Understanding borrowing/banking and booking at other resorts

[Terri2007]

First, please accept apology if this info is already on the board. I looked, but could not find.

Our family is getting ready to buy at a DVC resort. We are debating on purchasing resales vs buying new at AKL.

How does owning points at multiple properties help you get the resort you want if it you are trying to book at a high demand time? For instance, let's say I own 100 points at SSR and 100 points at BCV. I want to book a "200 point" vacation stay at BCV during a desirable time. Isn't it true that I can only book 100 points worth of stay at BCV at the 11 month window? Does borrowing points from your next use year change this?

Which brings me to my next question - how does borrowing work in terms of booking at your home resort or another resort? How long in advance does it apply?

Thanks for your help.

 

[mprewitt]

You can only use the points you own at your home resort to book your home resort at 11-months out. You can book at other resorts you don't own points at only at the 7-mo window.

So if you owned 100 SSR and 100 BCV, you could book a 100-point vacation at BCV 11-months in advance, or a 100-point vacation at SSR 11-months in advance.

Or you could bank or borrow your BCV points and take a 200 point vacation there every 2 years, or a 300-point vacation there every 3 years.

Is this clear as mud?

Owning at multiple properties gives you the 11-mo home resort booking advantage at those resorts (but only with the points you own at those resorts).

I own at 4 resorts (IMHO, the four "best" resorts!), so I have the opportunity to book at those four resorts at the 11-mo window.

 

[LisaS]

Which brings me to my next question - how does borrowing work in terms of booking at your home resort or another resort? How long in advance does it apply?

You get a new allotment of points every year on the first day of your Use Year. If you aren't going to use all of your points in a particular UY, you can bank some or all of them into the next UY. So during that next UY, you will have up to 2 years worth of points to work with. You can also borrow some/all of your points from the following UY, giving you up to 3 years worth of points to work with for a trip in that middle Use Year. Banking and borrowing cannot be "undone", and once banked/borrowed, the points must be used during the UY into which they were moved, so you need to plan carefully!

In my case, I own enough points at VWL to stay 6 nights in a 1BR every other year. The same is true for the number of points I own at AKV. So I alternate stays, one year at VWL, then the next year at AKV, by banking points from those resorts every other year. I don't necessarily need to own there in order to book there but I prefer to make my reservations early (11 months out) rather than wait until 7 months out.

 

[Lampman]

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