Help! What Use Year?

[flipflopsandpitstops]

Hi everyone! I've been following DIS Unplugged and roaming the boards for years now, but haven't ever posted, so please be patient with me.

I am finally at the point where I'd like to become a DVC member, probably looking to buy sometime this fall. I know I want to buy resale at either Boulder Ridge or Copper Creek. My husband and I just love the Wilderness Lodge!

The thing I'm really struggling with is use year. We usually go to WDW either the last week of September/1st week October, early November, or the first week of December, and in the future would like to try mid-January. After buying DVC we plan on going to WDW every other year so points will need to be rolled over/banked/borrowed. We were thinking about buying 100 points to be able to do this. Based on this what use year do you think would work best for us?

Thanks for all of your help and suggestions!

 

[GoingSince1990]

September. Because if you need to cancel your September, October, November, December or January trip you will still have plenty of time remaining in your use year to reuse those points.

 

[Lorana]

August or September. As a September UY holder myself, my only caution with September is that there are FAR fewer Sep UY contracts than there are August UY. So if you want greater options for adding on in the future, I might suggest August UY over September.

 

[Sandisw]

I agree..Aug or Sept UY, The key to UY is trying to pick a UY that allows for the most flexibility in case you need to cancel or change a trip.

When you travel during the first 8 months of your UY, you would still be able to bank current UY points if you had to cancel...at least 31 days out.l.less than that the points are in holding with different rules,

For banked and borrowed points, it would still allow another 4 months to book again before you would loss them,

As people are finding out with the resort closure, sometimes things can happen to change a trip that are not within your control, So, if you have known travel times, you can protect your points better by choosing one that works well,

Good luck!

 

[Akck]

My determination of use year was based on a time period we’d likely never go, Jun-Jul-Aug, because of the weather. I then thought we might go in May, before it got too hot, so October became our use year, so we have the ability to schedule a May visit, cancel it and bank the points should that happen. I’d favor a Sep use year if you think you’d ever go in April.

 

[JimC]

All good thoughts. Let me be a bit contrarian. We did the same exercise with the same certainty and now nearly two decades later it really was irrelevant. We bought when we lived in PA. In 2006 we relocated to Orlando. Our resort stays have changed. Our visit timing has changed. Our strategy has changed. Our resort mix has changed. So while the advice is sound. Your life journey will likely alter from your current thinking. Build flexibility into your thinking.

 

[we"reofftoneverland]

I agree on August. We couldn’t decide so when we bought we started with resale and the contract we ended liking was how we picked ours. I think no matter the UY at some point in your life, it will be a problem. But... if you really do go mostly in the fall, definitely August.