Your Style? Bank or Borrow

[NH Disneyfan]

Do you manage your DVC points as a Banker or a Borrower? What are your reasons for either approach?

I personally am a borrower. I like to borrow because I refuse to ever lose points I'm paying good money for. Also, I don't want to "give up" any vacations to get to the point of banking - since my first DVC vacation in 2010 booked 4 rooms and used lots of points, so I started off borrowing. By being a borrower today, if something comes up that prevents me from taking vacation, I have at least a year of buffer before needing to rent or use or give away points.

Borrowing means I'm using future points (with higher maintenance costs) to pay for current vacations, but the cost difference is fairly minimal ($.15 per point year over year). If I were ever to lose some points, that would quickly make all vacations more expensive. I've determined that my current point cost (with initial payment plus annual dues) is $7 per point and those points add up quickly.

So what type of DVCer are you? Hoping you all have thoughts on approach that I've never considered.

[Ian]

I'm somewhere in the middle. I agree with you on all points about making sure you get the most out of your membership and would have absolutely no qualms about borrowing points, but with four kids including twin infants it's been hard lately to get down as much as we'd like to. We've banked quite a bit recently.

We're making up for it in May, though, doing 10 days in a Boardwalk 1BR boardwalk view. I think that's costing us like 330 points or something, so we'll catch up.

We're actually thinking of trying to rent our remaining points this year instead of banking them. Who can't use some extra cash??

[DizneyRox]

I find I bank just a little each year. For example, I put away like 10 points that I may end up not using. But there wasnt' anything I could do with them.

Typically I'll use what I need and put the rest away for the next trip. We're usually about two or three trips ahead with regards to planning. So, we might not use all our points this year because we know we're going for a holiday next year and want to stay in a better room, or for a longer stay. Or we might borrow from next year knowing that it's going to be a short vacation because we have other things planned.

To date, we haven't lost even one point, but like I said, that might change for a few points at least. It's minimal so probably not even worth the trouble of transferring them to someone.

So, to make a story story long, a little of both, with the caveat that we planned on doing this wehn we purchased. We bought what we needed to be able to do this.

[DVC2004]

We usually use all our points each year. Sometimes we borrow a few- like 5 or 10.
We like to take several shorter trips in a year as opposed to one long one. We took my sister's family once and stayed in a 2 BR, only 5 nights so we didn't need to borrow. I would def bank if we weren't going to travel, but we always do. That's what we joined for.

[princessjojo]

We do a little of each. Since we don't tend to go every year, we bank every other year. But like this year, we're using banked years from last year and are borrowing a few points from next year. But we also like the 2br's. We use them like we need them. We'll only make one trip this year, but hopefully next year, we'll be able to use the remainder next year for a quick trip over the Christmas holidays. That's a long time out, but anything can change in a year.

[JPL]

I do a little of each depending on the year and how many trips I take and where I stay. This year I plan on to head to Disneyland and then WDW in December so I might have to borrow because the Disneyland options aren't as point friendly as the WDW options.

[vizsla]

We do both. It really depends on the room size we decide we are going to need for each trip.

[Ed]

I'm another who is a banker sometimes and a borrower at other times. That's one of the things I like about DVC - the flexibility. In five years of membership, we haven't lost a point yet.

[FiggyFan]

We also do both, and have not lost a point in 10 years of membership. We visit every summer, and get a room for relatives for a few days. We also go every other winter for a short trip to take advantage of annual passes. In both cases, we end up with a few extra points to bank, then we splurge when they build up.

[MinnieMommie]

Depending on what time of year we vacation, the number of days, size of room and number of trips in a given use year we sometimes bank and sometimes borrow. I agree though that we have never lost any points. :mickey:

[Checkers]

:mickey:We are always in the borrowing mode! We have been members almost 11 yrs. and we have never banked any points or lost any points.
If it were just my DH & I we would probably be banking some points but we take family with us on most trips. It's great we have these options!