Use year - does it matter? Can someone explain?

[mom in 2005]

Hi, I am still thinking about purchasing DVC and am confused on use year. Does it really matter? What does it mean? Wasn't there a post about this awhile ago?

At this point, I can travel anytime, since my little one is only 3 but in about 2 yrs. I will be limited to summers (too hot for FL), spring break and Thanksgiving time and Xmas, so what use year would work for each of those times?

Thanks.

 

[Granny]

Yes, this is one of the more commonly asked questions on these boards. And a good one as it confuses many people.

First of all, UY has absolutely no importance at all unless you cancel a reservation. It has nothing to do with how far in advance you can book a vacation as you always have 11 months at the home resort and 7 months everywhere else as long as you will have points available at the time you stay in a DVC villa.

Where UY comes into play is if you cancel a vacation. If you have a February UY and book a trip for December, you most likely will only have until the end of January to use those points or lose them to expiration since you are already past your banking deadline.

Similarly, if you have an October UY and cancel a December trip, you could still bank the points or at a minimum have several months to re-schedule a trip.

Your planned vacations are throughout the entire calendar year, so it would be hard to pick one UY that would work for all your vacations if cancelled. Personally, I wouldn't worry about UY unless you think you'll have potential issues locking into vacation dates at least 7 months in advance or think that the likelihood of cancelling planned vacations is high.

We're lucky, and once we lock in our dates my work place is pretty good about not making me cancel. For others, I can see where UY would be more important.

 

[DVC Mike]

Your Use Year is determined at the time you purchase your ownership interest in a DVC resort and marks the time each year when you receive a new allotment of vacation points. It affects when you can bank and borrow vacation points, and sets the deadline for certain vacation decisions.

Use Year month has nothing to do with when you can travel or even make a reservation at a DVC resort. You can always reserve 11 months ahead of travel for your home resort. The reservation date determines which Use Year the points are deducted from.

Use Year is important when you must cancel a reservation. Since Members are able to bank up to 100% of their vacation points only during the first 8 months of their Use Year, you don't want to be regularly scheduling vacations in the last 4 months of your UY since you won't be able to bank your points if you cancel.

 

[dianeschlicht]

Use year is not very important unless you intend to be constantly cancelling reservations. THe theory is that you should have a use year that is shortly before the times of year you normally travel. That way if you have to cancel, you still have time to bank the points into the next use year.

According to that formula, we have the wrong use year for us. On the other hand, in 11 years of membership and 2-3 trips a year, we have NEVER had to cancel a ressie late enough to lose the points. That's not to say it wont ever happen, but it isn't a usual occurance. On top of that, your travel plans are NOT going to remain constant throughout the 50 years of the contract. You might be traveling during school holidays for awhile, but after that...then what? I just don't think it is something to get too excited about.