Importance of Use Year

[CintiTim]

In an earlier posting I read a mention of the importance of when your use year starts. I gathered there was some importance or strategy to this. Can someone please elaborate on this. I am interested in purchasing a DVC either direct from DVC or via resale.

Thanks,

CintiTim

 

[HorizonsFan]

Use year only comes into play when you're banking points. You may bank 100% of your points within 6 months of your use year beginning. At from 7 to 9 months you can bank up to 50% and in the 10th month, you can bank up to 25% of your points.
If you travel at the same time every year, a specific use year can save you points if you need to cancel. For instance, we go the last week of May/first week of June. Our use year is February so if we had to cancel, we could still bank 100% of our points into the next year.
Hope I didn't confuse you more. Use year is not all that important in the grand scheme of things...

 

[Lesley]

The only time uy is important is if you plan to travel the same time every year and are likely to have to cancel on short notice. If that's the case you may want to get a uy that's just before when you regularly travel.

My uy is March and I kind of wish it were later in the summer as we are most likely to travel in the fall/winter. We're not ones to have to cancel for work reasons or anything, but if we must do so for our late Jan trip we could end up in a rough spot and maybe lose points...or have to book whatever's available in Feb! And its not entirely out of the question that we'll be doing Jan. at least every few years as its my ds's birth month. He likes the idea of having his birthday in WDW.

If I had thought more about it I might have chosen August for a uy. A July trip probably won't happen more than once or twice for us, but we do like September.

 

[DizneyDreamer]

Horizons Fan.. Howdy Neighbor!

Ok I am still learning this whole use year thing (never heard of it at all before coming here today). Our use year is also Feb. So that means if I am not going to be using our points for that year I need to call and bank my points 6 months before Feb..in order to bank 100% of them. Is that right? So they would all have to be banked in August.

What happens if you bank your points and then later decide What.. I wanna go? Can you "unbank" them?

Ack.. so much to learn.

 

[drusba]

To bank all of your points you need to do so by the end of the sixth month of your use year; for a Feb use year that would be July 31 (not Aug).

Use year has no impact on when you can go (anytime of year) or when you can call to reserve (11 months in advance at home resort, 7 at others). If you usually go the same time each year, getting a use year that begins anytime up to six months before you usually go eliminates the "cancellation" issue as you will always be able to bank 100% of your points even if you cancel.

 

[DizneyDreamer]

thanks

 

[downontheBW]

Once points are banked into the next use year, they stay there. Example: say you have 150 points and a Feb use year, if you weren't going to use your 2001 points, you have until the end of August to bank 100% (150) of them -- once September hits you can only bank 50% (75) of them and that percentage goes down to 25% then 0 as you approach the end of your use year, I don't have the details in front of me.

Another example: same Feb use year, say you banked all of your 2001 points (150) in August but then decide you want to go to stay at DVC in November. You could borrow your 2002 points (150) for that stay but the 2001 points would stay banked and you would have to use them in the 2002 use year or lose them. If the November stay required more than 150 points (the 2002 pointsthat you would borrow), you would be out of luck because you couldn't use thebanked 2001 points until Feb 2002.

I hope I'm not confusing you more and also that I have this right -- I welcome all corrections to my examples. Run through a few different scenarios with a calendar to test out the restrictions. It's a good thing to have this figured out so you don't accidentally lose points.

 

[HorizonsFan]

Hey neighbor! There are three of us now! Sonjarella, one of the Community Board moderators also lives in Rowlett.
Drusba and Heidi pretty much covered your question. The folks on this board can answer just about any question you can come up with!