Planning

[cinderella78]

How far out do you generally plan how you are going to use your points? I don't mean 11 months or 7 months out, I mean years. So far I think I've planned how we are going to use our points until 2018…

We are new DVC members and just took our first trip to Aulani in Oct. I can't believe we have to wait until next Aug for our next trip (we will be heading to VGC).

Heidi

 

[dansamy]

I'm planning the next three use years right now. I was planning to borrow to take family next December, but my sister is thinking of postponing to December 2015. I need to talk to my mom, but I think that works better for her too. If so, we'll probably do our nuclear family only for next F&W with BLT points. Bank 2014, borrow 2016 AKV points for a big family December trip in 2015.

 

[com_op_2000]

Usually planning about 3-4 years out.
For our 2011, 25th anniversary cruise started planning point usage in 2007.
For our upcoming family cruise, found out DD was having DGS in Feb' 11, started planning points at that time for a cruise in May '14.
For our 30th, in '16 started planning last year.
Am I looking too far ahead?

 

[sgtpet]

I tend to plan 3 -4 years in advance. Right now I don't have the energy to project out beyond the next three. My two older children will be elder to mid teens by then and i cannot predict what their interests will be at that point.

Disney Fantasy 2014

Disneyland 2015/ Maybe WDW trip?

Aulani/Hawaii 2016

 

[DreamerWDW]

I'd say 2-3 years. I LOVE LOVE LOVE planning out and would probably go even further, but too many things change to really make it worth while. Sometimes, even my 2 year plan doesn't end up the way I thought. I truly enjoy crunching the DVC points though and how I might use them.

 

[lodge]

We have vacations planned for the next 4 years.....general dates though. We rotate contracts, resorts, and countries. I'm in my glory planning like this. A VGC reservation opened up yesterday, so that was thrown in now too.

 

[DVC Sue]

I plan 3 years out. I do keep some free for last minute trips.

 

[Kidanifan08]

We try to plan about 3 years out, although we could probably go further. Now that our son is in school, we know that we will primarily visit WDW in the summer, so that really narrows down our travel dates. We already know who our guests will be in 2014 and 2015. We have been getting AP's, so I like to think about how we can maximize the value of those by taking two 7+ day trips on one pass; so that takes some advanced planning.

 

[disfanforlife]

Usually only about a year in advance. But, right now, I have a good idea for a little further out - either January or March 2015. It all depends on if my daughter ends up doing the DCP that year or not.

 

[Dean]

How far out do you generally plan how you are going to use your points? I don't mean 11 months or 7 months out, I mean years. So far I think I've planned how we are going to use our points until 2018…

We are new DVC members and just took our first trip to Aulani in Oct. I can't believe we have to wait until next Aug for our next trip (we will be heading to VGC).

Heidi

We plan specifics 2 to 2.5 years in advance and make reservations day 1 when applicable which for 2 different timeshares I use tends to be right at 15 months out for either the direct reservation or the VIP wait list. Then we plan generically big picture another 1 to 2 years out.

 

[amym2]

So far we've only planned a couple of years out. When we joined in Sept 2011, we knew we'd do an Orlando trip in Oct 2012 (did OKW and THV) and Aulani in Oct 2013. Now we're planning an AKV trip (hopefully) for Oct 2014. Beyond that, I'm really not sure. With an almost 10 and a 12 year old, it's hard to know how their school/sports/music activities will limit us in the future. We're hoping to get to Europe with the kids in 2016 when they are 12 and almost 15, although after our flight home from Hawaii, we're thinking maybe we should delay that a bit. We did DLR in 2010 before joining DVC, so maybe we'll consider that in 2015. Or the kids want to go back to Williamsburg, VA, so maybe we'll look to trade out points for that. Fun to dream about!

 

[dianeschlicht]

We are usually planning point usage for 2-3 years out. Lately though, I've been in borrow mode so far out because of using too many points for our Aulani trip. I really need to sit down and figure out the next couple of years beyond next March, because I haven't really made any plans beyond that. It's time to let the point totals recoup a bit before I plan anything big again.

 

[Geomom]

I'd say 2-3 years, but we have a general plan until the kids are out of school. We buy an annual pass every other year, so I know we'll do April, a fall trip, February, April, fall trip, February. That 14 month break is really hard.

We also try to invite friends/family every couple of years so that's part of our planning. Right now we have a trip booked for February 2014. We're hoping that friends will go with us in April 2015...and I want to save enough points for us to do a short fall trip as well, so I've already have 2 options I can present to my friends.

This year required more point planning than usual. We decided to throw in an extra trip in 2013. We did 7 nights in April, 6 in August, and 3 in October. With borrowing...I managed this year so well that we only have 4 points left that we could have borrowed.

 

[Anal Annie]

We are usually planning point usage for 2-3 years out. Lately though, I've been in borrow mode so far out because of using too many points for our Aulani trip. I really need to sit down and figure out the next couple of years beyond next March, because I haven't really made any plans beyond that. It's time to let the point totals recoup a bit before I plan anything big again.

Ditto! We usually work on the 2-3 year plan with tentative ideas for trips.

We had banked points to use for our trip to DL & Aulani last summer which we then had to cancel at the last minute. The points would've gone into holding and we had to use 'em or lose 'em but luckily we were able to change our plans into driving to FL instead. But now we want to re-plan the DL / Aulani trip for NEXT summer and we're approx. 100 points short of what we had to work with last time because a lot of those were banked. Not sure how it's going to work out yet. I know we will have to borrow a lot to re-plan the trip and will have to make some cuts (probably a couple less nights and no OV). The problem is going to be that then we'll be in a perpetual cycle of borrowing unless maybe we can figure out a way to afford a cruise or something in 2015. Then we could "catch up".

 

[ludari]

I don't plan years I'm lucky to plan six months ahead of time. I've been lucky to get the resorts and dates I choose.

 

[WilsonFlyer]

Good GOD!

I'm lucky if I can plan my life 6-7 months out. Doesn't work well for DVC. I hope as I get older (Assuming I keep living), maybe it will get easier but I don't see any sign of it getting any better anytime soon.

This is BAD if you're DVC and that's probably the one thing I least understood when I bought in. I have spent enough vacations at SSR now that I've actually started to like the place! (Kidding SSR lovers! Don't shoot me! )

I wish I could plan my life and vacations to 2018. I think I wish this. No. Now that I think about it, no I don't. I couldn't live like that but that's just me.

More power to ya. Have at it if that's the way you roll. I just couldn't and wouldn't if I could. I admit though, 11 months would really be nice. A goal to shoot for.

 

[Dean]

Good GOD!

I'm lucky if I can plan my life 6-7 months out. Doesn't work well for DVC. I hope as I get older (Assuming I keep living), maybe it will get easier but I don't see any sign of it getting any better anytime soon.

This is BAD if you're DVC and that's probably the one thing I least understood when I bought in. I have spent enough vacations at SSR now that I've actually started to like the place! (Kidding SSR lovers! Don't shoot me! )

I wish I could plan my life and vacations to 2018. I think I wish this. No. Now that I think about it, no I don't. I couldn't live like that but that's just me.

More power to ya. Have at it if that's the way you roll. I just couldn't and wouldn't if I could. I admit though, 11 months would really be nice. A goal to shoot for.

I know a lot of people make DVC work that can't plan 7 months or more out. However, as you suggest, it is a compromise and why I think it's unreasonable to buy if one cannot plan at least 7 months out. I think there are some approaches that can make it work even buying in for resale but mostly when planning to use DVC for only part of the trips to give more flexibility.

 

[cinderella78]

Ditto! We usually work on the 2-3 year plan with tentative ideas for trips.

We had banked points to use for our trip to DL & Aulani last summer which we then had to cancel at the last minute. The points would've gone into holding and we had to use 'em or lose 'em but luckily we were able to change our plans into driving to FL instead. But now we want to re-plan the DL / Aulani trip for NEXT summer and we're approx. 100 points short of what we had to work with last time because a lot of those were banked. Not sure how it's going to work out yet. I know we will have to borrow a lot to re-plan the trip and will have to make some cuts (probably a couple less nights and no OV). The problem is going to be that then we'll be in a perpetual cycle of borrowing unless maybe we can figure out a way to afford a cruise or something in 2015. Then we could "catch up".

We just got back from Aulani - don't stress about trying to get an OV at Aulani. You can book a pool view and will generally still get an ov. The pool is right in front of the ocean, OR we booked an island view, but requesed a room in the Ewa tower overlooking the lawn where they have the starlight hui and we had a partial ocean view there as well. I posted pictures in the aulani villas and views thread. And seriously if you can swing it TOTALLY go to Aulani. We were thinking of going to WDW for our next big dvc trip, but we loved it so much we are going to go back to Aulani in 2015 instead.

H

 

[Anal Annie]

We just got back from Aulani - don't stress about trying to get an OV at Aulani. You can book a pool view and will generally still get an ov. The pool is right in front of the ocean, OR we booked an island view, but requesed a room in the Ewa tower overlooking the lawn where they have the starlight hui and we had a partial ocean view there as well. I posted pictures in the aulani villas and views thread. And seriously if you can swing it TOTALLY go to Aulani. We were thinking of going to WDW for our next big dvc trip, but we loved it so much we are going to go back to Aulani in 2015 instead.

H

I think we will be lucky to come up with enough points for an IV next time around - problem was last year when we booked (online at 8:00 am) the lower point views were already booked. Because I was stalking the site I knew this was likely and we just planned on grabbing the OV. At the time I booked we got the last one of those for the 7 nights we wanted. We felt lucky to have gotten in at all. Same goes with booking a studio at VGC - we felt extremely blessed to have been able to snag one of those pre-Aulani. I think summer probably has a much higher demand than Oct. so the planning is tougher. We have $2K in airfare credits we need to re-book or lose on Alaska Air so I am keeping my fingers crossed we don't have to let it go to waste. But it all hinges on being able to "get in".