Walking a reservation with borrowed points

[APiratesLifeForMe2]

We are new DVC owners and planning a trip at VWL in December 2017. We will be using all of our remaining points and borrowing a few to make this reservation. Right now the dates prior to our stay are already starting to book up so I am contemplating walking the reservation but not sure how that works with borrowed points.

My ultimate question is, could I just book a longer stay using borrowed points and remove the extra days later and get back the points borrowed? I guess technically this isn't walking, but rather modifying an existing reservation.

 

[maburke]

You can do it, but the points don't get un-borrowed. They stay in the current use year. Unfortunately, you've picked the highest demand time of year, and one of the most popular resorts for that time. If you want to walk it, use no more points than what you will eventually need. Oh, and Welcome Home!

 

[Cbtexan04]

You can do it, but the points don't get un-borrowed. They stay in the current use year. Unfortunately, you've picked the highest demand time of year, and one of the most popular resorts for that time. If you want to walk it, use no more points than what you will eventually need. Oh, and Welcome Home!

Could he transfer the points back? Borrow, walk, transfer, rinse repeat? Just curious!

 

[_auroraborealis_]

Could he transfer the points back? Borrow, walk, transfer, rinse repeat? Just curious!

If I am getting your gist, no.

 

[maburke]

Could he transfer the points back? Borrow, walk, transfer, rinse repeat? Just curious!

I don't know what you mean by "transfer" here -- that's usually used to refer to removing points from one member account and putting them into another. it's not reversible, and you can only do it once per use year.

If you mean bank, no, you can't bank borrowed points.

 

[APiratesLifeForMe2]

If you mean bank, no, you can't bank borrowed points.

So if I borrow points to make a reservation, the points stay in the use year I moved them to?

I was also considering just booking a 1bedroom (again using borrowed points) and if a studio opened up I would change to that but if the borrowed points wouldn't go back then that doesn't make sense.

 

[supersnoop]

So if I borrow points to make a reservation, the points stay in the use year I moved them to?

I was also considering just booking a 1bedroom (again using borrowed points) and if a studio opened up I would change to that but if the borrowed points wouldn't go back then that doesn't make sense.

If you use both borrowed and current year points, and then you change the reservation to use fewer points, then the borrowers points are used first and current-year points are returned to you account. You could then bank the current-year points.

 

[APiratesLifeForMe2]

Thanks everyone. We are just going to keep our fingers crossed the studio is available and if not we will just borrow more points to get a 1 bedroom. I think I will be just fine being "stuck" with a 1 bedroom reservation

 

[kristenrice]

To help remember the rules about banking and borrowing, just think of each UY's points as being in a bucket. You can move the points out of the bucket only one time. You can move them forward one year (bank) or backward one year (borrow), but once those points have been moved out of their "bucket", they cannot be moved again.

 

[Cbtexan04]

To help remember the rules about banking and borrowing, just think of each UY's points as being in a bucket. You can move the points out of the bucket only one time. You can move them forward one year (bank) or backward one year (borrow), but once those points have been moved out of their "bucket", they cannot be moved again.

Thanks! We recently became owners (waiting on closing docs), and I admittedly have trouble remembering the rules on banking/borrowing.

 

[drusba]

As long as you are online at 8 a.m. to make the reservation at 11 months out from date of arrival, you should be OK. VWL, even during first two weeks of December, has not in the past had the problem of filling before 11 months out or instantly at 8 a.m. What you are seeing now is actually filling of studios that occurred after 9 a.m. eastern at 11 months out for the given days.

As noted borrowed points can never be put back onto their original use year. What I do not know is why you believe you need to borrow more points so you can walk by booking more days than your ultimate vacation time will be. If the date were open, you could start the walk now by booking no more than two nights -- the key to walking at 11 months out is to block out others from getting your room for the days you want. To do that while walking all you need to do is block out those who will be booking starting the day after you start the walk. Example, suppose you want Dec 10-15 and Dec 5-10 was currently open. You could go online and book Dec 5-7 (departure date) now. Result, your room is now blocked from anyone booking it at all today or tomorrow because others cannot get Dec 6 as a start date in your room and thus also cannot get any dates after Dec 6 for that room. Result, you could call tomorrow and add night of Dec 7 and drop Dec 5, thus blocking anyone from booking the room starting Dec 7. You just continue that two night walk until you get to your start date and can add all the nights you need.

 

[mustinjourney]

As long as you are online at 8 a.m. to make the reservation at 11 months out from date of arrival, you should be OK. VWL, even during first two weeks of December, has not in the past had the problem of filling before 11 months out or instantly at 8 a.m. What you are seeing now is actually filling of studios that occurred after 9 a.m. eastern at 11 months out for the given days.

As noted borrowed points can never be put back onto their original use year. What I do not know is why you believe you need to borrow more points so you can walk by booking more days than your ultimate vacation time will be. If the date were open, you could start the walk now by booking no more than two nights -- the key to walking at 11 months out is to block out others from getting your room for the days you want. To do that while walking all you need to do is block out those who will be booking starting the day after you start the walk. Example, suppose you want Dec 10-15 and Dec 5-10 was currently open. You could go online and book Dec 5-7 (departure date) now. Result, your room is now blocked from anyone booking it at all today or tomorrow because others cannot get Dec 6 as a start date in your room and thus also cannot get any dates after Dec 6 for that room. Result, you could call tomorrow and add night of Dec 7 and drop Dec 5, thus blocking anyone from booking the room starting Dec 7. You just continue that two night walk until you get to your start date and can add all the nights you need.

Agree with everything above. To put it more simply, walking does not require 7 days of booking. You just need to book a minimum of two nights -- and this is important -- make sure you call to modify the reservation by the last night (don't call 11 months from your check-out date).

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

We are new DVC owners and planning a trip at VWL in December 2017. We will be using all of our remaining points and borrowing a few to make this reservation. Right now the dates prior to our stay are already starting to book up so I am contemplating walking the reservation but not sure how that works with borrowed points.

My ultimate question is, could I just book a longer stay using borrowed points and remove the extra days later and get back the points borrowed? I guess technically this isn't walking, but rather modifying an existing reservation.

To put it simply, both banking and borrowing are final transactions. Once it's done there's no undoing it.

Like Drusba said you'll likely be fine if online right at 8am at 11 months. The days you see going are in the absolute busiest week. Just a few more days even are going to make a big difference.

 

[APiratesLifeForMe2]

As long as you are online at 8 a.m. to make the reservation at 11 months out from date of arrival, you should be OK. VWL, even during first two weeks of December, has not in the past had the problem of filling before 11 months out or instantly at 8 a.m. What you are seeing now is actually filling of studios that occurred after 9 a.m. eastern at 11 months out for the given days.

As noted borrowed points can never be put back onto their original use year. What I do not know is why you believe you need to borrow more points so you can walk by booking more days than your ultimate vacation time will be. If the date were open, you could start the walk now by booking no more than two nights -- the key to walking at 11 months out is to block out others from getting your room for the days you want. To do that while walking all you need to do is block out those who will be booking starting the day after you start the walk. Example, suppose you want Dec 10-15 and Dec 5-10 was currently open. You could go online and book Dec 5-7 (departure date) now. Result, your room is now blocked from anyone booking it at all today or tomorrow because others cannot get Dec 6 as a start date in your room and thus also cannot get any dates after Dec 6 for that room. Result, you could call tomorrow and add night of Dec 7 and drop Dec 5, thus blocking anyone from booking the room starting Dec 7. You just continue that two night walk until you get to your start date and can add all the nights you need.

Understood, I was just trying to see if I could make it simpler on myself then calling every day to adjust it.