Strategy to use non-home-resort points to add 8th day to start of home resort reservation at 7 month window

[AquaDyne]

OK, I have an interesting plan that I'm hoping to get some expert opinion on.

I have an existing reservation made at the 11-month window at Aulani: Check-in Dec 19, Checkout Dec 26.

I would like to add a day to the beginning of the reservation, to Check in Dec 18, and also upgrade my room category. I do not have enough home resort points to do this, but have plenty of points from other DVC resorts, that I can use at the 7 month window.

The problem (or is it?): You can only make a 7 day reservation at the booking window. To make an 8 day reservation you need to start with 7 at the window and add 1 day the next day. This is not a problem at all when adding days to the *end* of a reservation... but I want to add at the beginning. But I do have home resort priority for the 8th day so in theory I could use those points for the "last day(s) of the reservation" and my non-home-resort points for the "first day(s) of the reservation".

I could make a new reservation on the 18th for a few days with the non-resort points, and then carefully modify my existing reservation to remove days and get points back that I can add to the non-home-resort reservation (kind of like a walk), thus freeing them up to be used for the new reservation. This isn't ideal, because I'm having to borrow some points to make this work, so I don't want to do overlapping days if I can avoid it.... which means doing a "free the room and immediately book it" strategy... kind of a modified walk, but with the risk I time it extremely poorly and some owner swoops in to pick that one day right at the very wrong time. Or I could leave back to back reservations in the same room type and hope I don't have to move rooms...

Questions:
1. Will the online system allow me, on May 18, to make an 8-day reservation mixing non-home-resort and home resort points?
2. If the online system won't do that, will calling in to speak to MS permit me to do this and keep it all on a single reservation?
3. If neither 1 or 2 is a possibility and I do the strategy outlined in my last paragraph above, worst case I might have two back-to-back reservations. Will DVC be able to "merge" those into a single reservation?

 

[Sandisw]

At the 7 month mark, using any non home resort points makes it a 7 month booking so you will only be able to book 7 nights from the 18th.

MS can’t do it any differently, So, once you book the first few nights to get what you want in the right room category using non home resort points, you can then modify the 11 month booking to the new category for the rest of the nights.

You should then be able to have MS merge them when all dates are inside the 7 month window.

 

[AquaDyne]

You should then be able to have MS merge them when all dates are inside the 7 month window.

Does MS merge reservations? Reading this thread from 2017 seems to indicate they do not. Or has the strategy changed? Or is it ok to do for the same owner?

 

[Sandisw]

Does MS merge reservations? Reading this thread from 2017 seems to indicate they do not. Or has the strategy changed? Or is it ok to do for the same owner?

When the owner has two reservations for the same room type for continuing dates, on the same membership, MS can merge them into one,

I had 3 individual nights I got via stalking the website and a waitlist for February in a SV studio for RIV, Once I got all the nights, I emailed MS and they combined them into one reservation.

Now, if some of my nights were in my Dec UY and some in my Aug UY, they can not be combined into one.

In that thread, the reservations were points and cash. That was the difference.

 

[AquaDyne]

When the owner has two reservations for the same room type for continuing dates, on the same membership, MS can merge them into one,

That's great to hear, but then this line confused me:

Now, if some of my nights were in my Dec UY and some in my Aug UY, they can not be combined into one.

I had to borrow (via transfer) some points from a friend to make my existing reservation (we trade back and forth all the time!) and they are in a different use year. But I was easily able to book online using both the transferred-in (Feb 2021 UY) points and my own (Sep 2021 UY) points. All my non home resort points are also Sep 2021 UY, but will the transferred-in points prevent the merge?

I used to always book VGC over the Sep 1 weekend to use points across use years and had to call in, but they still were able to do a single reservation.

Sorry for all the questions here! I wish more of this was documented/consistent!

 

[Sandisw]

That's great to hear, but then this line confused me:


I had to borrow (via transfer) some points from a friend to make my existing reservation (we trade back and forth all the time!) and they are in a different use year. But I was easily able to book online using both the transferred-in (Feb 2021 UY) points and my own (Sep 2021 UY) points. All my non home resort points are also Sep 2021 UY, but will the transferred-in points prevent the merge?

I used to always book VGC over the Sep 1 weekend to use points across use years and had to call in, but they still were able to do a single reservation.

Sorry for all the questions here! I wish more of this was documented/consistent!

The transferred points, even though a different UY, are part of your membership now in a temporary contract. Although they still follow their own rules, the are considered part of your membership and why you can use them with your own parts.

If I booked nights in each of my memberships, without the transfer, then you can not combine.

You can only merge together reservations for the same room type that are consecutive if they are part of the same membership,