Use Year Question

[Hopefully]

I spent yesterday on the Boards doing research on DVC. I did a search on Use Year and Banking and I think I understand it in general.
We are seriously considering buying at BCV. We travel in October and are able to plan in advance. If we would want to stay at BCV in October for the Food & Wine festival what would the ideal Use Year be?
Thanks for your patience.

 

[brandedguy]

I spent yesterday on the Boards doing research on DVC. I did a search on Use Year and Banking and I think I understand it in general.
We are seriously considering buying at BCV. We travel in October and are able to plan in advance. If we would want to stay at BCV in October for the Food & Wine festival what would the ideal Use Year be?
Thanks for your patience.

Use Year mostly affects your banking and cancelling deadlines. Let me try to explain.

If you cancel a reservation 31 or more days prior to arrival, your points return to your current use year. If you are withing banking deadlines (100%, 50% and 25%) of your use year, you can bank up to that percentage of points provided that they haven't been borrowed, banked or in holding status.

Any vacation canceled less than 31 days prior to arrival and more than 1 day prior to arrival, become holding points, which expire the end of your current use year, can not be banked, borrowed, and can only book a stay between 1 and 60 days prior to arrival. These are extremely 'distressed' points, or HOLDING = BAAAAAAAAAAAD!

So if you most frequently visit in October, a September or October UY would be great.

You can always book at your home resort 11 months in advance of your check-out day and 7 months at any other DVC resort, regardless
of your use year. But if you cancel an October vacation with a September UY you could bank 100% of those points into next use year until Feb 29, 2008, 50% May 31, 2008 and 25% of your points until June 30, 2008. (Provided MS is open, and/or online banking becomes available again). If not banked these points must be used by the last day of September 2008 (checkout date).

So a Sep. or Oct. UY would give you the most flexibility. Even if you can't bank, but need to reschedule you will have more time todo it before the points expire.

However, if in the future your travel norms change, these could be bad UYs for say Summer Vacations.

I highly recommend caskbills programs for tracking/managing your points and deadlines.

Brand

 

[drusba]

Any use year between April to Oct would be fine for you and would allow you to bank all points if you need to cancel. Note, that use year is irrelevant to when you can call to reserve -- always 11 months out at home resort and 7 at others.

 

[Hopefully]

Thanks for the replies!!!
I do understand that UY is relevant to cancelling, I was trying to understand the dates.
Where is there a link to caskbills programs for tracking/managing your points and deadlines?
Thanks again!

 

[brandedguy]

Thanks for the replies!!!
I do understand that UY is relevant to cancelling, I was trying to understand the dates.
Where is there a link to caskbills programs for tracking/managing your points and deadlines?
Thanks again!

It is caskbill.com

I'm trying to add a link, but I may not have enough posts to do that.

www.caskbill.com

Well, it looks like I can!

 

[CarolMN]

Thanks for the replies!!!
I do understand that UY is relevant to cancelling, I was trying to understand the dates.
Where is there a link to caskbills programs for tracking/managing your points and deadlines?
Thanks again!

Banking deadlines -

Up to 100% by the end of the 6th month following the start of your use year
Up to 50% by the end of the 9th month
Up to 25% by the end of the 10th month
No banking allowed in the 11th & 12th months.

 

[Hopefully]

Thanks for the Link
I downloaded it and I love it!

 

[BLTOH]

Hi, we are checking into possibly getting into DVC (provided we can sell our current 2 timeshares we have in florida) but i have a question about the use year. does it really matter what the use year is? or should you pick a time when you would travel the most? i ask this as we would probably bank about every other year. when we travel varies with us as we like to go at different times of the year but we mainly have to go around holiday time frames.

 

[drusba]

Use year is irrelevant to when you can go (which is any time of year) or when you can call to reserve (always 11 months out at home resort and 7 at other DVC resorts). The discussion above is a reference to only issue involving use year. There are deadlines by which you must bank points for use in a subsequent year (six months into your use year to bank all points). If you cancel a ressie, you may not be able to bank after cancelling if the cancellation takes place late in the use year. Thus, to be able to bank all points if you cancel, many recommend getting a use year that is before but fairly close to (up to six months before) the time you usually go every year. For someone that goes different times every year, that issue is also irrelevant.