New member, first reservation: a few Qs

[gkrykewy]

My wife and I just split a set of AKV points with my parents (taking advantage of the incentive for just having returned from Disney), and we're extremely excited about the membership. AKL is one of our favorite places in the world, so the chance to own a piece and visit regularly is awesome. Anyway, a few questions (note that we haven't received our membership packet/documentation yet):

1. My mom called the day after our commitment and made a 7 night reservation for March 08. If she decides to be more point-frugal and knock off the saturday (cutting it down to 6 nights), would we be able to bank those points for use in the 08 use year, or is our ability to bank them limited by the fact that they would have been used in a reservation and then cancelled? Our use year is August.

2. What are the general rules on banking? If our use year is August, by when will we need to bank each year? If we bank 07 points into 08, can we bank them again into 09, or would we need to use them in 08?

3. My dad will definitely be golfing at WDW as he has in the past, and I'm trying to figure out whether the $50 annual golf membership would be worthwhile to him. The perks listed (club cleaning, transportation to/from courses, etc) are perks he previously got free anyway when staying in WDW. Are these things no longer free without the membership? If so, that would justify the $50, but I don't know whether the modest green fee discounts would be enough on their own to justify it.

THANKS!

 

[RobDoc]

No- banking is not limited in any way when points have been used previously. Any cancellations simply return the points to your account to be used again or banked - subject to banking deadlines.

Members have 6 months to bank up to 100% of your points, 9 months to bank up to 50% and up to 10 months to bank up to 25%. Those totals are cumulative, so if you have already banked 50% or more at 6 months, no more points may be banked. Banked points must be used by the end of the next Use Year or they will expire. With an August Use Year, you would have until the end of January to bank up 100%, thru April 30 to bank up to 50% and thru May 31 to bank up to 25% of your total points. No points may be banked in June or July for the August Use Year.

The DVC golf membership can be well worth it - based on how much you will play. Be sure to do the math.


Welcome to DVC and to the DIS!

 

[LisaS]

Welcome home, gkrykewy!

To add to what Doc already explained, if you decide to drop that Saturday night just be sure to make the change at least 31 days prior to your check-in date. If you cancel any days of your trip within 30 days of check-in, the points go into "holding" status. Points in holding cannot be banked and can only be used to book a stay 60 days or less from check-in. If you cancel that Saturday night at least 31 days prior to your check-in date, then there will be no restrictions on the points, other than your banking deadlines.

If we bank 07 points into 08, can we bank them again into 09, or would we need to use them in 08?

Banked points cannot be banked again nor can then be "unbanked". So if you bank '07 points into your '08 Use Year, you must use them for a stay between Aug 1, 2008 and Jul 31, 2009.

 

[JimMIA]

First of all, Welcome Home!

Secondly, I'd recommend that both you and your parents go to www.caskbill.com and download Bill's superb DVC Planner software. It's FREE for personal use, and it's an essential tool. It gives you all of the points for all of the resorts, banking deadlines, 11- and 7-month windows, and a ton of other information.

Also, once you get set up on the DVC Member website, the My DVC area there will show exactly how many points you have available for banking and when the deadlines are. But get Bill's software anyway.

You may also want to track your usage with a spreadsheet to keep track of how many points you have and how many your parents have. Multiple owners present some challenges (we have three families who use our account) so you're going to need to figure out how you will account for the points.

You also need to communicate well. It is possible for one of you to mess the other up if you don't communicate about point decisions you've made.

 

[gkrykewy]

Thanks for the help, everyone!

 

[jimmacmn]

3. My dad will definitely be golfing at WDW as he has in the past, and I'm trying to figure out whether the $50 annual golf membership would be worthwhile to him. The perks listed (club cleaning, transportation to/from courses, etc) are perks he previously got free anyway when staying in WDW. Are these things no longer free without the membership? If so, that would justify the $50, but I don't know whether the modest green fee discounts would be enough on their own to justify it.

March is one of the more costly times to golf at WDW and the discount for the DVC Golf membership is greater during this season than in some of the other seasons. If your Dad is playing one round by himself during the entire trip, the $50.00 may not be a wise purchase. If he will be golfing with others in your group or on multiple days, it can pay for itself very quickly. The DVC Golf Membership allows the member and 3 guests to all get the membership pricing for each round so the savings add up very quickly in this scenario.