UY - How important have you found it?

[resiii]

Hi

We're looking at buying DVC and have a question about UY. We are looking at some resale contracts and trying to weight the value of the different UY. Right now we take our vacations from June to September due to the age of our kids. Based on that it seems a September UY would be bad since we can't bank in the summer and probably a Feb UY would be best.

Have you found UY to be important? or not really?

Thanks
Rob

 

[dianeschlicht]

The only time use year matters is if you have to cancel a trip, and you are beyond your banking window for that year's points. That being said, in 11 years of membership we have NEVER lost points because of that. It really depends on how reliable you are when you make your plans. If you usually follow through on them, there probably isn't much of a difference which use year you have. If, on the other hand, you frequently feel the need to cancel often close to your vacation time, then you should choose a use year that is right before your usual travel time. Bear in mind that over the 50 years of so of the contract your travel habits are likely to change too. We prefer to travel in December, January and March. Since our use year is March, many of those trips would be bad for our use year if we ever had to cancel. I just don't see it ever being a habitual or normal thing for us to do that though, so I'm one who feels use year is not that great a thing to worry about.

 

[OneMoreTry]

Hi

Have you found UY to be important? or not really?

Thanks
Rob

Use year is important.

We haven't had to cancel after banking period. If we had, then we would have probably lost all those points. I am hesitant to book a vacation after the banking period ends -- it's risky.

 

[kristenrice]

We looked at it from a different perspective. We tried to narrow down four consecutive months of the year when we would probably NOT travel. Although we are going this October (kind of a fluke) we would normally not travel between October and December. We'd like to travel in January, but February is doable too. We opted for a February UY (since there is no January UY). We can still celebrate our DD's birthdays (June and September) as well as our anniversary (also September) without missing the banking deadline.

At first, I was thinking long and hard about UY. I realized that if I ever had to cancel a reservation, it would not be 2-3 months ahead. It would be because of an emergency situation which would fall within the 30-day window anyways. I figure that I am not going to make a reservation if the possibility of "non-emergency" cancellation exists so UY isn't really that big of a deal.

 

[Muhlenberg]

The way I looked at it was...did I EVER cancel ANY vacation? The answer was no. Not even when MIL was sick (we had a cell phone with us and we could have gone home early) and not when DH broke his ankle the week before.

So you could ask yourself that question. Note that your kids won't be in school forever...it just seems that way.

We suddenly found ourselves "kidless." The last few years I've gone in January. I just gave some points to my DD, who's a teacher, and she's going President's Week to escape the winter. And DH and I are thinking about going in May. So our vacations are changing, and our December UY works well for us.

 

[ACDSNY]

For us it did matter as I have about 6 months of the year I cannot take any long vacations. We currently have two UY (FEB & AUG). We normally travel in the Fall for large extended family trips with banked and borrowed points) so our FEB UY was a problem, too risky. We started an AUG UY and plan to have the majority of our points in this UY. All of our contracts are in increments of 60 or 100 points so as habits change over the years we can sell off a few points or give them to adult children.

 

[Buckeye Fan]

I hate my UY...enough so that I would consider selling our contracts. Here's why:

DH is a teacher. We travel Spring Break, June, July and August. We have an Aug UY. We have never cancelled a trip, but if we bank points, the points expire July 31. Since we purchased our points, we have been forced to travel several times in July when we would have preferred to travel in August.

Though your travel plans may change over the years, I would think about how different UYs may work for you. If I had to do it over again, I would pick a Dec or Feb UY. A Dec UY would allow us to plan vacations December, Spring Break, June, and July and still be able to cancel and bank (through July 31). If we had to cancel an Aug trip, we would have through Nov 30 to reschedule. If we banked, we would be able to vacation any time during the summer without worrying about points expiring, since they would have to be used by Nov 30.

Just thought I'd share the lessons I have learned!

 

[Blahnde]

It seems to me that the more fixed to a specific time of year your travel plans are, the more you care about use year. So you will hear responses from people who do not care at all because they can travel whenever they like, and you will hear responses from people who find it incredibly important because they have a limited travel schedule. The problem is that not only do travel cycles change over 50 years (as mentioned before, your kids will grow up!), but DVC has changed the banking rules in just the last few years and could do so again in the next 50.

Therefore, while I will say that it seems you have the right idea (February Use Year works well for June - September travel), I would not get too caught up in it. There is nothing more certain in life than change!

Blahnde

 

[melanie18]

Honestly, I don't think about my use year at all.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

I think that as long as you can find a UY that works best around your travel habits then why not? No, you may not ever have to cancel but things do happen. I did have to cancel a planned trip once, to Hawaii, due to work. Never would have thought I would, but it was a lesson learned.

 

[kimberh]

We travel mostly in late fall and May, unfortuately I have several UY's. Bought resale and Disney. My favorite is Oct. I almost lost a Sept vacation due to a niece getting married, could not bank the points. They were bought with the resale, already been banked. I was able to rent it 2 months prior to travel on another site. Then my niece cancelled her wedding. I took a cruise. If I had used my April UY, I would have been able to have cancelled the Sept trip and rebooked. It is very important. It depends on when you want to travel for the most of the time.

 

[OvertheRainbow]

We're new to DVC so hope our Feb use year works for us. Right now we don't really have any set time that we would likely travel in so don't even know what a "bad" use year for us would be. Our kids will be out of school in a few short years so that won't be a consideration much longer. I think that we would probably avoid summers at wdw because of the heat and crowds but everything else is open.

What would be considered "bad" months to travel in with a feb use year?

 

[jekjones1558]

We never thought use year would matter to us, and it didn't for the first years. Now we are dealing with family health issues that mean we have had to cancel or cut back trips on short notice. I am glad that our use year makes it much easier for us to do this. (We never use points in June - Sep. so our Oct. use year is perfect.)

 

[Dean]

UY is effectively cancellation insurance. IMO it has always been important but is more so for many with the new banking rules.

 

[Rileygirl]

I hate my UY...enough so that I would consider selling our contracts. Here's why:

DH is a teacher. We travel Spring Break, June, July and August. We have an Aug UY. We have never cancelled a trip, but if we bank points, the points expire July 31. Since we purchased our points, we have been forced to travel several times in July when we would have preferred to travel in August.

Just thought I'd share the lessons I have learned!

Aha! Very interesting BuckeyeFan! Here is a case where Use year impacts your travel plans, not because of cancelling, but because of banking! That is a great consideration- anyone who is looking to buy first time should think about this point. I know I never considered that.

Thank goodness I ended up with a september use year. I decided use year did not matter to me on the contract, so when I found a fat contract for BCV in my price range, I bought it, even though we travel a lot in August. We have never cancelled a trip, so I figured use year was mostly irrelevant to me. But, I plan to bank and borrow points to travel 2 out of every 3 years,, if I ended up with an Aug use year, I would have been unknowingly pooched!!!!

Great Point!

 

[dianeschlicht]

UY is effectively cancellation insurance. IMO it has always been important but is more so for many with the new banking rules.

Dean, I do agree that the new banking policy does make it more of an issue now than it has been for the past 11 years.

 

[jodifla]

Yep. Because of the STUPID change to 4 month banking, our April use year is no longer as good as it once was for us.

Use year IS important. Basically, you want your use year to start at the beginning on the months you are most likely to travel.

 

[DeeCee735]

Not really, not to us. We have an October UY, I'm usually in a state of borrowing so other than needing to know that they renew on Oct 1st, I don't pay much attention.