What to expect re: availability three months out?

[olliesmom]

We are in the process of purchasing a resale contract and awaiting ROFR. With the holidays coming up, I'm not anticipating being able to have our account set up and points available to book until mid-January.

Our vacation schedule this year is already fixed and our travel weeks are in April and July. We will have a baby with us, so would very much prefer to avoid the heat of July in WDW (we've done it before and swore we would never do it again!).

This has me thinking about that April week. I am anticipating availability will be very low three months prior to our travel dates, but am wondering if it's realistic to plan to book something if we are flexible with resort and room type? And/or if we dedicate a lot of time to reservation searching? We would be looking at the week of the 12-18. I have been trying to look at and understand the historical availability charts I've found online but would love to her personal experiences.

We have considered renting DVC points ourselves for that week and then renting out our own points once we receive them, but avoiding the DVC rental process was one of the reasons we are purchasing our own contract.

 

[VGCgroupie]

Nobody can predict what will be there. April is busy but I don’t think you won’t be able to find anything as long as you are flexible with dates and a potential split stay.

 

[olliesmom]

Nobody can predict what will be there. April is busy but I don’t think you won’t be able to find anything as long as you are flexible with dates and a potential split stay.

We unfortunately have no flexibility with dates because of work schedules, but have happily done split stays in the past. Thank you!

 

[VGCgroupie]

We unfortunately have no flexibility with dates because of work schedules, but have happily done split stays in the past. Thank you!

Often availability gets much better 30 days out because people cancel. So if you book something you don’t love remember to check back at 30 days to see if you can swap out to something better.

 

[muppets3d]

If you have enough points for preferred view studios or 1 bedroom villas or larger, your odds exponentially improve. The resort view studios will be all but gone, barring cancellations which nobody can predict. As @VGCgroupie said, 30-45 days before check-in is when you really want to stalk the site for cancellations because that's the last chance for folks to cancel without possibly penalizing their points. I would recommend you book something ASAP, even a split stay, and then stalk the site (or waitlist) what you actually want.