No perfect use year

[pinkxray]

How do you pick a use year when you don’t have a set travel time? My favorite month for Disney is Nov. We have been in Sept, Oct, Nov,Jan,Feb,April and June.
I have a long list of times when I would like to travel such as Star Wars rundisney weekend, Mother’s Day, a Dec. trip. My birthday is also in June, usually a few days after school is out.
We have always taken DD16 out for long weekends to Disney because she was able to handle It. I know have a 5 year old and 3 year old who have to deal with school. Maybe they won’t handle missing school as much.
I was thinking Oct. use year since I love fall but am now thinking maybe April use year. It will still cover Oct/Nov but also be good for April/June that I will probably be stuck traveling with the kids.
I am also only buying a small contract so there will be times where I have to cover my stay with cash. So if I was to hit Marathon weekend I could use cash for that or something along those lines?

Thoughts?

 

[robinb]

How do you pick a use year when you don’t have a set travel time? My favorite month for Disney is Nov. We have been in Sept, Oct, Nov,Jan,Feb,April and June.
I have a long list of times when I would like to travel such as Star Wars rundisney weekend, Mother’s Day, a Dec. trip. My birthday is also in June, usually a few days after school is out.
We have always taken DD16 out for long weekends to Disney because she was able to handle It. I know have a 5 year old and 3 year old who have to deal with school. Maybe they won’t handle missing school as much.
I was thinking Oct. use year since I love fall but am now thinking maybe April use year. It will still cover Oct/Nov but also be good for April/June that I will probably be stuck traveling with the kids.
I am also only buying a small contract so there will be times where I have to cover my stay with cash. So if I was to hit Marathon weekend I could use cash for that or something along those lines?

Thoughts?

Your kids schedule should drive your UY in my opinion. You want a UY where you can easily use DVC points during school breaks and still be able to bank points if you end up needing to cancel. An April UY would be good for you because you will get your points right before the summer and have until November 30th to bank. That would cover Christmas/NYE too since you need to cancel reservations 31 days in advance or your points go into holding. It won't work well for March Spring Breaks.

 

[pinkxray]

Your kids schedule should drive your UY in my opinion. You want a UY where you can easily use DVC points during school breaks and still be able to bank points if you end up needing to cancel. An April UY would be good for you because you will get your points right before the summer and have until November 30th to bank. That would cover Christmas/NYE too since you need to cancel reservations 31 days in advance or your points go into holding. It won't work well for March Spring Breaks.

Thanks! We always have April spring break here. I think March is the one month of the year I have never been to Disney.

 

[bashuck]

If you are going to continue to go during each season of the year, it is true picking a specific use year is less important. At that point I would simply say, when would you most likely need to cancel last minute. For me that would be during winter if there was terribly bad weather, in which case an Oct or Nov use year would be best. Points would go into holding on such a trip, but I would have many months to try and use them.

 

[jarestel]

As a long time owner, I can testify that the "perfect" use year for one period in one's life may become problematic as the years pass and circumstances change. I think the best any of us can do is to evaluate present and anticipated future travel patterns and give it our best shot.

Conventional board wisdom disagrees vehemently with me, but I don't think use years are all that important as long as you have a decent amount of control over your vacation schedule. Pandemics do play havoc with vacation scheduling, I admit, but as long as they don't become as common as "storms of the century", I can deal with some lost points if need be. YMMV.

 

[Sandisw]

Looks like July and August are times that might be the least likely months to go so I might go with Sept UY.

 

[BethTX]

March can have such crazy weather, and spring break crowds start!

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

We also travel thru out much of the year so my criteria became looking at the months I was least likely to travel and selecting a UY that started just after those months.

 

[4luv2cdisney]

I would weigh how important / likely September is for you to travel and choose between Sept and Oct. I find Sept very hard to travel with kids in school and also....hurricanes. As you know, Sept and Oct are both harder to find UYs (especially for some resorts) so, pick your poison. Sept has a banking deadline end of April, whereas Oct is end of May. You are going to cancel at least 31 days before unless it's a real emergency. But if it is a real emergency and you cancel your June trip, you have the easier to book summer months to use those points. Personally, I'd feel safer with Oct if you find yourself travelling in June. In which case, I'd never use my DVC for September. So, I guess, if you think you'd be paying cash for some trips, make it your Sept trip.

We go for Thanksgiving a lot. My kids always had the whole week off, but even if they only have off Thursday and Friday, its only 3 more days. My college daughter had from mid Dec thru the whole month of January off. So, then it was just about what the other could miss. Their Spring breaks never aligned once she started college.

It is going to change over time no matter what you decide.

 

[pinkxray]

Thank you all the opinions. I think my top choice is still October but maybe instead of only looking at Oct. I can open up my search to Sept. and maybe April use year. I am only looking for a small contract around 100pts so that already limits my options.

 

[Deb & Bill]

We have most of our points with a Sept UY and a small 50 point contract with Dec UY. We like to go late Sept to mid-Oct, mid-Nov, early Dec, late Jan, early May. We haven't had to cancel a trip yet other than our early May trip this year and even if they allowed late banking, we were find with banking. Sept might work for you.