New banking guidelines...

[Poohs Pal]

I just called Quality Assurance to verify
receipt of my AKL documents.While on the phone with QA I was informed that just this week the banking guidelines were changed. You now will be able to bank 100% of your ponts up to 8 months out. After the 8 months you will not be able to bank anything. He also said that if you book anything other than DVC it used to be a $75.00 or $95.00 booking fee. from now on it will be a $95.00 booking fee us they are trying to encourage only DVC stays.
Not sure if this is old news or not. Susan

 

[Donald is #1]

Very interesting! I just checked the DVC members website and I didn't see anything about it. I wonder if they made any other changes.

 

[bph256]

We just visited Doorway to Dreams store in Illinois today and were told the same thing. I think it becomes effective Jan 1, 2008? It was being done to simplify the banking rule as too many people were confused over the 50%/25% rules after the first six months.

 

[dhluvsDisney]

personally, I think the rule change for banking is much easier to remember and deal with. I wish they would simplify a lot more.

 

[Caskbill]

Keep in mind this would change the current banking window, which goes up to 10 months, to only 8 months.

With proper planning, and knowing the 50%/25% windows and how they worked someone could use 75% of their points and still have up to 2 months to the end of their use year to bank the remaining 25%. Now in the same situation they'd have to do that a minimum of 4 months ahead.

 

[Snookies]

I'll be interested in seeing poster reaction to this. If true, I wouldn't particularly care for this change at all. The 100%, 50%, 25% windows aren't really difficult to understand. Moreover, an all or nothing 8-month window would add an addtional planning complication for switching resorts at the 7-month window.

 

[Dean]

DVC has an extremely generous banking situation. Changing to allowing 100% banking up to 4 months prior (assuming that's the plan and not 8 months prior) would be about the same overall to me but better for some and worse for others. I doubt it'll have much impact on the 7 month window for reservations.

I own two other points systems. One allows 100% banking up to the 6 month window with a $25 fee to bank or borrow and you can only get 2 years worth of points into one use year and they are strict on this. But you can book any unit you have the points for up to 2 years out depending on when it falls in the calendar year as reservation open up 1 Jan, 2008 through the end of 2009. It's only one resort and you own a priority unit which you can book up to 3 months earlier than everyone one else, mine is an efficiency oceanfront during premier season with a full kitchen and I could book it for 2009 starting 1 Oct of this year.

The other points system I own is Bluegreen. You have automatic banking but cannot use banked (saved) points for the highest demand times at some resorts. You can also borrow one year but must pay all the dues prior to doing so with no fee to actually borrow the points. You can also pay dues with points if you are a gold or silver member.

 

[rigsby25]

I never have anything to bank!

 

[TyRy]

DVC has an extremely generous banking situation. Changing to allowing 100% banking up to 4 months prior (assuming that's the plan and not 8 months prior) would be about the same overall to me but better for some and worse for others. I doubt it'll have much impact on the 7 month window for reservations.

I'm with Dean on this one - as long I can bank 100% 4 months before my UY is over I'm fine with that. If, however, I only have 4 months to decide to bank my points (instead of the six and then still half at eight like it is currently) I'm not going to be happy about that.

 

[bph256]

The way it was explained to us today at the Doorway to Dreams was that you would get 8 months from the beginning of your use year to bank 100% of your points remaining from that use year. After the 8 months, the points not banked would be forfeited.

 

[Rozzie]

Is this effective now, or Jan 2008?

I have about 30 points to bank (UY FEB), so am I just SOL? I sure would liked a little warning. Actually if it's effective today, I will be pretty peeved that the rules were changed without any notification. 30 points lost!!

 

[bph256]

We discussed numerous things and we did not remember if this had a specific date of implementation (possibly Jan 2008). I seriously doubt DVC would make something like this effective immediately. Most likely it would begin with use years after the decided implementation date.

 

[byoung]

Doesn't matter to me, usually I have my trips booked by Feb and banked the unused points then to book in Dec. UY is DEC.

 

[Teyedoubleguhrrrr]

Wonder if this is something that will be brought up at the association meeting?? (along with some of the other rumors floating out there like OKW contract extensions, OKW booking categories (I wish SSR was on there too) and the like.

While this hasn't affected us so far (we're still pretty new and tend to plan WAY out since we revolve around school calendars for both myself and the kiddos...) I can see a lot of owners having some issues with this. It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out.

 

[Snookies]

...I doubt it'll have much impact on the 7 month window for reservations....

On second thought, I think you're probably right. I originally read this to mean 8 months prior rather than 4 months prior.

 

[Maistre Gracey]

I don't like it at all. We take about 3 WDW trips per year, one of which is in May. We had planned to use our AKV points for that trip. With a September UY, if we need to cancel we would lose all of our AKV points for that year (assuming we couldn't rebook).

If I had known this a few months back, I would have made one of my AKV contracts a new master with a different UY.

MG

 

[OneMoreTry]

8 months prior would be very difficult.

4 months prior would be great.

 

[VLee]

Prefer the banking timeframe in place now with the percentages. It gives me longer to bank as I have trips scattered throughout the year. I always have one scheduled the month before my use year. (June)

 

[LisaS]

I don't like it at all. We take about 3 WDW trips per year, one of which is in May. We had planned to use our AKV points for that trip. With a September UY, if we need to cancel we would lose all of our AKV points for that year (assuming we couldn't rebook).

If I had known this a few months back, I would have made one of my AKV contracts a new master with a different UY.

MG

Actually I think this helps you (I'm in a similar situation, but with an Oct UY.) In order to avoid your points going into holding, you would have to cancel at least 31 days prior to check-in. For a May trip, that means cancelling no later than some time in April. With the new rules, you would still be in your 100% banking window (Sep 1 - Apr 30) and could bank all of your points. Under the current rules, you would be in your 50% banking window.

If you cancelled your trip in May, yes you would be beyond all banking deadlines but then again, your points would be going into the holding account and not be bankable anyway.

 

[Dean]

I don't like it at all. We take about 3 WDW trips per year, one of which is in May. We had planned to use our AKV points for that trip. With a September UY, if we need to cancel we would lose all of our AKV points for that year (assuming we couldn't rebook).

If I had known this a few months back, I would have made one of my AKV contracts a new master with a different UY.

MG

Again I am assuming this would extend the 100% banking window by 2 months but shorten the overall banking window also by 2 months. We don't know for sure it's a real issue but the variety and direction of information would suggest it's likely accurate. This would help anyone who needed to bank more points a little later and hurt anyone who needed to bank a few points much later. But it does take away one of the major advantages of having multiple contracts under one Master, namely the cumulative banking percentages for the 25% & 50% windows. It's a reasonable move overall and one that most people should be able to easily adapt to long term. And it points out that things can and do change, at times, in a way that could affect the nature and reasonableness of any given person's membership.