DVC Newbie

[RAM123]

Hello all

I am a new DVC member and had a few questions before my reservation is due for my trip next year.
I was hoping to book a 2 week stay at Animal Kingdom Villas, Saratoga Springs, or Old Key west (studios, in that order of preference) starting after Thanksgiving weekend (check in on a Sunday?). I own at the Polynesian and my question is, should I book at 11 months out and then aim to change the dates? or should I wait for the 7 month period to be able to book online as opposed to calling member services?
I have read that my vacation falls in a very high demand season.

Thank you

 

[Nicole N.]

Welcome Home!!

I would book at the Poly at 11 months and then try to move it at the 7 months window. From my understanding that is going to be a very high demand time so I would want to have something booked just in case I could not get anything else at 7 months out. At 7 months if there is anything available at one of the other resorts you can either go online yourself at I believe at 8 am (EST) to cancel the 1st reservation in the hopes that the one available does not get scooped up in the process or call member services at I believe 9 am (EST) to cancel the 1st reservation and book the second one for you. You will get a lot of great advice from the other with this, I am sort of a newbie too. Good Luck!!

 

[kniquy]

If you are looking for a 2 week stay you might want to consider doing a split stay, but i would book your poly room at 11 months so at least you have something. When you get to 7 months - chances are those resorts that you mentioned should have some availability. Someone else could chime in on this but at 7 months with calling MS you might be able to cancel the first week or a portion of your days and book a studio at one of those available resorts while still keeping the latter portion of your trip at poly. I am not sure when modifying a reservation what you can do with removing days. Poly might be really nice to stay at for Christmas so unless you are doing this to conserve points I would keep a portion of the trip at poly.

 

[gdrj]

Make sure if you are borrowing points from a future year, that you understand banking. If you were to book at 11 months at Poly for the fulltime the point total used for that vacation will exceed what you would be using at the other locations.

 

[RAM123]

Thank you all for the replies.

 

[DenLo]

Make sure if you are borrowing points from a future year, that you understand banking. If you were to book at 11 months at Poly for the fulltime the point total used for that vacation will exceed what you would be using at the other locations.

Welcome Home!

This advice is very important, because borrowed points cannot be banked. Once you move (borrow) them to an earlier year they will expire with that year.

So I would recommend booking at your home resort as many nights as possible without borrowing. Also do you understand that you can only book 7 nights at time at the 11 month mark? What we usually do is book the first week and then call MS 4 or 5 days later to add on additional days and repeat the process until you get all of your nights.

 

[com_op_2000]

Since you are looking at booking 14 days, at 11 months out you can book the first 7 days. Then seven days later book another reservation for seven days. At seven months then you only have to look for a seven month reservation to switch into and not possible loose one of your reservations.

 

[disneynutz]

And remember that your cleaning schedule flips, day 4 is full cleaning, day 8 is T&T.

Bill

 

[RAM123]

Thanks all for the valuable tips. Happy Holidays to you all.