What are our options?

[auntsue]

To make good use of the AP's that we bought for next month's trip, we also booked trips on borrowed points for President's week, and April 4-9. Now we have a dilemma. Last week, the opportunity to purchase our dream retirement home (right outside of Ocean City, MD), came up, and we took it, even though it is five years ahead of schedule. We are scheduled to close sometime in Feb. Since we won't be selling our current home or moving for five years, financially it is going to be tight for awhile, so we are seriously thinking about definitely not going in April, and possibly not going in Feb. However, since we borrowed the points, (300+) I assume we can't put them back. Can I even rent out my points if they are borrowed? How does that work? Both ressies are in a 1BR, Sun - Fri at the BWV. We were going in a night earlier and staying at the Dolphin & Swan.
Can I rent out the 5 nights as is or do I have to rent individual points? Can I keep the ressie and just change the name if I am able to rent it out? How soon would you try renting?
Are there any options besides renting them out? What about the "once in a lifetime" thing, would I be able to use that for two different ressies? That seems like "twice" in a lifetime.
I can live with keeping the Feb ressie, because I don't think we're closing before the 25th, but, as much as I love WDW, and I do, I'd love to be able to go down to my first-ever brand new house for the week in April. Well, I guess if that doesn't work out, I'll just have to force myself to go to WDW.
Thanks for any advice you can give me.

 

[InstImpres]

Susan -

I am guessing you are holding AP vouchers not actual AP's at the moment. Personally, I think I would go next month (buying a hopper from an online broker) and rent the other two weeks. They are both popular times and should rent pretty easy on the Rent/trade board. Use that money to pay for current hoppers and some extra "cosing costs". Hold the AP vouchers and use them in an year+ one you have the points back to o several times.

Good luck whatever you decide and congrats on the house

JMHO
Sandy

 

[PamOKW]

Congratulations on the new home.

The borrowed points have to be used by the end of your Use Year. You can do that any way you like. You can give and/or rent to a friend or relative a terrific trip to WDW. They can either use the trip(s) you've already booked or you can make alternate plans. The same would apply to renting to someone a stranger on the rent/trade board. Rent the trip or see if you can re-book to someone else's specifications. It's seems standard practice here to price the trip by the point by in reality, you could just price the entire trip. You can read past threads or get new advice from folks familiar with the best way to handle rental transactions so that everyone is happy. It will require you to do some legwork. MS will put any name you ask on the reservation but they will only send the confirmations to you.

You could also use the points to take non-WDW trips, like Concierge Collection weekends closer to home. You could ask whether the "one time" exemption would apply but I think that is for missed banking deadlines or catastrophic events rather than just a change of plans.

Just a reminder that if you have any unused current year points, be sure to bank those!