Opinion About Potential Add-on Contract

[Cfrone]

Just looking for some thoughts/recommendations/opinions about a potential small add-on contract.

We currently own at VGF and have casually been kicking-around the idea of adding on a small contract (50-75 pts). We realize that the easiest (and probably by far the preferred) strategy would be to add a small VGF contract in our current use year - certainly makes things significantly easier on a number of levels. However, we also realize that trying to find that specific contract (points, use year, home resort, reasonable price, etc.) might be a challenge.

That being said, we might consider a small add-on at another resort. We know there are some benefits to having two home resorts but also some challenges.

Couple of questions:

1. If we do two different home resorts (perhaps VGF and SSR or BLT), does the use year really matter at that point? I'm assuming that while the same use year would help in terms of keeping track of banking deadlines and whatnot, since it would be two different resorts/contracts, the use year isn't tremendously critical.

2. For those occasions when we want to use both sets of points for one trip, how much of a pain is it come booking time? I'm assuming we can minimize some of the hassle if we end up doing split stays between VGF and SSR/BLT.

3. Any other problems/hassles/downside to potentially adding on a small contract that is NOT VGF (current home resort)?

Appreciate any feedback/insight!

 

[davidl81]

I like keeping the same UY because you only have one member number to deal with. Just easier to deal with overall IMO. Buying an add on at SSR would save you a good bit of money, but are you okay with split stays? VGF can be hard to book at 7 months, so those add on points may have to be used elsewhere.

And at that small point amount I would check with Disney direct and se if there are any points you could buy. The $per point is higher, but matching UY is simple and the total $ amount won't be much on a 50 point contract.

 

[TTA Rider Matt]

There are bigger experts on here than me, but here are my thoughts...

1. Some people like having multiple use years with multiple resorts. This allows you to have the ability to buy 24 one time points per contract per use year, so you can buy up to 48 a year if you wanted to plan a bigger trip. You can also waitlist multiple reservations at once. Personally, I find it easier having all of my points in the same UY, because of my reasoning in #2...

2. Using both sets of points can be a little bit of a pain, as the points do not combine at 7 months as they would if you had the same UY. You would have to transfer points from one of your contracts to the other if you wanted to use them to book one long stay. Unless, like you said, you made it a split stay between your two home resorts. That could be a benefit to buying at another resort, specifically BLT of the two you mentioned, in that you can book your whole split stay at 11 months.

3. I like the idea of having multiple resorts, especially at least one of those resorts being at a difficult to book resort. Only downside I see for you is if you want to book a longer VGF stay, you would have to wait for 7 months to use your BLT/SSR points, and by then, depending on what accommodations you want at VGF, availability can be difficult.

Just my opinions, and like I said, there are a lot of others on here with more significant DVC knowledge than I have. One thing I think most of us would agree upon though, is that more points is better!

 

[dvc lover 1970]

I own multiple resorts and multiple use years. I like have multiple years because I of the various banking windows.

 

[RoseGold]

If you are traveling peak, or booking VGF studios, this could be a real issue.

If you are traveling when there is usually VGF availability, you could add on some SSR with your UY and add on VGF at 7 month. That would stretch your VGF points a lot -- that's my plan.

In this context, UY matters a lot. It might as well be two different people booking. There's a drop down you have to choose your contract, and you can't combine them at all.

 

[Sandisw]

Just to add, if you have two UYs, even at the same resort, you can simply book some nights on one contract and some on the other if you don’t want to deal with transfers. Then ask MS to link the two reservations.

It can mean borrowing on one while having some stray points on the other, but is a way to not have to transfer,

We can now use transferred points online so that does seem to help, although I haven’t read any reports where people were successful at the 11 month mark online.

The different resorts would be nice if you like split stays and want home resort advantage. But, the benefit of SSR is that for many of the times of the year, you can use them to get other places especially in 1 bedrooms,

So, the second UY really comes down to how much extra work do you want to do I would also say to make sure that if you do have a typical time of travel and plan to use both sets of points for the same trip, you consider the second UY be conducive to that to limit issues if you had a trip canceled.

I own Aug and Dec UY. I only use my Aug points for trips Aug to March and my Dec points for December, and then not again until trips April through July.

 

[MICKIMINI]

We have two resorts and two UY's. So far, no big deal but it does take more planning. I just made a split reservation at the same resort (w/in 7 mo) with two different contracts with two different UY's. I reserved four nights under one contract and then two consecutive nights with another. DVC made a note to link the reservations so my son and DIL don't have to move. Next fall we plan to stay at one resort for four nights and then the other for ten. We love both resorts and look forward to being at both!