Use year - advice appreciated!!!

[ducky100]

We are thinking of buying a contract on the resale market. There are 2 adults and one young child travelling from the UK. Due to circumstances for the next 15 years we therefore be travelling at the end of July or throughout the first 3 weeks of August ideally for 2 weeks at a time.

I appreciate our travel patterns might change but for the foreseeable future this would be our travel pattern.

We are thinking SSR, but wondering what use year suits us best? Any help appreciated!

 

[CarolMN]

June would be ideal for the travel pattern you described.

February, March or April would also work well.

You could also go with October or December, but those are not quite as good for summer travel as are the others I listed.

If you are up for a bit of a tutorial, take a look at this thread:

Understanding Use Year

P.S. There are no use years for January, May, July or November.

 

[ducky100]

Thanks that is really useful. So if I have understood correctly; with a June use year I would have to bank points by end of Jan?

Sorry I could be misunderstanding but would October be best as then I could bank by end may .

Probably missing why June is best!!

 

[Sandisw]

Traveling at the beginning of the UY allows for the most flexibility if you have to cancel or change a trip. We are August travelers and June works well. If you had to cancel you would still be in the banking window to bank those points or you would have a lot of time to reschedule the trip especially if you have borrowed points.

 

[AJA]

Thanks that is really useful. So if I have understood correctly; with a June use year I would have to bank points by end of Jan?

Sorry I could be misunderstanding but would October be best as then I could bank by end may .

Probably missing why June is best!!

Points expire if you don't use them or bank them. You can bank until 4 months before the end of your use year. May 31st is the end of the June use year, so Jan 31st is the last day to bank points.


If you have a June use year and usually vacation in the summer if something happens and you have to reschedule to a different month you have plenty of time to do that (maybe at some point you could get away around the winter holidays). If not bank your points. The next summer you'll have double the amount of points (want to upgrade your room type? stay a few days longer than usual, etc).

It's "safer" if you have a use year that begins around the same time you most likely travel.

We travel in Sept, Jan or May each year. Since one use year will not cover all those months we looked at which months had the most probability of us needed to reschedule. For us Sept and January could need to be postponed due to work. We would only postpone a May vacation if it were a personal emergency, then in that case our DVC points are one of the last things we're thinking about kwim? So we wanted either a June/August/September use year. We ended up with June, this gives us plenty of time to either use or bank our points each year.

 

[chalee94]

Sorry I could be misunderstanding but would October be best as then I could bank by end may.

use year month is mostly an issue if you need to cancel.

some specific examples:

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

if you have an aug UY and an aug 2012 trip and you need to cancel 60 days out, your banking window won't close until mar 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 july 31, 2013.)

if you have an aug UY and a july 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 july 31...which is less than 60 days out.

if you have an aug UY and an aug 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 july 31, 2013 to decide what to do with them.

 

[ducky100]

Great thanks for all info, can see why June is beneficial now!!

Now just need to decide resort! Thinking SSR for 250 points should do the trick