Before you list your DVC contract, open your points page on the Disney Vacation Club member website and take a screenshot of it. That one image answers most of the questions a buyer will ask, and it's the fastest way for us to price your contract correctly.
The hard part is reading it right. The page groups points by use year, and the way those years are named trips up a lot of owners, longtime ones included. So let's go through it slowly.
A points year is named by the year it starts
Everything else depends on this rule. A points year takes its name from the calendar year it begins in. If your use year is December, the points shown as "Dec 1, 2026 to Nov 30, 2027" are your 2026 points. They are not your 2027 points, even though eleven of those twelve months fall in 2027.
The same logic holds for every use year. A February member's 2026 points run from Feb 1, 2026 to Jan 31, 2027. A June member's 2026 points run from June 1, 2026 to May 31, 2027. Each points year starts on the first day of your use year month and runs twelve months from there.
Why does this matter when you sell? Because listings, purchase agreements and Disney's estoppel all describe points by year. If you tell us you have 150 "2027 points" and you meant the points that run through most of 2027, the buyer will expect something different from what Disney later confirms. It's an easy mix up, and it's a frustrating one to untangle in the middle of a sale.
I'll admit it isn't intuitive. Most of us think of a year by where most of its months fall, and Disney simply doesn't count it that way.
What you'll see on the page
Disney updates its member site from time to time, so we won't promise exact labels or a fixed layout. But the points screen generally shows each points year separately, with its date range, and then breaks the points into types. Here's what those types mean in plain words.
Current points are the regular annual allotment for that points year. They're what your contract delivers every year. A 150 point membership gets 150 of them each year, and they refresh on the first day of your use year month.
Banked points are points from an earlier year that you moved forward before the banking deadline instead of letting them expire. They show up in the following points year next to the regular points, and they have to be used in that year. They can't be banked a second time.
Borrowed points are points pulled forward from next year to use now. When an owner borrows, the current year looks bigger and next year looks smaller. If you see a future year showing fewer points than your contract size, borrowing is the usual explanation.
Holding points come back from a reservation that was cancelled close to the arrival date. Instead of returning to the normal account, they go into a holding account with tighter limits on when and how they can be used. Plenty of owners never have any. If you do, we need to know about them.
Then there are points tied to trips you've already booked. Those are spoken for, and they stay with your reservation, so they won't be available to a buyer. Some owners forget about a reservation made months ago and count those points as available. Look carefully.
Put together, the screen usually shows more than one points year at a time, and for each one you can see what's available, what came in as banked, what was borrowed out, and what's already been used.
Reading it the way a buyer will
A buyer looking at your membership wants to know one thing above everything else. How many points can I actually use, and when?
Your screen answers that if you read it year by year. Start with the current points year and find how many points are left that haven't been used or booked. Then check whether any of those are banked points carried in from the year before, because banked points expire at the end of the year they landed in. Then look ahead to next year and see whether anything was borrowed out of it. If your current points haven't been banked yet and the banking deadline hasn't passed, note that too, because banking may still be possible.
Write those numbers down by year, using the year each one starts. That set of numbers is your available points, and it's one of the three things that set your price, along with your resort and your point count. Nothing else on that screen moves the value. Your use year tells a buyer when points refresh and when banking deadlines fall, which helps them plan trips, but it has no effect on what the contract is worth.
Timing inside the points year matters for usefulness. Points with two months left before they expire are harder for a buyer to use than the same points with eleven months left, so if your current year is nearly over, tell us. Your exact banking deadline depends on your contract, and Member Services can confirm it if you're not sure.
A few reading mistakes come up again and again, so they're worth a minute.
The first is naming a year by where it ends. We covered that above, but it's the big one. The second is counting next year's points as available now. They're on the screen, and they're real, but a buyer can't book with them until that points year starts, unless they borrow, and borrowing just moves the shortage forward. The third is counting the same points twice. Banked points appear inside the year they were banked into, so if you add the banked line on top of a total that already includes it, your number comes out too high. And the fourth is forgetting a reservation. Points sitting on a trip you booked in the spring don't belong to the buyer, even if the trip feels far away.
None of these are hard to avoid once you know to look for them. When in doubt, send the screenshot and let us do the adding.
Why a clean screenshot speeds up the sale
When you list with DVC Sales, we're going to confirm your points one way or another. Disney's estoppel near closing confirms them officially, and the seller pays Disney's $150 estoppel fee for that document. But the estoppel arrives after a buyer has already agreed to a price. If the points on it don't match the listing, the price has to be revisited, and nobody enjoys that conversation.
A clear screenshot up front avoids most of that. It lets us list the right numbers on day one, price the contract against real comparable sales on the resale market, and answer buyer questions without coming back to you every time. Buyers tend to trust a listing that shows specific points by year. A vague one ("some 2026 points left") tends to draw more questions.
What makes a screenshot clean? Show every points year on the page, including the ones ahead of you. Include the date ranges so the years can't be misread. Make sure banked, borrowed and holding points are visible if you have any. And take it fresh, right before you list, because a screenshot from three months ago won't show the trip you booked last week.
A phone photo of a computer screen works in a pinch, but those are often blurry or cut off at the edges, and the date ranges are usually the first thing to get lost. A real screenshot is better. If you've never taken one on your computer, a quick search for your device name plus "screenshot" will get you there in about a minute.
We read every points image that comes in and check it against the listing. We'd much rather catch a mismatch the day you list than partway through ROFR, when Disney is already reviewing the sale. Disney has up to 30 days to decide on ROFR, and on our closed deals over the last 12 months its answer came back in about 21 days on average.
After you send it
Once we have your points by year, the rest is fairly mechanical. We price the contract against what similar Disney Vacation Club memberships at your resort have actually sold for, list it, and start showing it to buyers. You can begin at our sell your DVC page, and the points screenshot is one of the first things it asks for. If you'd like a rough number before committing to anything, the resale value calculator will give you one, and it'll ask for the same available points.
Our commission is 6.9%, against an industry average of about 9.5%. The full picture of what sellers pay is on our cost to sell DVC page. Once there's a signed agreement, we typically close in about 45 days, and within 5 to 10 days once Disney waives its right of first refusal.
One practical request. Don't use points after you list without telling us first. If you book a trip after a buyer has agreed to a price, the membership they're purchasing is no longer the one they agreed to, and the price will need another look. A quick message before you book saves everyone a renegotiation.
And if you open the points page and can't make sense of it, send us the screenshot anyway. Reading these screens is a normal part of our day.
Got Something on Your Mind?
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *