Points mix-up

[sjcampbl]

Hi all,

Can the experts on this forum please confirm or provide insight to the following?

It seems that when a reservation is made, a particular use-year's points are used for that reservation. In the event the reservation is cancelled, those points are returned to the specific use-year they came from.

A couple of examples...

A series of reservations were made to accommodate both my family plus my parents and sister. Banked points were used first followed by current year points. Then, my parents changed their schedule forcing us to redo our reservations. We switched from a two bedroom to a one bedroom. NOW THE KICKER... the new reservation for the one-bedroom was made before the cancellation of the two-bedroom even on the same telephone call. So, they used current use year points for the one-bedroom and gave us back banked points from the two-bedroom reservation. Note, this all occured months ago. Today I went to bank all my remaining points to next use-year thinking they were all current year points. Member Services told me that's not the case. I have a bunch of banked points that must be used in the next few months and half as many current use-year, bankable points as I thought!

Another example...

We have a December use year and a few days ago I made a reservation for this coming December. Since I made the reservation a few days ago, but only banked the points today, the reservation used the next use-year's points. Luckily, because of the above fiasco the reservation agent caught this, backed out the reservation, banked our points, and re-entered the reservation. Now it uses banked points.

I've been a DVC member for 5 years now and thought I knew everything about how the points, banking, and use-years worked. I obviously was much more ignorant than I thought. This doesn't sit well with me at all, and definitely doesn't seem right.

 

[Chuck S]

In your first scenario, they did indeed make the one bedroom reservation first with current points, as they should have, otherwise someone else may have grabbed it while they were cancelling the two bedroom reservation, and you could have nowhere to stay. However, once the reservaton was made, the CM could have then re-allocated those banked points to be used for the one bedroom. I have found, though, that they often do not do this unless you ask, and you may need a supervisor to do it if the CM is new and doesn't know how to do that.

I had to use cancel our June trip at the end of April, I have a June use year, and the reservatio used some points banked from 2007. I asked he CM to please switch the points for my existing December reservato, so I could banl the current years points after June 1. It took her a couple of seconds, but now I can bank my 2008 points that are left.

 

[Dean]

As I replied on DVC talk, MS was correct in both situations. They might have been able to reallocate if you had known to ask.

 

[DebbieB]

I'm glad we can view our points online now. Last year when I made a reservation for this October (at 11 months), even though I had enough points in my 2008 use year (April), they borrowed from 2009! I had asked for a points balance before I hung up and the girl was obviously confused. I should have stopped her right then. But all it took was an e-mail and they moved the points back. Check and recheck.