Use all your points each use-year?

[dianeschlicht]

I didn't vote because none of the choices really fits our scenario. We use banking and borrowing both within most use years. I 12 years, I've never had to "lose" points. I am faced with a little bit of a different scenario this time, because next year my 2 banked AKV points will need to be reallocated to a 7 month OKW ressie when I add a night 7 months out. Frankly, if I forget and end up losing those two points, it wont be that big a deal either.

 

[JimMIA]

We are usually the opposite. Almost every year it seems we have banked points from the previous year that are in a must-use situation. When we signed up they gave us an extra year's points. I think they thought we would never be able to burn an additional 300 points in less than 6 months.

We are "plagued" by the same type of "problem."

When we bought our first contract (resale) it came with 149 banked points. Five years later, we are still banking every year because of that carryover. Some years more, some years less, depending on our usage. This year, we banked so many points we're going to have to pay attention to our "use or lose" banked points, but we should be fine.

It's a good "problem" to have!

 

[DopeyDave]

I didn't vote as there wasn't really an option that applied. Sometimes we bank points, sometimes we borrow points. But we haven't lost ANY points yet. (Knock on wood!)

 

[SuzanneSLO]

We take 2 trips in one UY, then skip the next UY to vacation in Maui. As a result, we always use banked, current and borrowed points for the WDW UY trips.

In the past we had no banked points, but then we rented out our vacation rental in Maui one time in exchange for DVC points and that plumped up our account. So in 2009, our non WDW UY, we are hoping to stay a few nights at GCV if our WL comes thru.

We hoped to lose 3 points a few years ago only because we were on a WL for a SV at BWV for the first night of our vacation. The rest of the nights were in SV, but the WL never came thru and we stayed in a PV room (upgraded to BW view!) for that first night. If the WL had come thru, we would have ended up with 3 points that would have expired.

-- Suzanne

 

[rowbear]

I do rent out the extras, but renters don't usually take up all I have left. Then what?

An example... this year I was left with about 40 points banked form my 2007 UY. I was able to find a renter that wanted most, but not all of them. Now I am stuck with less than 10 points. What can I do with them? I can't transfer as they are banked points. I can't sell them because there's not much you can do with so little... What option is left? Am I missing something?

---Paul in Southern NJ

Book another vacation. That always cures my leftover point problem.

You could add some 2008 points and rent out just enough to get them used.

 

[dianeschlicht]

I do rent out the extras, but renters don't usually take up all I have left. Then what?

An example... this year I was left with about 40 points banked form my 2007 UY. I was able to find a renter that wanted most, but not all of them. Now I am stuck with less than 10 points. What can I do with them? I can't transfer as they are banked points. I can't sell them because there's not much you can do with so little... What option is left? Am I missing something?

---Paul in Southern NJ

You need to make yourself a simple little chart that shows your banked points each year for each contract. The key is to always use AT LEAST that many points out of that contract in the banked year. Then the unused points can be banked, but they will be new points, not banked points. The confusion comes with multiple contracts at different resorts.

This year I had 2 points to bank from my AKV contract. Our contract there is small, so I need to use 3 years worth of points for the ressies we usually want there. I wont be using my 2010 points from AKV, because I'll be banking them into 2011 and borrowing from 2012 to make a ressie for 2011 with those points. That leaves the 2 points from 2009 hanging around in 2010's use year. I will make a 7 month window booking at OKW for 1 night at the end of our March 2010 trip, but I wont book it until the 7 month window. That way I can have the 2 AKV banked points allocated to the ressie at OKW. I wont be able to use those two points to replace a ressie made at the 11 month mark, so I'll just wait for the 7 month window for that last night.

 

[photobob]

We bought in 2006 after just returning from a summer trip and banked the 2006 points. We use that as our buffer. We own180 points and will be banking 129 this year. We will try to keep a little extra in the bank from year to year in case we need a little more than the 180 for the year.
We have exciting changes in family dynamics as my son is getting married in less than a month. In addition my daughter is two years from attending college. I foresee trips in the future with just me and my wife going mutliple times per year in a studio or everyone going for a short stay in a 2 bdr with everyone. I look forward to both!

 

[Caribgal]

I like to share them with friends and relatives if I can't use them.