Borrowing Points Clarification

[SMickey10]

Hi All,

I am looking to see if anyone has been able to get clear confirmation on the 50% rule. Since I have been trying to get through for days to confirm and have not had any success, I figured I would try here. Can you only borrow 50% of the points remaining in the following contract year, or is it 50% of the full annual allotment regardless of what you have booked for other reservations? I have other reservations in my 2020/2021 use year that are not on borrowed points, but I am not sure if the 50% cap takes into account the full annual allotment or the remaining points.

Thank you!

 

[dragonflymom]

I believe it is 50% of the full annual allotment, but I am not 100% sure. If you don't want to call MS and wait forever, you can experiment yourself with the Resort Availability Tool. Pretend to make a new reservation that requires more points than you have in your current UY, select a random available room and press "Continue" it will say you don't have enough points and you can bank (if applicable) or borrow. Select Borrow and the next screen will show you exactly how many points you can borrow. You then back out from that page to back out from the fake reservation.

If your existing reservations for the next UY already used up more than 50% of your full annual allotment of points, then I believe the remaining balance of available points that you can borrow will show up "as-is" and not as the 50% of the annual allotment. Hope that makes sense. Again, the experiment above will give you your answer.

 

[SMickey10]

Thank you! That certainly makes sense. The only thing that has made me hesitant is the manual 7 day cancellation review they are doing. Since it sounds like the cap is not programmed within the reservation system, it seems like it is letting you make a reservation beyond the 50% cap. Whether the cap is available points or your annual contractual allotment, that seems to be the the small detail that I wasn’t able to figure out. Thank you again!

 

[Sandisw]

It is per contract. If you have any borrowed points from before the rule above it, they are grandfathered.

If you have them but we’re not at 50%, you can only borrow up to the 50% total, so have to consider what is already borrowed.

I have read that they reprogrammed the system that won’t let you borrow more than allowed...not sure how that works as I was already over for my trips booked through March 2021.