Transferring points question

[lllovell]

If I "rent" points and have them transferred into my account, do they keep their use year or take on mine?

Asking because I am wanting to take a trip next April with some friends. We talked and decided the "safest" way for them to get the rooms they want is by renting via a transfer to my account and then I can make ALL the ressies. My use year is March, so if I rented the points now and they were transferred to me, have I just messed myself up?

First time even considering a transfer so I am in unfamilar territory here.

Thanks for any information.

Laura

 

[wtpclc]

They are "suppposed" to keep their home resort and UY, but the system is not currently set up to do that. They are supposedly working to fix that. I recall someone saying that they will put them into your next UY if you receive them late in your UY. You really have to work with them if you need them to keep home resort and UY, though. It can be done, but can be a headache.

 

[CarolMN]

Although transferred points are supposed to keep their original use year, that doesn't necessarily happen if the use years are not the same. It has to do with the constraints of the computer system. You may be able to insist that MS follow the DVC rules, if necessary - but I suspect that will take a Supervisor's intervention.

My understanding is that if someone who has an August use year transfers 2005 points to you, MS could put them in either your 2005 use year or your 2006 use year (because of the overlap). If they put them in your 2006 use year, I'm not sure exactly how they do it considering the constraints of the DVC account/computer system, but I THINK it may involve "behind the scenes banking". So that could end up limiting your ability to bank the points later because the system will only allow you to bank the same point once.

Anyway, once you have the transfer terms worked out with the other member, call MS and be sure you tell them when you want to use the trasnsferred points. In fact, if it were me, I'd make the reservation using them as soon after the points were transferred that I could.

Also ask MS what your options would be for those points if that reservation ends up getting cancelled. Take notes and include the name of the CM who helps you.

And if you aren't in the habit already, ask the CM for a complete status of all your unused points before you hang up. If there are any differences between your records and theirs, it will be a lot easier to straighten out then than it will be later.


Best wishes -

 

[lllovell]

Thank you for the information! I have had someone contact me and I am going to call MS now to see if the transfer will work as I want it to.

I can make the reservation with the points in just a few weeks (7 month window will open and I am going for OKW so I am hoping for no problems). I wish I could immediately make the reservation with the points but they are like mine and are SSR points...oh wait - duh *smacking head* I can make the reservation at SSR NOW and then transfer it to OKW (but have to be careful that the additional points they give back to me are NON-Transfered points since I think that same week at SSR would be more points).

*plotting plotting plotting*

 

[Y-ASK]

My understanding is that if someone who has an August use year transfers 2005 points to you, MS could put them in either your 2005 use year or your 2006 use year (because of the overlap). If they put them in your 2006 use year, I'm not sure exactly how they do it considering the constraints of the DVC account/computer system, but I THINK it may involve "behind the scenes banking". So that could end up limiting your ability to bank the points later because the system will only allow you to bank the same point once.

The behind the scenes banking is how it works, but it's usually in front of the scenes that it takes place. What I mean by that is that is you have to request the points to be banked. They will not automatically bank the points for you and if you're beyond your 100% banking time then you may have some issues to deal with. The best time to have points transferred into your account during the current UY is to do it while you can still bank 100% of your points. The transferred points will maintain the UY of the transferee whether it's 2005 or 2006, but if you bank those points they become regular "Banked Points" in your account and will expire at the same time your regular points would expire. So looking at the problem from your point of view this is what I see:

UY is March so you're already into your 2005 UY. If you're going to make your reservations in your 2006 UY (which this seems to be the case) then I would suggest that you find someone who will transfer 2006 UY points to your account. If that can't be done then call Member Services and make sure you can bank all of the 2005 UY points (both transferred and/or your own) that you need in order to make this reservation. As stated before, banking tranferred points requires a manager's input and I've been told that sometimes you need to put in the request and then they will have it done in the next day or two, but there have been other times where a manager as done the process right at the time I was on the phone.

One last tid-bit of information that I recently learned: You cannot borrow transferred points. You can only bank them.

Hope this helps,
Y-ASK

Just a thought, if someone transfers you 2006 UY points and their UY isn't until say Oct. you might not be able to make a reservation until after Sept. 30. So be carefull and make sure Member Services agrees with everything you are trying to do including getting the tranferee's UY information.

 

[lllovell]

I called MS (and wrote down name and time) and the young lady assisting me said that it is no problem to put those points into my 2006 UY without banking them. I simply have to ask the person transferring them for me to make SURE to tell them March, 2006 use year. Sure sounds easy

She also checked the dates and availability I wanted at OKW and it looks like that will be easy to book in a couple of weeks when the 7 month window opens - woohoo!!!

Hopefully, this will all work out as well as it seems to be.

I do appreciate all the information from everyone here. The more I learn, the more comfortable I am with things like this and it will be a blast having so many friends down at once!!!

Laura

 

[disneyberry]

I called MS (and wrote down name and time) and the young lady assisting me said that it is no problem to put those points into my 2006 UY without banking them. I simply have to ask the person transferring them for me to make SURE to tell them March, 2006 use year.
Laura

[SIZE=+0]Hi Laura. Yup, MS gave you the right info. There's no "behind the scenes banking"... wow, where did that one come from? I must've missed some discussion about that.

Using the Aug UY example w/ your Mar UY:
Another member's Aug 2005 points are valid from 8/1/05 to 7/31/06. So when you accept those points into your account, due to MS's system limitation, they have to enter them in your account as either Mar 2005 UY or Mar 2006 UY. Think of it like that the other member's Aug '05 points get split into two separate usage periods. The first half is 8/1/05 - 2/28/06, and the second half is 3/1/06 - 7/31/06 and you must choose one or the other.

If you choose Mar 2005 UY:
Then the points would be definitely be valid from 8/1/05 (now) to 2/28/06. You could also bank the transferred points forward, and I think the way MS's systems are set up now would make the banked points valid for your entire Mar 2006 UY (3/1/06 to 2/28/07).

If you choose Mar 2006 UY:
Then the points would be definitely be valid from 3/1/06 to 7/31/06. You could probably get a supervisor to make the points also valid from 7/31/06 to 2/28/07 without banking them forward. If you needed points further out, then you could also bank the transferred points forward, and I think the way MS's systems are set up now would make the banked points valid for your entire Mar 2007 UY (3/1/07 to 2/28/08).

So you see that things don't work quite like what the official rules say. I hope this doesn't confuse everyone. I just wanted to make it clear that there should be no "behind the scenes banking" done during the initial transfer. (See the link in my sig for more info... prob more info than you need)[/SIZE]

 

[lllovell]

So, in typical DVC/WDW/CRO style, when we called yesterday to actually transfer the points I was told they couldn't be put in my March 2006 use year.

Fortunately for me, it doesn't really matter as I don't have any banked points into my 2006 use year so I just said "bank them" because the person doing the deal with me was VERY accomidating both price wise and in handling the transaction and I wanted it to be over.

Even if my guests cancel, we will easily use those points up first next year for the same reservation when our friends were going (it is going to be a multiple room trip with us using OUR points and then using the transferred points). I KNOW we are going, so if they cancel, I will use the transferred points for our ressie and deal with our regular points later.

So, all is well that ends well....but it is interesting to me that it just depends on WHO you get at MS to help you as to which rules apply.

Laura

P.S. I realize we could have argued or asked to speak to the young lady I had spoken to this morning, but once I was 100% sure I could still bank ALL those points, it just didn't seem worth it to fight.