Need opinions from people with multiple use years.

[Brittleebee]

My goal is to eventually have two use years, with enough points in both so that I never have to worry about a transfer to combine points. I would love to borrowfrom one every other year and bank from one every other year (essentially acting as if I only have one contract to use per year).

Anyone doing that now and how do you like doing it? I currently only have one use year. I’m aware that adding another complicates things a bit. I’m also aware that the the constant borrowing/banking would not always be ideal.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

I have two use years and absolutely hate it. Since they are different years, on the rare occasion I do want to combine points I often can’t for rules that I can’t for the life of me keep track of. I have April and August use years and the combination is a nightmare.

 

[DVC Deac]

We have February and September use years and it works great for us. Of course, we utilize the two use years for separate purposes and don’t co-mingle points. WDW points for WDW in one use year and HHI points to use at HHI in the other.

 

[TCRAIG]

I have 5 UYs - I pretty much use each UY for specific resorts/seasons - but if I do need to use a different UYs points to add a day to a reservation or something like that - I just let MS know and they mark the reservations as a continuing stay - so I don’t have to move out of the room.

 

[Brittleebee]

I have two use years and absolutely hate it. Since they are different years, on the rare occasion I do want to combine points I often can’t for rules that I can’t for the life of me keep track of. I have April and August use years and the combination is a nightmare.

Yikes, I have an April use year and I was looking to add August. This gives me some pause.

 

[intamin]

I own 2. I have my resale points in one and my direct points in another. I rarely combine the points. The only time I've done a transfer was to book a bungalow where I moved 96 points from my resale membership and then used the BOGO OTU points on my direct membership from membership magic beyond to get the remaining 24 I needed. If this was a transfer I was needing to do regularly, I would hate it because the transferred points are not visible once moved over and needs a call to member services to book. Since I don't really do that frequently though it has been just fine and whenever I book a resort at the O14, I just try to use my resale membership as much as possible.

 

[DoggoneVGC]

I have two use years. December and June, but I only use in California and do not transfer (at least not yet). I use my VDH December points for trips Jan through May and my June VGC points for trips July through December. I really like this combination. Not sure how it would play out if I took longer trips like many do for WDW.

 

[VGCgroupie]

I have been saying on the boards that multiple UY is very confusing. But when I sit back and think about it it’s actually multiple contracts under one UY that has been confusing me the most.

If you won’t need to combine points and reservations and are setting up like that on purpose I think it can work well.

 

[LilyJC]

We’ve had three UYs for several years, and I personally love it. They are used for separate trips normally though. March - VGC and Aul, June - VGC, and August has all our WDW home resorts - BCV, CCV and BLT.

I will say we have way too many points, so we pretty much always bank. I absolutely hate borrowing, so that has only happened a couple times. And we’ve never transferred between UYs.

 

[Sprinkles&Sprints]

We also have June and December - December is resale and June is direct. My December contracts consist of an actual FW and a BWV contract that I use exclusively there so there’s never really any issue.

 

[mgmgmg]

I own 2. I have my resale points in one and my direct points in another. I rarely combine the points.

Sorry to hijack but this is exactly the setup I'm considering and I'm wondering if you still get direct benefits / membership extras when booking with your resale points?

 

[Sandisw]

Yikes, I have an April use year and I was looking to add August. This gives me some pause.

Just to add, it doesn’t matter what the two UYs are…they are two memberships and this require a transfer to use points for both in a single reservation.

And, you are only allowed one transfer in or out of your membership per UY.

 

[nicollecheyenne]

My goal is to eventually have two use years, with enough points in both so that I never have to worry about a transfer to combine points. I would love to borrowfrom one every other year and bank from one every other year (essentially acting as if I only have one contract to use per year).

Anyone doing that now and how do you like doing it? I currently only have one use year. I’m aware that adding another complicates things a bit. I’m also aware that the the constant borrowing/banking would not always be ideal.

We have two UYs- December for our direct Poly contract, and February for our resale contracts. This allows me to combine points for my resale contracts when needed without having to worry about the different rules for the contracts (they were all purchased recently with the same resale restrictions). It’s not bad this way!

 

[intamin]

Sorry to hijack but this is exactly the setup I'm considering and I'm wondering if you still get direct benefits / membership extras when booking with your resale points?

Soo I'll be honest I haven't tried to use my membership magic beyond while staying on my resale points so I can't say for certain if you get priority lounge access while staying on resale or if you get access to the extra lounge hours. You definitely can go into the lounge regardless when you're staying on points because you're still DVC Y.

As for moonlight magic, I've HEARD people stay on their resale points and are able to go into Moonlight Magic. I hear mixed things on which membership to actually enter when trying to log in for it. Fortunately now that they ask for your membership number before the queue starts that should take away some of the stress of putting in the right membership number. Personally I've only gone into Moonlight Magic while staying on my direct points or through general registration.

IMO, it would make things easier if you kept your resale and direct points all part of the same membership so they can't make that distinction or at least they would have a harder time making the distinction from when you're staying on resale vs. direct.

 

[Sandisw]

Soo I'll be honest I haven't tried to use my membership magic beyond while staying on my resale points so I can't say for certain if you get priority lounge access while staying on resale or if you get access to the extra lounge hours. You definitely can go into the lounge regardless when you're staying on points because you're still DVC Y.

As for moonlight magic, I've HEARD people stay on their resale points and are able to go into Moonlight Magic. I hear mixed things on which membership to actually enter when trying to log in for it. Fortunately now that they ask for your membership number before the queue starts that should take away some of the stress of putting in the right membership number. Personally I've only gone into Moonlight Magic while staying on my direct points or through general registration.

IMO, it would make things easier if you kept your resale and direct points all part of the same membership so they can't make that distinction or at least they would have a harder time making the distinction from when you're staying on resale vs. direct.

I can confirm that for the special characters extra hours at Epcot lounge you can be on resale points.

 

[Jodo98]

i have 2 use years and like it sometimes and hate it others. I think it depends on if you have a specific time you like to travel. You not only have to take the use year into account but the banking date. I have a use year in April and i love because i can bank in Nov and when i like to travel is Oct so it gives me time to plan. The other one is use year Dec and bank July and i dont like at all. Its like right in the middle of plans and since they can change i lose the banking window if i dont know for sure what im going Aug-Nov.

 

[intamin]

I can confirm that for the special characters extra hours at Epcot lounge you can be on resale points.

When you did it, was the reservation made with a resale only membership?

 

[VGCgroupie]

When you did it, was the reservation made with a resale only membership?

We were not using our direct points to stay. Do you even need to be staying to do it? I thought you just needed to be MMB. When we went we were the only one there, a family came in as we were leaving but other than that nobody else.

 

[Girlstar30]

You do not need to call MS to book transferred points that you combined once theyre already transferred. You can do this ahead of time after the 7 month booking if they're different resorts and book for yourself online. I can see how having to call at 7 months could lower your chances of getting what you want right then.

It is true that when you combine you cant see them on the dashboard, but when you go to book a room it will ask you which points you want to use and it will be right there. That is annoying and probably intentional but not a big deal to me. Just keep track of how many points you transferred and youll be fine.

The most difficult part for me, is the rule of one transfer in or out. It makes it really frustrating if you want to modify something and book something else and you dont have enough points combined. That could potentially make you lose a day of a trip. Not ideal.

Other than that I try to use my memberships without transferring, but I do use multiple memberships for the same trip. I would rather bank a few extra points than transfer if I can. Banking extra points happens whether you have one uy or not. Is it more difficult to have multiple UY? Yes. Is it a deal breaker? It depends.

My personal opinion, it is not so much a big deal like people make it out to be for me, just be careful about transferring, that is a one and done deal. If you want something as easy as possible and the benefits of having multiple UYs doesnt matter to you then yes, get one UY of course. My Use Years offer points close together to each other loaded, even if its in different "years."That makes me feel better than having two spread far apart. That would be really risking losing points if combining and having to cancel or changing my mind about a trip.

I also dont like that a reservation on a different membership is not guaranteed to be continued with other consecutive dates on different memberships that you booked. I booked like this multiple times. I will report back if we have to move rooms. Then I may really have an issue with multiple UYs because I do plan to combine almost every single time.

The multiple waitlists are a huge plus for me. The multiple days of otu points you can purchase to book a restricted studio I wouldnt otherwise have is a huge plus to me. I also enjoy split stays and im not looking to book 7 nights in a row. I am very flexible for when i can travel. I would never tell someone to do it one way or the other like was insisted and sometimes very unnecessarily harshly and rudely by some people on here to me, when actually having multiple uy has been very advantageous to me. Thanks to this i am able to stay at the Riviera using otu points on each membership for three nights, something id never be able to do had i not went with my gut. I would have been very upset to learn this was possible later and not be able to do it because I had only one uy. Something like this may not matter to someone else that has direct points.

And yes I have made enough reservations to come to this conclusion. The only thing that would change my mind at this point is if I have to move rooms, we will see and even then I will still weigh advantages that I love. I dont like when people give the full picture and just says what works for them and thats it. There are pros and cons. I am not here to argue with people. One size does not fit all. Do your own research please, it seems like for a majority of people on here, one uy is more ideal.

 

[Chili327]

Just to add, it doesn’t matter what the two UYs are…they are two memberships and this require a transfer to use points for both in a single reservation.

And, you are only allowed one transfer in or out of your membership per UY.

This the part to understand, & why I sold my 2 small BWV to replace someday in my regular UY.