Specific UY question?

[Moeluv4u7]

I am trying to learn as much about this as possible but the UY still has me confused a bit-
We are looking at a Dec UY - If we do more vacation in June, July & August is that good?
We were told that our UY won't matter on reservations- i.e. we can make reservation 11 mos or 7 mos out regardless of UY as long as points are available at time of stay-If we wanted to do a vacation in December or May is Dec UY still okay- If I can still make the reservation regardless I am not sure why the UY is a factor
I understand if we are not going to use the points or a portion of, etc we must "bank" them 4 mos prior to our use year- Would that be by EOM July to bank or August? Also are ressies at 11 mos out... We want to go mid July meaning I have to wait til mid August this year to make reservation? Trying to figure the system here?
Thanks for the input! Everyone here has been awesome with the information we've received so far!

 

[Moeluv4u7]

Also, if we do this now and our UY starts this year (08) Dec- If we can use developer points for our stay next year (gotta use em or lose em ) then would I need to bank these Dec pts by the end of this month?

 

[chalee94]

I am trying to learn as much about this as possible but the UY still has me confused a bit-
We are looking at a Dec UY - If we do more vacation in June, July & August is that good?

1) UY month only makes a difference if you have to cancel. if you never cancel, you will likely never have a moment's concern for what month it is that your pts renew.

your banking window ends 8 months after you get your pts...if you have to cancel a reservation over a month before arrival but AFTER your banking window is closed....you could be in a bind: you will need to rent your reservation or else find a way to rebook on short notice before your pts expire.

2) you generally want a UY that starts right before you generally tend to travel.

so if you have a dec UY and book travel in november and then have to cancel your plans in september or october, you will already be past the banking window and risk losing those pts.

UY is just not very important - so in your case, dec isn't necessarily worse than april...you just have to be aware of your banking window in the case of a cancellation.

I understand if we are not going to use the points or a portion of, etc we must "bank" them 4 mos prior to our use year- Would that be by EOM July to bank or August?

EOM july for a dec UY, i believe.

Also are ressies at 11 mos out... We want to go mid July meaning I have to wait til mid August this year to make reservation? Trying to figure the system here?

yes.

 

[chalee94]

Also, if we do this now and our UY starts this year (08) Dec- If we can use developer points for our stay next year (gotta use em or lose em ) then would I need to bank these Dec pts by the end of this month?

if you have any pts from 2007, you would have to bank them by the end of this month. you can wait to bank your 2008 UY pts till july 2009 (which is confusing because unless you plan a dec trip, you will always be using your pts in a different "year": your 2008 UY pts for travel in 2009 and so on...)

not sure what the rule is on developer pts, but yeah, i think you can use them to book next july while banking your 2008 pts later if you decide you don't need to use them from dec 2008 to nov 2009.

 

[cruisinalong]

I was a bit unsure of the importance of the UY until we made our first reservation. We have a March UY and being a newbie I made a reservation for the last week in February. After some thinking about it I decided this was the worst possible reservation to make.

I believe the rules say you can not bank during the last 4 months. So what happens with our reservation if we have to cancel. I believe the points are put into holding status. I believe holding points can not be banked which means you would have to use them during the current UY. If we had to cancel at the last minute the points would be put into holding which means we would have to use them B4 the end of the UY. Since the reservation was for the last week of the UY we would effectively lose the points.

This experience really gave me an understanding of the importance of UY. We moved the reservation by one week to the first week of March and the problem went away.

I made a little chart showing the "bad months" for each UY. "Bad months" are the last 4 months of each UY. We then picked the UY for our next purchase by picking a UY where the months we wanted to travel in were not "bad months". The advantage of picking it this way as opposed to the usual "pick a UY one month before you plan on traveling" is that there are actually several UYs that will work ok for given travel months. Since we were buying a sold out resort we did not want to limit our options to one UY.

If I was younger I would probably think "nothing bad ever happens to good people so the UY does not matter since no one will ever have to cancel". Or I might think "Who the heck knows what we will be doing 30 years from now so making a bad choice today is ok because a bad UY today might be a good UY 10 years from now." Being older I am probably just overly cautious.

 

[calypso*a*go-go]

Simply put -- if you have a December UY the points are good from 12/01 - 11/30...if you had a vacation planned for August but had to cancel for some reason, that would only give you until 11/30 to reuse the points before they expire. Also, since you have until 4 mos before your UY expires to bank the pts, there's a good change you would have gone past your banking deadline as well.

You really need to see if your guide can offer a different UY than December if most of your vacations are going to be in the summer months.

Don't worry...you'll get the hang of this soon.

 

[chalee94]

Simply put -- if you have a December UY the points are good from 12/01 - 11/30...if you had a vacation planned for August but had to cancel for some reason, that would only give you until 11/30 to reuse the points before they expire.

if you had a vacation planned for august with a dec UY, but had to cancel, you would be cancelling in july...in other words, before the end of the banking window, so you'd still have time to bank those pts. i'm not seeing the problem with the situation you describe?

(if you cancel within 30 days, you can't bank the pts anyway, even if you're in the first month of your UY, right?)

 

[calypso*a*go-go]

if you had a vacation planned for august with a dec UY, but had to cancel, you would be cancelling in july...in other words, before the end of the banking window, so you'd still have time to bank those pts. i'm not seeing the problem with the situation you describe?

(if you cancel within 30 days, you can't bank the pts anyway, even if you're in the first month of your UY, right?)

It would really depend on when the trip is in August...also don't forget that some people have circumstances that require them to cancel a vacation at the last minute. Even though the points would go into the holding account, you would still want as much time as possible to use them.

 

[RobDoc]

I was a bit unsure of the importance of the UY until we made our first reservation. We have a March UY and being a newbie I made a reservation for the last week in February. After some thinking about it I decided this was the worst possible reservation to make.

I believe the rules say you can not bank during the last 4 months. So what happens with our reservation if we have to cancel. I believe the points are put into holding status. I believe holding points can not be banked which means you would have to use them during the current UY. If we had to cancel at the last minute the points would be put into holding which means we would have to use them B4 the end of the UY. Since the reservation was for the last week of the UY we would effectively lose the points.

This experience really gave me an understanding of the importance of UY. We moved the reservation by one week to the first week of March and the problem went away.

As long as you cancel a reservation 31 days or more before arrival the points are simply put back in your account to use again or bank. True, if you are in the last 4 months of your Use Year, banking is no longer an option but they still will not be "Holding" points.

Your example of a February reservation for a March Use Year is perfect to illustrate the problem if you should need to cancel - especially if it's within 30 days of arrival. In that case, the points would still need to be used before March 1. If you cancelled the February reservation back in August, you could still bank the points or would have 6 months to reuse them, but a cancellation in November or later is past your ability to bank.

Your solution is also perfect - a reservation at the beginning of your Use Year offers lots of flexibility if it later needs to be cancelled.

 

[njschultz7]

I have a question about UY's, We are going to purchase in Feb. 2009 using our Tax return, is there a set UY for purchasing in the month of Feb? We were hoping to go durring a week in SEPT of 2009, does anyone see a problem with that?

 

[RobDoc]

I have a question about UY's, We are going to purchase in Feb. 2009 using our Tax return, is there a set UY for purchasing in the month of Feb? We were hoping to go durring a week in SEPT of 2009, does anyone see a problem with that?

Use Year has nothing to do when you can make a reservation or when you can travel - it is simply when your points are renewed each year.

If you purchase in Feb. you might be offered a Use Year of September and would likely get points from the September, 2008 Use Year as well as more points in September, 2009 which could all be used for a trip in September, 2009.

If you purchase a resale, you would have whatever Use Year is assigned to the contract you purchase, but again, Use Year has no role in determining when you may travel.

Enjoy!