Your use year bears no relationship to when you can go (which is any time of year) or when you can call to make a ressie (which is always 11 months in advance at home resort, 7 at others). It does determine the day on which you get your annual allotment of points (the first day of the use year) and your banking dates--for example you have until the end of the 6th month of your use year to bank all your points into the next use year. Because of that banking cut-off date, many like to get a use year that begins 6 months or less before the usual month of the year they go. The reason is that if they need to cancel they will still, upon cancellation, have time to bank all their points. Other than that cancellation/banking risk there is little reason to care about when your use year begins.