Thinking of DVC - use year?

[donaldandpirates]

DH and I went through the DVC presentation at Disney, loved the idea, actually signed up, but had to cancel a day later when we took another look at finances.

I've been eyeing The Timeshare Store for some time now, have narrowed down where we might like to buy (VWL or BLT - both where we would actually stay the most), but I don't have a clue about how to find a contract with the best use year for us. If it makes any difference, we would ideally like to travel to the World between the October-December and/or March-May time frames.
What use year should we look for?

 

[chalee94]

october is the "best" UY.

you want to travel as early in your UY as possible. also, you ideally never want to travel in the last 3 months or so of your UY (jul-aug-sep for an oct UY) - largely due to traveling after your banking window has closed, which limits your options for any current year pts used to book the stay.

use year month is only an issue if you need to cancel. it has nothing to do with when you can call to book a stay.

some examples:

if you have a june UY and a may 2012 trip and you need to cancel 60 days out, your banking window closed on jan 31, 2012 so you'd have to use all of the pts in the reservation before they expire on may 31, 2012.

if you have a june UY and a june 2012 trip and you need to cancel 60 days out, your banking window won't close until jan 31, 2013 so you'd have until then to decide whether to use current year (2012) pts for a reservation in that UY or else bank them to the next year. (you'd still need to use banked and borrowed pts by may 31, 2013.)

if you have a june UY and a may 2012 trip and you need to cancel 5 days out, the pts would turn into "holding" pts so you'd have to use all of the pts in the reservation subject to a 60-day-out limitation - but that won't matter since they expire on may 31...which is less than 60 days out.

if you have a june UY and a june 2012 trip and you need to cancel 5 days out, the pts would turn into "holding" pts so you'd have to use all of the pts in the reservation subject to a 60-day-out limitation - but at least you'd have 12 months before they expire on may 31, 2013 to decide what to do with them.

more info about UY is here:

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1942668

 

[jforever52]

We have a December use year. It works great for us because we usually have our family vacation in the spring or early summer. We have to bank by July and normally we have already completed our travel by that time.

 

[donaldandpirates]

Thanks for the explanations and experiences! It helps to make the decision easier.

 

[DenLo]

I agree with the October UY for your travel times. If you chose a December UY and then travel in October and cancel in the last 30 days you could easily have the points go into holding or if it's more than 60 days out and beyond your banking window you only have through November 30th to use the points. But by choosing October you could reschedule the reservation still within your UY or be able to bank the points by May 31st and use them the following year.