Use Year help

[amymgould]

I'm a teacher so my travel times are limited. Most likely we will visit on our spring break which changes every year. It's usually the week before or after Easter. In the future we may consider the last week in August or possibly Christmas. I could never see us traveling in October, January, May or June. What do you think would be the best use year? What's the worst? TIA!

 

[disneynutz]

Pick the 8 consecutive months that you may vacation and choose the first month or the one prior to that.

Bill

 

[chalee94]

sounds like August is the best bet - if you almost never travel in May/June/July...

 

[amymgould]

sounds like August is the best bet - if you almost never travel in May/June/July...

I was thinking August as well. For some reason I just can't get a handle on Use Year! I think I need to give up for the night and try again tomorrow. lol

 

[chalee94]

just remember that use year is about when you use the pts for stays. always start by looking at which UY the dates of your planned stay fall into (for an August UY, a Nov 2018 stay falls into your 2018 UY but an April/Easter 2018 stay falls in your 2017 UY) and calculate how you are using pts from there.

UY has nothing to do with the dates you can start booking. booking is based solely on home resort, which gives an 11 month advantage.

 

[amymgould]

just remember that use year is about when you use the pts for stays. always start by looking at which UY the dates of your planned stay fall into (for an August UY, a Nov 2018 stay falls into your 2018 UY but an April/Easter 2018 stay falls in your 2017 UY) and calculate how you are using pts from there.

UY has nothing to do with the dates you can start booking. booking is based solely on home resort, which gives an 11 month advantage.

Thank you! I realize UY has nothing to do with booking. I'm more concerned with if we would have to cancel a trip for some reason. Maybe I shouldn't focus on that so much since it's only a possibility and more than likely not going to happen.

 

[chalee94]

Thank you! I realize UY has nothing to do with booking. I'm more concerned with if we would have to cancel a trip for some reason. Maybe I shouldn't focus on that so much since it's only a possibility and more than likely not going to happen.

That's a big part of choosing a good UY.

If you have to cancel a Sept stay with an Aug UY, you'll have more options to rebook a stay before the pts expire on July 31 of the next year...as compared to traveling late in your UY (canceling a July stay with an Aug UY would leave you with few options if you needed to cancel - you'd probably be past your banking window anyway but any banked or borrowed pts would have to be used before they expired at the end of that July since they cannot be banked.)

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Thank you! I realize UY has nothing to do with booking. I'm more concerned with if we would have to cancel a trip for some reason. Maybe I shouldn't focus on that so much since it's only a possibility and more than likely not going to happen.

IMO it's good to try and buy the best UY possible as you never know what may end up coming up. For example with us our schedules or extremely flexible and cancellations shouldn't really be necessary. But having 2 deaths in the family occur just prior to trips - one my mother who was scheduled to go on our trip and the other my brother which was completely unexpected. Having the time to use holding points and not having to worry about it at the time was stress relieving rather than stress adding if we hadn't had that.

 

[Dean]

I'm a teacher so my travel times are limited. Most likely we will visit on our spring break which changes every year. It's usually the week before or after Easter. In the future we may consider the last week in August or possibly Christmas. I could never see us traveling in October, January, May or June. What do you think would be the best use year? What's the worst? TIA!

I'd do March in this situation.

 

[LAX]

I'm a teacher so my travel times are limited. Most likely we will visit on our spring break which changes every year. It's usually the week before or after Easter. In the future we may consider the last week in August or possibly Christmas. I could never see us traveling in October, January, May or June. What do you think would be the best use year? What's the worst? TIA!

I am assuming your school's summer break doesn't start until very late in June. How often do you see yourself traveling in September or November? I have school-age children and don't believe in pulling them out for vacations, so we are pretty much left with the long school breaks (ie: spring, summer, and winter). Thanksgiving is too short of for us to travel all the way to the East Coast or Hawaii, so we won't vacation in November. All these made me to decide on December, which covers all these breaks. Now if you plan on traveling in September, it probably won't work. While August technically is beyond the 8-month banking window, since there is a strong motivation to cancel a reservation 30 days out to avoid holding points, it can work if one can plan carefully.

LAX

 

[CarAnn]

I am working on my first DVC purchase. As a part of my research, I created a chart of the months that I am most likely to visit - January to May and late August to December. I am a Florida resident silver passholder so I am unlikely to visit June, July and through mid August. I based mine on when I am most likely to visit and when I will know I need to bank points. I figured by the end of March, I would know if I am visiting April through July and can bank my points if I do not plan to use. I know there are other things to consider such as cancellations but I selected August as my Use Year based on my analysis. Putting it in a chart form helped me see things a little more clearly.

 

[amymgould]

I am assuming your school's summer break doesn't start until very late in June. How often do you see yourself traveling in September or November? I have school-age children and don't believe in pulling them out for vacations, so we are pretty much left with the long school breaks (ie: spring, summer, and winter). Thanksgiving is too short of for us to travel all the way to the East Coast or Hawaii, so we won't vacation in November. All these made me to decide on December, which covers all these breaks. Now if you plan on traveling in September, it probably won't work. While August technically is beyond the 8-month banking window, since there is a strong motivation to cancel a reservation 30 days out to avoid holding points, it can work if one can plan carefully.

LAX

I've also thought December, however, there is a possibility we could travel over Thanksgiving, so that makes me nervous if we'd have to cancel. I feel like with every Use Year scenario, there is something that holds me back because of potential travel in a month where I couldn't bank my points!

 

[amymgould]

I'd do March in this situation.

I keep thinking about March too, however, there is a possibility of a February break at my school, although that only happens one every few years and in completely random fashion!

 

[Dean]

I keep thinking about March too, however, there is a possibility of a February break at my school, although that only happens one every few years and in completely random fashion!

Since spring break is your immediate plan, I'd do a UY that works for then. It really depends on how likely you are to do Feb. I suspect the chances of Feb are rare and that March is still your best option.

 

[amymgould]

Since spring break is your immediate plan, I'd do a UY that works for then. It really depends on how likely you are to do Feb. I suspect the chances of Feb are rare and that March is still your best option.

Yes, that is a very good point. Things change in the future all the time, so I shouldn't put much focus on a "maybe" trip, when I know Spring break trips are very likely. Thanks again!