Need quick advice: use year

[10CJ]

I think getting the use year you want is more important than getting 2020 points. I would not get an Oct use year if you plan to go in Sept.

 

[mickey10171]

Which resort are you buying? Is it a current resort, or a sold-out resort? It's common for them to not have current year points available at sold-out resorts, so they wait until the new use year to sell those points. The "banking window" excuse doesn't match that reason, but it might just be an excuse.

Riviera !

 

[mickey10171]

Update 5/24/21: we spoke to a manager and he explained because of the surplus of points in the system due to COVID they put a stricter rule in place about purchasing the previous years points. They wont allow the courtesy late bank anymore if you are past the UY's banking deadline. so we asked if we could still get the points and try to use them before they expire in august and he was willing to do that. my husband and i are pretty flexible the next 2 months so we figured let's give it a shot - we were going to pick an August UY anyway, mind as well try to get a trip out of it! so we officially signed up this morning! thank you all for your help. this thread really gave us the push we needed to pick the right UY for us!

update!

 

[princesscinderella]

update!

My suggestion is book what you can find but also stalk the DVC booking site multiple times a day to get a cancellation and put in your 2 waitlists too. SSR or OKW are great because they have a lot of rooms and less booking categories.

 

[mickey10171]

My suggestion is book what you can find but also stalk the DVC booking site multiple times a day to get a cancellation and put in your 2 waitlists too. SSR or OKW are great because they have a lot of rooms and less booking categories.

oh interesting! i didnt know you could only do 2 waitlists...thank you for the tips!

 

[MomOTwins]

We had the same experience as OP about a few weeks ago when we bought Riviera direct. In our case, we were open to August, September, and October. We communicated what we were told by the wonderful folks here about extensions of banking deadlines for Aug/Sept, and were told that was not possible and October was the only possible option to get 2020 points and bank them at the moment because we were still not past the May 31 banking window for that UY. For us, it was fine because even though there are occasions we book in summer, we much prefer to go at a time with cooler temps (fall/early in the year), so we didn't mind too much.

To understand the policy, I needed only to see the inventory when we tried to book our Welcome Home trip! Availability right now is super scarce, even with the "welcome home" advantage (and even that is not much of an advantage--the wait for a studio was so long, we ended up just booking a short 3-day trip ourselves in a 1br preferred view and sucking up the point cost on the only dates in 2021 we could find for our resort).

I get it seems unfair because it was a perk that used to be available to direct buyers, but this actually makes total sense to me and I think is the right thing for DVC to do for its existing owners. It would far be more unfair if people who couldn't travel last year or even this year (e.g. international guests subject to travel bans) have their 2020 points expire because they can't book anything. Especially since the existing owners, unlike us new buyers, actually paid dues on those 2020 points.

I think this is why they are not doing any advance sales for the new Grand Floridian this year. Waiting for early 2022 so they don't add even more "retroactive" points into a year already overstuffed with expiring points.

 

[mickey10171]

We had the same experience as OP about a few weeks ago when we bought Riviera direct. In our case, we were open to August, September, and October. We communicated what we were told by the wonderful folks here about extensions of banking deadlines for Aug/Sept, and were told that was not possible and October was the only possible option to get 2020 points and bank them at the moment because we were still not past the May 31 banking window for that UY. For us, it was fine because even though there are occasions we book in summer, we much prefer to go at a time with cooler temps (fall/early in the year), so we didn't mind too much.

To understand the policy, I needed only to see the inventory when we tried to book our Welcome Home trip! Availability right now is super scarce, even with the "welcome home" advantage (and even that is not much of an advantage--the wait for a studio was so long, we ended up just booking a short 3-day trip ourselves in a 1br preferred view and sucking up the point cost on the only dates in 2021 we could find for our resort).

I get it seems unfair because it was a perk that used to be available to direct buyers, but this actually makes total sense to me and I think is the right thing for DVC to do for its existing owners. It would far be more unfair if people who couldn't travel last year or even this year (e.g. international guests subject to travel bans) have their 2020 points expire because they can't book anything. Especially since the existing owners, unlike us new buyers, actually paid dues on those 2020 points.

I think this is why they are not doing any advance sales for the new Grand Floridian this year. Waiting for early 2022 so they don't add even more "retroactive" points into a year already overstuffed with expiring points.

Those are all really good points. I completely agree. Makes complete sense why they did it, even if it is disappointing to a new buyer. We were happy we were able to get what we got!

 

[MomOTwins]

Those are all really good points. I completely agree. Makes complete sense why they did it, even if it is disappointing to a new buyer. We were happy we were able to get what we got!

Us too! Have been waiting to be a DVC member for years. I would have been happy even with the awful December UY they first proposed too though! Glad the people here advised me to keep pushing, but at the end of the day we are now members at out favorite resort and I’m not complaining (though a Gold AP or a ticket discount sure would be welcome!)

 

[mickey10171]

Update 5/26/21: called member services to schedule our welcome home trip - we were strategically trying to use our one-time welcome home pass on a 50th anniversary reservation - then we were going to go in and use our points expiring on July 31 to book a last minute trip. WELL, while speaking to member services, they offered me a courtesy late banking since i just signed up! so i could have saved the points even tho my guide and the manager told me i couldnt. just want to give a heads up to anyone who is in this situation. it could have been a fluke thing but MS was able to make it happen.

see my latest update!

 

[Lorrie7249]

see my latest update!

Excellent!

 

[MomOTwins]

see my latest update!

Nice! Happy for you!