Multiple Use Years

[drusba]

I have two use years. As noted, one advantage of two use years, months apart, allows you to choose a use year for a trip essentially any time of the year and assure you can still bank points if you need to cancel 31 or more days from date of arrival. Other issues to be aware of include:

1. Each is a separate membership with a different membership number, but they will appear together in the same online DVC account. Nevertheless, each has its own banking deadline date, and dues for each are billed separately by DVC, and if you want to set-up automatic monthly withdrawal of dues from a checking account, that needs to be done separately for each use year (and if desired, you can set it up that dues for one are paid at the first of the month and for the other mid-month).

2. They cannot be mixed together to make a single reservation absent a transfer of points from one membership to another. Though the usual rule is that you can do only one transfer per use year, DVC has historically allowed owners of multiple memberships to do multiple transfers among the owner's memberships. Just note that using transferred points to make a reservation can require contacting MS and thus you can miss making the reservation at 8 a.m., which for some rooms can kill your chances of getting the reservation even at 11-months out.

3. A different way to use both for one trip is to make a reservation for the beginning days with one use year and then, when the reservation window opens for the second part of the trip, use the other use year to make a reservation for the same resort, room type, and guests for the remainder of the trip, and then contact MS and have it link the two reservations, which will avoid having to change rooms. Note, I do not do that link until past the 7-month window when I know the reservation will not change, because once reservations have been linked, you can make changes to them (including changes to any guest on the reservation) only by first contacting MS to have them unlinked. Also, if the combined reservations are for eight nights or more, but neither is for more than 7, you get only the trash and towel service on the fourth day of each reservation, rather than any full cleaning service on the 4th day and trash and towel on the eighth.

4. One potential advantage with the two memberships is that you can double the total one-time use points you can purchase for a trip if you make the two different reservations for the same trip, since you are allowed to purchase up to 24 points per membership. That doubling does not apply if you use the transfer method to combine points for one trip -- OTUPs cannot be transferred, and once you have transferred points from one use year to another, you can only add a single set of OTUP's to the reservation made.

 

[DVCjj]

One UY, 5 contracts is enough for me. I transfer in points to each membership (2) every year and sometimes they are a different UY.

I learned my lesson that my old brain could never easily balance different UY's on a regular basis.

 

[Snookies]

We have two use years at two different resorts. Our second use year came from a very good resale deal over 10 years ago when resale prices fell (just added a small resale to that membership when we recently stumbled across a similar deal). It took me awhile to get used to managing 2 different use years, but after a bit, it became second nature.

We have used Drusba’s method outlined in point #3 above many times and it has also helped with point management from time to time. An alternative to linking the reservations when doing this is to have MS note they are continuing reservations and our preference is to not change rooms in the reservation record. This avoids contacting MS to unlink the reservations if a change is necessary later. We’ve done this, as well as linking, many times and, at least so far, have not had to change rooms.

 

[OKW Lover]

I have contracts with multiple resorts, but all the same use year. I specifically did that when adding on to keep my life simple. No need to try to book something on one use year and add extra days from a different use year. I basically treat all of my points as one big pot, with the obvious exception of the 11/7 month home resort window.

 

[supersnoop]

My second use year is a small BWV contract that is used exclusively for an annual Food & Wine weekend. There's no good reason to have a second use year if you intend to comingle points. All my other trips are booked with my main use year.

 

[DonMacGregor]

Two use years here: all of my WDW contracts are under one, and my Aulani contracts are under the other. Two reasons: different travel preferences for HI versus FL, and a strong desire not to be tempted to comingle the points. Hawaii points need to be kept nice and safe.