Use Year Options—Best Month?

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

Hi Everyone— I did try to research old threads and didn’t see anyone covering this topic exactly— if you are starting from scratch— what is the best Use Year month, and why?

My thinking is that if we typically travel in Nov, Dec, Jan, Mar, April, ideally we would ideally want a Sept/Oct use year because you need to bank 4 months earlier, so I’d want some flexibility to bank if a trip fell apart. Does that sound right? Am I missing anything?

 

[ehh]

Hi Everyone— I did try to research old threads and didn’t see anyone covering this topic exactly— if you are starting from scratch— what is the best Use Year month, and why?

My thinking is that if we typically travel in Nov, Dec, Jan, Mar, April, ideally we would ideally want a Sept/Oct use year because you need to bank 4 months earlier, so I’d want some flexibility to bank if a trip fell apart. Does that sound right? Am I missing anything?

Your thinking is in the right direction. Based on your current typical travel, Sept/Oct are your two best choices.

Try to also think ahead to future years and how your plans might change.

For example, we were consistent early/mid December travelers so we went with December UY. Which was great until we started to slide into late November.

Now there's two hassles:

• Increased risk of losing points due to last second change of plans, as you mention.
• It's not possible to book a reservation online that spans two UY. For example, it's not possible to use a Dec UY online to book from 11/26 - 12/4. You have to book 11/26 - 12/1 and 12/1 - 12/4 separately then have Member Services merge them.
  • Secondary hassle of this that is specific to only a few different UY months: it can be really competitive to book a reservation starting 12/1 for certain room types.

 

[Sandisw]

Your thinking is what many of used to choose a UY that gave the most flexibility if things had to be changed or canceled.

So for you, i think the Sept or Oct are a good choice.

 

[Nursemanit]

Just be warned all use years are not equal - Sept / Oct have much fewer people owning them and cheap resale contracts are much harder to come by.

 

[4luv2cdisney]

Just be warned all use years are not equal - Sept / Oct have much fewer people owning them and cheap resale contracts are much harder to come by.

Came to say this exact thing.

I don't know if you're buying direct or resale, but if you think you ever want resale, it's tough out there for us Sept/Oct folks. As for usage, it's perfect if you hate summer in Florida. lol

I have October and yep, it is perfect for usage, but I think Sept would have been fine. Also, your travel patterns may change as time goes on. I hate Florida summers, but my DD is about to do her second Disney College Program and stay there permanently. Which means, we've been there (and will be there in future) summers.

(There used to be a chart floating around somewhere that showed the number of contracts per UY DVC initially sold. Sept/Oct were definitely lower %.)

 

[CarolynFH]

(There used to be a chart floating around somewhere that showed the number of contracts per UY DVC initially sold. Sept/Oct were definitely lower %.)

Here's the chart. The main thing to glean from it is that there's no real pattern of distribution of UY across the various DVC resorts. Also, when DVD takes contracts back via ROFR or foreclosure, they can change the UY of those points when they resell them. So these percentages may not be the same today as they were then.

https://dvcnews.com/?view=article&i...bution-charts-updated-february-2018&catid=166

 

[E2ME2]

I voted August, but all of my contracts are JUNE . We now travel Jan-thru-Feb, but when we first bought in we were only traveling in January. We have to bank by Jan 31st, so August would have given us until Mar 31st. Too late now, but we make it work.

 

[ehh]

Here's the chart. The main thing to glean from it is that there's no real pattern of distribution of UY across the various DVC resorts. Also, when DVD takes contracts back via ROFR or foreclosure, they can change the UY of those points when they resell them. So these percentages may not be the same today as they were then.

https://dvcnews.com/?view=article&i...bution-charts-updated-february-2018&catid=166

The thing that sticks out to me here is that June, August, and December are 3 of the 4 top months. They're also the only three 'island' months, a month that has no available UY in an adjacent month (e.g., December is an island because neither November nor January are available UY).

This lumps the distribution into these 'island' months as almost everyone who wants "December/January-ish" will probably get December. But those who want September/October-ish could buy either one.

Then there's February, not an island month and the 2nd biggest seller. Always fun little oddities with DVC.

 

[CarolynFH]

The thing that sticks out to me here is that June, August, and December are 3 of the 4 top months. They're also the only three 'island' months, a month that has no available UY in an adjacent month (e.g., December is an island because neither November nor January are available UY).

This lumps the distribution into these 'island' months as almost everyone who wants "December/January-ish" will probably get December. But those who want September/October-ish could buy either one.

Then there's February, not an island month and the 2nd biggest seller. Always fun little oddities with DVC.

Yes, and remember that for many new buyers, especially those who haven’t spent much time on the internet before buying, the UY is assigned by DVD at time of purchase, so DVD determines the UY distribution. Ours was, and luckily it turned out that September is the perfect UY for us!

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

Thank you so much to everyone who has responded, and thank you especially to @ehh for pointing out the danger of December for us. We do like to visit the resorts around Thanksgiving weekend (3 of the 4 members of my household have birthdays between Nov 25 and Dec 5) and the kids love to be there for birthdays-- several of the contracts I'm most interested in are clustered in December, but on the years that Thanksgiving falls late, I can understand why that split would be a nightmare.

So I did say I was starting from scratch, but actually I have 200 points at Aulani, direct from DVC, on an August use year. August is not ideal because it will make it dicey if something blows up our spring break plans... I guess we'd just try to cobble something together for summer in FL.

If we did pick up resale points in an August year, would that even have any real benefit as being the same UY given that the other resort would be 6 time zones and at least two long haul flights away?

 

[mamaofsix]

We travel the exact same periods as you and bought October.

 

[4luv2cdisney]

Thank you so much to everyone who has responded, and thank you especially to @ehh for pointing out the danger of December for us. We do like to visit the resorts around Thanksgiving weekend (3 of the 4 members of my household have birthdays between Nov 25 and Dec 5) and the kids love to be there for birthdays-- several of the contracts I'm most interested in are clustered in December, but on the years that Thanksgiving falls late, I can understand why that split would be a nightmare.

So I did say I was starting from scratch, but actually I have 200 points at Aulani, direct from DVC, on an August use year. August is not ideal because it will make it dicey if something blows up our spring break plans... I guess we'd just try to cobble something together for summer in FL.

If we did pick up resale points in an August year, would that even have any real benefit as being the same UY given that the other resort would be 6 time zones and at least two long haul flights away?

I don't think August is ideal if starting from scratch, but personally, I don't think it's a bad UY for your travel plans and adding to your existing membership means you can easily draw from each contract to combine and use your points most efficiently (IMO).

Since Aug UY = March bank, you would ideally be cancelling your April trip in Mar to avoid holding - still giving you time to bank. In the event of a truly last minute cancellation and holding situation, you still have the busy (but easier to book) summer months to find something that works for either your family or a renter!

 

[cdirazonian]

We have September UY and agree Sept is very hard to find small resale contract.

We initially went to WDW every Feb/Apr school breaks…so I don’t even remember why I picked September for a UY (bought resale 2008) but times change and it’s worked out well for us as now we mostly want to go in Sept - Dec during the holiday parties for grand kids and F&W for us.

if your interested in the MNSSH & such a September (October) UY works pretty good

 

[linzjane88]

Just be warned all use years are not equal - Sept / Oct have much fewer people owning them and cheap resale contracts are much harder to come by.

THIS. It's sorry of like finding a needle in a haystack when adding on with a "rare" use year and you likely won't be getting the screaming deals you are seeing on the ROFR thread.

Meanwhile awesome December and February are making it rain. Personally if I were to do it again I would NOT get a Sep UY for that reason. Not to mention our travel habits aren't what the were when we first purchased anyhow so I find UY pretty irrelevant.

 

[pinkxray]

We typically travel the same months as you and we picked Oct. I am very happy with our choice. It did take a little longer to find an Oct. use year and I don’t think it would be as easy to find such a great deal as other use years but for me it was worth it to pay a few dollars more.

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

Thanks everyone. It seems like avoiding December is probably my highest priority— then either August for convenience of pulling contracts together or Sept/Oct for ideal cancellation timing— but as @4luv2cdisney pointed out, if we cancel our April trip, we’d probably want to do it by March anyway.

 

[Sandisw]

Thanks everyone. It seems like avoiding December is probably my highest priority— then either August for convenience of pulling contracts together or Sept/Oct for ideal cancellation timing— but as @4luv2cdisney pointed out, if we cancel our April trip, we’d probably want to do it by March anyway.

To avoid holding points , you have to cancel at least 31 days in advance so any April trip is safe with an Aug UY because of that rule.

When you cancel less than 31 days out, even if you were in the first few months of a UY, you’d have holding points which means points can’t be banked anyway!!

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

To avoid holding points , you have to cancel at least 31 days in advance so any April trip is safe with an Aug UY because of that rule.

When you cancel less than 31 days out, even if you were in the first few months of a UY, you’d have holding points which means points can’t be banked anyway!!

Thank you. I completely understand why we want to avoid holding points—unfortunately my husband and I both work jobs with rare but non-zero chances of last minute emergencies—but our kids are almost old enough that even if we did have minor work emergencies then we could still travel and they would just spend more time unsupervised while we work from our villa.