Anyone buy a Use Year you did not want ?

[MicheyMouse]

We are stuck deciding between a loaded contract with a Use Year we don’t really want but overall is more readily available (Dec) and a mid year stripped contract (no pts until 2026) that fits our travel months and is the one we really want. Pricing is only about $5/pt difference.

We are not currently bound to a Use Year.

How many of you just sacrificed your ideal Use Year for the better deal and tried to just learn to live with it?

 

[AstroBlasters]

We are stuck deciding between a loaded contract with a Use Year we don’t really want but overall is more readily available (Dec) and a mid year stripped contract (no pts until 2026) that fits our travel months and is the one we really want. Pricing is only about $5/pt difference.

We are not currently bound to a Use Year.

How many of you just sacrificed your ideal Use Year for the better deal and tried to just learn to live with it?

Hold out for what you want at a price that makes sense.

 

[BamaGuy44]

We did. Our resale contract is April use year, which is perfect for us. But when we bought Riviera direct, because of the time we bought, we would not have gotten the current year’s points with April. So we went with June and used those points for MB.

It will probably cause some minor irritation at some point but for thousands of dollars I’ll deal with it

But the June points will be used for Riviera almost always so it shouldn’t be too bad.

 

[Matty B13]

We bought a loaded contract before we knew why a good UY was important to have, it was a June UY and our kids have spring break in April. We eventually sold that contract for a February UY contract, which cost us a little bit more than if we had done our research better. It was our first DVC contract so we still didn't understand the system that well.

 

[Sandisw]

Our very first contract was an OCT UY which was not a good one for our travel times (summer). We didn't understand its importance and sold it after we bought a direct contract with the UY that was better, June UY.

Whle no one intends to cancel or change trips, it happens. If you are regularly going to travel outside of your banking window, you have a much higher risk of losing points.

For example, with a December UY, trips in Sept/Oct/November would be at high risk if you had to cancel. Even changing dates would be tough because that time of year is very popular for DVC and if you were looking to change dates after July 31st, you'd have a tought time finding availability.

My advice is to wait for a contract that works in the long term and not the short term, and find a UY that has the time you think you'd be traveling the most falling within your banking window.

 

[Brian Noble]

There are always more contracts. You do not need to be in a hurry. You can make an offer on that stripped contract that you think is fair, or wait for another that better fits your needs.

In particular, choosing a "bad" UY just to get a loaded contract is putting too much weight on the first year of something that is going to last a very long time.

 

[sndral]

We are stuck deciding between a loaded contract with a Use Year we don’t really want but overall is more readily available (Dec) and a mid year stripped contract (no pts until 2026) that fits our travel months and is the one we really want. Pricing is only about $5/pt difference.

We are not currently bound to a Use Year.

How many of you just sacrificed your ideal Use Year for the better deal and tried to just learn to live with it?

The asking price per point may be only a few $$ different, but the value of those contracts is very different. Assuming by ‘loaded’ you mean the Dec. contract has this year’s points (2024) you can easily rent those points for $15 - $20 per point, or, because you’ll likely close before Dec.’s banking deadline (July 31) you can bank them into next year if you don’t plan to use them before they expire 12/1/25. The Dec. contract will get its 2025 points on 12/1, which you could rent for $15-20 per point as well. Thus that Dec. contract is ‘worth’ $30 -$40 per point more than the mid year stripped contract that won’t get any points until 2026.
The other thing to keep in mind is that your WDW travel habits may change through time - mine have. You don’t say when you’re likely to travel, if it’s typically in the fall, then I’d avoid Dec. & keep looking for a non-stripped contract in a better for you use year, if you’ll be traveling Dec. through July 31 (Dec. use year’s banking deadline) a Dec. use year might work.
If you intend to add on in the future then starting w/ an easy to find use year is worth considering.
Here’s some dated info. re: use year ownership break downs: https://dvcnews.com/dvc-program-men...ear-distribution-charts-updated-february-2018

 

[D-Trick]

Wait for the ideal UY. Never buy a new UY for a cheap deal.

 

[ClaraOswald]

Honestly, I wish I had a different UY for our BRV contracts. We originally thought we'd just get a 50 point one and then use any leftover VGC points, as needed for trips every other year. So we got the same UY as our VGC...which is June.

But then we decided we wanted to visit WDW more and purchased 150 more BRV points. I sometimes wish those were December UY instead since we pretty much only plan to travel to WDW in January/February (or maybe December.) June UY isn't super ideal for that but I don't really want to fuss with changing it now.

So all this is to say...I'd hold out for the UY that you truly want.

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

I think @sndral and @ClaraOswald both gave very valuable pieces of information.

If you plan to travel at roughly the same time every year, there are probably 3-4 UY options that will work for you (maybe more!) such that you will be able to travel within your banking window…but one mistake I made with our first contract was not considering other times we could also see ourselves using points. Our first guide pushed us into Aug UY at Aulani because we said we liked to travel to WDW in Spring and at Thanksgiving breaks…but summer is actually when we would be most likely to visit AUL itself! Mar or Oct would both have been better UY for our purposes… also, just 3 years later, we have already shifted our pattern once and are starting to think about shifting again next year.

I’m probably not the ideal DVC candidate for this reason, lol, but it might help you to know that I bought a resale contract in June UY because it was a great deal, then regretted it for 18mo, but now it’s great because I can use that UY when I want to travel in Jun/July, and I also bought an Oct UY to get double VGF points direct in Sept even though it might have been smarter to combine with a UY I already had, but I love having an Oct UY.

The two things I believe are very good advice (with limited specific exceptions) are (1) keep same resorts in the same UY/membership even if you (like me) want to have 2-3 UY, and (2) consider the UY frequency chart shown above—if you think you’ll ever want more points later, don’t pick a UY where less than 10% of all points exist— makes for very slim pickings on the resale front.

 

[Girlstar30]

Don't do the stripped contract if you have travel plans soon to save a few bucks, I regret doing that, now i feel like im always "behind" on that membership

 

[Brian Noble]

we pretty much only plan to travel to WDW in January/February (or maybe December.) June UY isn't super ideal for that but I don't really want to fuss with changing it now.

This should still be just fine! A June UY has a banking deadline of January. But any reservation in February needs to be cancelled more than 30 days in advance to avoid Holding. So, either you cancel early enough to avoid holding (and thus can still bank), or you cancel within 30 days and end up in Holding, and those points would not be bankable no matter what their UY.

 

[NVDISFamily]

This should still be just fine! A June UY has a banking deadline of January. But any reservation in February needs to be cancelled more than 30 days in advance to avoid Holding. So, either you cancel early enough to avoid holding (and thus can still bank), or you cancel within 30 days and end up in Holding, and those points would not be bankable no matter what their UY.

Learning this advanced concept was very eye-opening after I got a bit more experience under my belt after the first half-year + of membership. Definitely gives you some comfort of how flexible most of the UYs are. For us, both our June and December UYs work well with each other as there are good "safe-zones" we can travel in that we are likely to use over the years (December, January, June and July). The only pain that we just discovered is we now may try and make more frequent trips to WDW in the spring so our June WDW bucket of points may have to be used with some planning to make sure they don't get in a weird spot.

For a more direct answer to the OP's question, be careful spending one something that you don't want. DVC purchases are best looked at with a 7+ year perspective to get the most value out of them and short term gains will quickly be overshadowed by long term regret if you don't consider the downsides.

For us, I'd love to stick to our two current UYs and I'll do my best to do so but the ability to sock up on some AULs points may change this if we decided to go down that path in a few years....

 

[kanerf]

Yes, I have a June use year and have many contracts there. I wanted BLT and all I could find was Feb (there seems to be a lot of Feb contracts at BLT), so I bought one and have added on several times, but only to Feb for BLT. Having two use years is not too bad, just have to remember when to deal with the points before they expire.

 

[pinkxray]

We tend to travel at different times so I tried to decide what months I would most likely never travel which are Aug or Sept. We picked Oct. as our use year and it has worked out well. We have to wait a little longer to find what we were looking for. Since we tend to travel for spring break or fall we also looked at April or possible Sept. I would not pick up June or Dec. based on our travel style just to get a good deal.

Maybe you can open up to a few possibilities but don’t get a use year that really won’t work for you. Something else will come along.

 

[juliebee]

Do NOT get a December use year if you plan to travel in December and the resort you will be staying at is very popular at that time of year (Copper Creek, Boulder Ridge, and probably most studio rooms honestly). It's already hard to get reservations in December and then with a December use year, it makes it extra hard to use any tricks to get a room. Hold strong for the use year that works well for your plans.