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 )

[Sandisw]

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.

For those Oct/Nov/Dec trips you may want to do in the future, I would stay away from Feb and March. Even April works, as you would have until Nov 30th to cancel and still bank points--that would cover your Dec trips since you have to cancel at least 31 days in advance to avoid points going into holding.

Good luck!!!

[tekmom]

Hi, we only go to WDW in July and August. For a resale BCV (or any)what would be a good use year? How many points would be a good start? 200? or less?

[chalee94]

Hi, we only go to WDW in July and August. For a resale BCV (or any)what would be a good use year?

anything before july: june might be ideal (and also work fine for holiday trips in the winter) but a feb/mar UY might make potential spring break trips easier.

How many points would be a good start? 200? or less?

i started with 40 a few years back so i could pay cash. (on the down side, now i definitely need a few more.) look at the point charts linked above and figure out how you would tend to use DVC...then calculate how many points you would need... it's very individual, but 160 would give you more options if you intended to trade out for other timeshares.

[amelia1]

Okay.....I'm really trying to understand this UY thing. Really! I'm not getting it though.
So...if we were to travel in March, June, August, and even December...would a good UY for us be April?
I'm sorry to be such a dope!

[Sandisw]

Originally Posted by amelia1

Okay.....I'm really trying to understand this UY thing. Really! I'm not getting it though.
So...if we were to travel in March, June, August, and even December...would a good UY for us be April?
I'm sorry to be such a dope!

Since you have a lot of months that you like to travel, I would say Dec UY would be good. The rule it to try and travel during the first 8 months of the UY so that if you have to cancel a trip, you still have time to bank points (or if you are going on borrowed points and have to cancel, you still have time to use those points before your UY ends as borrowed points can't be returned).

With Dec UY, you would be able to cancel for all your trips since you have until July 31st to bank points. This would work even for August trips as you must cancel at least 31 days out to prevent points from going into holding.

Good luck!

[amelia1]

I just don't get that UY thing so I'm glad there are people like you out there!!!

[vellamint]

Okay! Back from my vacation and DVC tour. Just want to make sure I have the UY understood correctly.

Poster above stated "pick a UY that will have your travel fall within first 8 months of THAT UY".

With that reasoning.....with plans on traveling from August through February.....an August use year would be best for me....correct?

(I know...I widened my vacationing months....but using the "first 8 months of the UY" scenario I figured it would work).

[chalee94]

Originally Posted by vellamint

With that reasoning.....with plans on traveling from August through February.....an August use year would be best for me....correct?

yes. if you would very rarely travel from april/may through july, then august is a really good choice.

[pnyltwk]

x

[CarolMN]

Originally Posted by pnyltwk

We have a March UY. Back when we joined we did not know anything at all about this. From my perspective I would say that the UY has little impact. We seem to always be borrowing points so they never expire anyway.

Apparently,you've been lucky in that you have not had to cancel a vacation that occurs late in your use year. That is when use year becomes important.

If you cancel a vacation more than 31 days in advance of arrival, are past your banking deadline and cannot reschedule before the end of your use year, then the returned points expire at the end of your use year. If you were NOT past your banking deadline, you could at least save the current use year points (not the borrowed points) by banking them.

Originally Posted by pnyltwk

The UY does not impact when you can make reservations, only when the points will be posted to your account.

True that it doesn't impact when you can make reservations.

But actually, all of your points are already in your account for all use years. You match your desired vacation dates with your use year dates to determine the use year the points will be deducted from. If necessary, you can borrow points from the next use year or use points that were banked from the previous use year.

Once banked or borrowed, a point must be used in the use year into which it was banked or borrowed. Otherwise they expire. Banking and borrowing are not reversible.

Originally Posted by pnyltwk

Just take lots of vacations and alway borrow points and be happy.

I'm glad that this method has worked for you. I wouldn't recommend it to others, though. It has it's own set of risks and could result in the loss of points.

IMO, it's best to take the time to understand all of the various rules around use year, points and reservations. Then you can make informed decisions and minimize your chances of losing points.

[pnyltwk]

x]

[Otootles]

Thanks to Carol , and others for all the useful insights and info for those of us that don't know all of the ins and outs of DVC. I appreciate the patience that you have with all of us rookies!

[starwarsdisney]

This UY stuff is a little confusing to me. We are about to buy 100 points at AKV through Disney. We are going to get 2008 points (to used anywhere as I understand it) and 2009 points. The kicker here is that we don't have kids and don't have a specifc time of year that we always travel. We do know that we will avoid traveling during the last part of June, all of July, and all of August because those are peak capacity times and a little hot! Everything else is pretty open for us. What would be a good UY month for us? I'm thinking we would rather have September or October UY month rather than December. Thoughts?

[Sandisw]

Originally Posted by starwarsdisney

This UY stuff is a little confusing to me. We are about to buy 100 points at AKV through Disney. We are going to get 2008 points (to used anywhere as I understand it) and 2009 points. The kicker here is that we don't have kids and don't have a specifc time of year that we always travel. We do know that we will avoid traveling during the last part of June, all of July, and all of August because those are peak capacity times and a little hot! Everything else is pretty open for us. What would be a good UY month for us? I'm thinking we would rather have September or October UY month rather than December. Thoughts?

I agree, Sept or Oct UY, would work well if the LEAST likely time of travel is June, July and August.

Out of those 2, IMO, I would go with September. With Sept UY, all your trips through May would be covered if you ever had to cancel 31 days out as you would still be in the banking window (which is April 30th).

Those early June trips would be the only ones that could potentially be at risk, but since that is such a small time, the bulk of your travel would fall within the timeframe to give you a lot of flexibility to use points.

The fact that your travel times are varied, UY is of less importance than if you have a set time to go so really, any will work for you!