500 per year.

4) You normally pay $450 per ticket. So, your normal airline ticket budget is $450 * 4 = $1800

5) With your $28000 in capital, I would invest in several timeshares that can achieve reliably a 25% return on invested capital in rentals. Not a really high bar, but you need to know what you are doing. Your return: $28000 * .25 = $7000. Subtract out 25% for taxes. You then net, $7000 * .75 = $5250.

Now, for an apples to apples trip, you will now have $5250 + $1500 + $1800 = $8550 budget.

6) Now, rent 312 points from a DVC owner at Beach Club Villas for $12 per point. That will cost: 312 * $12/point = $3744

7) Pay for your airline tickets: $900 * 4 = $3600.

Total cost for the same accommodations and airline = $3744 + $3600 = $7344. That leaves you with a balance of $8550 - 7344 = $1206.

8) Take the $1206 and pay for your Disney passes.

This plan works perfectly if you can sell your DVC points for $90 per point and you learn how to purchase timeshares that return 25% or more.

Why own DVC when you can do so much better by owning other timeshares that are much better investments?

Hi BocaBum,

Interesting ideas. We own 170 pts, and I don't know if someone would buy them from me privately at $90/pt. That would be nice. Folks pay the TTS and the TTS takes its 10% commission, so that makes the seller's actual net price $81/pt. I'd have to look into how hard it is to get it sold myself and how to get the paperwork all done. We currently have the reservation for Thanksgiving, so that would be cancelled out if I sold, and the 63 points that I borrowed from 09 would have to be used in 08, and I suppose I could bank my returned 08 pts (170) into 09. And I'd have 4 banked pts from 07 that would need to be dealt with.

If I did sell, I'm not sure what I would replace it with. Maybe we'd net $15,000, with no capital gains. Assuming your numbers and rental expertise, I could in theory make 25% or $3,750, and net $2,812.50 after taxes. Using your numbers, I'd be saving $1137.60 in MFs (237 x $4.80). So I'd have

$2812.50 rental income from timeshare investment
$1137.60 MFs
$1800.00 ($450 x 4)
-------------------
$5750.10

I would have to pay more than $12/pt for a 2 bedroom at BCV at Thanksgiving, so pretending that such a reservation could be found, let's figure $15/pt, or $3555.00 in rental costs. That leaves us $2195.10 for airfare. Luckily, we already have non-expiry park hoppers for our trip, so we don't need to dish out money for tickets this year.

Anyhow, it could work or not. It's a lot of work to sell and buy since I'm not in the business of doing that, and I still end up with about the same budget for airfare (a budget that is too low, it seems ) Do I come out ahead, the same, or worse off?

So is it still worth it, you think? I don't think I would be able to pull it off for 2008 reservations, though, because I'd have to find the rental NOW and buy the airfare now, and I wouldn't really have the cash for the $3555.00 rental right now.

It might be an option for 2009, though. No airfare to WDW in 09, so it would be a straight sell and invest thing.

 

[SDKath]

How about travelling Tue of Thanksgiving week 'till Monday after. Would that help with the price?

Katherine

 

[Denise L]

How about travelling Tue of Thanksgiving week 'till Monday after. Would that help with the price?

Katherine

Hi Katherine,

It would take 280 DVC/BCV points for the 6 nights. I don't even know if there would be availability, probably not, since that Thanksgiving weekend is what would be super booked, and we were originally leaving on the Friday right after Thanksgiving.

I think we are just going to cut back on some expenses and try to pay for the tickets for the dates that we want. I didn't buy them, so I am going to play the market a little and hope that the price dips a little. But if I get nervous, I will buy them for a whopping $3008. Then we probably won't go back again for a very long time, but I really want to do this trip this year, if possible. Otherwise, I guess I could postpone until 2009 and use FF tix to get there instead.

 

[CapriciousC]

Part of the problem with flying around Thanksgiving is that it's the busiest travel time of the year for airlines, so they can get away with charging a premium, and they know it. I grew up in Florida and still have family there - it is often significantly cheaper for them to fly out here than it is for me to fly down there, particularly in winter, which is prime tourist season.

Is there any chance of rescheduling your trip? Early June is warm but not intolerable, and many schools in Florida are now starting their school year in early August, so while it's horribly hot, at least there wouldn't be as many locals hanging around.

 

[benjaminb13]

Hi Denise,

There's no easy way since air fares, like gas prices are now resetting to their real prices. My ATA airfare (now history) from Oakland to Honolulu for June was $425 per person. That is not even $100 more than the lowest price fare I ever paid and that was nearly 20 years ago! When I had to re-book at Hawaiian Air, I paid $850. There's efficiency and there's losing money. Since there's really no other way to get around this, (cashing out DVC will only work for one year), I plan to spend higher quality time in WDW. Since I own HGVC and they're very flexible, my original plans were maybe 5-7 days in HGVC and maybe 3-4 days in a 1-bd DVC. With the higher air fares, my next trip may have 5-7 days in a two bedroom unit and 8-9 days at HGVC (EOY in the summer). Good Luck.

PS. That's why we don't go anywhere during the school year. My wife refuses to take the kids out of school even for a day! Our kids' teachers seem to enjoy giving extra homeworks for unexcused absenses!

Wayne

i have encountered exactly the same issue
I have been trying to get the kids out of school for a few days with no success- it seems that the pressure is on from the teachers for parents to leave them in class-
Because of this reason, my wife also refuses to tale the kids out of school- Whew, sure could use suggestions

 

[DeniseM]

Hi Denise & Ben - Have you thought about buying at GCV (Anaheim) and then selling your Florida DVC points?

Regarding pressure from teachers - blame your state legislature for this. The only way your school gets paid ADA when your kids are absent is if they go on short term independent study. If your school is not letting them do this - make an appt. with the principal. I think the minimum is 5 days.

 

[Denise L]

Hi Denise & Ben - Have you thought about buying at GCV (Anaheim) and then selling your Florida DVC points?

Regarding pressure from teachers - blame your state legislature for this. The only way your school gets paid ADA when your kids are absent is if they go on short term independent study. If your school is not letting them do this - make an appt. with the principal. I think the minimum is 5 days.

Hi Denise,

I'm pretty sure we will have to get some CA DVC pts , but when and how is another question. SDKath will tell you that first dibs go to DVC members who bought in CA, then to DVC members. Currently, members don't pay closing costs (or closing costs are low). If I sell before CA DVC pts go on sale to members, then I will be third in line with the rest of the non-DVC folks , so I'd probably have to end up buying resale with closing costs, or else the minimum 160 pts from the developer (we don't need that many CA DVC pts). Also, with DVC, if you sell, all your reservations get cancelled, so if I want to go this year, or rent my week out, I have be the owner or not close until after Thanksgiving.

So yep, I am eyeing those CA pts but hoping to hold onto my Beach Club pts until I can add on CA.

 

[rhonda]

I'm glad that most of our timeshare choices were based on "drive-to" locations. Our DVC holdings are relatively small - and we tend to find January fares ~$300pp from San Diego.

We do look forward to using some of our points at DL -- soon! ;-)

 

[Blues]

Hmm, we're going to WDW later this month. Our airfare, SJC-MCO-SJC on Southwest, is under $350 pp rt. Not sure where on the west coast you are, but SWA flies from 3 Bay area airports, 4 LA-area airports, Sacramento, Portland, Seattle, and Spokane.

My experience in the last 6 months is that SWA has raised their fares to be almost as high as the legacy carriers. So I'm surprised that you can't find better fares than you mentioned.

 

[myip]

The air ticket is so expensive nowaday. I booked my ticket using mileage. - Sunday - Sat for Thanksgiving week. If I have to pay, I book at 11 months out. It seems like ticket is only get more expensive as it get closer to departure. I never seem to catch the deal.

 

[tomandrobin]

Your airfare delima coming from the West Coast to Florida, is similar to what us East Coasters face heading to Hawaii and California.

That was one of my recent complaints about Starwood adding all thier new resorts out West and Hawaii. A total of 6 new resorts and 2 more in developement, compared to zero resorts for the East Coast.

 

[Denise L]

Hmm, we're going to WDW later this month. Our airfare, SJC-MCO-SJC on Southwest, is under $350 pp rt. Not sure where on the west coast you are, but SWA flies from 3 Bay area airports, 4 LA-area airports, Sacramento, Portland, Seattle, and Spokane.

My experience in the last 6 months is that SWA has raised their fares to be almost as high as the legacy carriers. So I'm surprised that you can't find better fares than you mentioned.

We were looking at a non-stop from SFO-MCO, and returning MCO-SJC. UA has the only non-stop flight, so the prices probably reflected that.

I just noticed a fare drop on AA, SJC-MCO-SJC, connecting through DFW, with prices at $581/pp. It isn't non-stop, but it's a doable flight for us. Fares are crazy. Yapta alerted me to $550/pp, I logged on immediately to try and hold the fare, spent a few minutes with AA's online tools, and it went up to $581/pp. Then, when I was all done, the price rose to $603/pp after I was done putting it on hold. Those little price increases x 4 really add up after awhile!

Crossing my fingers that UA will drop its prices within the next 24 hours. We have all of our miles on UA and would like to keep them there, if at all possible. But we'd save $700 flying AA right now.

I'll check SWA, but I think the flight times might have been too difficult for us. Are you flying early morning flights?

 

[short]

Orlando? Orlando? Wheres Orlando?

Denise,

I personally cannot understand why anyone from West Coast would want to go to Orlando.:hysterical:

Reporting in from Sunny Southern California.

Short

 

[Denise L]

Denise,

I personally cannot understand why anyone from West Coast would want to go to Orlando.:hysterical:

Reporting in from Sunny Southern California.

Short

Agreed, we have lovely weather here in CA :whoopie: !

Well, the kids really enjoyed WDW in 2005, and so we go for "therapy" for our DD who has anxiety disorder and other issues. My goal is to get her to ride Peter Pan with me for 2 minutes without screaming . What we love about WDW is that it is so big, and there are so many things to do and look at besides rides. We were there in 2005 and 2006, and the only ride I ever got to go on was the Kilimanjaro Safaris at Animal Kingdom! Talk about one expensive ride! Anyhow, so that's why we go, and we have to have a place to stay with a kitchen on site, so that's why we bought the points. I'm guessing that we may opt for Disneyland in future years IF we can get points at the CA DVC.

 

[SDKath]

I agree with you Denise. We are from San Diego but WDW is a whole different world! It's worth the trip some 3000 miles away. Those DVC resorts offer such unique and wonderful things for the kids (the movie nights, the fire pits with s'mores, the sandy "beaches" in the pool, etc, etc.). You just can't get that at DL. There is just too much fun and even for the adults there is great nightlife. I wish Anaheim had more of that but they just don't have the space to build it out like Orlando did.

We can't wait for our GCV points to come. I heard the models are opening this month or next at DL! :whoopie: We'll go up there just to look and I will take pictures for the Board too.

In the meantime, we are enjoying our AKV points and going back East anyway.

By the way, I never understood while people from the East Coast flew all the way to Hawaii when you have the Caribbean.

Katherine

 

[Blues]

I'll check SWA, but I think the flight times might have been too difficult for us. Are you flying early morning flights?

We leave SJC at 6:55 AM and arrive MCO 5:25 PM. But we're just doing that to get there early enough to pick up the car, check in, go shopping, and return to the airport to pick up step-son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter. There's another flight that leaves SJC at 10:50 AM and arrives MCO at 8:55 PM, which we'd probably be more inclined to do if we weren't coordinating with the others.

There seems to be a similar array of choices out of SFO, and an even better set of choices from OAK. Keeping in mind, of course, that it's a long distance and you lose 3 hours.

 

[lprstn]

I have the same problem, but I find that taking the kids out of school the week before Thanksgiving, or doing a long weekend works well (Thurs-Tues) of MLK/Presidents Day or any of the other teacher work days or misc. days off that schools gives us. Usually at those times airfare is cheaper and the park isn't as busy. I wouldn't rush to sell, just plan better and try out different dates also. I also have a vacation fund (savings account) that I direct deposit to for the year prior to my trip. Its how we have the $$ to do the airfare and things we want. Also, my rule is, when you have the money to do it than do it. When I got my tax return last year I purchased my Disney tickets (no exp) for use for the next 4 years. When I got my bonus, I put 1/2 away into our vacation fund and 1/2 into savings. Heck, I have even worked a part-time job (teaching at the university) to fund my vacations....vacations are kind of a passion for me...

Good luck, don't give up so easily...continue to think of a solution that is right for you and your family...

 

[Denise L]

Other choices

Okay, so I found another fare for $561/pp on UA if we leave 2 days earlier. So instead of 6 nights, we'd stay 8 nights, and miss 2 more days of school. Leave on Thursday, 11/20 and return on Friday 11/28. It's not the non-stop that we like, but it does leave out of SJC at 10:41 and get into MCO at 9:05.

The question is, do you think DVC will have any availability for a 2 bedroom at BCV for a Thurs and Fri night, 11/20 and 11/21? We don't really want to change resorts. Also, I only have 5-day hoppers for our full 5 days. Do you think we could get away with not having to buy any more park tickets?

I have until midnight tonight to purchase my AA tickets for $581/pp for my original dates (6 nights, 11/22-28).

Part of my wanting to book on UA is that if the fare goes down, I can get vouchers or credits. I can't get anything like that on AA unless I pay $100 per ticket to do it, which kind of eats up any hope of any credit/voucher. Plus, all of our miles are currently on UA. But if BCV doesn't have availability, we'd have to change resorts, and we did that last time and aren't interested in doing that this year...though AKV looks like fun !

 

[SDKath]

Check with BCV ASAP. I would not count on avialability there. We had to do cash for one night in October during low season (a Sunday night for some wierd reason)!! I was surprised. We are on a waitlist for points. But BCV availability is really LOW! So be careful. You CAN stay elsewhere for the first few days though?! How about SSR or OKW. They will have avail.

I would skip the park passes. Just do other fun things. Or just relax at the resort. We are always dead tired the first day we get there. You can just use the pools and take boat rides and go see a show at Cirque or something.

I am jealous of your lengthy stay! Kath