Different use years

[gmg1999]

Hello. We own Saratoga with a August use year and are looking at buying a resale for old Key West with a march use year. Can anyone offered their thoughts? Thanks!

 

[disneynutz]

I wouldn't do it, extra work, more to keep track of, greater the possibility of problems or mistakes.

That being said, others do it.

Bill

 

[nalajms]

Depends how you're planning to use the OKW. It's more work keeping track to 2 accounts.
If you expect to combine points at 7 months often, then I would try to get the same UY.
If you plan to use each separately, then I really don't see much issues. It comes in handy if you're using it for travel at different times of the year. So Mar UY would cover summer, where the Aug UY would be risky.

 

[kenspidey]

Hello. We own Saratoga with a August use year and are looking at buying a resale for old Key West with a march use year. Can anyone offered their thoughts? Thanks!

I have two different use years. It can work you just need to be on top of it and treat them as separate contracts. You can even use both contracts to book one stay. The easiest way to do it is to book part if the stay with one and the other part with the other one and the call MS to have them linked so you don't have to move in the middle.

 

[Dean]

Hello. We own Saratoga with a August use year and are looking at buying a resale for old Key West with a march use year. Can anyone offered their thoughts? Thanks!

In general I wouldn't for this situation. How strongly I'd feel depends in large part of the size of the 2 contracts. If both are 200 or greater, you don't plan to routinely combine points for a single trip and you have specific trips where a different UY would give you a fair amount of insurance against cancelations/changes then I'd say it's reasonable for those that can routinely balance a checkbook. Anything outside of those stipulations really makes it a poor choice pretty quickly for most situations.

 

[GranJan]

Making reservations with both contracts is a problem if you're dealing with any borrowing. You can't transfer borrowed points or borrow transferred points so you have to book part of your stay with one contract & the rest with the other contract. Because this is 2 reservations you have to wait for the 7 mo window on the last half of your stay. I just went through this & it worked out. I was able to add our last day today! But it was very stressful worrying for 6 days if that day was going to still be available or not. If you don't need to combine or aren't in a borrowing situation it would work better.

 

[kenspidey]

Making reservations with both contracts is a problem if you're dealing with any borrowing. You can't transfer borrowed points or borrow transferred points so you have to book part of your stay with one contract & the rest with the other contract. Because this is 2 reservations you have to wait for the 7 mo window on the last half of your stay. I just went through this & it worked out. I was able to add our last day today! But it was very stressful worrying for 6 days if that day was going to still be available or not. If you don't need to combine or aren't in a borrowing situation it would work better.

It's really not that tough to keep it separate. You are correct that you can't transfer borrowed points but you can transfer them first and then bank them. This is an individual thing ... Some have a problem with it and others like me don't.

 

[disneynutz]

Like I said, unless you have a good reason for different UY's why bother. My guess is that most owners with different UY's didn't fully understand what they were getting into and now they make do because they have to.

Bill

 

[a742246]

Hello. We own Saratoga with a August use year and are looking at buying a resale for old Key West with a march use year. Can anyone offered their thoughts? Thanks!

To give you a better answer to your question, we would need to know your travel plans. When do you travel to WDW? How many times a year? Does your current use year works for you? Do you book studios, or two bedrooms during your stay? How many points do you currently own?
Where do you like to stay?

 

[GranJan]

It's really not that tough to keep it separate. You are correct that you can't transfer borrowed points but you can transfer them first and then bank them. This is an individual thing ... Some have a problem with it and others like me don't.

If you noticed, I said if you weren't in a borrowing situation, it wouldn't be as much of a problem. Since some of us find ourselves in that situation sometimes, it does complicate things.

 

[Dean]

Like I said, unless you have a good reason for different UY's why bother. My guess is that most owners with different UY's didn't fully understand what they were getting into and now they make do because they have to.

Bill

That statement could be applied to about any aspect of a new purchase.

 

[DizGirl20]

We have 2 use years. The majority of our points are in our Feb UY and we designate those points strictly for our yearly family vacation with the kids. We also have a smaller amount of points with an Oct UY. I reserve those for smaller bonus trips - usually for RunDisney weekend trips or a quick getaway with my husband. I actually like it that way!

 

[RobDoc]

We have 3 Use Years at two resorts and found the additional flexibility to be very convenient as our needs changed and we started going multiple times each year. For a number of years we even had a 4th Use Year.

With the account information available online thru the DVCmember site, tracking the points is very easily accomplished whether combining points from those 3 memberships for one stay or just making reservations from all for a stay. I have used Caskbill's DVC Tracker program and also a simple checking program for years where each membership was entered as a separate "checking account" but the member's website now provides that same level of accounting. (Caskbill's program has a lot of great features to assist with DVC planning though.)

If the new contract will meet your needs and you have a plan how you will use those points, I would not hesitate to have more than one Use Year.

Enjoy!

 

[Sur]

I think it depends on how much your ownership will grow, also. We started with 2 resorts with 2 UY's, added on 4 times since then. Now have 6 resorts, 3 UYs, and it works out well for rotating resorts and having variety.

Never any problems with combining points, keeping track of anything, nor issues with enjoying the stays.

 

[Nabas]

Hello. We own Saratoga with a August use year and are looking at buying a resale for old Key West with a march use year. Can anyone offered their thoughts? Thanks!

If you always vacation during the same 8 months and those months are within your existing UY, then I see no reason to have 2 different UY.

However, we intentionally have 2 different UY separated by 4 months so we always can book something year-round without worrying about the banking deadline.

Keeping track of 2 different UY over the course of 12 months is not difficult. I probably spend about 15 minutes thinking about it each year.

 

[maggiegirl]

If you always vacation during the same 8 months and those months are within your existing UY, then I see no reason to have 2 different UY. However, we intentionally have 2 different UY separated by 4 months so we always can book something year-round without worrying about the banking deadline. Keeping track of 2 different UY over the course of 12 months is not difficult. I probably spend about 15 minutes thinking about it each year.

This is interesting we are considering buying another resale with a diff UY our primary UY is October would you recommend we buy a February UY or a June UY?

Primarily we can travel : jan/feb - Jun/Jul/Aug - Oct/Nov

 

[Dean]

This is interesting we are considering buying another resale with a diff UY our primary UY is October would you recommend we buy a February UY or a June UY?

Primarily we can travel : jan/feb - Jun/Jul/Aug - Oct/Nov

IMO the difficulty of 2 use years varies greatly with the underlying personality of the owner, I think for some it's a big pain and for others not big deal but for most it's in between and simply an aggravation. If one has trouble keeping track of details and planning more complicated issues, then it's likely to be a problem. Ignoring that aspect, it does create the other issues of either not being able to combine points between contracts or being far more difficult to do so.

Specific to the info you provided about your situation, it's unlikely you'd have an issue with one UY that would be solved by 2 UY's unless you want a different home resort. As for Feb vs June, they are pretty close to the same in you situation assuming your trips are equally likely to occur across the 7 months you listed. One might argue that June would be slightly better due to the 3 months spread of summer but not enough so to miss a great contract that was a different UY that worked. IMO one needs to have a problem they are trying to solve for this to be reasonable in your situation. Now if your trips are going to be mostly summer and/or you're getting a home resort you'd target then, a different UY might be worthwhile. Even then I believe for most the 2 contracts need to be of sufficient size to stand alone. If I were getting a different UY, I'd get a different home resort as well for almost every applicable situation.

 

[maggiegirl]

IMO the difficulty of 2 use years varies greatly with the underlying personality of the owner, I think for some it's a big pain and for others not big deal but for most it's in between and simply an aggravation. If one has trouble keeping track of details and planning more complicated issues, then it's likely to be a problem. Ignoring that aspect, it does create the other issues of either not being able to combine points between contracts or being far more difficult to do so. Specific to the info you provided about your situation, it's unlikely you'd have an issue with one UY that would be solved by 2 UY's unless you want a different home resort. As for Feb vs June, they are pretty close to the same in you situation assuming your trips are equally likely to occur across the 7 months you listed. One might argue that June would be slightly better due to the 3 months spread of summer but not enough so to miss a great contract that was a different UY that worked. IMO one needs to have a problem they are trying to solve for this to be reasonable in your situation. Now if your trips are going to be mostly summer and/or you're getting a home resort you'd target then, a different UY might be worthwhile. Even then I believe for most the 2 contracts need to be of sufficient size to stand alone. If I were getting a different UY, I'd get a different home resort as well for almost every applicable situation.

Thanks for all the info and advice. Certainly if we end up finding rpthe right contract it will be a different home resort!