Using Current vs Borrowed Points

[bwbuddy5]

I know this sounds ridiculous, but there's a method to my madness: can I use borrowed points before I use current points?

 

[CarolMN]

AFAIK, you can't borrow points until you are making a reservation that will use them. The system uses all the current points before borrowing.

So if you really want to do it, you'd have to make a reservation that uses all the current points and then make the reservation that will use the borrowed points. After that you can cancel the reservation you made with the current points & those will be returned to your account.

 

[Sandisw]

The only way to do it is what Carol mentioned.

 

[thanxfornoticin]

Yea, I had an actual situation earlier this use-year where I wanted to do just that, and making a 'temp' reservation to cancel was more trouble than it was worth. I expect they don't allow it to try and 'protect' the owners from using their points incorrectly (and potentially losing points), but it would be a nice option.

 

[RamblinWreck]

If you have already borrowed points and canceled the reservation that used them, yes you want to use those first for sure!

 

[thanxfornoticin]

If you have already borrowed points and canceled the reservation that used them, yes you want to use those first for sure!

No, if it was like my situation, we wanted to borrow for a trip earlier in the year that we knew was 'for sure'. Then we had a second trip later that was a 'perhaps', and on we might cancel. Would have preferred the borrowed points for the 'for sure' trip and regular points for the trip that was 50-50. That way, if we cancelled the second trip, the points would return to the dashboard, and could be banked until next year. Borrowing, of course, would not allow for that. Not sure if that's how OP was thinking or not - but it is an interesting question as to why they don't allow it.

 

[RamblinWreck]

No, if it was like my situation, we wanted to borrow for a trip earlier in the year that we knew was 'for sure'. Then we had a second trip later that was a 'perhaps', and on we might cancel. Would have preferred the borrowed points for the 'for sure' trip and regular points for the trip that was 50-50. That way, if we cancelled the second trip, the points would return to the dashboard, and could be banked until next year. Borrowing, of course, would not allow for that. Not sure if that's how OP was thinking or not - but it is an interesting question as to why they don't allow it.

They may not specifically allow it, but it's pretty easy to trick the system into letting you do it if you need to.

You just need to find a reservation for something else that uses up the exact number of points from your current year that you don't want to allocate to that trip, and book it.

Then you book the other reservation with borrowed points.

Then, you cancel the first reservation.


I actually did this once. I needed to make sure I was keeping a certain number of points set aside for a trip that was going to take place later in the year. And I did it exactly this way.