newbie question

[tlen]

Hi everyone! We just purchased 160 pts in BLT and I am very excited to start my vacation planning.
I believe that I have a good understanding of the banking and borrowing of points but I do have a question. With the current incentives that disney is providing we will get 320 points this year so after we take our vacation I will be banking aprox 160 points to 2012 give or take Now say I want to do the disney cruise next year and I have 160 banked 2011 pts 160 2012 pts and I borrow 160 2013 pts for a total of 480pts.What if the cruise costs 500 pts and I have nowhere left to bank or borrow, will disney allow me to purchase the extra 20 pts from them or am I not able to do the cruise due to my lack of points? Thanks for the help!!!!

 

[BirdsOfPreyDave]

You have a few options open to you. One is to rent points from another member. To do this, you'd need to find someone (possibly through the DIS DVC rental board) who has points they can't use. You pay them to transfer their points into your account. It's often difficult to find someone willing to do this, though, if you're looking for a small number of points. Members are only allowed one transfer transaction during a use year.

For 24 or fewer points, you can purcase one-time points directly from DVC. Here are the details from the member web site:

As a Disney Vacation Club Member, occasionally you may find yourself in need of just few extra vacation points in order to book that perfect dream vacation. Previously, this required borrowing vacation points from a future use year, but very recently a new alternative was introduced. They're called "one-time-use" vacation points and are available for a fee of $15 ($13.33 plus $1.67 tax) per vacation point. Availability of one-time-use vacation points may be limited or suspended from time to time, and the fee is subject to change.

Details:

•One-time-use vacation points are vacation points available for Disney Vacation Club Members to use as an alternative to borrowing vacation points from the following use year's allotment.

•You can obtain a maximum of 24 one-time-use vacation points once per use year per membership.

•A maximum of 24 one-time-use vacation points are processed in a single transaction, not multiple transactions.

•The fee for one-time-use vacation points is $15 (including tax) per vacation point, and is subject to change.

•One-time-use vacation points expire according to the use year of the reservation booked and are non-refundable, non-transferable and cannot be banked or borrowed.

•One-time-use vacation points are not available for waitlist reservations.

•One-time-use vacation points cannot be applied retroactively to existing reservations.

•One-time-use vacation points are only available for Members whose contract is closed and in good standing.

•One-time-use vacation points are available only for Disney Vacation Club resorts, Disney Collection, Adventurer Collection and World Passport Collection reservations.

•One-time-use vacation points used for Disney Vacation Club resort reservations can only be used up to 7 months prior to arrival.

•One-time-use vacation points for Disney Collection, Adventurer Collection and World Passport reservations can be used according to the booking guidelines for each individual collection.

A third option is to pay cash for a member of your party instead of using points for them. Note, though, that each person needs to be paid entirely in points or cash. Aside from the one-time-use points discussed above, you can't say you want to pay part of a person with points and part with cash.

 

[tlen]

Thank you very much!!

 

[palaemon]

Since the OP would need to buy the one-time use points, and they're probably planning more than 7-months out, can they book all but one person at 11 (or whatever) months and the last one at 7 months (to take advantage of the one- time points)???

 

[CarolMN]

Since the OP would need to buy the one-time use points, and they're probably planning more than 7-months out, can they book all but one person at 11 (or whatever) months and the last one at 7 months (to take advantage of the one- time points)???

Good question. AFAIK, no one has yet posted anything relating to that situation. If someone gets an answer from MS, we hope they will report the answer.

MS may make an exception in these cases, and allow use of the 1-time points to book a cruise. But I really do not know if they will.

FWIW, DVC members can book DCL cruises up to 2 years before the scheduled departure date.

If MS cannot make an exception, adding someone to the cruise reservation later will require paying another $95 fee. If there are children going along, it may be easier to just pay cash for one of the children.