Understanding Use Year - Updated 5/31/2012

[kristintrod]

Thanks so much for the detailed explanation of use year. I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of it now but there is one thing that I have read on different posts that is confusing me. Many people suggest getting a use year in the same month as you plan on taking your vacation. For example, if you vacation in June, then some people suggest a June use year. How does that work?
We normally vacation in October or January. I was thinking June would be the best use year because it would allow us to bank our points if we had to cancel in October or January but I'm wondering if October would be better. Can someone help me out with this? Thanks!

[chalee94]

Many people suggest getting a use year in the same month as you plan on taking your vacation. For example, if you vacation in June, then some people suggest a June use year. How does that work? We normally vacation in October or January. I was thinking June would be the best use year because it would allow us to bank our points if we had to cancel in October or January but I'm wondering if October would be better. Can someone help me out with this?

october is slightly better if you are traveling in oct and january. put it this way:

if you cancel a january reservation less than a month out, your pts become "holding pts" - they can't be banked and can only be used for reservations within 60 days. if you used any banked or borrowed pts, they also can't be banked.

so with an oct UY, you still have till the end of september to figure out how to use those pts. with a jun UY, you have till the end of may. even if you can't use them yourself it's probably nice to have the option to rent a reservation to the summer schoolkid crowd...

not a big difference. a june UY and oct UY are both fine in most of your situations - if you cancel the jan reservation more than a month out, you can still bank your current pts - correct. an oct UY just gives you a little longer to figure things out if a last minute cancellation messes up your pts.

but if you see a june UY contract for a good price, UY month probably shouldn't be a dealbreaker...that's true.

[kristintrod]

Thank you Charles! That was very helpful. So I do have a couple of follow up questions. If we have an Oct. UY and we vacation in Oct, do the points come from the current year? Are the points not withdrawn until the actual vacation? So if we had to cancel for any reason, we wouldn't have to worry about banking points because they had not been deposited yet?

[chalee94]

If we have an Oct. UY and we vacation in Oct, do the points come from the current year?

my suspicion is that you might want to read the first post in this thread again.

your oct 2011 UY pts are valid for stays from oct 1, 2011 to sept 30, 2012. so if your planned stay is oct 10, 2011 for 6 nights - which occurs in your 2011 UY - you can call to book as early as nov 10, 2010 for your home resort. and at that date, you would be calling to book with any combination of banked pts from 2010, current pts from 2011 and/or borrowed pts from 2012.

so yes, i think that is what you are asking. if you call in nov 2010 to book oct 2011 with an oct UY, the 2011 allotment used to book the reservation would be current pts - correct.

your first question is "what use year do the dates of my stay fall in?" (or something like that but more grammatically correct.)

Are the points not withdrawn until the actual vacation? So if we had to cancel for any reason, we wouldn't have to worry about banking points because they had not been deposited yet?

pts are no longer available for another use when you book the reservation - so if you banked your 2010 pts when you called in nov 2010 for an oct 2011 reservation, they are now in your 2011 UY and will expire on sept 30, 2012...if you needed to borrow any 2012 pts when you called in nov 2010 to complete the reservation, they are now in your 2011 UY and will expire on sept 30, 2012. you can bank pts at any time prior to your banking window closing - borrowing only occurs if you need the pts to complete a specific reservation.

banking and borrowing are "final" which means you cannot put them back into their original UY. so be sure when you book the reservation.

so for example, if you call in august 2011 to cancel that oct 2011 reservation, all the pts used will drop back into your 2011 UY. any banked or borrowed pts will be stuck in the 2011 UY no matter what and will expire if not used for a stay by the night of sept 30, 2012 (the end of the oct 2011 UY). any current 2011 pts can still be banked forward into 2012 (which means they would be valid for stays from oct 1, 2012 to sept 30, 2013).

also consider that if you booked a stay in nov 2010 for oct 2011 using 150 current 2011 pts and then in march 2011 you called to book a stay at a nonhome resort, you would most likely need to cancel the first reservation to rebook that oct 2011 stay for a new resort. the 150 pts are considered "used" by the home resort reservation and would likely need to be freed up to book a replacement reservation.

one tricky thing is not to think about pts in terms of when they are "deposited." my online account shows my pts through my 2013 UY. i can't use those pts since my booking window for my home resort hasn't opened yet...but in a sense, they are already in my account.

[Sandisw]

Originally Posted by kristintrod

Thank you Charles! That was very helpful. So I do have a couple of follow up questions. If we have an Oct. UY and we vacation in Oct, do the points come from the current year? Are the points not withdrawn until the actual vacation? So if we had to cancel for any reason, we wouldn't have to worry about banking points because they had not been deposited yet?

Everything is based on when you travel and not when you book the trip. So, if you have an Oct UY, every Oct 1st, your points for that year go from being next years point to current UY points.

Say you want to travel in Oct 2012, which would be your Oct 2012 UY. In November, 2011, you call to book that trip (since you can call to book 11 months in advance). MS will look at your account and use any banked 2011 points, current 2012 UY points, and borrow any 2013 UY points you need.

[EWL]

Thank you for this post and all the extremely helpful information! I am struggling to get my brain wrapped around this and my head is still kind of spinning in circles.

If I am considering buying into DVC with a 75pt resale contract with the intent of traveling every 3 years, or at most every other year (since those are the only scenarios where I can get the numbers to look favorable for me), then I would be relying heavily on banking and borrowing to have 225pts every 3 years. And I'm thinking that it also makes the choice of use year more important too. So I want to have a good understanding of how this all would work.

If I guess that we'd likely travel in August, but perhaps sometimes in June or July, and rarely but possibly at other times, what use year is our best bet?

If I go with August for the sake of the example and buy in today, do I have this right:

1) On 8/1/2011, I get 75 points for the 2011 use year, which runs 8/1/2011 to 7/31/2012.

2) On 9/15/2011, I can call and book a reservation at my home resort (probably AKV) for August 15, 2012, (11 months prior) which falls in my 2012 use year, requiring 225 points. At that time, all 75 of 2011 points would be banked, I would use my 2012 points, and borrow all 75 of my 2013 points.

3) If all is fine, I am done. But if I need to cancel in February 2012, I get all my points back because I am more than 31 days before checkin, but I now have all 225 points in the 2012 use year. (Right? They stay in the year that the reservation was made?)

4) If I act before the end of March 2012, I could bank 75 current year points into the 2013 use year, but would have to use the other 150 banked and borrowed points by the end of my 2012 use year or 7/31/2013. But since it's only March, I would still be able to take advantage of the 11-month booking for summer 2013 so should have good options.

5) If I don't act before the end of March 2012, I am past the banking deadline so have to use all 225 by the end of my 2012 use year. (Right?)

6) If I cancel in July 2012, within 30 days of checkin, my 225 points all go into holding and I have to use them by the end of my 2012 use year but cannot book more than 60 days ahead. If I don't use them, they're gone.

So using this approach, I would call at the 11-month window in September to book a trip for the following August; I'd basically have until the end of March banking deadline to cancel if needed and either use 150 points the following June or July and bank 75 into the next year, or I could cancel up until July and use all 225 points the following June or July or whenever but with 60 day max advance reservations. Have I got this right? Thank you!

[CarolMN]

Originally Posted by EWL

Thank you for this post and all the extremely helpful information! I am struggling to get my brain wrapped around this and my head is still kind of spinning in circles.

If I am considering buying into DVC with a 75pt resale contract with the intent of traveling every 3 years, or at most every other year (since those are the only scenarios where I can get the numbers to look favorable for me), then I would be relying heavily on banking and borrowing to have 225pts every 3 years. And I'm thinking that it also makes the choice of use year more important too. So I want to have a good understanding of how this all would work.

If I guess that we'd likely travel in August, but perhaps sometimes in June or July, and rarely but possibly at other times, what use year is our best bet?

Since you plan to do the every other or every third year thing, there may not be a "best" use year. August would give you the most time to reuse the points if you mostly travel in August and had to cancel a trip. The plan you describe below is a good one, IMO.

Originally Posted by EWL

If I go with August for the sake of the example and buy in today, do I have this right:

1) On 8/1/2011, I get 75 points for the 2011 use year, which runs 8/1/2011 to 7/31/2012.

Correct.

Originally Posted by EWL

2) On 9/15/2011, I can call and book a reservation at my home resort (probably AKV) for August 15, 2012, (11 months prior) which falls in my 2012 use year, requiring 225 points. At that time, all 75 of 2011 points would be banked, I would use my 2012 points, and borrow all 75 of my 2013 points.

Correct.

Originally Posted by EWL

3) If all is fine, I am done. But if I need to cancel in February 2012, I get all my points back because I am more than 31 days before checkin, but I now have all 225 points in the 2012 use year. (Right? They stay in the year that the reservation was made?)

Yes, correct.

Originally Posted by EWL

4) If I act before the end of March 2012, I could bank 75 current year points into the 2013 use year, but would have to use the other 150 banked and borrowed points by the end of my 2012 use year or 7/31/2013. But since it's only March, I would still be able to take advantage of the 11-month booking for summer 2013 so should have good options.

Correct and I agree that in March of 2012, you would still have good options for the summer months of June & July of 2013.

Originally Posted by EWL

5) If I don't act before the end of March 2012, I am past the banking deadline so have to use all 225 by the end of my 2012 use year. (Right?)

Yes, correct.

Originally Posted by EWL

6) If I cancel in July 2012, within 30 days of checkin, my 225 points all go into holding and I have to use them by the end of my 2012 use year but cannot book more than 60 days ahead. If I don't use them, they're gone.

Yes, correct again.

Originally Posted by EWL

So using this approach, I would call at the 11-month window in September to book a trip for the following August; I'd basically have until the end of March banking deadline to cancel if needed and either use 150 points the following June or July and bank 75 into the next year, or I could cancel up until July and use all 225 points the following June or July or whenever but with 60 day max advance reservations. Have I got this right? Thank you!

You've got it! Congratulations, you go to the head of the class!

[EWL]

Originally Posted by CarolMN

You've got it!

Wow-- I can't believe I have it straight! All thanks to your great explanation, no doubt. Thanks so much!

[PKS44]

and.....if you book your trip to fall at the end of JULY you could actually use up to 300 points not just 225pts

If you had 75 pt from 2010 points banked into 2011 use those for the July 2012 dates, then use the other 3 years as you planned--you could also use 2 years worth in July and 2 years worth in August-so long as you use up one years' worth in July before the start of the next Use Year- you can use up to 4 years worth on one trip.

[EWL]

Originally Posted by PKS44

and.....if you book your trip to fall at the end of JULY you could actually use up to 300 points not just 225pts

You mean basically a split trip at the end of July going into August? So using 150 points (banked plus current UY) at the very end of July and then 150 more (new current UY plus borrowed) in August? Very interesting!! Is that complicated to book? Does a reservation that crosses into the next UY count as being in each year separately or would it have to be split into two reservations?

[Sandisw]

Originally Posted by EWL

You mean basically a split trip at the end of July going into August? So using 150 points (banked plus current UY) at the very end of July and then 150 more (new current UY plus borrowed) in August? Very interesting!! Is that complicated to book? Does a reservation that crosses into the next UY count as being in each year separately or would it have to be split into two reservations?

It would still be one reservation. It just that the banked and current points can only be used for the days prior the UY start.

The only drawback for doing something like this is that you are using banked and current points right at the end of the UY. If you had to cancel that trip, you would be stuck and would lose all the points associated with the first part of the trip.

[PKS44]

It is not complicated and the options range from using 2 years on one side of the USE YEAR and 2 years on the other side or 1 year on either side and 3 on the other...as stated above--it is one reservation-- you just have to have the points eligible...Just a little trick I discovered to maximize use of points.

[chalee94]

Originally Posted by Sandisw

The only drawback for doing something like this is that you are using banked and current points right at the end of the UY. If you had to cancel that trip, you would be stuck and would lose all the points associated with the first part of the trip.

this.

crossing use year to use 4 years worth of pts means you are traveling at the end of a use year...better not have to cancel or you are up the creek...

[TinknPink]

Originally Posted by Illini Al

Potential "future owner" question. After reading the OP multiple times, I may be getting the hang of this, but if I ever become an owner, I can see using Excel to manage all of my current, banked, and borrowed points several years out. Has anyone ever created a detailed Excel spreadsheet to track and manage point usage?

I too would like to see if someone has developed a points tracking spreadsheet. I saw one reply to this question but it included more than what i am looking for (value/interest rates etc). I would like one that just tracks the points with columns for banking, borrowing, and added yearly points etc.

[kat3668]

Looking into possible purchasing DVC... I usually travel Sept , Dec, late jan early Feb or march what would be the best use year for me?