Help with UY

[HikingBelle]

Considering DVC, but as we think about future trips, we could take these trips during 4 likely trip times (Jan, May, summer, and Oct). Any advice on how to decide on UY? UY is important because we anticipate banking/borrowing.
Appreciate the advice. Thanks.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Picking the best UY for the times you travel is important for the free "insurance" it can give you against last minute cancellations to give you the most time to use points before you expire. If that's what you meant important because of banking and borrowing then that's correct but just for travel any UY will work for banking and borrowing. Your travel times are a bit more difficult because they occur in every quarter of the year. You might want to pick the UY based on the 3 times that could have the greatest risk or else perhaps the 3 that would be the longest stays or require the most points. So for example Jan is a low point time and one of the easier to book so maybe that would be the least? Then you could look at an April UY which allows banking until the end of Nov. If you ever had to cancel one of your May, summer or Oct trips then you might have a very good chance to rebook your Jan trip to use any points that might be expiring. And still if the January trip were ever cancelled it still would give Feb & March to try and use the points and those are also easier times to find rooms more last minute.

For summer one would normally look to a June UY but that leaves May right before so not a great safety net. Oct might be the second best if your summer travel would be earlier in the summer like June or July. If I were looking at your times though I'd look more towards an Apr UY.

 

[HikingBelle]

Your travel times are a bit more difficult because they occur in every quarter of the year.

Thanks for confirming this! I wasn't able to articulate it that clearly, but I think that's what I have been struggling with. Your advice about picking the 2-3 most likely times makes sense, and the information about easier times to book helps too. Thank you.

 

[Dean]

Considering DVC, but as we think about future trips, we could take these trips during 4 likely trip times (Jan, May, summer, and Oct). Any advice on how to decide on UY? UY is important because we anticipate banking/borrowing.
Appreciate the advice. Thanks.

I agree, it is insurance and those who can't benefit from a well timed UY are simply taking more risk all else being equal. However, with these months and assuming the travel is spread evenly, April is likely best followed by Oct, June & Dec all pretty even. However, there's no great UY but all would be workable. If the travel is not evenly spread out, I'd target the UY based on the 1 or 2 busiest times. If enough points are involved, this might be a good situation for a couple of UY. Assuming DVC makes sense otherwise and there are no additional details such as you are far more likely to travel one or two of those 4 times or the risk of cancelation is higher for some times than others, factors other than UY might be the best considerations. For example, the best contract might be the driving force over the UY in this situation. I'd also discourage trying to do an every other to every third year travel plan with the situation described or cutting it too close on the number of points. This might be a situation where it'd be better not to buy or to buy more points even if one had to rent occasionally than to have a large portion of the points in banked/borrowed status.

 

[HikingBelle]

Thank you Dean! Very helpful, particularly the reminder to rent points occasionally if needed. I knew that, but hadn't brought it into my equations.