If we cancel, can I bank the points?

[LoveBugs]

Hi guys,
We have a trip booked for mid-October and every day it's looking less and less like a good idea to travel to Florida. If I cancel the trip before 30 days of our check in date, can I still bank those points? Our use year is February and it's unlikely we'd be able to travel before then. My concern is canceling the trip and then still being stuck with the points in this use year. I've tried calling Member Services but the wait times are too long.
Thanks!

 

[vicarrieous]

You need to cancel by 31 days before your trip and your bank date is September 30.

If you cancel 31 or more days before your trip you should be able to bank (by Sept 30) as long as these are 2021 use year points and not borrowed or banked points. HTH

 

[Marionnette]

Hi guys,
We have a trip booked for mid-October and every day it's looking less and less like a good idea to travel to Florida. If I cancel the trip before 30 days of our check in date, can I still bank those points? Our use year is February and it's unlikely we'd be able to travel before then. My concern is canceling the trip and then still being stuck with the points in this use year. I've tried calling Member Services but the wait times are too long.
Thanks!

The banking deadline for February UYs is Sept 30. If you cancel with 31 days or more before your arrival date in October, then you can bank any points from your 2021 allotment. Any points from 2020 that were banked into 2021, or points that were borrowed into 2021 from 2022 will remain in your 2021 UY and will expire January 31, 2022.

 

[bobbiwoz]

Your banking deadline is September 30, but you want to cancel at least 31 days before checkin. If your points go into holding, you could not bank them. Also, you can bank them if they are the current use year, and are not points that have been banked or borrowed.

 

[LoveBugs]

Great! These are current 2021 points (borrowing our 2020 points for Aulani in 2019 seriously worked out for us). I was paranoid that once points were used at all they couldn’t then be banked. Thank you! We’ll make our decision later this month

 

[Anthony Vito]

You're in a better position than us at least. We have 3 nights booked at Riviera for the 50th, 9/30-10/3, that we booked at the 11-month mark. We're now really skeptical about going given the current situation down there (and crowds will be unavoidable for that, unless we skip the 50th stuff, which defeats the purpose). The problem for us is that our UY is October, so even if we cancel more than 31 days out, we'll lose those points for the 9/30 reservation night. We'd wait longer to see if things really turn around by then (looking less likely), but would have our other 2 nights worth of points go into holding. So we either wait and risk having 38 points go into holding (10/1 & 10/2 nights), or cancel sooner and lose 16 points for the first night (which we'd lose either way). Sucks.

 

[Debbie Jean]

You're in a better position than us at least. We have 3 nights booked at Riviera for the 50th, 9/30-10/3, that we booked at the 11-month mark. We're now really skeptical about going given the current situation down there (and crowds will be unavoidable for that, unless we skip the 50th stuff, which defeats the purpose). The problem for us is that our UY is October, so even if we cancel more than 31 days out, we'll lose those points for the 9/30 reservation night. We'd wait longer to see if things really turn around by then (looking less likely), but would have our other 2 nights worth of points go into holding. So we either wait and risk having 38 points go into holding (10/1 & 10/2 nights), or cancel sooner and lose 16 points for the first night (which we'd lose either way). Sucks.

Or maybe think about renting the reservation... 50th at Riviera sounds like it would be appealing to many folks, Covid or not. The points would still be used but at least you would have some monetary compensation.

 

[CarolynFH]

You're in a better position than us at least. We have 3 nights booked at Riviera for the 50th, 9/30-10/3, that we booked at the 11-month mark. We're now really skeptical about going given the current situation down there (and crowds will be unavoidable for that, unless we skip the 50th stuff, which defeats the purpose). The problem for us is that our UY is October, so even if we cancel more than 31 days out, we'll lose those points for the 9/30 reservation night. We'd wait longer to see if things really turn around by then (looking less likely), but would have our other 2 nights worth of points go into holding. So we either wait and risk having 38 points go into holding (10/1 & 10/2 nights), or cancel sooner and lose 16 points for the first night (which we'd lose either way). Sucks.

I agree with putting it up for rent as a confirmed reservation. Check the Rent/Trade board here - I believe you can post it when you're 30 days or less from checkin, but read the Required Reading thread first to get full requirements. I doubt that you'll have any problem renting it.

 

[Anthony Vito]

Or maybe think about renting the reservation... 50th at Riviera sounds like it would be appealing to many folks, Covid or not. The points would still be used but at least you would have some monetary compensation.

I agree with putting it up for rent as a confirmed reservation. Check the Rent/Trade board here - I believe you can post it when you're 30 days or less from checkin, but read the Required Reading thread first to get full requirements. I doubt that you'll have any problem renting it.

I was thinking about that as a possibility. I was planning on calling DVC Rental Store to ask about it and try to see if they'll give me any indication of what demand is like for a rental like this.

The tough part is the timeframe - if there's not strong enough demand for it, if I don't get it rented before the 30-day window, I don't want to get stuck having to rent it at a discount because it's inside of 30 days to not lose the points or have them go into holding, but at the same time, I'd hate to just lose the 16 points that I can't do anything with because they expire at the end of September. Then again, it's "only" 16 points, so that's better than getting screwed on all 54 points. Aahhhh. Frustrating. Booked this 10 months ago (almost), thought we'd be in a better place by now, not worse.

Close to the 30 days, I might call Member Services to see if they'd give me any type of exception, but I seriously doubt it at this point.

 

[CarolynFH]

I was planning on calling DVC Rental Store to ask about it and try to see if they'll give me any indication of what demand is like for a rental like this.

That sounds like a reasonable idea to me.

 

[Anthony Vito]

That sounds like a reasonable idea to me.

Yeah - and the fact that they're listing some other reservations for that weekend at about $35+/point, it might soften the blow a little.

 

[CarolynFH]

Yeah - and the fact that they're listing some other reservations for that weekend at about $35+/point, it might soften the blow a little.

Wow, it would for me! You could pay for a cash stay with that!

 

[Shelly F - Ohio]

Keep in mind holding points as long as they are not banked or borrowed points, can be transferred to another member even though they are holding points. So you could rent them as a transfer

I was thinking about that as a possibility. I was planning on calling DVC Rental Store to ask about it and try to see if they'll give me any indication of what demand is like for a rental like this.

The tough part is the timeframe - if there's not strong enough demand for it, if I don't get it rented before the 30-day window, I don't want to get stuck having to rent it at a discount because it's inside of 30 days to not lose the points or have them go into holding, but at the same time, I'd hate to just lose the 16 points that I can't do anything with because they expire at the end of September. Then again, it's "only" 16 points, so that's better than getting screwed on all 54 points. Aahhhh. Frustrating. Booked this 10 months ago (almost), thought we'd be in a better place by now, not worse.

Close to the 30 days, I might call Member Services to see if they'd give me any type of exception, but I seriously doubt it at this point.

 

[Brian Noble]

I'd hate to just lose the 16 points

The value of these as "lost rental" is only about $300 +/- in ordinary times. It would be frustrating to lose them, but it might not be worth going to extremes to salvage them. I'd probably put the stay up as a guaranteed reservation and see if I could unload it (likely given that it straddles the 50th), but cancel it and bank what I could at 31 days if it didn't go quickly.

 

[10CJ]

The value of these as "lost rental" is only about $300 +/- in ordinary times. It would be frustrating to lose them, but it might not be worth going to extremes to salvage them. I'd probably put the stay up as a guaranteed reservation and see if I could unload it (likely given that it straddles the 50th), but cancel it and bank what I could at 31 days if it didn't go quickly.

Along the lines of this idea, would you prefer to bank the Oct points or get money for them? You could modify the reservation, cancelling the Oct points so you can bank them. Then try to rent just the Sept night.

 

[tnicks]

Keep in mind holding points as long as they are not banked or borrowed points, can be transferred to another member even though they are holding points. So you could rent them as a transfer

If you transfer points to someone, what use year month do banking rules go by?

 

[Sandisw]

If you transfer points to someone, what use year month do banking rules go by?

Transferred points keep their same UY and home resort. So they follow their normal banking rules

 

[mistysue]

Yeah - and the fact that they're listing some other reservations for that weekend at about $35+/point, it might soften the blow a little.

Just FYI- even though THEY are pricing at $35+, they will still only pay you $16. I've had two stays for the 50th listed with them for nearly 2 weeks now and they are just sitting there. My backup plan, if they don't sell, is to pull them back while I still have time to transfer to RCI. Not worth as much as they are to me at Disney, but we have a lot of work related travel that we have to pay ourselves.

 

[Heather07438]

Just FYI- even though THEY are pricing at $35+, they will still only pay you $16. I've had two stays for the 50th listed with them for nearly 2 weeks now and they are just sitting there. My backup plan, if they don't sell, is to pull them back while I still have time to transfer to RCI. Not worth as much as they are to me at Disney, but we have a lot of work related travel that we have to pay ourselves.

I’ve wondered about this. Do the point owners have little say in Confirmed Reservations through a broker?

Most prices for Confirmed Res are very high, some downright cuckoo. I’ve been checking postings for months around our Sept trip, and the same overpriced ressies have been sitting the whole time.

 

[Sandisw]

I’ve wondered about this. Do the point owners have little say in Confirmed Reservations through a broker?

Brokers decide the rules and owners decide if they want to try and list via them.
Not sure how at $35/point any trip is less than cash via Disney.