Need help regarding Use Year

[BusterCat]

I'm on the brink of buying at BCV, but I'm somewhat confused as to the best use year.

Most likely we'll be vacationing annually in May. Should we pick a use year anniversary that starts prior to May? Like April or March. This way we'll always have points. Is this a good strategy or is there a key piece I'm missing?

 

[Richyams]

Exactly the right stratagy, exactly the wrong reason.

The best use year is slightly before your usual vacation time, absolutely correct. There is only one reason for this. Use year is completely irrelevent to anything regarding booking. It inly comes into play when you have to cancel. The only reason to have one use year over another is so that when you have to cancel, you still have a major part of the year to bank them or use them somewhere else.

Use year (UY) Jan, vacation Feb. Use Jan points for Feb vacation. Four months prior, cancel. Now you have eleven months before you even have to commit to banking them.

Opposite: UY Feb, vacation Jan. use last Feb points to make this Jan vacation, cancel four months prior. Those points need to be used or banked by March 1....and you are past the 100% banking window.

This is the only benefit to one use year over another.