Difficulties of multi use years

[beer dave]

Greetings all! I am contemplating an add on contract. I understand the some of the difficulties associated with a different use year, but am curious about some I may not. I don't have a problem with two dates for banking, but am wondering about booking problems associated with two use years..... can I book from both contracts in a single visit to the website? Will they "blend" together for point allocation? Thanks.

 

[CarolMN]

Can't help much, but think you are wise to investigate thoroughly before giving in to the temptation to purchase a different use year contract.

To me, the biggest issue / concern is online booking. Sometimes, you just need to book right at 8 am Eastern when you are using the 7 month window (or even the 11 month window).

AFAIK, there aren't online booking problems if you intend to use the contracts separately. For example, use contract one to stay at resort A in the spring and contract two to stay at resort B in the fall.

I do believe you will have online booking issues if you need to use points from both contracts for the same reservation. MS can handle, but I do not think the online system can. Others in this situation will have real experiences to offer.

FWIW, given all the tech issues with the DVC system, I would personally avoid any & all complexity if I had a choice. I have one master contract with an add-on (for same resort) and have NEVER had any of the issues that others frequently describe here with any of the Disney systems, including MDE, DVC Member site, booking engine, ticket purchases and ADRs. Perhaps I am lucky, but IMO, the simple straightforward cases are the easiest for the programmers to get right and the first to get stabilized if something does go wrong.

Good luck!

 

[Splashboat]

We own at different resorts with different UY. However, we treat them totally separate. We alternate stays at each resort.

I would not have purchased different UY if I intended to combine points.

You might be interested to know that the contracts are titled the same so we have one log-in and there is a drop down menu to pick which contract we want to use when booking.

 

[Sur]

We usually use our different UY contracts separately. This year's booking, we wanted one long stay. It was TOUGH! It was for a high demand resort and time, though, at the 7 month window.

 

[beer dave]

We own at different resorts with different UY. However, we treat them totally separate. We alternate stays at each resort.

I would not have purchased different UY if I intended to combine points.

You might be interested to know that the contracts are titled the same so we have one log-in and there is a drop down menu to pick which contract we want to use when booking.

Yeah this is the kind of info I am looking for. I think it (use year) might not make a difference to me since we are local and go several times a year.

As someone else said above, I just don't want to make a mistake.

 

[disneynutz]

[/B]


Yeah this is the kind of info I am looking for. I think it (use year) might not make a difference to me since we are local and go several times a year.

As someone else said above, I just don't want to make a mistake.

Unless you have a good reason or benefit, why bother? The more completed the process the greater the chance for problems and frustration.

We have 2 UY's, tried to transfer once and MS screwed it up. We lost a reservation in the process. Since then all of our contracts have had our preferred UY and keep the reservations separate.

Bill

 

[Dean]

Greetings all! I am contemplating an add on contract. I understand the some of the difficulties associated with a different use year, but am curious about some I may not. I don't have a problem with two dates for banking, but am wondering about booking problems associated with two use years..... can I book from both contracts in a single visit to the website? Will they "blend" together for point allocation? Thanks.

Other than you may be able to work with one log on, they are treated as if it were 2 different owners. There are 2 issues, different UY and different home resorts. The same UY under one master will combine directly at 7 months out. For different UY, even if the same resort, you'd have to transfer points or book segments and link them. Unless one plans to sell the other contract and there is a better UY OR one has specific resort targets that match the UY for each resort, it's generally not worth it. You can't currently use the transferred points online, you wouldn't be able to add things like the DP online to a linked stay and you wouldn't be able to book them as a single unit for difficult reservations. Some find it easier than others. I equate it to balancing a checkbook. For a planner and numbers person it likely isn't an issue but for the opposite it really can be.

 

[Sandisw]

We have two UY and it works okay because we have enough points in each to have it work out.

One is a June UY, which works very well for our summer/fall trips. And the other is a Dec UY, which is working very well for our May trips.

It wasn't the reason I started that way but it has worked out well. One thing I got over was possibly having to borrow a few points from one contract while there were some in the other, but I try to plan things so that does not happen.

But, I do have to keep track of the whole when to bank situation as that is different. Of course, I have yet to really end up with points to bank late in the game--usually need to do it early in my UY since I book them pretty much at 11 months!!

 

[beer dave]

Other than you may be able to work with one log on, they are treated as if it were 2 different owners. There are 2 issues, different UY and different home resorts. The same UY under one master will combine directly at 7 months out. For different UY, even if the same resort, you'd have to transfer points or book segments and link them. Unless one plans to sell the other contract and there is a better UY OR one has specific resort targets that match the UY for each resort, it's generally not worth it. You can't currently use the transferred points online, you wouldn't be able to add things like the DP online to a linked stay and you wouldn't be able to book them as a single unit for difficult reservations. Some find it easier than others. I equate it to balancing a checkbook. For a planner and numbers person it likely isn't an issue but for the opposite it really can be.

Yeah that seams like more trouble than I want. I found a contract today with my UY and we are signing the contract tomorrow. ROFR here I come-- first resale purchase. Thanks all.

 

[robinb]

The biggest issue is booking a resort in the 7 month window. If you have 2 UYs you can only book whole days in each contract. If you have the same UY you may combine them and use points from each to book your stay.

 

[JessLCH]

We own at different resorts with different UY. However, we treat them totally separate. We alternate stays at each resort.

I would not have purchased different UY if I intended to combine points.

You might be interested to know that the contracts are titled the same so we have one log-in and there is a drop down menu to pick which contract we want to use when booking.

I agree with this. We have 4 contracts at BLT all with a Dec UY and one large point contract at VWL with a Sept UY. Very easy to manage with the menu drop downs, but we never have tried or likely will try to combine points. We treat them separately and use one or the other for booking a trip. I don't understand the appeal of multiple home resorts or UYs unless you have enough points to use them for different trips or really like to split stays.

 

[Dean]

Yeah that seams like more trouble than I want. I found a contract today with my UY and we are signing the contract tomorrow. ROFR here I come-- first resale purchase. Thanks all.

That sounds like a good choice given what you've posted. I'd say that getting different use years isn't that big a deal for some but there's no reason to complicate things if you don't have to. Now for specific circumstances it can be the best way to go, esp if one is targeting high demand options for specific but totally different times of the year.

 

[Simba's Mom]

I faced this question several years ago, and decided it was more trouble than it was worth to me (DH and I own together, but let's face it-he just gets on the plane and goes, I do all the planning and managing). Even though I'm very left -brained, former math teacher, former engineer, I didn't want 2 UYs. Actually I faced this question several times as it took us almost 8 months to find the contract we wanted in the correct UY. I kept wondering-"Is 2 UYs really THAT bad?" For me, it seemed it would be. So instead we ended up buying a contract with the correct UY, but it just happened to have about 75 more points than we thought we needed. Oh, well!

 

[TiffBiff]

I have 2 different UY (April & Dec) and do not have a problem keeping track, but it is a lot of work and organization. I had bought my first contract resale & then bought direct (due to really good incentives at the time ~ got AKV for the price I paid for SSR resale) within a month of each other. I wasn't in the system fully after my resale purchase when I bought direct, so I got what they gave me. I treat them as separate contracts and alternate between them (banking & using every other year with each). I have never combined them or used both on 1 trip. If I were to do it again, I would have waited until I was in the system to buy my 2nd contract to only have 1 UY ~ it is less work.

 

[WDWMom]

We have had two different UY at OKW for about 15 years with out any issues and they are easy to manage. My only complaint is that I can only do one transfer a year to and from my own accounts. We have not been using our DVC as much lately due to other vacations so we have renting them so it has not been a problem.

 

[Sur]

Two advantages we've utilized, with multiple contracts and UYs is purchasing OTU points and multiple wait lists. One year we wanted 96 more points and could buy them for this one trip, combined reservations, and never had to pay maintenance fees on those extra points ever again. It was a difficult booking to acquire though.

 

[beer dave]

Two advantages we've utilized, with multiple contracts and UYs is purchasing OTU points and multiple wait lists. One year we wanted 96 more points and could buy them for this one trip, combined reservations, and never had to pay maintenance fees on those extra points ever again. It was a difficult booking to acquire though.

Are you saying you can get 25 OTU points per contract? That would be interesting...

 

[Dean]

Are you saying you can get 25 OTU points per contract? That would be interesting...

You can buy up to 24 points per UY once a year per master contract. This can only be done once per UY I believe and at 7 months or later. For a one time thing or just a few points, it can be a good alternatives. The multiple wait lists can be a large advantage but you need sufficient points for each master to make this worthwhile. But for the right situation it can add value and be worth the hassle built in otherwise. I'd add that for many situations, paying for transferred points can be a better option.

 

[DisneyDiana]

I have two different contracts with two different use years and find that it is really not a problem for us. Certainly less convenient but totally doable. This June we are hosting a huge family get together at AKV so I needed points from both to book and ended up also getting the OTU points for both contracts so ended up being able to buy the 47 OTU points that I needed to complete the reservation which was nice. I looked for transfers first but had trouble finding the exact number of points (47) that I needed. I don't plan on doing this again in the near future but in this case having the Use Years worked out to our advantage.

 

[DenLo]

With two UYs it shouldn't be difficult to remember banking and expiration dates, but confusion could occur. And the worse case scenario is that you lose points because you forgot to bank them into the next UY.

Banking points too early, if you want to transfer points they cannot be banked.

Having UY's several months apart, and you are unable to transfer points because the early UY of February has already entered your 2015 UY whereas your later UY of October is still in your 2014 UY. You can't transfer points into a different UY. E.g. you cannot bank your 2014, October UY points into your 2015 February UY account.