How often have you had to cancel your trip? Help in deciding UY!!

[Disneymooner07]

I really can't decide if I'm worried about UY or not. I understand the wisdom of not traveling in the last four months of your UY, but I'm just trying to get a sense of how often folks actually end up needing to cancel? I've never canceled any trip before, but I also haven't really planned many trips 11 months in advance before. I'm curious to hear what kinds of things have caused you to need to cancel? (So maybe I can gauge whether these are likely in our situation or not.) What have you done when you've had to cancel in the last four months of the UY - rent out your reservation or your points? Donate your trip? Try to reschedule for a different week within the last four months?

Thanks for any insight!

 

[JimMIA]

This is one of those rare great questions which does NOT get asked enough.

When we talk about UY, we talk almost exclusively about the nuances of banking deadlines, holding points, and points expiration.

Rarely -- REALLY rarely -- does anyone ask: "Has that theoretical problem actually happened to anyone???"

So, just to reassure you that it does happen -- yes, it happened to us once...in 29 trips. And the effect of it happening was zero.

Our account is held in a family trust, with three families participating -- my family and my two adult daughters' families. 1/29, one of us made a ressie...realized they had a conflict almost immediately (same day actually) and canceled.

Murphy's Law being what it is, the ressie was last-minute and so both the ressie and cancellation occurred within 30 days of scheduled arrival. So the points went into Holding Account.

Within a couple of weeks, the offending daughter rolleyes rescheduled her vacation and rebooked using the points in holding.

I should also point out that our UY was October, one daughter is a schoolteacher who has to vacation in June, July and early August, and the other two families have kids in school. October UY with school-aged kids is not a formula made in Heaven. 29 trips -- zero effect...for us.

So -- is UY important? Sure. Is it super-critical? I doubt it.

You need to be aware of it, you need to manage your account sensibly, and in a perfect world there would be a perfect UY for you. If you can find the perfect resale contract with the perfect UY, by all means go for it.

But is it a deal-breaker? I doubt it.

 

[Tunseeker1]

I have never had to cancel a trip yet knock on wood. I travel in the fall usually and I have sept and oct UY so we are usually using brand new points on our trips.

 

[redrosesix]

we don't own at DVC yet but we do own a timeshare in Orlando. Since we're usually there for a competition during Pres Week we also have to book really far in advance, long before we would buy our plane tickets or book nights on-site (since we always try to take advantage of special offers).

while we have never cancelled, there are times when we have had to change weeks to put our trip together properly (like DVC we can book any week). So I think this is the most likely scenario -- you wouldn't be traveling at a different time of the year so much as changing arrival and departure dates.

So I don't think UY is an issue there

If I had to totally cancel a trip, I'd bank the points so I could take an even longer trip next year

 

[k3chantal]

I really can't decide if I'm worried about UY or not. I understand the wisdom of not traveling in the last four months of your UY, but I'm just trying to get a sense of how often folks actually end up needing to cancel? I've never canceled any trip before, but I also haven't really planned many trips 11 months in advance before. I'm curious to hear what kinds of things have caused you to need to cancel? (So maybe I can gauge whether these are likely in our situation or not.) What have you done when you've had to cancel in the last four months of the UY - rent out your reservation or your points? Donate your trip? Try to reschedule for a different week within the last four months?

Thanks for any insight!

Never canceled. And, I am completely sure that we did not understand use year when we purchased. Also, completely sure that it would not have made a difference if we did understand since at the time the constraints on our schedule are not the constraints that are on them now and I am sure that will be different in the future too.
I must say that we are not flippant with our decision to use our points. By the time we are ready to make a reservation, we are as certain as we can be that it is exactly what we want. I am also fairly certain that if we ever got into the situation, we would try to reschedule or have some of our family use the trip (for instance whoever was the offending party would not go on the trip but the rest of us would) and then if that was impossible we would try to rent the points out.

 

[JimMIA]

Also, completely sure that it would not have made a difference if we did understand since at the time the constraints on our schedule are not the constraints that are on them now and I am sure that will be different in the future too.

This is a very important point to remember in any discussion about vacations.

Things change. Kids grow up. Kids' interests change. The trip that was easy to arrange two years ago is now impossible because of extra-curriculars or sports. And two years from now, things will change again.

The only constant is change.

 

[ELMC]

As many of the previous posters have said, there are a lot of ways to work around it. Whether it be rebooking, renting the reservation (or the points), or asking for a one time late banking exemption, there are many ways to not lose the points in the event of a last minute cancelation.

I'd like to echo the point that your ideal UY is a moving target. When we first started going to Disney it was almost exclusively in February and April. Then it shifted to August. Now we mainly take F&W trips in November and short getaways in January and/or May. My point is, the perfect UY for us in the beginning is not the perfect UY for us now. Good thing I completely disregarded UY when purchasing my resale contracts.

Keep asking the questions as they come up. Good luck with your research!

 

[LisaS]

We had a trip booked for Oct 2012. Due to a family emergency, we didn't know if we would be taking the trip or not until 24 hours before check-in. We had used a lot of points for the stay, including banked points. I wasn't concerned at all about cancelling because I have an October UY. Even with all of those points going into holding due to cancelling within 30 days of check-in, I would have an entire year to use them. Fortunately everything turned out well, we went on the trip and nothing bad happened while we were away.

We don't like the heat so our trips to WDW will normally occur from October to May. We picked an October UY and it has worked out well for us.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

In approx 15 stays I've had to do some last minute cancelling twice although both times only partial. Once when my mother passed away a week before the trip and once when we were taking my nephews and niece and my brother passed away approx 3 weeks before the trip. Essentially the cancellations we've had were unpredictable. But we have 2 UY's and I had booked with the points that were early in the UY so that I had plenty of time in both cases to use what was placed in holding.

Obviously UY has mattered to me and I do advocate buying a UY that you believe will fit what you think your travel will be but it shouldn't necessarily be the driving factor. Sometimes other things such as price or difficulty in finding the size contract might overrule UY but if you have 2 otherwise equal contracts or relatively close consider the UY.

 

[ELMC]

In approx 15 stays I've had to do some last minute cancelling twice although both times only partial. Once when my mother passed away a week before the trip and once when we were taking my nephews and niece and my brother passed away approx 3 weeks before the trip. Essentially the cancellations we've had were unpredictable. But we have 2 UY's and I had booked with the points that were early in the UY so that I had plenty of time in both cases to use what was placed in holding.

Obviously UY has mattered to me and I do advocate buying a UY that you believe will fit what you think your travel will be but it shouldn't necessarily be the driving factor. Sometimes other things such as price or difficulty in finding the size contract might overrule UY but if you have 2 otherwise equal contracts or relatively close consider the UY.

You bring up a good point, though, which is that having 2 different UYs allows you the flexibility to book trips at different times during the year. People talk about the downside of having 2 UYs from a management standpoint, but this is actually one of the positives.

 

[jekjones1558]

Use year has mattered to us. Cancer decided to mess with our plans multiple times. My parents died close to our trip dates. We are older than many DVCers but I guess that our reasons for canceling trips are the kind that can happen to anyone. Although we have had points in holding, because we travel early in our use year we have never lost points.

 

[CarolMN]

We self insure all of our domestic travel. We are willing to "eat" the loss if an unexpected event prevents us from taking a trip. I know the $$ loss from a cancellation is limited in those situations. So far, we have been very lucky - no trips have been cancelled in over 13 years.

We buy insurance for travel out of the country and that is because I want to be sure we are covered in the event of a medical emergency. While that is unlikely, the cost should one occur, is likely to be very high - so high that I am not willing to assume even a very small risk.

Obviously, if the cost of even a very unlikely event will be so high that it bankrupts you (or severely restricts your lifestyle), then insurance is a must! But other than that, it's more about how much risk you are willing to assume vs how much you want to transfer to an insurance company.

Just remember that everyone has a different tolerance for risk and their experiences may or may not be relevant to your situation.

 

[a742246]

Our first trip using DVC we had to do a last minute cancellation (elderly parents illness).
It does happpen! We were able to reuse the points so it wasn't a financial lose
(emotional one yes). But you have to roll with the punches.

 

[lovin'fl]

We have never HAD to cancel a trip...luckily. We have tweaked dates around quite a bit. So, UY has not been an issue for us, though we have June and August and our trip are usually from August to Jan. MIL and FIL, who also use our points, always go in Jan too (or Dec when we do a big family Xmas trip).

 

[disneynutz]

I look at choosing a bank friendly UY as added insurance that doesn't cost anything. I often wonder if the folks that say it isn't important wish that they had bought a different UY.

We have had 2 cancellations that caused us to bank and skip vacations for that year. A death in the family and a forced job relocation to another city.

Bill

 

[jarestel]

After a dozen years and many trips, we are still cancellation-free. Of course, given the nature of emergencies that doesn't mean our next trip might not have to be cancelled at the last minute.

I'm not a conservative planner and will gleefully schedule trips during the last month of my use year simply because I want to. If things happen, they happen.

So far the devil-may-care vacation planning style has served me well though. Having said that, I realize this laissez-faire attitude isn't for everyone, but given the relatively small risk and the worst possible outcome - losing points - I'm comfortable with my strategy (which is no strategy at all, lol!)

 

[ELMC]

I'm sure I will be a lot more careful after I have used my one time late banking exemption (not a guaranteed policy, but one I feel safe assuming will be in place). Until then, I have plenty of other things to worry about, so I'll leave this one off the list. Like other posters have said, it's a personal preference thing.

 

[dcfromva]

We have had a couple of adjustments and a cancellation. We have 3 UYs and we try to use our points at the beginning of the UY.
We invited some friends along and they had to leave a day earlier than planned. We found out within the 31 day window so points went into holding. The trip was in Oct and the UY was Oct, so we had nearly a year to reschedule those points.
This past Thanksgiving. DS was not able to go due to his job. We found out just before the 31 day window. Lucky we were using our June UY points. We cancelled-we will most likely bank these points before the end of this month and try again for Dec. 2013.
We've been members since 2002.

 

[Sandisw]

We have canceled a few trips so far but more because we booked them at 11 months not knowing that we were 100% sure we were going but because they were at a popular time, we booked. The fact that I didn't have to worry about anything but the 31 day or more cancellation rule, and not my UY, it made it easier to do this.

 

[LisaS]

I'm sure I will be a lot more careful after I have used my one time late banking exemption (not a guaranteed policy, but one I feel safe assuming will be in place). Until then, I have plenty of other things to worry about, so I'll leave this one off the list. Like other posters have said, it's a personal preference thing.

Does MS allow someone to use the one-time banking exception when cancelling a trip 31 days or less from check-in? It seems the reason for the holding account is because when a trip is cancelled so close to check-in, it's likely the room will go unused. Consequently, the member is limited to using those returned points for last-minute reservations only. Allowing the member to bank those points would circumvent that.