What is the use year everyone wants?

[we"reofftoneverland]

I thought it just depended on buyer preference, but I read something in a recent thread that made me think maybe there are use years that are more universally preferred. The only one we really didn't want was December because we never travel in January and February due to work. But we didn't rule it out. The UY we ended up with was just due to liking the overall contract. Just curious about this...

 

[miTnosnhoJ]

Ha! We like December, because we like going at Christmas and again in the Spring. It will vary for each person. It also varies by resort. Some resorts have fewer units in certain use years.

 

[lovin'fl]

Here is the distribution by use year charts...

https://dvcnews.com/index.php/dvc-p...ear-distribution-charts-updated-february-2018

Overall, December has the most points. But then you can look by resort. We have June and Aug and have had no troubles adding on (I'd say...since we own 9 contracts). Sept would probably be most ideal for us as we now mostly vacay from Oct through Jan. But having June and Aug hasn't been a problem (the main problem is having 2 UY, which sucks).

 

[disneynutz]

UY for original contracts was decided on by DVD, for some reason they have sold more UY's than others. At BLT they sold Feb UY's for the longest time. Most buyers don't understand UY's and take what's given to them.

Bill

 

[Marionnette]

Here is the distribution by use year charts...

https://dvcnews.com/index.php/dvc-p...ear-distribution-charts-updated-february-2018

Overall, December has the most points. But then you can look by resort. We have June and Aug and have had no troubles adding on (I'd say...since we own 9 contracts). Sept would probably be most ideal for us as we now mostly vacay from Oct through Jan. But having June and Aug hasn't been a problem (the main problem is having 2 UY, which sucks).

^^This!

From a resale standpoint, it's much easier to find a contract if you have a UY that has a considerable number of points sold. My first contract was an AKV Sept. UY, which suited our travel plans for most trips. But it was very difficult to find the right add-on contract when it came time because only 2% of AKV points were sold with a Sept UY.

Conversely, when (if) it comes time to sell, you will also wait longer for the right buyer to come along.

 

[bwvBound]

I don't interpret what I've read to indicate a common/universal preference. Individuals may have particular preference (we did!) but many (most??) buy whatever UY they were 'sold' without much thought.

Before our first purchase we were absolutely fixed on buying a DEC UY as we enjoy visiting over the Christmas holidays and absolutely visited in January for a work-related conference. We were talked into an OCT UY ... and were kinda miffed about that ... but have since learned to embrace it for our WDW travel window. The OCT UY doesn't work well for our DL visits but there was no DVC at DL when we purchased. Neither OCT nor DEC fit our Hawaii travel period ... so perhaps there is no one perfect UY as there is no one perfect home resort? LOL ... timeshares are like potato chips ...

 

[ScubaCat]

I bought whatever gave me the best deal initially via resale (February) and have added on the same in subsequent contracts. There's so many pros and cons to any option that it doesn't matter much in most cases IMHO. For instance, we go in the fall so theoretically February would be bad. But BCV is super popular so if we couldn't use a F&W or NYE booking, for instance, I could just rent it out instead as a name transfer. And February has the most inventory at BCV meaning easier to find matching add-ons.

Overall, the best price is my #1 concern, but everyone's situation is different.

 

[Matty B13]

We want a February because we have kids in school, so we can only go during their vacation weeks which are in February and April, so a February UY works best for us.

 

[hulagirl]

For us, September and December are perfect as they cover Food and Wine, the few weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas and my birthday which falls right at the beginning of the Flower and Garden Festival (my personal favorite time to visit).

 

[DisneyDotts]

I have an April use year (when all the closing gets done anyway). We go in May/Sept like clockwork.

 

[Where'sPiglet?]

I'm a teacher and I have an October use year. I bought resale and for the number of points and price, the contract was a good option. My most common times to travel are at Spring Break (first week of April) and sometime in summer. However, I've also traveled in October, November, December, and February.

On paper, October might not be the best, but the flip side to that is summer is my most flexible time to go, so if I did need to adjust something pretty late in my use year, I hopefully can. Also, I've traveled almost year-round to Disney over the years, so I think October will be fine in the grand scheme of things.

It is a little confusing for me to have the use year late in the calendar year, because I'm using 2018 points to travel in late July 2019, but part of that might just be being new to the DVC system also.

 

[4luv2cdisney]

Oct UY is great for those who don't want to travel to Florida in the boiling hot summer or peak of hurricane season, like me!

Honestly, my husband and daughter both have jobs that make May-Sept difficult for taking time off anyway. So, it was a no-brainer.

 

[hayesdvc]

We normally would go to the World in October and our bought our first contract with an Aug UY. We have added trips in most other months including going to HHI in June. Each subsequent contract I purchased was August too to keep just one UY.

 

[stuartsong]

Here is the distribution by use year charts...

https://dvcnews.com/index.php/dvc-p...ear-distribution-charts-updated-february-2018

Great information. Thanks for the mink.

 

[kboo]

We want a February because we have kids in school, so we can only go during their vacation weeks which are in February and April, so a February UY works best for us.

Where we live, the best time of year to escape muddy season here and not get roasted is over April school break (but which unfortunately costs the most points). 3 out of 4 in our family have summer birthdays, and so a February UY was easy and made sense for us. (especially BLT!)
So our original plans were to go in the late summer, generally, with an occasional April break trip.

The 4th in our family has a Thanksgiving birthday, and we did want to go over Christmas occasionally, so when we added another resort, we decided anything from June - Sept would work, with June - August being optimal. So now we also have an August UY for fall-winter trips, and we have August trips covered with both contracts.

 

[siren0119]

I'm trying to wrap my brain around UY and figure out what would work for us. Realistically, we would probably look to travel once during the kids' off time (Probably Feb/April so I can escape the cold New England weather!) and once in the fall for an adults only Food & Wine trip. What would be the ideal use years to consider so that I'm not losing points or constantly trying to manage banking/renting to keep from losing them?

 

[kboo]

I'm trying to wrap my brain around UY and figure out what would work for us. Realistically, we would probably look to travel once during the kids' off time (Probably Feb/April so I can escape the cold New England weather!) and once in the fall for an adults only Food & Wine trip. What would be the ideal use years to consider so that I'm not losing points or constantly trying to manage banking/renting to keep from losing them?

March and April would probably work best for you; Feb is possible if your fall trip is likely to be in September and if you'd be able to make a decision to cancel and bank points in July or August (more than 30 days before your scheduled trip).

 

[siren0119]

March and April would probably work best for you; Feb is possible if your fall trip is likely to be in September and if you'd be able to make a decision to cancel and bank points in July or August (more than 30 days before your scheduled trip).

Thank you!
Our schedules are always crazy so I'm usually planning our trips well in advance (like, i already started making general plans for 2020 just not booking anything yet) so that makes sense.

How far ahead to points have to be banked before the use year runs out or lose the points?

So much to learn!

 

[E2ME2]

I had no idea what the significance of the UY was when we first bought in. I won't say it was an impulse buy, because I kept the CM for 3.5 hours reviewing everything, but we did buy on site, first tour. We bought a JUNE UY, an we usually visit in January. This has been working well for 7 years, and it's exciting returning home from DVC, and immediately banking any left over points, and putting our 11 Month placeholder ressie in place. For convenience, when we added on, we kept to the JUNE UY.
Is there more science to this than I am acknowledging ??

 

[hetzeltj]

Wife and I are thinking about making a purchase this coming Friday. Purchase will be direct. Will my UY be the month I purchased the contract, or can the back date it to a different month. We typically like going in the fall September to October so what would be the ideal UY for those dates of travel?