Crazy hypothetical ?? re: home resort point usage

[JonHM]

Being in a situation where we have MANY more points for one of our home resorts than for our other, and just going over scenarios in my head the other day, a question occurred to me. This is not something that I have any intention of doing - our next couple of trips are all planned out - I'm just curious as to whether one *can* do it.

Let's say, hypothetically, that I own 200 points at OKW, and 100 points at BWV. If I'm trying to do everything that I can to conserve BWV points, is the following scenario possible?

1) Call up at the 11 month window, use up 98 of the current year's BWV points to reserve a room.

2) Once the 7 month window has passed, CAN I keep the same reservation BUT call up and release those BWV points back into my pool and instead use OKW points for them? Assuming, of course, that we are only talking about the current year's points, not banked or borrowed, AND there's still plenty of time left in the use year to bank those BWV points into next year IF I could release them and use my OKW points instead?

AGAIN, I am not planning on doing this. Aside from any questions as to whether it would be ethical or not (which I am not sure of), my question is: is it even *possible*???

Or do I really need to stop rolling so many darned points scenarios through my head that crazy things like this pop in there? Wait... don't answer that...

 

[MikeScott8]

You could call at 7month window and see if there is anything available and if so you can book using the non home points and then cancel the other reservation. The biggest thing I see is if the resort is booked up full, if you cancel your old ressie, someone may be on a waitlist and get the room before you can. I don't think they will just change a ressie from one resort's points to another. I think I have seen this discussed before, that now they make you cancel the old one and then rebook if the resort is full, if it is not you can book another room and then cancel the first.

I am sure if I am wrong someone will correct me

Mike

 

[DebbieB]

That's correct. There was a big thing on the AOL DVC board about this when they first started taking BCV reservations. A new BCV owner made a reservation at 11 months and planned to "swap" it for BWV points at 7 months and bank the BCV points for next year. They claimed they were told they could do it without worrying about availability. Someone called and spoke to a DVC manager and they said it could only be done if there was availability at 7 months.

 

[Dean]

I'll agree, you can't simply switch which points you are using as a way to bypass the 11 month window with other resort points. I'll add though that it's an effective tool for making reservations particarly at WDW. Say you have OKW AND BW points and want to stay for a week in June. Your preference is BW but you'd really like to use your OKW points to do so. You have several options. You could book BW using BW points at the 11 month window and then at the 7 month window, book with OKW points if available and cancel the BW reservation. You could book OKW then change over to BW at the 7 month window if available, if not you still have OKW. You could book BOTH at the 11 month window then make final decisions at the 7 month window depending on availability and cancel what wasn't wanted/needed. You could also split stays between resorts.

 

[ncligs]

This is exactly what I did today with MS. We have 110 pts left from 2002 use yr at OKW. Made ressies today for a 5 night stay at VB(trying Inn rm) (July 7-12 in 2003) We only wanted to use our OKW (leftover-110) pts . So I made ressies for OKW for that July vacation next yr. So when Dec 7, 2002 (7 month window) arrives I will cancel the OKW ressie, and make a new ressie at VB using the OKW points. We are saving the VB points to book the Beach Cottage in summer of 2004. I also told MS what I was doing and he said it was perfectly fine, not to use my VB points now, and switch resorts at the 7 month window.

 

[Richyams]

The point is that you can only do this IF THERE IS AVAILABILITY.

If there are no units available and there is a waitlist for that room, the people on the waitlist have priority over non-home resort points.

 

[JonHM]

you confirm what I had thought was the case. I appreciate all of the responses.