Reservations, cancellation, banking, use year...

[WDWorld]

Hi,

The more I become interested in becoming a DVC member, the more questions come to my mind And since you all have been a great help to me for the last few days, I'm going to ask them here again.

1- I can't always plan 11 months in advance my visits to WDW. In facts, it can happen that I know like 2 months in advance only that I can go.

From your personal experience, is there a way I can get a studio somewhere with such a short delay, asuming that this is not christmas or any other very crowded period ?? My "usual" travel dates are : may, september or beginning of december.

2- I don't realy understand the system of reservations, cancellation, banking... and what it has to do with the choice of a use year... please help me !!!

Here is what I know ( or I think I know ):

- Reservations : can be done 11 months in advance for your home resort and 7 months in advance for other resorts
- Cancellation : don't know anything !!
- banking : 100 % of my points of the current use year can be banked in the next year during the 6 first months of my year... after that, I don't know what I can do

Thanks again to you all !!!

 

[Caskbill]

Hi Charles: I'll try to answer a few of your questions.

If you travel mostly May, September or Early December you will probably have very good luck getting a room at shorter (2-month) notice. You may have to remain a little flexible, such that a standard view Studio at BWV's would probably not be possible. OKW will probably have a number of studios available during those times. (That's our home resort and we've made ressies at under 2-months on a number of occassions without problems, for basically the same times you're looking at).

Reservations of course are as implied, your room reservation for your travel dates. The only restrictions on ressies is that it can't be made more than 11 months ahead for your home resort, or more than 7-months ahead for your non-home resort. Also, you must (or will have) points in your account for the time of the reservation stay itself. (The points do not need to be in your account at the time of reservation). For example you have an August use year and all your 2001 points have been used. You will receive your August 2002 points on 8-1-02. You want to make a ressie for September 2002. You can still make the ressie now (June) even though you don't have any points in your account, because you will have points there at the time of the visit in September. The CM will simply make the ressie with your August 2002 points, even though you haven't received them yet.

Cancellation is to cancel your stay and get your points back. Some things to remember here are that if you cancel at 30 days or less, your points go into a holding account rather than back into your regular account, and they have some special rules on using them, basically they can't be used to make a ressie more than 60 days in advance. Also, if you cancel, your points are returned but then you may have a problem with use year. For example, say you have an August use year and had a July 2002 ressie using your August 2001 points. You cancel this reservation in June which is more than 30 days in advance. However those points are returned to your 2001 use year and you you could be past your banking deadlines to bank them into 2002, which means use them by July 31, 2002 or lose them. This is the only area where use year really becomes important. If you cancel a reservation near the end of a use year, you may be past your banking windows and could possibly lose the points.

Banking is simply transferring points from one year into the following year. I don't have the actual chart in front of me right now, but basically you can bank 100% of a year's points prior to 6-months, 50% at a later date, and 25% even later. Basically, as you plan vacations, if you see that you don't need all your points during the current year, you can bank them into the next year. Keep in mind that the percentage banked is cumulative. That is if you banked 50% of your points at 5-months left in your use year, you cannot later bank ANOTHER 25%. The 50% you banked is already above the 25% level so you have banked all the points possible for that year.

Hope this helps. Someone else can probably supply the actual banking percentages and at what month they apply.

 

[WDWorld]

So if I have to cancel more than 30 days in advance, my understanding is that they will return the points in my account but will there be a cancellation fee ??

 

[Richyams]

There is no cancelation fee ever. Your points go into a holding account where they can only be used for reservations less than 60 days out.

Early december is about the busiest time of year that there is....for DVC. It will not be easy to get short reservations during this time at all, even OKW can be booked.

Usually, our standard advice is that DVC works best for those that can plan 11 months out. If all you ever need is a studio, you need to know that studios are the first thing to be reserved and be unavailable.

 

[WDWorld]

But will they go in an holding account if I cancel more than 60 days in advance ? I'm a bit confused on that one.

Any other comments on getting a reservation only a few months before our stay are welcomed because even if my goal is to book as much in advance as I can, I would like to be able once in a while to decide only 2 months in advance that I go to WDW...

Thank you

 

[Richyams]

If you cancel more than 31 days out, the points go back into your regular account and can be banked, borrowed or transfered.

Points in the holding account can not be banked, borrowed or transfered.

 

[WDWorld]

not confused anymore