UY Questions Now

[utahkennedys]

I have a few questions about Use Year. I bought an OKW resale contract and we are now trying to figure out how to use the points if we add on a contract or buy transferred points.

1. What importance does UY have? Our UY for OKW is February, so I know that means we get our new points every February. But, does UY affect when I can make a reservation? For example, if I want to travel in Sept 06, can't I book my reservations at my home resort in Oct 05? Or does UY come into play and I can't book until I have the points?

2. If I buy an add on contract from Disney, can I only buy at OKW since that is where I have it now, or can I buy at another resort? If I can buy at another resort, will it have the same UY as my OKW contract?

3. What would be the advantages of having two separate contracts (like if I bought at BCV from resale) instead of buying again through Disney? I know through Disney I save the closing costs, but then I pay more per point anyhow. I think I understand that if I have 2 separate contracts, I could transfer between them (read that on this board)?

4. What would be the advantages of having contracts at 2 different resorts with the same UY since I think I understand I can only book at the home resort 11 months out?

Sorry for so many questions, but there seem to be so many nuances with points, use years, banking, transferring, etc!

 

[cruise-o-matic]

1. UY really comes into play when for banking/borrowing points. In Oct 05, you can book for Sep 06. Since the dates you are booking come after your UY date, you are not borrowing from your 06 point allotment.

2. You can add on at any other resort.

3. You would save by going resale. BCV may be the exception though, but from what I understand, the wait list through Disney is long. Plus if you add on through Disney, I think they would only add on Feb UY contracts. It's take your pick on the resale market. I don't think you can transfer points between the 2 contracts.

4. If you have 2 different home resorts, you cannot combine the points to get the 11 month advantage at one or the other. So if you have 200 OKW and 100 BCV, you can only use points from the OKW contract to book OKW at 11 months out, etc.

 

[CarolMN]

To help understand use year and making reservations, make your self a chart like this:

2005 use year points are good for stays between 2/1/2005 and 1/31/2006.
2006 use year points are good for stays between 2/1/2006 and 1/31/2007
2007 use year points are good for stays between 2/1/2007 and 1/31/2008
2008 use year points are good for stays between 2/1/2008 and 1/31/2009
etc.

All the points are actually already in your account - you don't have to wait until the start of your use year to make reservations using points from that use year. You can always make reservations at your home resort 11 months prior to your desired check out date and 7 months prior to your check out date for a non-home resort reservation.

Once you decide on the dates, see what use year those dates are in. To pay for the vaction, you can use current use year points (that's the use year your vacation dates ar in), points banked into the current use year from the previous use year, or you can borrow points from the next use year.

For example, you want to take a vacation in October of 2006. Looking at the chart, we see that the vacation will fall within the 2006 use year. You can call to make that reservation in October 2005. MS will use the 2006 use year points to make the reservation unless you instruct the CM differently. So even if you still have points left for 2005, MS will not use them for your Sept 2006 vacastion, becasue they are not valid for that stay. You'd have to bank them, if you wanted to use those 2005 points for your September 2006 vacation.

If you didn't have enough points to make the reservation, you could borrow points from your 2007 use year. If you do that, the borrowed points will now expire at the end of your 2006 use year, if you don't use them before then (could be a problem if you hae to cancel the Septembr 2006 reservation).. You can't "unborrow" or "unbank" points.

Best wishes -

 

[JimMIA]

1. What importance does UY have? Our UY for OKW is February, so I know that means we get our new points every February. But, does UY affect when I can make a reservation?

No. Use year has nothing to do with when you can make reservations, unless you have used all your points and borrowed all the points from the next year. In that rare scenario, you would have to wait until the start of the next use year to borrow from the following year, because you would not have any points available to borrow until then.

Two things use year does affect are banking and cancellations. Your banking deadlines are determined by your use year - 100% in the first six months, 50% in the first nine months, and 25% in the first ten months, then no banking the last two months. The totals are cumulative, so if you bank 50% at six months, you are done for that use year.

Cancellations can be a problem near the end of your use year, because you will usually be past your banking deadlines and risk losing the points entirely. Especially if you cancel within 30 days and the points go to holding status toward the end of your use year, your options are really limited.

 

[JimMIA]

3. You would save by going resale. BCV may be the exception though,

Or BWV. It's hard to know where the ROFR line is with BCV because there is so little activity there. Most of the successful BCV contracts have been in the $83-85 range, but the only ROFR is 78, so that doesn't really tell us much. BWV has more activity and it looks like the line is around 80. 80 has both passed and been ROFR'd recently.

AND...don't want to wish anyone any bad luck, but there is a BCV contract now in ROFR with a Feb use year @ $77.

With either resort, you would have to do the math to see what would get past ROFR, and how much closing would affect your cost. Resale is probably a little less expensive, but you might want to pay a couple hundred more for a sure thing.

but from what I understand, the wait list through Disney is long.

Yes and no. If you look at the wait list thread, you will find most BCV wait lists being met in a couple of weeks, with some taking 90 days. And you'll find that one outlier that takes almost a year, so go figure. Most of them look like they are getting fulfilled pretty quickly though, especially when you compare them to the minimum of 2 months that resale takes.