How does the "Use" month work?

[born2bird]

Ok, so I am new to the thread and am just starting to explore the possibility of purchasing into the DVC. I see so many people who are concerned about their "use by" month and am not sure why. If you have a year to use those points (e.g. from June to June) and you get more points every June, why does the "use by" month matter that much? We like to take our vacation the week after Thanksgiving so what would be the ideal month for us? Thank you for any information you can provide. I must be overlooking something.

 

[DebbieB]

Your use year controls when points can be used. If you have a June use year, points are good 6/1 to 5/31. It affects banking deadlines, under the new rules you can only bank up to 1/31 with a June use year. Also if you cancel a stay within the last 4 months (and more than 30 days before), you would not be able to bank those points, they would expire 5/31.

It's really only an issue if you plan to always travel at a certain time of the year. For example, if you always go in the summer, then June would be good for you because if you would have to cancel, you would have plenty of time to reuse the points or bank them.

 

[Buckeye Fan]

We're pretty lucky. We bought via resale and both contracts we purchased were loaded with banked points. Because of this, we are always able to use banked points for our vacations and bank all new points we receive into the next UY. This puts us in a position of having points that expire at the end of our UY if we don't use them (because banked points cannot be banked more than once). For example, I have 307 banked points from 2006 that will expire at the end of July, 2008 if I don't use them. I know...how bad can that be, right???

Anyway, if I had known then what I know now, I would have chosen a Sept or Oct UY instead of August (which is what we have). This kind of goes against some of the advice on the boards due to banking window benefits. With that said, my husband's a teacher. Sometimes, the best time for us to travel is the last week of July & first week of August. With having an Aug UY, if points are going to expire, they expire on 7/31. If we had purchased a Sept UY, we would have had the option of traveling through 8/31 before our points expire.

To most, UY really doesn't really matter. If I wasn't carrying points in the rear, I would just book my July dates and bank what I needed for August and immediately use those. I'm probably in the minority, but if you wait, you can find some GREAT contracts via resale that will put you in the same position!!! If you think that you'll travel around the same time(s) for years to come, I'd definitely spend more time learining about UYs and the new banking rules and see what makes most sense to you.

Good luck and WELCOME to the Dis Boards. You'll find GREAT information here and wonderful people more than willing to answer your questions. I love this community!!!

 

[dianeschlicht]

Frankly, I don't think it DOES make a lot of difference. We took what they gave us originally, and according to the "formula", it was not a good use month for us, but vacation habits change over 50 years, so what is good now might not be good 10 years from now. Anyway, in nearly 11 years of ownership, we have never had a situation arise where we had to cancel a reservation outside of banking deadlines or without being able to reuse the points. I suppose that might change a bit with the new banking deadlines, but I doubt it.

 

[LisaS]

It really depends on your individual circumstances. My DH's travel schedule can be volatile. I make our reservations right at the start of the 11-month or 7-month window, using his travel schedule from previous years to try to predict the week least likely to cause problems. Despite that, I have already had to cancel two trips this year! I'm glad we took the time to analyze our travel patterns and pick a Use Year that works well for us. All of our likely travel dates fall within my banking window(s). Provided I cancel at least 31 days prior to check in to avoid the points going into holding, I will be able to bank any points I cannot re-use.