Help with using points!

[yasuern]

Okay I think I am smart about DVC points banking, borrowing and using current UY etc but....



We want to go to WDW and stay at a DVC resort July 17th-July 22nd(sunday -thursday nights) I have in one of my contracts a June UY for 04 94pts left - now don't they expire on May 31st 2005? So do I need to bank them then use them 1st when making my ressie this monday - or will they let me use them for a July 2005 vacation? Also If I go to bank them to be able to use them - Banking Guidelines state for a June UY you can bank 50% of THIS YEARS ALLOTMENT(meaning 04s pts) by Feb 28th - so if my allotment for 04 was 210pts then 94pts is less than 1/2 so I can still bank these if I need to (for JUly 2005 vaca) Right?


And just incase the above isn't confusing enough....Say we have 94pts and each night is 40 pts so I use the above banked or expiring pts 1st for 2 full nights and then have 14pts left over - do I need to use pts from the 05 allotment or can I use one of my other contracts current UY pts to make up the difference - - I think to complete a nights stay it has to be from the same contract no matter the UY -- but you can use different contracts for each night stayed and then they connect all the ressies? Am I even close to being right?



HELP!!!!


Sue

 

[CarolMN]

Okay I think I am smart about DVC points banking, borrowing and using current UY etc but....



We want to go to WDW and stay at a DVC resort July 17th-July 22nd(sunday -thursday nights) I have in one of my contracts a June UY for 04 94pts left - now don't they expire on May 31st 2005? So do I need to bank them then use them 1st when making my ressie this monday - or will they let me use them for a July 2005 vacation? Also If I go to bank them to be able to use them - Banking Guidelines state for a June UY you can bank 50% of THIS YEARS ALLOTMENT(meaning 04s pts) by Feb 28th - so if my allotment for 04 was 210pts then 94pts is less than 1/2 so I can still bank these if I need to (for JUly 2005 vaca) Right?

Right! If you have a June use year and want to use 2004 points for a July 2005 vacation, you have to bank the 2004 points first.

Assuming you don't have anything else banked, yes you can bank the 94 points - as long as you do it before the end of February.

And just incase the above isn't confusing enough....Say we have 94pts and each night is 40 pts so I use the above banked or expiring pts 1st for 2 full nights and then have 14pts left over - do I need to use pts from the 05 allotment or can I use one of my other contracts current UY pts to make up the difference - - I think to complete a nights stay it has to be from the same contract no matter the UY -- but you can use different contracts for each night stayed and then they connect all the ressies? Am I even close to being right?



HELP!!!!


Sue

AFAIK, you don't have to worry about which contracts the points come from since you own them all. This is especially true if the contracts are all associated with the same member number.

Anyway, MS is very understanding about multiple contracts owned by the same member. MS can do any transfers between contracts that may be necessary to make your reservation and you should end up with only one confirmation number. Don't think you have anything at all to worry about. I'd recommend (if you don't already do this as a matter of ourse) to ask for a points status for each contract at the end of the call to MS.

As long as your points are valid for the dates of your desired stay, you shouldn't have a problem. If you run into any resistance from the MS CM (many are new right now, it seems), I think you should ask for a supervisor. IMHO, you should be able to make the reservation, even if MS has to first combine points from more than one contract for one of the nights.

Best wishes -

 

[CarolMN]

Just thought of something that might cause a problem with your desire to bank the June 2004 points:

I'm not sure of the banking rules for multiple contracts. My understanding is that if multiple contracts have the same use year and member number, then the baking percentages go by the total (combined) points of all the contracts. So if you have banked anything on your other contracts it could be a factor.

If the use years are different, my uinderstanding is that the banking percentages go by each individual contract. AFAIK, you can't have different use years under the same member number, but I could easily be wrong about that.

If anything like this applies to you, maybe someone who knows for sure / has experience will post. Otherwise, I guess you will just have to call MS . Hope it works for you.

Best wishes -

 

[Caskbill]

To make it easier, I have inserted my responses within your post. My responses are in RED

"We want to go to WDW and stay at a DVC resort July 17th-July 22nd(sunday -thursday nights) I have in one of my contracts a June UY for 04 94pts left - now don't they expire on May 31st 2005? Yes So do I need to bank them then use them 1st when making my ressie this monday Yes - or will they let me use them for a July 2005 vacation? When banked, they are no longer 2004 points but become 2005 points, so yes they are then used for a July 2005 vacation.Also If I go to bank them to be able to use them - Banking Guidelines state for a June UY you can bank 50% of THIS YEARS ALLOTMENT(meaning 04s pts) by Feb 28th - so if my allotment for 04 was 210pts then 94pts is less than 1/2 so I can still bank these if I need to (for JUly 2005 vaca) Right? Correct, assuming you don't already have some points banked. Banked points are cummulative. 50% of 210 is 105 points. This means that on Feb 28th you could bank any points you wanted until the cumulative total reached 105 points. Say you already had 50 points banked. In that case you could only bank an additional 55 points, not all 94 points.


And just incase the above isn't confusing enough....Say we have 94pts and each night is 40 pts so I use the above banked or expiring pts 1st for 2 full nights and then have 14pts left over - do I need to use pts from the 05 allotment Yes, that would be the way it works. Say you bank the 94 points into 2005. Your regular 2005 allotment will be 210 points. This means you have 304 points in your 2005 use year. You then use those 304 points to make your reservation. MS will automatically use the banked points first but it never hurts to verify this with them.or can I use one of my other contracts current UY pts to make up the difference - - I think to complete a nights stay it has to be from the same contract no matter the UY Correct. You cannot use points from a contract for anything less than a full day's reservation. You cannot use one contract for 1/2 of the night and another contract for the other 1/2 night. Keep in mind this applies to totally separate contracts. If you have an add-on it's different. (See comment below)-- but you can use different contracts for each night stayed and then they connect all the ressies? Yes, that's correct. Say you wanted to make a 5 day reservation. You could reserve 3 days using one contract, and 2 days using a different contract, and then link all 5 days together into a single reservation.Am I even close to being right?"

You're using the word contract so I assume you truly mean you have different contracts -- that means each contract has a different member number for it. People often purchase add-on's from Disney and while it's a new contract, it's still under the same member number. The contract number matches the original purchase with an extension such as -001, -002, -003 etc. These add-on's will always be the same use year. In these cases all points are lumped together both for banking purposes and for reservations. The only thing they are NOT grouped for is home resort advantage for 11-month bookings.

If two resorts have different use years then they are definitely two different contracts and points cannot be combined into a single 'group' of points. You do have the option to transfer points between contracts. This does not change their 11/7 month windows, nor does it affect banking of the account receiving the points, (note that the transferred points themselves cannot be banked at all), but it does effectively combine the points as far as making reservations.

To clarify CarolMN's second post, all you have to know is that any and all contracts under a single membership number will combined points into one large group for banking purposes. Thus a 200 point and a 100 point add-on are considered a 300 point contract, and for example at the 50% point, you could have banked up to 150 points. Thus if you had nothing banked at all, you could still bank all 100 points of the add-on contract since it's still less than 50% of the total.

Any and all contracts under totally different membership numbers cannot be combined with each other for banking purposes. Banking percentages apply separately to each contract (membership number)

Hope this helps


Bill

 

[yasuern]

Thank You both for answering my ?s and clearing up my concerns!

Sue