Understanding Use Year - Updated 5/31/2012

[5forDiz]

Originally Posted by vellamint

Which UY would I DEFINITELY NOT want for my timeframes...... I am looking at resales and some are cheaper than others but cheap won't help me if I get a "bad" UY.

Thanks.

just in case you didn't know January,May,July and November are NOT
UYs.

I'd say August is good choice for travel months you mention. September too, October works too.

Just keep in mind that ONLY CURRENT UY points will be bankable IF you cancel a reservation at least 31 days to check in date so borrowed and banked points used in your reservation will need to be utilized by the end of your UY. If you cancel 30 days thru 1 day before check-in date points go into Holding Status and must be utilized by end of UY and may not be banked even if they are Current UY points ( there are some booking stipulations as well when points go into Holding too ).

Sometimes there is really no "ideal" UY if you plan to travel over a span of months - - best advice is probably to pick UY that will have your travel fall within first 8 months of that UY so jmho in your case I wouldn't consider:

~ June because the banking deadline is Jan 31 (not great for cancelling a Dec/Jan trip or Feb trip) but not the worst choice, and

~ prob not Feb either ( banking deadline is Sept 30 and end of UY Jan 31 is way TOO CLOSE for travel in Dec/Jan if you had to cancel & utilize points by end of UY - note that this is where you will come into a difficult situation if you have points that cannot be banked either because you are beyond the banking deadline OR you've cancelled between 30 days thru 1 day before checkin OR you've got banked and borrowed points in your reservation -- you wouldn't want to be sooo close to the end of your UY that leaves you very little time to utilize those points that you've got no choice but to make use of before the UY ends.

~ March pretty much same as Feb because of banking deadline of Oct 31 & UY ending on Feb 28 or 29

~ April probably isn't best either because banking deadline is Nov 30 ( again, not good for cancelling Dec/Jan or Feb travel ) and also anything beyond banking window or non-bankable needs to be utilized in a reservation that ends before April 1st so that leaves you approx 3 months if you cancelled mid-late December trip, etc.

I mention travel during January because you did make mention of Jan in your post and also because that is a great time to travel to WDW with DVC because point usage is SUPER LOW :-)!!!!! ( February isn't too bad either point usage-wise )