Multiple Use Years - WWYD?

[KSL]

I need help/advice, and know this is the best place to get it!

Here's the situation:

We own at BLT and are planning to make another purchase via resale, which would allow us to pick our use year. We are considering either BCV or BWV (and that decision is the subject for another thread, another time!).

Our current contract has a September Use Year, which we didn't think really made any difference until later and now I understand that this is the WORST possible Use Year for us, as we like to travel the last two weeks of August. DOH! Luckily we haven't had to cancel a trip, but you never know! So now that we are looking to purchase a second contract, should we go to a different Use Year (May/June)? That would put us at two resorts and two Use Years. I am good with a spreadsheet, so hopefully should be able to keep track of things, but it would add a layer of complexity. Thoughts? Advice?

Also, I have read a few things about booking with two Use Years that I am confused about and hope someone can help. I must be missing something. My understanding (please let me know if wrong!): At 11 months you can book at your home resort using only the points available at that resort (including any banked, current, borrowed, but only for that resort). I think I'm good with that. What I am confused about is what to do at the 7 month mark. What's the deal with transferring? Why would you need to? Let's say I own points at both BLT and BCV. If I call to book at BLT at 11 months out (booking with only BLT points), at the 7-month mark can't I call and try to add consecutive nights to that reservation (if available) by using my BCV points? Why would I need to transfer points to do this? Is the concern that they would be separate bookings and might have to change rooms? Can't they link the reservations to try to avoid this? I am confused on the whole transferring thing, I think.

Thanks for any replies!

 

[nalajms]

What I am confused about is what to do at the 7 month mark. What's the deal with transferring? Why would you need to? Let's say I own points at both BLT and BCV. If I call to book at BLT at 11 months out (booking with only BLT points), at the 7-month mark can't I call and try to add consecutive nights to that reservation (if available) by using my BCV points? Why would I need to transfer points to do this? Is the concern that they would be separate bookings and might have to change rooms? Can't they link the reservations to try to avoid this? I am confused on the whole transferring thing, I think.

I haven't had to do this, but I think the problem occurs if there's not enough points for a full night from one contract. For example, if you need 17 points for your last night, have 10pts from BLT and 7pts from BCV you'd have to transfer the points to one contract in order to book that night. There's also limitations on what points can be transferred.

 

[lions1995]

Tranfers onoy come into play when you have two seperate contracts. Two seperate UY should not require seperate contracts, though I have seen some posts that MS may say differently. So, I do not think this appiled to you.

However to answer the question on transfers:
In the case of having two seperate contracts (which does happen if they are not deeded the same way - different people listed on one vs the other), then you may need to tranfer points to make use of the case of needing some from another contract to bridge some point difference (Say you have 10 points left, but that is not enough to book the last night, you can transfer points to make the difference). Tranfered points still retain their UY and home resort booking. So if you transfered BC points to your BLT contract, you could not use it for BLT until 7 months out. But you could still use it to book BC 11 months out.

 

[taaren]

nalajms is right, the only time you would need to transfer is if you want to book a single night using points from two different contracts.

We also bought our original contract not knowing the difference between UYs, and they gave us a June (I asked in the presentation if I could have a different month, and they said no). We usually do a big trip in October or December, and a little trip in May, so we just don't use our points for the May trip. No biggie.

We bought our add-on in an October UY, which works great for us. We just make reservations for the nights we want with each contract and link them together and the stay is seamless as long as you reserve the same room type.

I think the only other possible place this might come into play is if you wanted a really rare reservation at 11 months ... say concierge, or a GV and wanted to walk the reservation. You could only book as many nights as you had points for in each contract. However, since you're buying in separate resorts that's not really an issue either.

Some people think its a lot of work to worry about two different banking deadlines, but we've never had that problem.

 

[disneynutz]

Tranfers onoy come into play when you have two seperate contracts. Two seperate UY should not require seperate contracts, though I have seen some posts that MS may say differently. So, I do not think this appiled to you.

Respectfully, this information is incorrect.

A different UY will be a different contract, and a different DVC Membership.

If the contracts are owned and titled the same, they will be listed under one website ID so the accounts for both UYs will be visible without having to log in twice.

Bill

 

[Sandisw]

We own two resorts and two UY's, which means completely different memberships.

Try to think of it as you owning one of the contracts, and another DVC owning the other. If you wanted to book a night at a resort and only had 10 points but needed 20, would you be able to simple use my points to do that? No, I would have to transfer them to you first.

It is the same thing, even when the owner is the same. It is treated completely separate. We ended up making sure that we bought a big enough contract at the second resort to do what we wanted without having to worry about transfers.

So far, its working out okay and we are going to use them as though they are inclusive memberships which will help.

IMO, if I was adding on more points, I would go with a better UY and deal with two memberships, unless you are adding on a small number, given that your travel really works against you for that Sept UY and to have lots more points at risk just doesn't make sense, IMO.

 

[KSL]

Thanks for the responses - that cleared things up for me perfectly.



We decided to go for a BWV resale contract and found one with a February use year (we were hoping for Feb/Mar/Apr). I vaguely recall reading something on here about why February is an unpopular use year but can't remember why (search feature is currently disabled so can't look it up). Anyway, it is better for us than September given our travel dates and was the right amount of points we wanted. We went to ROFR the middle of last week and I'll be biting my nails for the next few weeks until we hear back!

Meanwhile, I will hone my Excel skills to lay out things properly between the two different contracts - each at a different resort, with different numbers of points, and different use years ! They will be titled the same, so at least they should be on the same online account.

Thanks again!

 

[RobDoc]

We currently have 3 different Use Years (and have had 4 in the past). Other than a little more diligence regarding banking deadlines we have not found any negatives and the additional UYs do provide a lot more flexibility.

Over the last 19 years, we have never found the need to transfer points between the contracts since we have been able to reserve whole nights with each and have MS link them together. If you want to use points for a cruise and need to use points from multiple contracts, there might be a need to transfer, but I think even there that MS can simply use the points from both contracts without any hassle.

Enjoy!