VWLforever
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Aug 16, 2019
- Messages
- 48
Wanted to share my experience because I've seen several comments from folks who share my June UY and are looking at their expiring banked points. I was in the exact same position.
I happened to be already at WDW for a nice long spring break vacation when the park closings were announced. We were at HS on Sunday evening, the day of the closure. It was the latest park open with EMH that night. Walking out was surreal, not only were the usual CM lining the street, but also every chef and server from all of the restaurants. As well as all the last college program folks, who had learned the night before they were being fired. Many of them were crying.
We still had seven nights left on our vacation at that point, and we stayed until the day before the resorts also shut down- which actually was fine and relaxing as we were at Beach Club.
For the Thursday night-Sunday portion of our trip, we were supposed to move to AKV concierge. Sad trombone. Sadder trombone was that the 150 points in that booking were banked points from our June 2018 UY.
Like everyone else, I found when I called DVC MS that there was nothing to be done to be able to use those points at a DVC resort, unless we booked something before June 1. And I hate to be a pessimist, but at this point I'm truly questioning if any of the resorts will even open back up by then- much less that I could make last minute travel work.
So, after discussing options with the CM on the phone, we ended up rolling the points into RCI. Thus, I now have 150 points that we can use to book something in their system. And they now don't expire on the RCI side until the end of December 2022.
Make no mistake, I have no false concept that RCI is a good use of DVC points. In almost every circumstance I would advise other members to not use DVC for RCI. But in this specific case- those of us with June UY and previously banked points that will expire- it seems like a fantastic opportunity. Will I likely get as much value for the points as if I had been able to use them in the DVC system? Almost certainly not. But in these strange times, I will end up getting 100% more value for them than I otherwise could have.
Just an FYI to anyone thinking of doing the same thing that I did- you have to move your points to RCI a minimum of 45 days before they expire to avoid some pretty drastic limits on how you can use them. So, April 15th is your deadline.
I really hope this helps some other member out...
I happened to be already at WDW for a nice long spring break vacation when the park closings were announced. We were at HS on Sunday evening, the day of the closure. It was the latest park open with EMH that night. Walking out was surreal, not only were the usual CM lining the street, but also every chef and server from all of the restaurants. As well as all the last college program folks, who had learned the night before they were being fired. Many of them were crying.
We still had seven nights left on our vacation at that point, and we stayed until the day before the resorts also shut down- which actually was fine and relaxing as we were at Beach Club.
For the Thursday night-Sunday portion of our trip, we were supposed to move to AKV concierge. Sad trombone. Sadder trombone was that the 150 points in that booking were banked points from our June 2018 UY.
Like everyone else, I found when I called DVC MS that there was nothing to be done to be able to use those points at a DVC resort, unless we booked something before June 1. And I hate to be a pessimist, but at this point I'm truly questioning if any of the resorts will even open back up by then- much less that I could make last minute travel work.
So, after discussing options with the CM on the phone, we ended up rolling the points into RCI. Thus, I now have 150 points that we can use to book something in their system. And they now don't expire on the RCI side until the end of December 2022.
Make no mistake, I have no false concept that RCI is a good use of DVC points. In almost every circumstance I would advise other members to not use DVC for RCI. But in this specific case- those of us with June UY and previously banked points that will expire- it seems like a fantastic opportunity. Will I likely get as much value for the points as if I had been able to use them in the DVC system? Almost certainly not. But in these strange times, I will end up getting 100% more value for them than I otherwise could have.
Just an FYI to anyone thinking of doing the same thing that I did- you have to move your points to RCI a minimum of 45 days before they expire to avoid some pretty drastic limits on how you can use them. So, April 15th is your deadline.
I really hope this helps some other member out...
