Help- new DVC member and know nothing!

[sz9144]

Hi, My dh, two toddlers and I just took the plunge and purchased 150 pts at saratoga springs today. we also own a time share in st maarten. we probably should have bought more points, but with day care, mortgage, car payments we had to be realistic in our finances at this time.

anyway, can someone please give me the skinny on points- when do you need to bank them- only before they expire, or way in advance of that? they are giving us 150 points for 2005, and then another 150 this august for 2006, if we don't use the 150 from 2005 by this july 31st, when should we bank them? if we were to plan travel for august of 2006 using those 150 points from 2005- do they still need to be banked?

does anyone have helpful hints on making the points go farther? has anyone ever rented out their time?

also, does anyone have any suggestions for the best place we should put on our to do first/second list?

thanks so much! we just love disney and can't wait to visit again!

 

[ellenmiele]

First off, 150 points should work out fine for a family of 4 -- especially while your kids are young. You would probably book a 1-br but if points get tight, you could even go with a studio. In terms of banking, is your use year August? If it is, and if you plan to use all your 2005 points for an Aug 2006 trip the you need to bank them now. You have until 6 months from the end of your use year to bank 100% of your points. So if the points expire 7/31 you would have until Jan 31st if you want to bank all of them into your next use year and then you could use them for your Aug 2006 trip. OR ... If you are going to make a ressie now, you could Borrow the 2005 points (since technically you won't have any 2006 points until August 1st - if August is your use year) but.. I think if you then had to cancel for any reason and it was after that Jan 31st deadline you might lose some of the points. If you banked them first I don't think you'd run into that same problem. But once you bank points I think you need to use them by the end of that next year. But realize that you'd still have your 2006 allotment and if you hadn't used them by the 6 month mark , you could bank again.

It's well worth the time spent to study up on the whole banking/borrowing points situations because once you understand it all you can seee that there are lots of options. And you just don't want to make a mistake or miss a deadline and then have points that you have to use or lose (or rent or whatever) - too much pressure there. Better to plan well and plan in advance. And never hesitate to ask for advice. Plenty of people on these boards have been doing this for a long time and know all the ins and outs.


WELCOME HOME!!!

 

[Steamboat Bill]

avoid friday and saturday night stays as they are 2x the points of Sun-Thur

 

[luvindisneyworld]

Hi, I have sent you a PM.
You can definetly work with 150 points the trick is to avoid Fri and Sat.
For instance you could get a studio in May for 5 nights for 65 points at BW,BC,VWL.So you can go a couple of times a year if you dont use points for your weekends.
We will book Pop or somewhere like that for our weekends and then go Sun-Thur.

I hope you got to take advantage of the friends and family incentive to where you get 15% off.

 

[rogerram]

Congratulations and welcome home!
If you want to know how to track and keep records of you DVC stuff, you can download free programs from this site.

http://web.nalu.net/~wneth/dvcplanner.htm

I use them to plan, track and all kinds of things. They did an awesome job making these.