Managing Your Points??

[Marshay]

With all the activities associated with managing your points (banking, borrowing, canceling, renting, use years, deadlines to expiration, etc), how are you managing your points? It seems like it could almost be a FT job just managing your points to make sure they don't expire.

I did go to Caskbill's website but haven't downloaded the program yet. This looks promising but also opens my eyes to the fact that you need to spend some amount of time each day/week/month to understand where you stand and what you can do for your vacation, based on points.

Thanks for the thoughts!

Marsha

 

[Starr W.]

Having just gotten our first points, I put reminders in my planner on banking deadlines, when to call for ressies. I downloaded Caskbill's basic software to calculate trip totals and when to call in the 11/7 month windows.

I basically have 2 trips left to book for 2008(2007 is already booked) and dates are on the calendar, as are the windows for getting ADR's and Cirque tickets.

 

[Connears]

We have been dvc members since 1994 and it did take time keeping track of points, use years, vacations, but I never would call it a chore. We never "lost" any points even after adding on points at HHI in 2002. It helped that we have the same use year for both. That said, I love the DVC site now since they added the management of your account points. It goes for 3 years and it has everyhting right in front of you;your booked vacations, what's borrowed/banked; what's left in use year...I think its great.
Connears

 

[DBBN]

I manage our memberships using Quicken software. We have a June and a December use year and each have their own "Asset" accounts. Annual point allocations show up as an "increase" and vacations show up as a "decrease". The split transaction feature easily tracks the total points used and the points used for each of the days reserved. The reminders feature reminds me 2 weeks before any banking deadline affording ample time to analyze our accounts to determine if banking is necessary. We use the memo feature to list our invitees.

All-in-all a bit time consuming to set up but once set up properly quite simple to monitor.

 

[JimMIA]

We have two contracts -- one at OKW, and a smaller one at SSR -- and it's in a family trust and we have three families using the account. Each of our families use Caskbill's wonderful Planner software, and then I use a simple Excel spreadsheet to keep track of each family's allocations of points, banking, borrowing, etc.

We use a fairly straightforward pattern of banking and borrowing to avoid losing points or missing deadlines, and it's worked well so far.

Keeping track of things is something you have to do, but I don't find it too onerous. I just put a note on my PDA to look at banking on a certain date, and the rest is pretty easy. It's not something I spend a lot of time worrying about.

 

[disneynutz]

With all the activities associated with managing your points (banking, borrowing, canceling, renting, use years, deadlines to expiration, etc), how are you managing your points? It seems like it could almost be a FT job just managing your points to make sure they don't expire.

I did go to Caskbill's website but haven't downloaded the program yet. This looks promising but also opens my eyes to the fact that you need to spend some amount of time each day/week/month to understand where you stand and what you can do for your vacation, based on points.

Thanks for the thoughts!

Marsha

I vote for Caskbill's program. Nice software, easy to use and I am looking forward to the full featured version latter this year. Caskbill has put a lot of work into this product. Work smarter not harder as my Uncle Olof use to say.