Could someone explain this to me like I am in Kindergarten?

[3kidz4dis]

I am just not getting this and really want to make sure I am understanding the benefit of adding on points at a different resort. We own 150 points at SS and plan on going every other year (Dec use year) and would stay in a 2 bedroom. I am been reading quite a bit on old postings that talks about the benefit to buying a small contract of points at a different resort to allow you to use the 11 month window. That is were it gets confusing for me....if you have say 30 -50 points in say BCV the only thing you can reserve is either one weekday or one weekend day. So am I correct that you can reserve your points at at the 7th month window and have to be on a waitlist until the other days come through from SS, which means could mean calling in on a daily basis adding on once day at a time. We are flexible with our schedules to a certain extent .....like all of October and November but with Food and Wine going on it would make it tough to get what we want. Could some one let me know if we are on the right track and explain it to me and a way that doesn not make my brain not explode. Thanks!

 

[Caskbill]

You can only use home-resort points to book at 11-months at a home resort. So if you only owned at one resort, that is the only resort you could ever book at 11-months. You'd have to wait until 7-months to book somewhere else.

That's why many purchase small contract at other resorts, so they have a home resort booking window there at 11-months. But since you can only use home resort points, a small contract on the surface doesn't seem like much.

The trick is to bank and borrow points, to make that small contract work more like a larger contract.

You own 150 points at SSR. Suppose you bought 50 points at BCV. The first year you bank your 50 points, and just use your SSR points for your vaction that year. The next year, you start with 100 BCV points (banked plus regular). You borrow the following year's 50 points, giving you a total of 150 BCV points which you use at 11-months to make a reservation.

By banking and borrowing, a 50 point BCV contract gets you 150 points every 3 years.

Hope this helps explain it a little.

 

[3kidz4dis]

You can only use home-resort points to book at 11-months at a home resort. So if you only owned at one resort, that is the only resort you could ever book at 11-months. You'd have to wait until 7-months to book somewhere else.

That's why many purchase small contract at other resorts, so they have a home resort booking window there at 11-months. But since you can only use home resort points, a small contract on the surface doesn't seem like much.

The trick is to bank and borrow points, to make that small contract work more like a larger contract.

You own 150 points at SSR. Suppose you bought 50 points at BCV. The first year you bank your 50 points, and just use your SSR points for your vaction that year. The next year, you start with 100 BCV points (banked plus regular). You borrow the following year's 50 points, giving you a total of 150 BCV points which you use at 11-months to make a reservation.

By banking and borrowing, a 50 point BCV contract gets you 150 points every 3 years.

Hope this helps explain it a little.

It does help, thanks... but you went in direction I didn't think of...I thought that you use your small contract to make a reservation at BCV at 11 months so you have 1 day just sitting and waiting ....meanwhile my points at SS would be reserved the same week, just different resort. When 7 month comes I call to see if we can tranfer the points to BCV even if it on a waistlist and I have to call every day and add a day at a time and eventually have enough to make a full week at BCV. Your way seems like a good way to do it, although we need more in the 300 point range and using 30-50 points and bank and borrow it will not make the 300 points for longer than three years. (We have 3 kids so we need a two bedroom although the one at AKL looks very interesting with thier 1 bedroom taking 5. Maybe an add on ito there is something to consider. We do not need more points for a longer vacation we just wanted to stay at other resorts as well and was wondering the best way to do that. Thanks

 

[Cruelladeville]

Don't forget that you do not need to add on in 25 pt increments. You could buy, for example, 80 pts, which would get you 240 pts. The idea is to figure out the amount of pts you need, in order to stay where you want to, when you want to. Many people are staying in studios, too, so a 50 pt contract could go a long way for them.

 

[Caskbill]

It does help, thanks... but you went in direction I didn't think of...I thought that you use your small contract to make a reservation at BCV at 11 months so you have 1 day just sitting and waiting ....meanwhile my points at SS would be reserved the same week, just different resort. When 7 month comes I call to see if we can tranfer the points to BCV even if it on a waistlist and I have to call every day and add a day at a time and eventually have enough to make a full week at BCV. Your way seems like a good way to do it, although we need more in the 300 point range and using 30-50 points and bank and borrow it will not make the 300 points for longer than three years. (We have 3 kids so we need a two bedroom although the one at AKL looks very interesting with thier 1 bedroom taking 5. Maybe an add on ito there is something to consider. We do not need more points for a longer vacation we just wanted to stay at other resorts as well and was wondering the best way to do that. Thanks

Having a BCV contract in your example doesn't buy you anything. At 7-months you can use points from any home resort, but it all depends on availability. Having already reserved one day doesn't do much for you, it only guarantees that one day. What if you don't get the other days? You'd just wind up cancelling the day you had.

What you can do is just make the SSR reservation. Then at 7-months try getting your BCV reservation, one day at a time, using your other SSR points. If you eventually get all the days you want, then cancel the SSR reservation. Of course to do it this way you'd have to have enough points to cover both reservations, until you cancelled SSR and got points back.

You could make your day by day BCV reservation, and cancel SSR one day at a time, but then you could get stuck having to move. For example you originally had 7 SSR days, then booked BCV, but after 3 days you wind up with 3 BCV days and 4 SSR days remaining, and you can't get any more BCV days. Then you'd wind up having to move.

The only thing I can see with having a BCV contract to get a single day at 11-months would be if that single day was extremely popular, such as New Year's Eve.

 

[rsjj]

if i'm interested in becoming a dvc member, can i purchase points from any of the 7 resorts? or only saratoga springs? is one better than the other? is there some place you can direct me to to get comparison?

any help would be greatly appreciated. thank you!

 

[rsjj]

if i'm interested in becoming a dvc member, can i purchase points from any of the 7 resorts? or only saratoga springs? is one better than the other? is there some place you can direct me to to get comparison?

any help would be greatly appreciated. thank you!

big oops!! i'm sorry, posted on the wrong thread!! so sorry! please ignore.