Help me understand my resveration

[Gizmo74]

I have Oct Use year and 200 points.

I made a reservation for Nov 19-23, 2018 and had to borrow 40 points from 2018.

Since my flights have not been booked, not sure if I will be coming home on 22 or 23 but made the reservation till the 23 just in case.

If I find cheap air fare and come home on the 22 instead of 23 and cancel my last DVC night, what happens to the 37 points I used to book that night?

My banking is in May but have used all of my 2017 points. Southwest opens their Nov schedule on May 31 so I won't book flights until that day. If I cancel the last night do they go back to my 2018 use year or are the considered 2017 points and need to bank on last day of May?

 

[Phatscott25]

I'm confused about your question. Your reservation falls under your 2018 use year if booked for Nov 19-23. But then you're saying you had to borrow 40 points from 2018? I'm assuming you mean that you had to borrow 40 points from 2019? If that's the case and you cancel that last night, the 37 points that are freed will be bankable. The system is designed to use banked and borrowed points first so when you make the change, the 40 borrowed points will stay with the reservation.

 

[Gizmo74]

I had to borrow 2018 points since I am still in my 2017 use year to make the reservation. The trip falls in my 2018 use year but made the reservation in my 2017 use year and borrowed 2018 points.

 

[chalee94]

"I have Oct Use year and 200 points.

I made a reservation for Nov 19-23, 2018 and had to borrow 40 points from 2018."

If you have an Oct UY, then a Nov 2018 stay falls in your 2018 UY, which means that you can only use current 2018 pts. If you needed to use borrowed pts, they would come from your 2019 UY.

Remember that UY has nothing at all to do with when you book the reservation.

"If I cancel the last night do they go back to my 2018 use year or are the considered 2017 points and need to bank on last day of May?"

All pts drop back into the UY of the stay. If they are current 2018 UY pts, you would have until May 31, 2019 to bank them.

 

[Bing Showei]

I had to borrow 2018 points since I am still in my 2017 use year to make the reservation. The trip falls in my 2018 use year but made the reservation in my 2017 use year and borrowed 2018 points.

Your trip counts against the UY the reservation sits in and is unaffected by when you book it. Are you sure you borrowed points to book your November trip? Did you use banked points from 2017 to book the trip?

 

[Phatscott25]

I had to borrow 2018 points since I am still in my 2017 use year to make the reservation. The trip falls in my 2018 use year but made the reservation in my 2017 use year and borrowed 2018 points.

When you book the reservation has no bearing on when points are used, it only dictates when you are able to book. So while you are currently still in your 2017 use year the reservation actually falls in your 2018 use year. Therefore, you have 3 options for using points for your reservation:

1. Bank 2017 points into 2018
2. Use 2018 points
3. Borrow points from 2019

There's a great post by one of the mods called "understanding use year" which explains this in much better detail. It can be found here.

 

[keaster]

Agree with above posts. You would've borrowed from your 2019 and used current 2018 points.

 

[Gizmo74]

This is what I see when I go to my points overview

Oct 2017 - 98 points banked to 2018
Oct 2018 - 160 of 200 Vacation points
Oct 2019 - 200 of 200 vacation points

It appears I banked 98 points from 2017 to book my November trip along with using another 40 points from 2018. So if I cancelled my last DVC night, those points would go back to 2018 use year?

 

[CarolMN]

Gizmo74 - Spend some time with the Understanding Use Year thread. Your post(s) leads me to believe you don't quite understand how use year affects your points.

Since the November trip falls within your 2018 use year, the points you used from 2018 were NOT borrowed. If you cancel the night(s) made with those points, the points go back into your 2018 use year as "current". That means they can still be banked (up to the end of May, 2019) and if not banked, they won't expire until 9/30/2019.



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[chalee94]

This is what I see when I go to my points overview

Oct 2017 - 98 points banked to 2018
Oct 2018 - 160 of 200 Vacation points
Oct 2019 - 200 of 200 vacation points

It appears I banked 98 points from 2017 to book my November trip along with using another 40 points from 2018. So if I cancelled my last DVC night, those points would go back to 2018 use year?

Right - they should free up 37 current 2018 UY pts that would need to be banked by the end of May 2019. If you cancelled an additional night, any banked 2017 UY pts that are freed up cannot be banked again and would need to be used for a stay by September 30, 2019.

 

[Marionnette]

This is what I see when I go to my points overview

Oct 2017 - 98 points banked to 2018
Oct 2018 - 160 of 200 Vacation points
Oct 2019 - 200 of 200 vacation points

It appears I banked 98 points from 2017 to book my November trip along with using another 40 points from 2018. So if I cancelled my last DVC night, those points would go back to 2018 use year?

If you remove a night from that reservation, the 37 points would ideally go back as 2018 points and not as 2017 points that were banked into 2018.

 

[kboo]

That said, since the trip is booked for Nov 2018, OP would have to cancel that last night (11/22) more than 30 days in advance to have those 2018 points not go into holding, right? And if OP is talking about canceling 1 night at the end of the trip, would they need to cancel that night by October 20 (30 days before 11/19) or October 23 (30 days before 11/22)?

 

[Gizmo74]

Thanks everyone! I am a newer member and this is my third time to use points. I made it early in the morning at 7 months and it first used up my 2018 points instead of my 2017 points. I had to call member services and had them to bank my 2017 points so I could use those first. I understand the concept of use year but I am the kind of learner that has to do it first to really understand. It all happened so quick that I thought I borrowed points instead of banking them.

 

[paults]

reason they used all 2018 points was because you didn't bank your 2017 points first . I would do some extra reading on points use.

 

[Sandisw]

Here's what I do to help when I am booking. First, figure out UY the trip will happen (not when you call). Once you know that, its easy to figure out what points can be used to secure the reservation at your home resort at the 11 month mark, or at all others once you reached the 7 month mark for the start of your trip. All trips can be booked with banked points from the UY prior to the trip, points from the UY of the trip, and with borrowed points from the UY after the trip. So, with that Nov, 2018 trip being in your October 2018 UY, you can use banked 2017, 2018 and borrowed 2019 to cover the trip. Sounds like you had enough banked and 2018 points to cover the trip so no borrowing was needed.

As already mentioned, you have to change the reservation at least 31 days in advance to avoid the points going into "holding" status. If that happens, those points would not be bankable any longer, and would be restricted for booking 60 days or less from check in and would expire at the end of the UY the original trip was scheduled.

 

[Deb & Bill]

Yep, throw away your normal calendar when you are looking at DVC reservations and make a new one with your UY as Happy New Year. So, just like some businesses (like Disney) you now have a calendar that starts in October. 10/1 is the start of your year. 9/30 is the end of your year.

 

[Chuck S]

If you used banked 2017 points for that last night, be sure ask Member Services to reallocate the points so that the banked points are used for the nights you keep, and that they free up 2018 points for you so that you can bank them if necessary. Most MS reps would do so automatically, but if you get a new rep that isn't fully familiar with the intricacies of the point system, you should ask just to be sure.