Transferred Points - Use Year Question

[mrebuck]

I know that transferred points maintain their home resort. But what about their use year? I have a September use year. If someone transfers their February 09 points to me, will those points maintain their February 09 use year. Or will they be added to my September 08 points (the use year I am currently in)?

 

[erionm]

Transferred points retain their UY and Home Resort.

 

[mrebuck]

That's what I thought. But I got a call from Member Services about my request to bank some Feb 09 transferred points. They are telling me that, after the points are banked, they will have to be used by 9/10 (in other words, they will become September UY points). For my purposes, it does not make a difference - I am planning to use them in 8/10. But I wanted to know for future reference whether what they are telling me is right.

Does anyone have experience with this happening to them? It just seems odd to me that Feb UY points would be transformed into Sept UY points by virtue of their being banked.

 

[SuzanneSLO]

That's what I thought. But I got a call from Member Services about my request to bank some Feb 09 transferred points. They are telling me that, after the points are banked, they will have to be used by 9/10 (in other words, they will become September UY points). For my purposes, it does not make a difference - I am planning to use them in 8/10. But I wanted to know for future reference whether what they are telling me is right.

Does anyone have experience with this happening to them? It just seems odd to me that Feb UY points would be transformed into Sept UY points by virtue of their being banked.

I received April 08 points in a transfer and have an Aug UY. I definitely had to bank my April 08 points for a May 09 vacation, even though my Aug 08 UY points were also used for that vacation. I was told at the time I banked the Apr UY points that I had to use them by March 2010. You may have just gotten an CM at MS who didn't understand what he or she was talking about. -- Suzanne

 

[mrebuck]

That makes more sense to me. If the transferred points retain their home resort, it would be logical for them to maintain their UY as well.

Thanks.

 

[disneynutz]

MS is incorrect, the points retain their UY.

We have had nothing but trouble with our transfered points. Not only does MS Advisers not understand them, their computer system doesn't know what to do with them either. Be very careful.

 

[mrebuck]

MS is incorrect, the points retain their UY.

We have had nothing but trouble with our transfered points. Not only does MS Advisers not understand them, their computer system doesn't know what to do with them either. Be very careful.

Do you have any advice on steps I should take to make sure MS doesn't screw this up. I will be making a reservation at the home resort of the transferred points with those points at the 11 month mark. Is there anything I should do in advance to help make sure the reservation process runs smoothly?

 

[rlduvall]

Do you have any advice on steps I should take to make sure MS doesn't screw this up. I will be making a reservation at the home resort of the transferred points with those points at the 11 month mark. Is there anything I should do in advance to help make sure the reservation process runs smoothly?

Like disneynutz, I had nothing but trouble with MS when it came to transferred points. In the end it worked out, but it wasn't a good fit for my anal Type A personality. Unfortunately, I cannot think of a thing for you to do to make it easier on MS; one of the quirks of the system.

 

[SuzanneSLO]

Like disneynutz, I had nothing but trouble with MS when it came to transferred points. In the end it worked out, but it wasn't a good fit for my anal Type A personality. Unfortunately, I cannot think of a thing for you to do to make it easier on MS; one of the quirks of the system.

I think that the only thing you can do is make sure YOU know what should happen with regard to all your points -- owned and transferred -- when you make the reservation and then confirm that with MS while on the phone call.

This is always a good idea, but especially when dealing with the black box of transferred points. Even your online account showing vacation points will not be correct; I think my last stay for 9 nights in a BW view studio showed it was costing us 41 points. Those were our owned points and we were using our transferred points for the rest of the reservation. -- Suzanne

 

[VLee]

Above statements are correct from my experience. You need to make sure that you track your points yourself.
I have always transferred in from the same home resort as mine (to maintain use of 11-month booking using all points). Also, whenever possible, I have transferred in from the same use year (same resort as mine) to avoid different deadlines of point expiration. The only exception to this was transferring in points that expired 3 months later than mine (to the same resort.)
Online reservations did not always reflect the total number of points used. The transfer points did not show.
Online account does not always reflect the correct balance of points remaining. For example, I have 186 left for 09, but only 174 are showing. (12 transfer points are "there" but not showing online. )
I have to specifically ask MS to check for these type of points. Example, I have 12 transfer points that will be bankable, but do not show up online as being bankable into 2010. MS has confirmed that they will bank, but it will have to be a manual banking transaction.
I would hate to imagine the difficulty if I had transferred in points from a different home resort as mine.

 

[mrebuck]

Thanks for all of the advice. It sounds like my best bet is to carefully track the points myself and confirm over and again both the reservation and any remaining transferred points.

The points do not show at all in my online account, so that's already an issue. But I've spoken with MS several times and each time they've told me the points were in my account and had been banked. At least I've gotten that far with them. I'll keep my fingers crossed that no issues pop up.