Problems using add-on points

[Johnnie Fedora]

We paid cash for a small add-on at HH and have a June use year. We got 25pts that must be used before May31st so we thought we could use them to book an OKW room for family. When we tried to book an OKW 2-br for one night we were 2 pts short, so we were going to borrow points from one of our other resorts to make up the difference. MS told us that we could not do this. We could not combine these points like that. Does this make sense, we've got the same story several times when we called MS. We've booked a 1 BR and now have 5 pts that are going to waste.

This totally sounds incorrect to me. Anyone see the reason for this?? MS seems somewhat puzzled by this too??:confused:

[mouseclick1]

We own points at HH and BWV. I recently added one more night to our July stay at BWV, costing us an additional 28 points. We only had 5 BWV points left. The person at MS took the last 5 points from BWV, then took the remaining 23 points from our HH contract. I would call back because what you were told does not click with what we were just able to do. Good luck!

[Maistre Gracey]

Very interesting. The outcome of this may put a hole new spin on our possible VB add on. Please keep us posted.

[nisiemouse]

We are thinking of adding on too and always thought you could combine points within the 7 month window. Please keep us posted.

[Doctor P]

I asked this question specifically when we added on two weeks ago. Our guide said she was positive that you could do this, but that she would check to make sure. She put me on hold, checked with MS (I believe) and came back and said that you could indeed do this. The only restriction was that you had to abide by the booking windows. Sounds like somebody is very confused here!

[CRobin]

Johnnie, ask MS for a supervisor. As long as you are within the 7 month window, you should not have problems moving points from another contract to fulfill a ressie.

[Hilary]

Would it have anything to do with the use year for the other points? - you don't say when that is.

If you have already used the full number of points from your ownership at the other resorts, and have borrowed all of the next use year's points, then this would prevent you from borrowing any more. It wouldn't be because they are from a different resort, but rather that you have no more points to be borrowed until you enter the next use year for those points.

At least, I <b>think</b> that could happen! :confused:

[Johnnie Fedora]

We have 2002 HH points that we would borrow for this transaction. I'm wondering if it has to do with the add-on contract not being closed.:confused:

[CRobin]

That's possible, Johnnie.

Whereas Disney will let you make ressies once they even smell your money, like a credit card deposit, it takes longer with a resale. Those points are not available to you until after closing, the deed having been recorded with the county, and Disney getting all of the paperwork AND entering it into their computer.

[Mic]

I recently added 50 points at HH to my original BWV contract, and could not borrow any points until we officially closed. Because of all the recent BCV activity, closing took forever ! Honestly, we closed on BWV in 2000 in less time than it took to add-on this past February, and I was told to call back for 3 consecutive Wednesdays(the day of the week they close) before we were in the system. Every Thursday I was told the same thing...there isn't a problem, we are just swamped...call back next week. Sounds like they are still "swamped". Good luck!

[Dean]

You can not borrow points if you have not closed but should be able to borrow from your main contract if you have points left.

[zurgswife]

I have a Disney contract and a resale contract...they are looked at like they are owned by separate people if I want to borrow points from one account to another I must transfer between the two accounts and only one transfer is allowed per year....It has caused quite a confusion for me

So, if you have transfered you may not be able exchange points between the two contracts if you have to non-disney contracts....

[luckytso]

Zurgswife,

I am in the process of closing a DVC BCV contract and a resale BWV contract. I was told that they will make the BWV the master and the other one an add-on. They told me that this way, they will be treated as one contract. How come you have to juggle between 2 separate ones? Do you have different use years? Thanks

[Cap]

Zurgswife,

Your situation sounds strange to me. I had a BW contract and a VB contract with contract # nnnnnnn.000 and nnnnnnn.001. I bought a resale for Hilton Head and Member Services put that on the same contract number as nnnnnnn.002. I've not had problems using points from two different resorts for a reservation.

Suggest you ask for a Member Accounting rep to see if they have somehow not linked your contracts correctly.

Cap

[TrudyZ]

We are very interested in purchasing an add on from a private sale. We are pretty much set to go, but before we signed on the dotted lign, I wanted to check into any restrictions with it. I must add the the add on contract is same home resort, less than 150 points, and a slightly different use year.

It took multiple calls to MS and Members Administration to get a straight answer; and I think I got it now; but I will share and offer it up for any comment or correction:

If we buy an add on from a private sale, a resale company, etc. anyone but Disney; they treat the contracts as two separate contracts--almost like they were owned by two separate people. They cannot see them both on the screen; you have to give them both member numbers and make sure they are working from the right one. That also means that the transfer option has to be used to transfer points between them. This has nothing to do with it being different use years (even if the use years were the same it would be this way). However, I was told that they show a bit of leniency and let you make more than one transfer in the same "direction". I didn't entertain the idea of getting points via transfer from another member and how that would affect it.

It means that you have to do some thinking ahead when you make reservations, so that you don't get caught at a later date with some straggler points and that you can't transfer them back the other way. Also puts the stop to transferring banked points (I think)---so you have to watch how you do things. We asked the question because we are looking at a resale as a "filler" contract. To give us that extra night or few when we need it.

If I buy an add on via Disney, where the same home resort or different, they treat it as a subcontract of the first contract--like one big pot of points. Therefore, no transfer option is needed.

Zurgswife, how much of a deal is it? Why I ask is we are ready to buy an add on via a private sale; and thought that I might make us have to think though the transactions, but we hoped we wouldn't lose any points over it. If it is a huge problem, then it seems the only way to do it is an add on via DIsney.....BUt don't see any OKW points in our future there. Feel free to email me at wwitte@peoplepc.com. Oh, and I must say that we just returned from WDW; and every time we saw someone with a pair of platform sandles, etc, we said "there goes another Bennett!"--our code word to look at the hilarious footware choice. You will be happy to know that poor choices in footware is alive and well at WDW!!

Trudy

[TrudyZ]

Cap:

Were your's all the same use years? Did you buy them via Disney or somewhere else?

luckyso, who did you talk to to get this done? I think I would be out of luck with different use years??

Trudy

[luckytso]

Faye in Member Service Administration.

I think she is in charge of all these issues. She told me that she will combine my contracts and make them become one. I initially comitted to buy BCV for a June use year. Before I signed the paper work, I came across a BWV resale contract and bought it. It has a December use year. My guide helped me to re-write my BCV to a December use year.

Faye told me that she will change the contract number so that BWV will be my master and BCV will be my add-on.

I hope this will help.

[WDWguru]

We bought two contracts at the same time in December/January. One was a VWL contract from Disney, one a BWV contract resale (Jaki at atimeshare.com). Both were September use year. The Disney contract was entered into the computer first, where they assigned us a member number. When the resale contract closed, since it was the same use year, they just added it under our existing member number.

We were told all along that if the use year is the same, all contracts go under the same member number regardless of where you purchased or what resort the points are tied to. This has meant that when we give our member number when calling they can look up all our contracts on one screen and make reservations pulling points from either or both.

We have not yet had to combine points for a reservation, but were told that if that did come up, the only restriction is you can't combine points from different contracts for the same night. We haven't tested this yet, but everything else we've been told to this point has been correct.

[SueM in MN]

We were told the same as WDWguru. We have bought 5 times, but we have only 3 member numbers because they were able to add the contracts that had the same use years together into the same contracts.
We occasionally have a stragler point or two that we need to bank because you can't use points from contracts for the same night. That's OK, it's just something you need to be aware of and plan around. And we haven't lost any points, because the next year when we get our new points, we have enough points to reserve a whole night.

[Dean]

Originally posted by zurgswife
I have a Disney contract and a resale contract...they are looked at like they are owned by separate people if I want to borrow points from one account to another I must transfer between the two accounts and only one transfer is allowed per year....It has caused quite a confusion for me

So, if you have transfered you may not be able exchange points between the two contracts if you have to non-disney contracts.... Don't let Disney tell you that you are totally limited to the transfers as if they are owned by 2 different people. While they won't transfer at will, they will allow significant flexibility if need be. They will allow more than one transfer and they will allow the transfer of banked/borrowed points. Only expect them to do this when it's truly necessary like to finish out a reservation or to schedule a cruise, etc.

[Johnnie Fedora]

Well.....this morning started with another call to MS.

I explained the situation again, and the CM left to talk to the manager. I was on hold for a long long time:o . Finally, when the CM returned she said they made an exception to their rule for the 2 needed points. The rule is......you can not combine closed and non-closed points for the same reservation. I'm not sure if this is a "rule" for any particular reason, or just because there's a computer glitch in their system which doesn't allow it.

If you're adding-on at the end of your use year, make sure you have this checked this out. It turned out to be difficult (on short notice) to find an available room for exactly 25 pts. And I certainly did not want to lose/waste any of the points if at all possible.

All in all, MS was able to help and they were polite and they did accomodate my request, so I have to give them a :) .

[Kick it up a notch!]

I own three seperate contracts, two from Disney and one purchased on the resale market. I am staying at OKW in September and needed to borrow five points from the Disney to the resale to complete the transaction. I had to aide by the use year requirements but all the points are owned by me and I did not transfer them between accounts. I used them to add to the points I had to be able to stay the last night in the grand villa we are staying in. The reason they woun't combine closed points with non-closed points is because technically you don't own them yet. They have to register them since it is a real estate transaction and then you need to be able to be added to the accounting system of Disney (which doesn't take that long). It's kinda like when you buy a house, after the closing it is yours. You have to close to own it. As for the transfer part, transfers occur between members as far as I understand it, not accounts. I have two accounts but am one member, why would I transfer points to myself?

[minni]

We have a 150 pt contract thru Disney and a 50 pt add on resale. When making a reservation I was told I had to have the full number of points for 1 night in the account in order to use it. I wanted to use up a few points left in the smaller account. So I had just 9 points left and they never gave me the option of transfering or adding to it. I had to use points from the other account to make the reservation. Now they will expire in a couple of months. I specifically asked them if there was anything I could do to use them up. I have points in the Disney account to add to it, I was told I couldn't.:(

[Maistre Gracey]

Hey minni, I don't have the magic solution to your problem, I just wanted to say welcome to the Dis/DVC boards!

[Dean]

Originally posted by Kick it up a notch!
As for the transfer part, transfers occur between members as far as I understand it, not accounts. I have two accounts but am one member, why would I transfer points to myself? That's not totally true. DVC looks at separate accounts of one owner all bought resale (or resale bought after buying from DVC) as if they are different people. If you call, you must be able to give them all of the account numbers as they must look them up separately. They also treat them as separate contracts/people with a limited number of exceptions. You only get one mailing IF THE ADDRESS IS THE SAME though everyone got duplicate mailings lately. In order to reserve a single item (DVC single night, DCL cruise, CC, DCL) all points for that item must be in the same account. That's not as big of a deal with DVC as you can reserve 3 nights with one account and 4 with another and they will link them automatically. If you need one night at 30 points and have 29 points in one contract and 1 in another, they must transfer to make that reservation.

I have discussed this item with MS on several occasions ad infinitum and the bottom line is they are looked at as basically separate owners. MS does have "singificant latitude in transferring points between different contracts of a single owner" but it seems to be getting harder to do so based on posts on this board. I personally have had no real problems. First, I plan ahead so as to minimize this situation. Then I'm very clear IN WRITING to MS what I want and where I want the points to come from, if I have to call, I follow up with an email. I usually get an inititial warning about not being able to transfer banked/borrowed points and I simply point out the above quote and it all happens. They sometimes must get with a supervisor but I've never had even a hint of problem after that. I do not ask them to transfer points whimsically.

[nisiemouse]

I am getting very confused :confused: If I have an OKW account and do an add on through Disney for BCV will they let me take 5 points from OKW and combine with 25 BCV points for a night as long as it is 6 months out? It seems like some have been able to do this and some have not. I guess you could keep banking odd points until the next year but it seems like at some point this option would make things a lot easier so that points would never go to waste. I would try to minimize having to do this.

[Kick it up a notch!]

Dean,

I had no problems borrowing from one account to complete a reservation and no one told me it was a transfer. Do they have to tell you they are transferring the points or will they just do it to complete the transaction? It seems to me they would have to inform you that it was a transfer since they limit transfers. I was never notified of this and completed the transaction with no difficulty. Any thoughts as to why this was the case?

[Maistre Gracey]

Not sure I'm following along close enough here. Is it possible to transfer all your points to one account at the beginning of the year and be done with it?

[Dean]

Originally posted by Kick it up a notch!
Dean,

I had no problems borrowing from one account to complete a reservation and no one told me it was a transfer. Do they have to tell you they are transferring the points or will they just do it to complete the transaction? It seems to me they would have to inform you that it was a transfer since they limit transfers. I was never notified of this and completed the transaction with no difficulty. Any thoughts as to why this was the case? They likely wouldn't even mention it. They've never made a big deal about it being a transfer or even generally using the word transfer. Still, if they use points from 2 separate accounts, that's what they're doing. I wouldn't worry about it.

They will transfer the points from one account to another using the transfer rules but in that case, I'm sure they would hold you to the letter of the rule.