question about use year and reservations booking

[wls23]

i've heard mixed opinions about use years - and i need some clarification please. At this point, if we are to purchase DVC we would likely be traveling at the same time every year (late october-early november) - in the future, however, we may want to vacation in disney over the holidays in december.

I am aware that you can make reservations at your home resort 11 months in advance - so if we were to travel beginning of november, then i could make my reservations in december, right? and if i wanted to travel in december, i would be able to make reservations in january, right? so what impact does the use year have on this and given the times i want to travel, what use year should i be looking at?

thanks for your help!

 

[Pa@okw95]

The use year is the month you actually get the points to spend as you wish. You can make reservations before you get the points but you must have the points of course when you actually use them. You can make reservations 11 months out. The use year never meant anything to me, but for some it may, especially if they bought a small amount of points. A good use year for you might be August or September that way you will have the points for your vacations, but once you get started I found that the use year means nothing, but that is not the case with everyone, like I said before.

 

[SSRex]

Everything I know about this subject I learned from reading posts on this board, but I am sure that:

WHAT YOUR USE YEAR IS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH WHEN YOU CAN CALL TO MAKE RESERVATIONS.

&

MOST HAVE RECOMMENDED THAT YOUR USE YEAR BE SELECTED TO BE JUST PRIOR TO WHEN YOU WILL MOST LIKELY BE GOING.

 

[disneydiz]

If you have a September use year, you will have 12-months to use those points. If your November vacation were to get cancelled, you could use those points anytime thru August 31. However, if you have a February use year, and you use the points in November and then had to cancel, you would be in trouble because you would have only until January 31 to use the points. It all depends on when you want to go and what your use year is.