Terry S, I'm not a pro at this but I'll help as best I can, if I'm incorrect, someone please jump in. If you buy direct from Disney you usually get a use year about 5 months prior to your purchase date. So when you buy you get a full allotment of points. So if you buy today you might have a use year of March, so you will immediately have your points from March 2001 and then get the next full allotment in March 2002. To help with the down payment you may "sell back" a portion of the points you get with your purchase. I believe the current rate is $5/pt at VWL and $10/pt at HH. Thus if you buy 200 points at VWL you may elect to sell back 100 points and Disney will deduct $500 (assuming a VWL purchase) from the purchase price. You then would have 100 points to bank or use before March 31, 2002 (assuming an April use year). Most feel the points are worth more than the $5 that Disney offers, after all they are currently renting for $10/pt and have much more value than that when used. Hope that helped, if not, keep posting questions there's a lot of great people out here willing to help.