Going EOY - any way to avoid point loss?

[ktmo]

Or really going every year with different home resorts?

We currently have 150 BCV points and 130 (100+30) BLT points. They all have a June UY. My goal is to have enough for 1 week in a 1 bedroom during the summer (June). This should be enough point wise for our needs with banking and borrowing. My intentions is to use the BLT points at BLT and the BCV at BCV. But in looking at next year 2018, I will be using 224 for 6 nights in a 1 bedroom at BLT (I only will have 230 points to play with). The following year, 2019, we will go to BCV. I will have 288 points. I can get a 1 bedroom for 7 night for around 269.

So, it seems like I will always have a few points in limbo. For my BLT points, I will have 6 2018 points left, but I won't be able to use them for 2020, if I use the points EOY at the separate resorts.

Should I do split stays to avoid the loss of the odd points? Or just not worry about losing a few points here and there? Gasp. Or just go into borrow mode and add an extra night? Does that work out? We probably will try other resorts from time to time, so I can co-mingle the points at 7 months, but that only will work periodically.

Any one else do this on a regular basis? Does this make any sense?

 

[kristenrice]

We own 100 points at AKV and 50 at HHI. We stay in a 1BR at HHI every three years, using only 135 of our 150 possible HHI points. We go to WDW the other 2 years so I try to use up the extra 15 HHI points by staying at a resort other than AKV. Since I'd have to book at 7 months anyways, I can sometimes even add a night at AKV using those extra points. Either way, the best way I've found to not lose our points for our contract that is only used every three years is to try and add on a night at 7 months for WDW. If you are only going to ever stay at BLT and BCV, then you may have some stragglers. If you change it up a bit and try a different resort, you may be able to use them all up.

 

[Deb & Bill]

How about buying up to 24 OTU points from DVC to add to your remaining points to add a night?

 

[Dean]

Or really going every year with different home resorts?

We currently have 150 BCV points and 130 (100+30) BLT points. They all have a June UY. My goal is to have enough for 1 week in a 1 bedroom during the summer (June). This should be enough point wise for our needs with banking and borrowing. My intentions is to use the BLT points at BLT and the BCV at BCV. But in looking at next year 2018, I will be using 224 for 6 nights in a 1 bedroom at BLT (I only will have 230 points to play with). The following year, 2019, we will go to BCV. I will have 288 points. I can get a 1 bedroom for 7 night for around 269.

So, it seems like I will always have a few points in limbo. For my BLT points, I will have 6 2018 points left, but I won't be able to use them for 2020, if I use the points EOY at the separate resorts.

Should I do split stays to avoid the loss of the odd points? Or just not worry about losing a few points here and there? Gasp. Or just go into borrow mode and add an extra night? Does that work out? We probably will try other resorts from time to time, so I can co-mingle the points at 7 months, but that only will work periodically.

Any one else do this on a regular basis? Does this make any sense?

If you're looking at EOY points usage and trying to use them independently, you'll always have issues as long as your trips are less than 2 years worth of points. If you can get ahead so that you can use up all of the off years points by borrowing and/or banking, you'll be OK. You could do that with a rental from each contract, a stay that used more points than 2 years worth from a given account, or usage from the combined contracts at or after the 7 month window. There are many variations possible. Using the leftover points at the 7 month window won't really help much unless you figure out some type of way to use up extra points periodically in some way. I'd say your best bet is to stay a day longer periodically.

 

[dfisher9]

You can tack on another night and borrow points. The best thing to do for an every other year stay is to always be borrowing a small amount of points. For instance, in your BLT example, it appears that you are going in Magic Season and staying standard view. An additional night puts you at 268 points needed. You can borrow 38 points from 2019 to get you those points, and then bank the remaining 92 into 2020. In 2020, you will have 130+92=222 points, which leaves you 2 points shy of what is needed for 6 nights. You can borrow 2 points from 2021 and stay 6 nights.

Just continue to borrow up to half of your points at a resort, banking the other half. This way, you will always have at least 2 full years worth of points available (at least 1/2 of the previous year's points banked, all the current year, and up to 1/2 the next year's borrowed points). If you start out withe banked points like you did, you can use this approach to really get the most out of your points.

 

[Orsino]

dfisher9 is right.
For the EOY thing to work without losing points you must set it up so that you are banking AND borrowing each time.

For example, if you are traveling in UY 2017, bank all left over points from 2016, use ALL 2017 points and borrow some from 2018.
Bank what is left in 2018 into 2019
travel in UY 2019. using the banked 2018 points, all 2019 points and some from 2020.
repeat.

That is the only way to reliably use all points without losing any or lucking into hitting point costs on the head exactly.

For your other property you would travel on even UY using ALL points in 2018, and the points banked from 2017, and some points borrowed from 2019.

To get this started up you will probably need to consider a split stay to get yourself into a situation where you are banking and borrowing from the correct use years.

 

[disneynutz]

Buy more points than you need at your favorite resorts. Use what want and rent out the rest.

Bill

 

[ktmo]

You can tack on another night and borrow points. The best thing to do for an every other year stay is to always be borrowing a small amount of points. For instance, in your BLT example, it appears that you are going in Magic Season and staying standard view. An additional night puts you at 268 points needed. You can borrow 38 points from 2019 to get you those points, and then bank the remaining 92 into 2020. In 2020, you will have 130+92=222 points, which leaves you 2 points shy of what is needed for 6 nights. You can borrow 2 points from 2021 and stay 6 nights.

Just continue to borrow up to half of your points at a resort, banking the other half. This way, you will always have at least 2 full years worth of points available (at least 1/2 of the previous year's points banked, all the current year, and up to 1/2 the next year's borrowed points). If you start out withe banked points like you did, you can use this approach to really get the most out of your points.

This is perfect. It doesn't seem like I will run into issues with borrowing. I think that will be my plan.

 

[ktmo]

Buy more points than you need at your favorite resorts. Use what want and rent out the rest.

Bill

Yep, I think that this will be my next plan. Although, I just bought the BLT points because I loved it there and wanted to stay a week. I like your idea of renting, but I probably would just plan more trips for myself. So, it won 't solve my problem.

 

[schoen]

Why can't you reallocate at the 7 month window? I have a 50 point Hilton Head contract that I use every year, but I never use it for my initial reservation. I've never even been to HH! At some point past the seven month window I just call and ask them to use those points and put back my OKW points. It has never been a problem for me. You could do the same thing? Eventually you'll have a big surplus of banked points, but that doesn't seem like a terrible problem.

 

[Deb & Bill]

Why can't you reallocate at the 7 month window? I have a 50 point Hilton Head contract that I use every year, but I never use it for my initial reservation. I've never even been to HH! At some point past the seven month window I just call and ask them to use those points and put back my OKW points. It has never been a problem for me. You could do the same thing? Eventually you'll have a big surplus of banked points, but that doesn't seem like a terrible problem.

You can't override the home resort perk by booking with home resort points at 11 months out and then change to non-home resort points at seven months out unless there is still availability for the same lodging you booked at eleven months out.

 

[schoen]

You can't override the home resort perk by booking with home resort points at 11 months out and then change to non-home resort points at seven months out unless there is still availability for the same lodging you booked at eleven months out.

That makes sense, we typically book one bedrooms at OKW, so it's never been an issue

 

[Dean]

You can't override the home resort perk by booking with home resort points at 11 months out and then change to non-home resort points at seven months out unless there is still availability for the same lodging you booked at eleven months out.

Technically true but often one can do this indirectly by using points to secure the same or similar options independently and then canceling the days you don't get out of the original reservation. One can often use the waitlist to improve the outcome. The end result is the same. If one has sufficient points you can make a double reservation and often cancel and catch with the 7 month points at or after 7 months out. It's usually better to do this after 7 months to avoid a bunch of people actively looking for that item.

 

[ktmo]

You can't override the home resort perk by booking with home resort points at 11 months out and then change to non-home resort points at seven months out unless there is still availability for the same lodging you booked at eleven months out.

My goal with my BLT points is to book a standard 1 bedroom. I don't think I would be able to swap out points at 7 months because of availability.

 

[Dean]

My goal with my BLT points is to book a standard 1 bedroom. I don't think I would be able to swap out points at 7 months because of availability.

I think you likely could swap out some at times but not routinely for most of a reservation.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

At BLT you can do something like Lakeview if necessary to get into a bit of borrowing if staying an extra night wasn't in the plans. Or its certainly possible to rent a night or two out now and then. You can do that in the 7 month window and have th excess BLT and BCV points to use towards the rental.

 

[crisi]

We do every other year (with one contract - we only go every other year at most) and bank and borrow for every reservation. Use the leftover 2015 points for the 2016 reservation, with all of the 2016 points and a few 2017 points. Use all the remaining 2017 points for the 2018 reservation with all the 2018 points and a few 2019 points.

If you end up with a year worth of extra points, stay longer, treat a friend, get a bigger room, switch to a more expensive resort, or rent them out. We ended up with a few too many points for our every other year trip - we've had a few Grand Villa stays.