Booking process - when do I need points?

[babecca1]

We are considering purchasing DVC and I'm trying to figure out how to pick a use year. I'm thinking it will depend on when I need to have the points.
Do you need to have your points before you can book? For example, if I wanted to travel in Oct 2021, Can I book 11 months out, if my use year is Sept, and I won't have points till then?
Thanks for any help!

 

[Marionnette]

We are considering purchasing DVC and I'm trying to figure out how to pick a use year. I'm thinking it will depend on when I need to have the points.
Do you need to have your points before you can book? For example, if I wanted to travel in Oct 2021, Can I book 11 months out, if my use year is Sept, and I won't have points till then?
Thanks for any help!

Booking a resort only requires that you have points available for those nights. So given your example, yes you could book an October 2021 reservation using September 2021 points once the booking window opens for your home resort in November 2020.

 

[chalee94]

We are considering purchasing DVC and I'm trying to figure out how to pick a use year. I'm thinking it will depend on when I need to have the points.
Do you need to have your points before you can book? For example, if I wanted to travel in Oct 2021, Can I book 11 months out, if my use year is Sept, and I won't have points till then?
Thanks for any help!

A Sept UY when you plan to travel in October is pretty much ideal.

Booking is based on home resort, not UY. So you could book an Oct 2021 stay in Nov 2020 as stated.

If you want to travel in Oct 2021 with a Sept UY, you would have access to current 2021 Sept UY pts (they are "current" because the travel dates fall between Sept 1, 2021 and Aug 31, 2022) to book that stay. You would also have access to banked 2020 UY pts (if any are available in the contract) and also borrowed points from your 2022 UY (if you need them).

Traveling in Oct with a Sept UY would also give you the most options in case you needed to cancel the stay. OTOH, traveling in July or August would be your least "protected" trips.

 

[hlhlaw07]

We are considering purchasing DVC and I'm trying to figure out how to pick a use year. I'm thinking it will depend on when I need to have the points.
Do you need to have your points before you can book? For example, if I wanted to travel in Oct 2021, Can I book 11 months out, if my use year is Sept, and I won't have points till then?
Thanks for any help!

Think of it like this, UY has nothing to do with when you can book a reservation. UY only determines what “pot” of points your trip will be booked from. As for when you can book, you can always book 11 months out at your home resort and 7 months out for any other resort. The points just have to be available at the time of the reservation, not at the time of booking the reservation.

 

[CarolMN]

Spend some time with this thread before you make an offer:

Understanding Use Year

 

[babecca1]

Thank you all for the helpful information! Definitely want to be sure I know what I'm doing before we make the leap!