Booking at 7 months.

[Swan]

I was wondering...........If I book a trip with my points at the 11M
time at my home and use all my points. If a place comes up at the 7m that I want to book can I just switch the points over to it and cancel the booking that I have? How does this work?

 

[InstImpres]

Yes, people do it all the time. Just call MS, once they see there is availablitity for what you want they make the cancellation/switch for you (with your instruction, of course)

Enjoy
Sandy

 

[Swan]

Thanks

 

[CK1]

It works perfectly IF the points are the same (i.e., switching from say, BWV preffered for a week versus VWL for a week, same 2 br room, same dates / points schedule). It can get a tad hairy otherwise.

If you book one week at say, BCV (which lets say is your home), and then switch at 7 mos to OKW, you will have pts left over which, if you don't use them in your use year, and didn't bank them in the appropriate window, you could lose. If you have to borrow more pts, that is ok (say you wanted 10 days at OKW, not just 7) -- they just borrow those pts. HOWEVER -- if you had to borrow pts to make your BCV ressie and THEN switched at 7 mos to OKW at a lesser pts value, you can't send those borrowed pts back home again -- ya gotta use em.

I didn't mean to make this post more complicated (tho' I'm sure I just did) -- I just wanted to point out a potential snag in switching ressies.

Cindy

 

[draje01]

CK1,

I'm in the same situation. We plan on going back home for Thanksgiving of 04 which we would have to book by Dec of this year for our 11 mth window. Our home resort is BWV and we want to book 2-2BR's or a Grand Villa but the points are way less at OKW. I'm trying to decide if I want to go ahead and book BWV at 11 mths or wait for OKW at 7. I don't want to have my points go into a holding account. What would you do?

 

[ripleysmom]

I would go ahead and book the 2-2 BRs at BWV and try to switch at the 7 month mark. If you borrowed points for your initial ressie you can tell them to apply the borrowed points first and any remaining current year's points could be banked into the following year (I hope that was clear)

 

[CarolMN]

Originally posted by draje01
CK1,

I'm in the same situation. We plan on going back home for Thanksgiving of 04 which we would have to book by Dec of this year for our 11 mth window. Our home resort is BWV and we want to book 2-2BR's or a Grand Villa but the points are way less at OKW. I'm trying to decide if I want to go ahead and book BWV at 11 mths or wait for OKW at 7. I don't want to have my points go into a holding account. What would you do?

It's more work, but here's what I'd do if I really wanted to book something at OKW for Thanksgiving:

About 13 months ahead of time, I'd look for an OKW owner who would like to make a reservation at BWV. You can do this by posting on the Rent/Trade Board. BWV is also hard to get from Thanksgiving through New Year's, so there's a good chance you will find someone who wants to spend that time there.

Have the OKW owner make the reservations you want at OKW right at the 11 month window. You make the reservations at BWV for the OKW owner, also at the 11 month window. One of you reimburses the other for the difference in points used by transferring points.

The advantages of this is that both owners get to take advantage of the 11 month window, even though they do not own at the resort they want. OKW Grand Villas are hard to reserve at the 7 month window and as already mentioned, the time between Thanksgiving and New's Year's is very popular. If you wait until the 7 month window, you may not get what you want. IMHO, you will at least have to use the waitlist. That can be stressful for the planner!

Happy Planning!

 

[Dean]

This works great and the main caution, as noted, is that you may have points left over in certain situations and if they are banked, borrowed or late in the use year, you may not be able to use or bank them. The only other problem this causes is it makes it tougher to book day by day unless you have enough points to cover most of both reservations. What you can do is when the first day opens, ask MS what the inventory looks like before cancelling the existing home resort reservations. You can also cancel the existing reservation day by day so that you'll have guaranteed place to stay even if you that meaans you may need to change resorts mid trip.

Still, this is the best option for most people. Most of the things that can go wrong would actually generate NO reservations if you just wait until the 7 month window. Good luck.