Does Use Year Matter?

[WDW Here we come!]

Hi,

We are just starting to seriously consider a DVC, and among the many questions I have, I don't understand why Use Year matters so much? People seem to say it depends on when you vacation, but I'm still confused, and Disney is giving us the option of picking an Oct, Dec, March, or April use year.

We like to vacation at Disney in the winter, most likely during December, Jan or Feb. How does that play into which Use Year to pick?

Thanks in advance!

 

[BillPA]

UY really on matters if you have to cancel a trip. Most would advice picking a UY just before you would normally vacation. That way if you must cancel you have almost a full year to reschedule or bank all the points. If you have a March UY and mostly travel in Dec, Jan, or Feb and had to cancel, you would be too late to bank the points and only a very short time to use or rent them.

Hope this helps.

 

[westjones]

YES! We bought with a use year of April thinking it really didn't matter. WELL our spring break is in March (when we bought we weren't dealing with spring break schedules so we didn't give it much thought). So NOW when we book, we know we either use it or lose it. We really don't have time to cancel and reschedule.

Now at the time we bought, they didn't offer us other use years, that was the month we bought into DVC so that is the month they gave us. I honestly didn't think home resort mattered at the time either (I really should have researched it more, but at that time I didn't know about this board). We lucked out and bought when they were selling BCV which is actually our favorite resort--but again, that was just luck on our part!

So my advice is figure out when you are most likely to go (our course that can change over time--when we bought our trips were always in September, now we want to go in March). Our use year works great for summer trips, but not our spring break trips, so in that way it isn't bad and for some people April is their spring break so it would be a GREAT use year to have in those cases.

DJ

 

[lovewdwdvc]

If you have a choice, I would want my UY to be close to but before the time that I will usually take my vacation. We hve a June UY so we can schedule and not worry about changing if we need to do so.

If we go at Christmas we do not have to worry about cancelling because we have 6 month window there too

 

[doombuggy]

So if I was interested in booking trips in October, what use year would be good for me?

 

[lovewdwdvc]

I would want a July or August UY. That way you can book your usual vacation and if it falls through, you have 10-11months to "use up" or 4-5 months to bank those points.

 

[flechette]

Aha!

Thanks I too was wondering just how important UY was - hubby and I are childless so school and spring break don't figure in but I didn't consider the banking/cancellation part.


Learn something on this board every day!

 

[jarestel]

Use year is one of those things that matters "if you think it matters". For me, it's not extremely relevant, but others find it to be a highly critical selection. After a couple of dozen DVC stays, I haven't found my initial choice of use year to be of any real significance. Of course, we aren't confined to a narrow window of travel dates, so maybe that's why it doesn't matter much to me. But YMMV!

Good luck!