Couple newbie questions, please

[bigAWL]

I'm getting ready to make my first 11-month mark reservation, adn I want to make sure I get it right.

1. My check-in date will be July 26, 2011. If my caculations are correct, then the first day I can call Member Services to make the reservation is on August 26, 2010. Is that right?

2. Just out of curiosity, if check-in date is something like August 31, and there is no Sep 31, does that make the 11-month mark Sep 30? or Oct 1?

3. I understand that the ability to reserve up to 7 days starting 11 months before the first day of your vacation is a relatively new feature for Member Services. Before that, you had to call every day at the 11-month mark for each day of your stay. I was wondering if now there is a strategy that people use if their planned stay is less than 7 days. Say, if your stay will be 5 days, you count two days before your planned check-in date, and call 11 months before that date to make a 7-day reservation. Then once it is confirmed you can cancel the first two days. I was thinking if there was any concern about the villa being available, that might be a way to get a slight jump on things. Any thoughts on this? Or is that considered bad form in the DVC world?

 

[jlwhitney]

1. Yes you are correct.

2. No idea, but good question. Though when you log into dvcmember.com on the home page it will tell you what day you can book for 11 months out and for 7 months out.

3. Technically yes you could do that, but I wouldn't. Too much hassle to me. Also be aware if you do this and have to borrow points to book the stay those points will become part of your current use year and you wont be able to bank them if you don't use them.

4. It is defiantly worth booking all your trips for the year that you can at 11 months (even if unsure and using current use year points) at your home resort and then at 7 try to switch if you want or cancel them when you know you can't go.

 

[Granny]

3. I understand that the ability to reserve up to 7 days starting 11 months before the first day of your vacation is a relatively new feature for Member Services. Before that, you had to call every day at the 11-month mark for each day of your stay.

This strategy was really only needed for extremely high demand seasons at small resorts (VWL or BCV) or hard to get classifications (BWV-Standard). I don't know where your home resort is but you should have no problem getting your entire stay booked with one phone call to MS on August 26.

 

[DebbieB]

2. Just out of curiosity, if check-in date is something like August 31, and there is no Sep 31, does that make the 11-month mark Sep 30? or Oct 1?

The next day - Oct 1.