Multiple Contracts?

[Blue&Gold]

Thinking of buying add-on or resale to pile on our point total... Two scenarios at play and looking for thoughts from some of you out there with more than one contract at the same resort or own at more than one resort.
1) Purchase more points through resale at our home resort with a different use year. How much confusion does this add to the process and how do you "cross pollenate" between contracts? How many months max would folks recommend "between" use years?
2) Purchase resale at second resort... Does it make any sense to search out the same use year or should we target a use year 6 months offset from our home resort?
Obviously, add-on from Disney at home resort would eliminate the confusion from #1 above because the add on is in the original use year. Not sure how buying "new" (SSR or other) from DVD would play out---are you required to purchase in the same use year as your original contract when buying from DVD?
Thanks as always. For those of you not tired of the mantra, we live in a state that doesn't allow us to purchase direct from Disney and we have to buy resale or wait until our next trip to Orlando to buy from DVD. Plotting out strategy now!

 

[Caskbill]

If you purchase an add-on from DVC for less than 150 points, it MUST be the same use year month as your current contract. If buying 150 points or more then you may get a different use year month, but keep in mind that it will also be a different membership number.

If you purchase resale it most likely will be a totally different membership number. If it's the same use year month as your current contract, you can request Disney make it an add-on to your original contract, but you must request this ahead of time (before closing I think), or else it will automatically become a totally separate membership number.

Just to clarify, all contracts under the same membership number are basically the same contract but with different extensions, such as 12345.000, 12345.001, 12345.002, etc. In this case all three purchases are treated as one contract number. All points for this contract are combined for banking purposes, even if the contracts are at different resorts. The ONLY thing the points retain is their 11/7 month windows, based on resort.

Any totally different contracts (having separate membership numbers) are as different from each other as your contract is different from mine. All point management must be handled separately, including all banking. If you have two different membership numbers, you may NOT combine points in any way to make a reservation. The only thing you can do is transfer points, but keep in mind that if you transfer points from A to B, you cannot 8 months later try to transfer points from B to A. There are restrictions on transfers, including which direction. Nor can you transfer banked or borrowed points. (although you can transfer points, then bank them or borrow them after they've been transferred).

If everything is under a single membership number, point management is the easiest. If you have more than one membership number, point management is more involved, and just takes more care, but is definitely doable.

Keep in mind that use year month means absolutely nothing except in the case where you might need to cancel a previous reservation. The only impact being that if you're near the end of your use year when you cancel, it may be too late to bank points.

 

[Cruelladeville]

If you purchase thru Disney, you always must keep the same use year, unless you are buying a new contract of 150 pts or more. If you buy resale, you can buy any use year that you want, regardless of the number of points, and it will be treated as a whole new contract with a new member number and everything.

We have 4 contracts, and two add-ons. We bought a new contract as we added another time of year to go on vacation, and the original contract just wouldn't work. We began with a Feb at BWV for Easter break, and did an add-on for extra pts. Then, we needed pts for a summer vacation, so we added a March contract. We decided to go in August, so we did an add-on at BCV, and at Christmas we added an August contract. We eventually sold BCV and added two OKW contracts in Feb so we could get a grande villa in the summer. We have found that it works best to have your use year begin a month or two before you plan to use the pts, so that if you need to cancel( for example, a hurricane) you can always find time during the rest of the year to use up the points or bank them.

By the way, we just bought a 270 pt contract which had the same use year as one of our other contracts. We were notified by Disney that they were going to add it onto the other contract, but we didn't request it. I don't know if the resale company handled the request or not.

 

[Beca]

I used to have multiple use years, but not anymore. I don't recommend it. It becomes really hard when you get down to "the last few points" in each contract. You are not allowed to take "10 pts from contract 1" and "12 pts from contract 2" to make a one-night ressie. In order to combine those last few points, you have to "transfer" between your contracts. This got me into a little bit of trouble, as I had excess points in one contract and rented them out via transfer to a diser. Then, I had an impromtu trip come up, and wanted the 11 month advantage with the home resort of that contract (my other contract was a different resort). I wanted to transfer a few "leftover" points from my second contract into my first, but since I had transferred out earlier for my rental, I could not "transfer points out and in within the same use year".

A long, confusing story, I know....but, the "rules" regarding different UY's can really "get" you if you are not careful.

If you have one uy, even if the resorts are different, MS can combine them for one stay (ex: 10 BWV points and 12 OKW points....as long as they are the same uy).

I like one UY MUCH better!!



Beca

 

[disneydawn6]

I had 150 Dec UY at the BWV use to always go in Dec or Jan. I specifically bought another 150 at BCV with a June UY. We started going alot in Oct and November for Halloween and Thanksgiving and if I needed to cancel my BWV reservation, my points would Expire before I could use them.. I have never had a problem with transfering points and I do believe if you own both contracts they will let you transfer back and forth points. I know to transfer to another member back and forth is not allowed... I like this better then the same use year as use to worry about point expiring if I wanted to vacation just before my points were expiring and now don't need to worry about when I go...

 

[Granny]

One use year certainly makes life easier, but we have February and October UYs on our two contracts and using a spreadsheet and Dave Frederickson's point tracker, we have had no issues at all.

When we "added on" by purchasing a resale contract, it was at a different resort. One of the things that makes my planning life much easier is that each contract is for nearly identical number of points. Therefore, I can bank one contract and borrow on the other each year and utilize the 11 month advantage for my entire reservation.

IMHO, if you are adding a significant (150+) number of points, a second resort can be a handy thing if you really enjoy that resort.

If you are making a smaller add-on number of points, I'd keep it at your original resort.

Good luck...those are nice options to have!

 

[jekjones1558]

If you purchase resale it most likely will be a totally different membership number. If it's the same use year month as your current contract, you can request Disney make it an add-on to your original contract, but you must request this ahead of time (before closing I think), or else it will automatically become a totally separate membership number.

We have done 5 add-ons, 1 directly from Disney and 4 resales. All are same use year, 2 different resorts. We never requested the same membership number (didn't know enough to do that!), but all are same membership number. Maybe our resale agents did this for us?? At any rate, unless you have a particular reason to need different use years, I surely like the ease of management having only 1 use year.

 

[Cruelladeville]

Granny,
We handle our 4 contracts exactly the same way, always banking and borrowing within the same contract. We also got into some difficulty with transferring early on when we bought DVC, so it was just easier for us to buy another contract whenever we decided to add another vacation at a different time of year. I think we have enough points now, though, except for a 50 point add-on at VB(beach cottages)

 

[Laurajean1014]

My recommendation is to buy whichever is the least expensive.

 

[Blue&Gold]

I think Laurajean is on to something!
Thanks, all for your thoughts.
I've looked at the "angles" and I keep coming up with new ways to attack the question! Maybe I should go watch the All Star Game and ban myself from these boards and the resale sites! As Charlie Brown used to say... "AAAAARRRGHHHH!"

 

[JABEAR]

My recommendation is to buy whichever is the least expensive.

Expand Please....I am just starting to look into DVC and thought about just buying the cheapest contract for whichever resort through resale. Would that include HH, and VB? What about making reservations at the 11 and 7 month window? I am not sure what you are refering to but I would agree when you are offered the same thing at a lower price, take the lower price.....right? Please help me oh wise one. It looks like we could get deluxe style accomodations at value prices in the future and I think DVC is for us.....can someone convince me.

 

[Caskbill]

Expand Please....I am just starting to look into DVC and thought about just buying the cheapest contract for whichever resort through resale. Would that include HH, and VB? What about making reservations at the 11 and 7 month window? I am not sure what you are refering to but I would agree when you are offered the same thing at a lower price, take the lower price.....right? Please help me oh wise one. It looks like we could get deluxe style accomodations at value prices in the future and I think DVC is for us.....can someone convince me.

When looking at cost, look at both the initial purchase price AND the dues. For example, buying VB might be cheaper initially, but their dues are higher than the other resorts. If you initially save $5.00/point, but dues are $1.00 higher per point per year, then after 5 years you've given up your total savings, and after that are losing money (savings wise).

The 11 month booking window is important if you want to go to a popular resort during popular times. For example the 1st two weeks at Christmas are popular, and BWV is popular, and BWV standard views are popular, and BWV Studios are popular.

If your home resort is not BWV, and therefore you can't reserve there until 7-months out, forget completely about getting a Studio, Standard View during the 1st two weeks of December. The BWV owners have already booked every single one at the 8-11 month window that they enjoy over non BWV owners.

Similar things can be said for certain times of year for other resorts, such as HH during the summer, GV's at OKW almost any time, etc. That's what the home resort advantage is about....getting first choice.