UY/Booking Question - Math Problem Gone Bad :)

[SuzGM84]

Hi All-

DH and I have been lurking on these boards and asking a few questions here and there. I think we're getting a good grasp on the ins and outs of DVC. HOWEVER, I still have trouble wrapping my head around points/UY/booking. When I see everyone's posts about them, it reminds me of a math word problem from elementary school - the worst kind of math problems IMO! And then my brain goes a bit fuzzy and I totally tune it all out, hoping I'll someday get it when it's needed on "test day."

Anyways, I'd like to lay out a scenario and hope that all the DVC folks with years of experience and knowledge can tell me "yes you got it!" or "nope, not quite right" or (worst case) "not even close, start over."

DH and I intend to buy our resale contract in 2018 sometime (once we've hit our target savings). We are considering looking for contracts with a DEC or OCT UY. We are planning on taking our first DVC trip in either January 2020 or May 2020. We intend to travel to Disney every two years (Side Note - I know everyone says this changes when you buy DVC but I intend to ensure we see more of the country/our kids do more than just go to Disney on every vacation like my parents did for me growing up).

The original thought was to use banked points from 2019 and UY points from 2020 to cover our trip. However, if I understand UY correctly, if we have a DEC or OCT contract, we'd be using our banked points from 2019 and borrowing our 2020 points for a January or May trip. Is that correct?

For our next planned trip in 2022, we'd have to do the same thing (bank 2021 and either use 2022 if we go at the end of the year or "borrow" from the 2022 UY if we go in early 2022). Is that also correct?

All of this then leads me into what kind of a contract should we be looking at in 2018? We have the time and patience to wait for the perfect one. I would think that getting a contract with only 2019 points available (i.e. nothing banked and current year depleted) would ensure that we could stick with our plan of using 2019 and 2020 points for our 2020 trip.

Phew - that was a lot and it is making my head hurt thinking about it. However, if I laid that out correctly, then I THINK I may have FINALLY cracked the UY/booking/banking/points block in my head!

As always, thanks for your insight and knowledge!

 

[supersnoop]

points/UY/booking.

Don't think about it this way. These are all separate concepts. If anything, you need to think in the order Booking, Use Year, and then Points.

For a trip in January 2020, you can book your home resort in February 2019 and other resorts in June 2019.

With a December use year, that trip would be in your 2019 use year. For trips in your 2019 use year, you can use banked points from 2018, current 2019 points, and you can borrow points from 2020.

When it comes to what kind of contract you should buy, I always find that more available points are better. The points tend to be worth more than the cost savings of a stripped contract. And it's better to use banked+ current points than current+borrowed if you can help it.

 

[drusba]

Example:

October use year. Trip in Jan or May 2020:

The "current" use year for that trip is October 1. 2019 to September 30, 2020. As a result when reserving you can use any October 2019 points. To use October 2018 points, you would need to bank them into the October 2019 use year. You could also, if needed, borrow points from the use year that starts October 2020.

That is the use of points which is always determined by when you will be at WDW, not when you call to reserve. You can call or go online to make that reservation 11 months out from date of arrival for home resort or 7 months for others, meaning that Jan 2020 reservation can be made in Feb 2019 for home resort or June 2019 for another resort.

If you purchase in 2018, think through the issue because you may have stranded points if you do not intend to go until Jan 2020. Fort example, ourchase an Oct use year contract in May 2018 and it may have Oct 2017 points in it. Those could not be used for the 2020 trip even if banked because they can be banked no further than into the Oct 2018 use year which ends Sep 2019.

 

[SuzGM84]

With a December use year, that trip would be in your 2019 use year. For trips in your 2019 use year, you can use banked points from 2018, current 2019 points, and you can borrow points from 2020.

Thank you! And after I saw this, I made a little chart that helped to visualize exactly this concept, which makes a lot more sense.

If you purchase in 2018, think through the issue because you may have stranded points if you do not intend to go until Jan 2020. Fort example, ourchase an Oct use year contract in May 2018 and it may have Oct 2017 points in it. Those could not be used for the 2020 trip even if banked because they can be banked no further than into the Oct 2018 use year which ends Sep 2019.

Good point! Thank you!