Does the UY matter?

[Fall1]

DH and I really want to buy in. We typically vacation in October...sometimes May or early December. I know these are all busy DVC times so my question is does our UY matter? Do we want to have a UY that is 11 months from October for booking?

For some reason I can't wrap my head around the UY concept!

Thanks!

 

[luvindisneyworld]

well I know thats one thing I could not understand either,LOL we travel at diffrent times of the year nothing set in stone.We have a April use year and never had any problems at all.
Maybe someone that knows more about it can answer that for you.

 

[thepops]

From the way I understand it... UY has nothing to do with when the 11 months kick in. The 11 months (or 7) have to do with reserving at your home resort (or other resorts for the 7 months). UY DOES impact when you have to bank your points by if you aren't going to use them that year. You need to do that by 8 months after your UY month. (why don't they call it a Use Month ). So you don't want a UY where if you have to cancel a vacation, you won't be able to bank those points ( in case you weren't able to re-book something before the points expired). (But if I'm off, I'm sure someone will jump in and help us out)

 

[RobDoc]

Use Year has nothing to do with when you can make a reservation - that is always limited by the 11 month Home Resort priority and the (currently) 7 month "window" for other resorts.

Use Year is the month each year when your points are renewed. It also determines your banking deadline (the end of the 8th month after your Use Year begins).

Use Year can affect your ability to re-use points in the event of a cancellation. As long as you were to cancel a reservation while still within your banking deadline, you could simply bank any current points into the next Use Year if you are unable to use them before they would expire.

If you will travel in October and December, a September or October Use Year would work well for you, since you'd still likely be able to bank or reuse the points returned from a timely cancellation for those dates. October would also work for a May reservation - although with less flexibility.

Use Year does not govern when you can make a reservation though - that will always be 11 months at your Home Resort.

 

[marvali]

The simple answer is that if you normally travel in October, you would ideally want a Use Year just a short time before that, say September or June. That way, if you run into a problem with taking your planned trip you can still bank the points if you need to so you won't risk losing them.

Over time, it really doesn't matter since travel habits will probably change. It just means you may have to plan a little better. Use Year has nothing to do with your 11/7 month window. Without all the complicated scenarios, it just determines (based on the date of your trip) which "bucket" of points are used for that trip since you essentially already have your number of points allocated into each year for the life of your contract.

On the DVC member website, they will show you currently what you have available each year through 2010 only because those are all that may be available to you since you could borrow 2010 points for a trip 11 months from now, in early 2009. Regardless, they are all already there, you just can't use them all yet.

 

[LisaS]

DH and I really want to buy in. We typically vacation in October...sometimes May or early December. I know these are all busy DVC times so my question is does our UY matter? Do we want to have a UY that is 11 months from October for booking?

For some reason I can't wrap my head around the UY concept!

Thanks!

We travel between Oct and May. I have an Oct UY and it's perfect for us since the banking window is Oct 1 - May 31. If I have to cancel a trip, I'll be able to bank the points, provided they were current-year points. If I used banked or borrowed points for a trip that was later cancelled, the points would return to my account but could not be banked and would expire at the end of my UY. Also, if you cancel 30 days or less from check in, your points go into "holding" and cannot be banked and can only be used to book a stay within 60 days of check in.

A September UY would also work. Your banking window would be Sep 1 - Apr 30 but given you must cancel 31 days or more for your points to be bankable, that would still cover your May trips.

 

[Claire L]

I am also thinking a March or April UY would be good for mainly October and May vacations, but maybe for December March would be pushing it for a short notice cancellation.

Claire

 

[DebbieB]

I usually travel April/May and October/December. I've owned since 1999 and my April use year has worked well for me. Under the new system, I have until November 30 to bank my points.

 

[jar]

The advice is exactly right -- you ideally want most of your usage not to come in the last four months before your UY month since you are left with limited options if you have to cancel a trip.

But it's funny how predicted and actual usage can vary so much. When we bought a couple of years ago, I only looked at December UY and was certain that was the only one that worked because I figured we'd do almost all of our travel in the winter/spring. Since then, this year will mark the third November in a row at WDW for us.