Are there any advantages to owning contracts w/different use years?

[noname70]

Is there ever an advantage to owning contracts w/different use years or should you always look for a resale with the same UY as your original?

 

[mrdiscranky]

If you travel at different times of the year, having different use years could be an advantage. A family could use their December use year points for their Christmas trip, and their June use year points for their summer trip.

 

[Chuck S]

However, there are also disadvatages to having different use years and separate memberships. For instance, points from the two contracts could not be combined for any one night without using your annual transfer allotment. Also, as you can only transfer 2007 points to 2007 and 2008 to 2008, etc., there will be a limited window in which to do this transfer.

For many people, the cons outweigh the pros, unless you are certain you will travel at the same time annually, and to a specific resort. But there are also those that manage well. For the average member, I think it probably isn't a good idea to have separate contracts and use years.

If you buy a resale with the same use year, and title the same as your orignal contract, Disney can combine them under the same membership number, be sure to have the closing agent request that, and it never hurts to talk to member accounting BEFORE closing.

 

[Disney_Villain]

Having different UYs complicates what you have to keep track of, so I would never go that road.

DVC guides will also not recommend getting different UY's for the same reason. Buying add-ons direct from DVC, they will automatically match your UY unless you push them not to.

 

[Cruelladeville]

While the cons do outweigh the pros in managing different contracts, there are ways to get around them in order to use the contracts effectively. Nevertheless, don't buy different use years if you can help it. I have contracts in February, March, and August, which I happen to like, but I wouldn't have purchased them deliberately. At one time, Disney actually encouraged people to buy contracts with different use years if your use year was sold out! Then they found out that most of us--well,actually, that I--was too dumb to handle multiple contracts without help from MS. It raises the amount of time MS is on the phone with each member.

 

[dhluvsDisney]

We have two different use years, and it's not so bad. We just use one for one of our trips, and the other for the other trip (we go spring and fall). Also, when we don't have enough points (as recently), we just do a link in the reservation and make the balance up with the other use year. Not too complicated. I don't think I would have more than 2 UY though. That would be too much thinking.

 

[ACDSNY]

We currently have two UYs Feb & Aug. Most of our points will end up being in our Aug UY which works best for traveling in the Fall. I would prefer only one UY, but I'm in the process of switching over from the Feb to Aug UY and will just have to get used to having two for a while.

 

[mrdiscranky]

DVC guides will also not recommend getting different UY's for the same reason.

Call me a cynic, but I suspect the reason guides recommend not having different use years is that the points they sell you will have the same use year, and the points you buy from resale can have different use years.

 

[shortypots]

once we close on our VWL contract, we will have 2 UY's. The only time this will become a problem for us is if we decide to try one of the Adventures by Disney where we will have to transfer points from one contract to another. Otherwise we will bank and borrow to make up the points difference. I am a planaholic, so I have a spreadsheet for everything!