Max points for new contract

[mulberrybush]

We are planning to buy direct in the next week or so. We vacay in Sept and March so I was planning on a September UY, but then I read some threads on initial points:

We plan to go in September 2013. How can I set my use year to try to get the max points this year? October UY?

 

[Rochester Disney Fan]

I believe what you are asking is how to get the most initial points from the contract when you buy direct. If you choose September for your use year then September 2012 points is what you will be getting. Then in September 2013( about 6 months from now) you will get the September 2013 points. So your first year you don't have to wait the whole year to get your next set of points. From what you posted I think you are getting the correct use year to suit your current vacation habits.

 

[mulberrybush]

Exactly what I was asking - you communicated that much better than I did! Thanks!

 

[LisaS]

When you purchase directly from Disney, they start you off with a full set of current Use Year points. As of today (March 29, 2013), contracts with February or March Use Years are in their 2013 UY. Contracts with an April, June, August, September, October or December Use Year are currently in their 2012 UY, though April contracts are only two days away from the end of their 2012 UY.

Either a March or a September UY contract will work for your travel dates. With a March UY, your first points will be March 2013 UY points. With a Sep UY, the first points will be Sep 2012 UY points. An October UY would not work well for someone who travels in September since you would be traveling in the last month of your UY. If you had to cancel a September trip on short notice, you wouldn't have much time to use your points for something else before they expired on Sep 30th.

 

[Dean]

We are planning to buy direct in the next week or so. We vacay in Sept and March so I was planning on a September UY, but then I read some threads on initial points:

We plan to go in September 2013. How can I set my use year to try to get the max points this year? October UY?

Any UY that has not completely past can get you the current UY points and you can bank them. That's up until and including the last day of the UY. The one that will get you the MOST points is April (corrected) if you buy now. IMO you're best choice is to look at what the best UY is for your planned travels going forward. If you generally plan to travel in Sept, that may be Sept or possibly August (if you expect to hit the holiday weekend it's August). Currently you'd lose out on only Feb & March 2012 points.

However, I'd caution you about a couple of things in this area. Buying a bad UY for your situation just to get this years points is a poor idea. The other is you're not actually getting a full years extra points, you're only getting a few months extra in the long run.

I know you've decided on retail but just so you're aware, buying resale it's often possible to get an extra year's points above what you get retail, those are called loaded contracts. In your example, you might buy with a Sept UY with all 2011 points banked to 2012, all 2012 & 2013 points in the contract.

 

[DizBub]

When we bought direct we knew nothing and even less about about UY. We bought at the end of Sept 2009. They gave us a Feb UY so we had 2009 points and got 2010 points in Feb. It looked like they gave us last years' points but in reality they just gave us current points and we had to pay dues on 3 months of the '09 points. Basically we had 420 points to plan our next trip in Sept 2010.

Turns out that since we typically travel in Sept/Oct, Feb is not an ideal UY for us. We just work with it. Don't over think UY, your travel habits may change over time and what seems good right now may not work so well in the future.

I agree with others, you should consider resale and look at loaded contracts. Can save you a load of money.

 

[mulberrybush]

When we bought direct we knew nothing and even less about about UY. We bought at the end of Sept 2009. They gave us a Feb UY so we had 2009 points and got 2010 points in Feb. It looked like they gave us last years' points but in reality they just gave us current points and we had to pay dues on 3 months of the '09 points. Basically we had 420 points to plan our next trip in Sept 2010.

Turns out that since we typically travel in Sept/Oct, Feb is not an ideal UY for us. We just work with it. Don't over think UY, your travel habits may change over time and what seems good right now may not work so well in the future.

I agree with others, you should consider resale and look at loaded contracts. Can save you a load of money.

We are planning to buy a small direct contract and then thinking of buying a second contract resale just so we have one direct in case DVC changes the rules for resale...

 

[staceymay00]

We are planning to buy a small direct contract and then thinking of buying a second contract resale just so we have one direct in case DVC changes the rules for resale...

I'm pretty sure that even if you own direct points, any points you buy resale will still have restrictions. You can't lump them all together to book a cruise, for example. I do think that if you buy resale with the current restrictions, and the restrictions change in the future, there is a good chance your points will be grandfathered in and not subject to the new restrictions. There is no guarantee, however our resale points (our only points) have no restrictions because we bought them prior to the restrictions put in place a couple of years ago.

Sent from my iPad using DISBoards

 

[LisaS]

Any UY that has not completely past can get you the current UY points and you can bank them. That's up until and including the last day of the UY. The one that will get you the MOST points is March if you buy now, April in a few days.

I'm not following your logic here. How does buying a March contract (which is in its 2013 UY) get the OP more points? And if someone wants an April contract, why wait a few days until the start of the April 2013 UY? That would mean passing up the April 2012 UY points. (Side note to OP: If you purchase in the last days of the UY, Disney may have run out of current UY points.)

 

[mulberrybush]

I'm pretty sure that even if you own direct points, any points you buy resale will still have restrictions. You can't lump them all together to book a cruise, for example. I do think that if you buy resale with the current restrictions, and the restrictions change in the future, there is a good chance your points will be grandfathered in and not subject to the new restrictions. There is no guarantee, however our resale points (our only points) have no restrictions because we bought them prior to the restrictions put in place a couple of years ago.

Sent from my iPad using DISBoards

Oh, ic. I've been reading so many caveats regarding resale purchases and that this isn't a good time to buy resale bc inventory is low...but not necessarily?

 

[Dean]

I'm not following your logic here. How does buying a March contract (which is in its 2013 UY) get the OP more points? And if someone wants an April contract, why wait a few days until the start of the April 2013 UY? That would mean passing up the April 2012 UY points. (Side note to OP: If you purchase in the last days of the UY, Disney may have run out of current UY points.)

Sorry, did it too quickly. Meant to say that April would be the first UY where you'd get 2012 points but only for another day or so. I'll edit to be more clear.