Off into the Wild West of owning different Use Years!

[Stargazer65]

Oh no, what have I done!!! Well, I said I wouldn’t do that. Another UY will just complicate things. I started with a June UY and kept to that axiom with my second contract. I was going to look for a third June UY contract. But then we went to WDW, and toured the WL grounds while we were there. A week later a September contract popped for BRV that I liked. Now it passed ROFR so it is pretty much a done deal.

I justified it in my head:
“We go there in the fall and occasional holidays, so September is better than June for us”
“It’s WL, which is now one of my favorites, so we NEED that”
“June UY contracts will be for family vacation, this one will be for separate 2nd, 3rd… honeymoon getaways”
“Blah, blah, blah…” (Rationale is continuing in my head while fingers hit the make offer button) LOL too late to stop it!!

Actually, I like the idea of using the contract for another purpose. I know some people get different UYs because they go at different times of the year.

For those who have them, how do you use your different UY contracts? Did you get different UYs on purpose, or did you get sucked into it unwittingly like me haha?

11/3 Edit - Lots of good info contributed by members about using UY's on a "sister" thread:
https://www.disboards.com/threads/does-a-different-uy-require-making-a-separate-reservation.3817391/

 

[RoseGold]

I care about math more than I care about UY. You will be fine.

You can now do multiple waitlist or one time use points. So, MORE flexible. But then, I like split stays and go more than once a year, so NBD to me.

 

[Lorana]

Oh no, what have I done!!! Well, I said I wouldn’t do that. Another UY will just complicate things. I started with a June UY and kept to that axiom with my second contract. I was going to look for a third June UY contract. But then we went to WDW, and toured the WL grounds while we were there. A week later a September contract popped for BRV that I liked. Now it passed ROFR so it is pretty much a done deal.

I justified it in my head:
“We go there in the fall and occasional holidays, so September is better than June for us”
“It’s WL, which is now one of my favorites, so we NEED that”
“June UY contracts will be for family vacation, this one will be for separate 2nd, 3rd… honeymoon getaways”
“Blah, blah, blah…” (Rationale is continuing in my head while fingers hit the make offer button) LOL too late to stop it!!

Actually, I like the idea of using the contract for another purpose. I know some people get different UYs because they go at different times of the year.

For those who have them, how do you use your different UY contracts? Did you get different UYs on purpose, or did you get sucked into it unwittingly like me haha?

I'm right there with you!! I said "never!" because I wanted the simplicity of one membership, and the ease of combining points at 7 months. But then my dream VGC showed up with an Oct UY, it just passed ROFR, and now I'm about to end up with 2 UYs as well!

For me, it will definitely be for different purposes, especially as the UYs I have are right next to each other: all my current points are in a SEP UY and this is for most of our trips. We have multiple home resorts, but the option of combining for big trips at 7 months.

My OCT UY is my VGC contracts, and that is just for use now for Disneyland trips. The only challenge is I'd need to transfer points in if I ever wanted a "bigger" trip since (presuming borrowing restrictions lift), I'd only ever at most have 186 points, which can only ever get 1 night in a Grand Villa and at most 3 nights in a 2BR. So at some point the question would be whether to add on - more VGC, or DL Tower if/when it opens, or something crazy like Aulani (given that we'd be inclined to stop at DL on our way out to Aulani since we live on the East Coast).

I do keep wondering if I should pick up another UY at some point. Our favorite time to travel is Oct-Dec, so right now it's perfect for that. But our anniversary is in August, and a Sep UY introduces risk for traveling May-Aug. I don't see us doing it often, mind you, so it may not be worth it -- and chances are that timeframe is likely to be HHI and/or VBR; I'll honestly just wait and see for now if it feels like something we should do. But even though I picked up an HHI 50-pointer (in ROFR) in my Sep UY, I'm now wondering if I should have looked to pick one up with a FEB or MAR UY instead.

 

[CaoilinnsMom]

I am also buying a, resale, second use year small contract at VGC. I have never worried about when my first use year month was for vacation planning purposes. I also have never had to cancel a trip last minute. Hoping it won't start happening now. I guess my only worry is transfer points...

 

[Mouse511]

Based on your assessment, I think we may go that route as well. Trying to find our same use year has been very challenging.

 

[bobbiwoz]

It was something I decided I didn’t want to deal with it. Best wishes as you do!

 

[TexasChick123]

I have 4 different UYs for 4 different resorts. I keep all UYs the same for any particular resort if I get additional contracts. In other words, all my VGF contracts are February. I own 3 different VGF contracts. All of my BLT contracts are June. I own 3 there as well.

 

[dvc lover 1970]

I have multiple use years and contracts. Just balance when you book and banking windows

 

[pirate33]

I like it myself. I have three UYs, one for each of three different resorts. I will probably buy additional points at two of those resorts and most likely will keep the same UY per resort because that is much simpler to track.

 

[kboo]

I have 2 UY, Feb and Aug, across 3 resorts. The general idea was to use the FEB UY within their banking window, and the Aug UY within their banking window, if we ever had to cancel a trip, we'd be within our banking window and could bank until the next year. Like @TexasChick123, we have multiple contracts at each resort, but each resort's points are all in the same UY to be used together.

In the Before Times, that meant that our Feb points would be used for President's week, Easter week, and/or summer break, which for us goes just past Labor Day. Aug UY would be for fall/winter holidays. That's generally how it worked, until the pandemic.

Luckily, our 2020 trips had been booked with mostly current year points, and we were able to cancel and reschedule with those points within our banking window pretty well. As the pandemic has dragged on, however, we find ourselves with little chunks of points that are going to expire soon that are the result of carrying points from canceled trips forward and despite booking strangely split trips (EG 1 night at CCV with Feb points and the next night in the same size room at CCV with Aug points), we find ourselves with a very few points expiring soon-ish. Generally, though, if we took a longer trip in August (as we have for many years past), we'd do 4-6 nights at Feb home resort, then a split stay finishing with 4-6 nights at Aug home resort. It also makes it easier to switch just part of the stay to a different resort.

 

[sethschroeder]

Unless you are using the contracts separately I wouldn't do it.

How much are you going to really save? Lets say you get a $85 vs 90 for a 100 point contract at VWL. That is $500 or $22/year to not have to deal with multiple contracts, issues with transfer points, not being able to combine points readily, and the headache of math around UY difference.

I didn't think it was an issue originally but so glad I was able to consolidate my UY earlier this year to just April. My head was spinning as we were needing to move around stays, dealing with the transferred points, and bank dates.

 

[Mouse511]

I would agree, but for us, finding smaller point October use contracts has been very difficult.

 

[fgaini]

I also ended up buying a second use year (aulani subsidizes are not so easy to find and had to accept the ma different use year).
So far it has not been terrible. Only issue is making long reservation without having to split or call Disney.