use year question

[DannysMom]

Hi Folks,

My husband & I are considering a DVC membership, but perhaps not for a couple of years (to save up for it.) We have a now 4 year old son who has already been to WDW twice & keeps asking about going back. So DVC may be a good way for us to go.

My question: I'm not sure I understand the significance of the use year month, can anyone shed any light there for me? Upsides or downsides to particular use years? I love springtime in FL, but after preschool we may be forced into summertime vacations more often than not, because of school conflict. Any thoughts? TIA

 

[Caskbill]

The Use Year month has absolutely no impact except in the one instance where you may need to cancel a reservation. If you never cancel reservations, than any use year is fine.

The way it works is you can bank points from one year to the next if you don't think you'll be using them. There are banking deadlines. You can bank 100% of your points during the 1st 6-months of your use year, 50% during months 7, 8, or 9, and 25% during month 10. You cannot bank any points during months 11 & 12.

Example: October Use Year month (Vacation dates = Oct thru Sep)
Suppose someone has an October UY month and makes a reservation for December 20th. In November (Nov 10th for example) they cancel the reservation (more than 30 days prior to checkin), so the points are returned. Since they're still in the 1st 6-months of their UY (Oct-Mar), they can bank 100% of the points to their next year.

Example: February Use Year month (Vacation dates = Feb thru Jan)
Suppose someone else has a February UY. They make the same reservation, and also cancel it in November. They are in their 10th month of their use year and therefore can only bank 25% of the points that are returned. The remaining 75% remain in the use year and must be used by Jan 31st, or they expire.

Finally, the use year month has absolutely nothing to do with when you can make the reservation. In the above example, if both had the same resort and were making a December 20th home resort reservation, they could both call the preceding January (11-months ahead) and make the reservation.

Hope this helps.

 

[DannysMom]

The Use Year month has absolutely no impact except in the one instance where you may need to cancel a reservation. If you never cancel reservations, than any use year is fine.

Thank you for your reply. I guess you would want to think when your travel would most often occur (so for us either spring or summer) and try to plan your use year so that any cancellations of plans would be in the first 6 months of your use year. I'm sure everybody hates to cancel vacation plans, but sometimes life and/or work interferes.


It is something to think about. I'm guessing that we'd probably do resale when we're ready to commit, unless there are incredible incentives to buy direct from Disney.

Thanks again.

 

[jenr812]

Thank you for asking this (and thanks Caskbill for your reply.) It helped me also