DVC to permit purchase of one time use points - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
So it is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our long-running forums. They came online in 2000 and brought together so many wonderful Disney fans. We had friendships form, careers launch, couples marry, children born ... all because of this amazing community.
Thank you to each of you who were a part of this community. You made it possible.
And a very special thank you to our Guides (moderators), past and present, who kept our forums a happy place to be. You are the glue that held everything together, and we are forever grateful to you. Thank you aliceinwdw, Caldercup, MrsM, WillCAD, Fortissimo, GingerJ, HiddenMickey, CRCrazy, Eeyoresmom, disneyknut, disneydani, Cam22, chezp, WDWfan, Luvsun, KMB733, rescuesk, OhToodles!, Colexis Mom, lfredsbo, HiddenMickey, DrDolphin, DopeyGirl, duck addict, Disneybine, PixieMichele, Sandra Bostwick, Eeyore Tattoo, DyanKJ130, Suzy Q'Disney, LilMarcieMouse, AllisonG, Belle*, Chrissi, Brant, DawnDenise, Crystalloubear, Disneymom9092, FanOfMickey, Goofy4Goofy, GoofyMom, Home4us123, iamgrumpy, ilovedisney247, Jennifer2003, Jenny Pooh, KrisLuvsDisney, Ladyt, Laughaholic88, LauraBelle Hime, Lilianna, LizardCop, Loobyoxlip, lukeandbrooksmom, marisag, michnash, MickeyMAC, OffKilter_Lynn, PamelaK, Poor_Eeyore, ripkensnana, RobDVC, SHEANA1226, Shell of the South, snoozin, Statelady01, Tara O'Hara, tigger22, Tink and Co., Tinkerbelz, WDWJAMBA, wdwlovers, Wendyismyname, whoSEZ, WildforWD, and WvuGrrrl. You made the magic.
We want to personally thank Sara Varney, who coordinated our community for many years (among so many other things she did for us), and Cheryl Pendry, our Message Board Manager who helped train our Guides, and Ginger Jabour, who helped us with the PassPorter-specific forums and Live! Guides. Thank you for your time, energy, and enthusiasm. You made it all happen.
There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
We go on to discover new frontiers
Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
Moving on with a spirit born to run
Ever on with each rising sun.
To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
But eventually, we must move on and move forward. It is the right thing to do.
So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.
And we are no longer charging for the Live Guides. If you have a subscription, it's yours to keep for the lifetime of the Live Guides at no additional cost. The Live Guides will stay online, barring server issues and technical problems, for all of 2019.
That said, PassPorter is not going away. Most of the resources will remain online for as long as we can support them, and after that we will find ways to make whatever we can available. PassPorter means a great deal to us, and to many of you, and we will do our best to keep it alive in whatever way we can. Our server costs are high, and they'll need to come out of our pockets, so in the future you can expect some changes so we can bring those costs down.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your amazing support over the years. Without you, there's no way us little guys could have made something like this happen and given the "big guys" a run for their money. PassPorter was consistently the #3 guidebook after the Unofficial and Official guides, which was really unheard of for such a small company to do. We ROCKED it thanks to you and your support and love!
If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.
So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
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New option offers alternative to borrowing vacation points
Disney Vacation Club® has created a convenient new solution for Members who find themselves in need of additional vacation points to book a reservation.
This new option, designed as an alternative to borrowing from next year's allotment, allows Members the option of paying for a one-time assignment of as many as 24 vacation points from Disney Vacation Development, Inc., for $15 a vacation point ($13.33 plus $1.67 tax) to complete their reservation. (A receipt is available upon request.)
Members may use these vacation points to book Disney Vacation Club Resorts, Disney Collection Resorts, Disney Cruise Line® voyages, Adventures by Disney experiences and World Passport Collection resorts.
Note that this option is available once each use year, and the transferred vacation points are assigned only for the specific use year and therefore expire when used.
Details:
One-time-use vacation points are vacation points available for Disney Vacation Club Members to use as an alternative to borrowing vacation points from the following use year's allotment.
You can obtain a maximum of 24 one-time-use vacation points once per use year per membership.
A maximum of 24 one-time-use vacation points are processed in a single transaction, not multiple transactions.
The fee for one-time-use vacation points is $15 (including tax) per vacation point, and is subject to change.
One-time-use vacation points expire according to the use year of the reservation booked and are non-refundable, non-transferable and cannot be banked or borrowed.
One-time-use vacation points are not available for waitlist reservations.
One-time-use vacation points cannot be applied retroactively to existing reservations.
One-time-use vacation points are only available for Members whose contract is closed and in good standing.
One-time-use vacation points are available only for Disney Vacation Club, Disney Collection, Adventurer Collection and World Passport Collection reservations.
One-time-use vacation points used for Disney Vacation Club resort reservations can only be used up to 7 months prior to arrival.
One-time-use vacation points for Disney Collection, Adventurer Collection and World Passport reservations can be used according to the booking guidelines for each individual collection.
PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
So does that mean for $360 ($15x24 points) you could make up the difference on something? You pay the cash, and it's as if you have 24 additional points? That sounds like great news - particularly if you want to get out of the cycle of always being a year ahead on what points you're using if you are borrowing the next year all the time!
It sounds fantastic for DVC owners who need just an additional point or two to make a reservation, but at the rate of $15, it's cheaper to rent them.
Perhaps. But unless you purchase enough points for a full night's stay, you would have to have the points transferred rather than going the rental route. Might be tough to find a member willing to transfer a small number of points since we are limited to one transfer per year.
Renting/transferring would also require more work than simply calling DVC and having the points immediately placed into your account.
PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
Yes, this is really great news and would have helped me this year... as I just had to borrow 1 point to complete my reservation! (I did it about a week ago!) The only downside is that you can only buy/apply the points at the 7-month booking window, essentially losing the 11-month advantage if you are booking at your own home resort. I guess you could book as many days as possible at the 11-month window and then add the extra day or two, if possible, at the 7-month window.
This is great news, especially for the people that are one or two points short for a trip. This is something that probably should have been done a long time ago.