Question about UY and timing of travel

[Newcastle]

I was hoping to clarify something with the veterans out there. We have an October UY and while this is great for the trips that we like to take in November and May, we are starting to contemplate some late August trips so that we don't have to take the kids out of school (we would like to avoid going over the Christmas and March breaks if at all possible!). Unless I'm way off base here, the timing of a late August trip is not ideal in terms of our UY because if anything happens and we have to reschedule the trip to a later date, we will essentially lose our points (assuming that we don't want to try and rent them out at the last minute!) because there is no way that we would be able to make up the trip during the month of September (i.e. prior to the expiration of the points on September 30th) due to work and school commitments.

I just wanted to check and make sure that I was interpreting everything correctly and wanted to ask you all if there is anything that can be done about this or whether I just have to cross my fingers that our plans don't get diverted if we wish to travel in late August.

Any help would be appreciated!

 

[Mtnman44]

Yep, you've got that right. If you cancelled an Aug trip, those points would only be available until Sept 30th. If you are concerned, you could always buy the trip cancellation insurance for those occassions when you booked a Aug vacation.

If you think about it, most people try to cancel at least 31 days prior, to avoid points in holding. For an Aug 15 booking, that means July 15. Your Banking window runs thru the end of May if I'm not mistaken. So really, you only need to cancel about 6 weeks earlier than you normally would have to.