Your Use Year determines two things:
1. The period in which you can use your points each year, and
2. The deadlines by which you must bank the points if you will not be able to use them.
If you have a June Use Year, every set of points you receive is good from 6/1 to the following 5/31. For example, your 2006 points would be valid for any nights between 6/1/06 and 5/31/07.
If you cannot use your points in any given year they may be banked. Banking points effectively rolls them forward to the next Use Year. If the 2006 points noted above were banked, they would then be valid for any stays the nights of 6/1/07 to 5/31/08.
Points are not banked automatically--you must either call
DVC and give them direction to bank the points, or I believe you can now do it via the member's website.
The deadlines for banking points are:
First 6 mos of the use year: 100% of your points
Months 7-9: 50% of your points
Month 10: 25% of your points
After Month 10, you can no longer bank any points. Also note that these percentages are cumulative. You CANNOT bank 50% of your points in month 6 and then bank the other 50% in month 8. By month 8 if you are already 50% banked, you may bank no additional points.
For a June Use Year, the deadlines would be:
100% banking: November 30th
50% banking: February 28/29th
25% banking: March 31st
Banking deadlines can be very important if you ever have to cancel a trip on relatively short notice. Ideally you want to have a Use Year month that immediately PRECEEDS your normal travel period. If you normally vacation in the summer months, June would be ideal. Let's say you have a trip scheduled for June or July 2007 using your '07 points. In the spring you find out that you have to cancel. With a June Use year you still have until November '07 to bank all of the points, or until May '08 to reschedule and actually use them.
Now let's imagine you have an August Use Year. The 100% banking deadline is January 31st. So, if your June '07 trip is cancelled anytime after 1/31/07, you can no longer bank 100% of those points. And you have much less time (only until 7/31/07) to re-book and still use the points. If they aren't used by 7/31/07, the points are simply forfeit.
Of course, if you vacation at various times during the year, picking a specific Use year is virtually meaningless. You will have some trips that fall closer to the end of the use period than others, and you'll simply have to keep that in mind when evaluating the possibility that you may have to cancel/reschedule.
Hope that helps.
