Your personal use year complications

[Noah_t]

I have read and researched use year and I feel I have a good understanding but more information is usually a good thing. What would help me understand it more would be to hear some DVC members issues where a use year issue really messed with them. I just put an offer on BLT so am getting pretty stoked.

PS Why the heck is it not called use month?

 

[bumbershoot]

If I tell you that I’ve never had a complication with my Feb UY, does that count?

That said, we started off traveling in December and using more than one year’s points. If we had had to cancel, we would have had almost no time to use those points (because they would all expire Jan 31). But that never happened. It was just something to keep in mind.



Feb UY means that my year’s worth of points go from feb 1 through Jan 31.

A Dec UY starts Dec 1 and goes through Nov 30.

So it’s a year that starts in a certain month. Not just a month.

 

[jarestel]

Many people will restrict themselves to booking reservations in the first few months of their use year so if they have to cancel, there is still time in the use year to book another trip. Sort of like an insurance policy.

Some place great emphasis on use years, some do not.

 

[CarolMN]

At least for now, it can be frustrating to book online if your stay straddles use years. (Because of the limitations of the booking engine). You may end up with two reservations or have to call MS to finish your booking. This can be a problem if you are trying to book a studio for popular dates - could mean you miss out and have to waitlist.

 

[Deb & Bill]

With Dec, some owners forget about their year starting Dec 1 instead of Jan 1 (11 months earlier). Almost the entire calendar year is in the previous UY. But if you pay your fees annually instead of monthly, you paid all your fees for your Dec UY in January (11 months before).

 

[CookieandOatmeal]

Due to mine and my husband's work schedules, we can only go certain times of the year (mid-late Dec and Summer). We used to be able to go during April but my hubs' work pushed up an annual deadline so that is currently out. We have a Dec UY and I basically book from Dec-end of July. I try to make it so that if we can't make it, we still have time to bank our points. If push comes to shove, we would resort to using any expiring points during Thanksgiving.

 

[Noah_t]

At least for now, it can be frustrating to book online if your stay straddles use years. (Because of the limitations of the booking engine). You may end up with two reservations or have to call MS to finish your booking. This can be a problem if you are trying to book a studio for popular dates - could mean you miss out and have to waitlist.

So to book a stay that straddles your contract month would you have to use points from both years then?

 

[CarolMN]

So to book a stay that straddles your contract month would you have to use points from both years then?

Yes.

For example, if you had a December use year and wanted to stay 11/29 - 12/5. You would book the nights of 11/29 & 11/30 from the 2018 use year points and 12/1 -12/4 nights from 2019 use year points. Taking points from two use years for the same reservation is apparently beyond the capability of at least the online booking system. So you would book a reservation from 11/29-12/1 online and then call MS to book the rest of your stay. Or you could call MS to do the whole thing for you, but MS opens one hour later than online, so in some circumstances, you would be shut out and have to wait list.

I believe MS can link the two cross-use year reservations, but not combine them into one. Combining is preferred because it appears to the resort as one continuous stay and there is no chance you would have to check out and back in again between the reservations. If the reservations are linked, you should not have to change rooms but you may have to go to the front desk and check out and back in again. This is inconvenient and could also complicate dining plan usage.

More importantly, straddling use years can prevent you from "walking" your reservation online (due to banking and borrowing rules). That's a significant disadvantage if you are trying to get a studio (for most WDW resorts) during the popular periods (mid-September - Marathon weekend, race weekends, etc.).

So get a use year that is at least one month prior to your usual vacation time - if you travel at the same time of the year on a consistent basis.

 

[Chuck S]

I have a June use year, my reservations often cross the use year. I never know how DVC will handle it at any time, depending on recent system upgrades and such. In the days of the dinosaur, it was booked as a single reservation, simply pulling points from the appropriate use year, or if there were enough points for the entire stay, banking the points for the second part of the stay and using those.

Lately, though, I've been having to stress at the front desk that it is a continuing stay, and still having to technically check in and out using two reservation numbers, whether calling or booking online.

Either way, crossing use years has never been a major problem, a minor inconvenience at worst.

As to whether the new magic band charging authorization system will have any negative impact on that, we'll see. I'm not crossing the use year this year, as I had to wait for a 10 year old to get out of school, so I'm not arriving until June 4.

 

[summerw]

OP: I’m so glad to see this thread. I’m struggling between two myself.

Yes.

For example, if you had a December use year and wanted to stay 11/29 - 12/5. You would book the nights of 11/29 & 11/30 from the 2018 use year points and 12/1 -12/4 nights from 2019 use year points. Taking points from two use years for the same reservation is apparently beyond the capability of at least the online booking system. So you would book a reservation from 11/29-12/1 online and then call MS to book the rest of your stay. Or you could call MS to do the whole thing for you, but MS opens one hour later than online, so in some circumstances, you would be shut out and have to wait list.

I believe MS can link the two cross-use year reservations, but not combine them into one. Combining is preferred because it appears to the resort as one continuous stay and there is no chance you would have to check out and back in again between the reservations. If the reservations are linked, you should not have to change rooms but you may have to go to the front desk and check out and back in again. This is inconvenient and could also complicate dining plan usage.

More importantly, straddling use years can prevent you from "walking" your reservation online (due to banking and borrowing rules). That's a significant disadvantage if you are trying to get a studio (for most WDW resorts) during the popular periods (mid-September - Marathon weekend, race weekends, etc.).

So get a use year that is at least one month prior to your usual vacation time - if you travel at the same time of the year on a consistent basis.

So we typically travel in April or May but could see us taking a March trip that even possibly started the last day or two of February. I wanted a February use year but I won’t get 2019 points for February if we buy Riviera. We want those points for our 2020 trip or will always be borrowing since we will go every other year. If you had to deal with crossing the use year or losing a whole year of points, what seems worse?

Also February is so much more popular of a use year than March, especially at the Poly where we hope to add on in a few years. How long do people wait to find resale contracts for less popular use years?

 

[PsycProfPlum]

We tend to travel multiple times throughout the year. Given that, we chose an August use year because we could find more availability in the summer for a last minute trip if it came to that. I didn't feel comfortable with a December use year - last minute availability is really tight in fall.

Not what the OP asked for, but I don't hear my rationale articulated a lot on here and thought it worth mentioning.

 

[PlutoFan10]

Only issue we had was when we bought a resale contract that didn’t settle until very late August and we have an October use year. A smallish number of points were banked from the prior year so we only had 4 weeks to use them or lose them. We were able to get 3 nights at Vero Beach for late September. In spite of it being right after the hurricane with warnings not to go in the rough surf and and with some of the beach gone, we had a wonderful trip!

 

[PlutoFan10]

I could see use year messing you up if you booked a trip close to the end of it and you had to cancel your trip. We chose October use year because normally we travel between October 1 and May 1. So, if we have to cancel a trip, we have time to rebook.

 

[bwvBound]

For us, the complication comes from different travel patterns for different locations. Our points are from WDW and our UY is well matched for WDW travel. However, these were purchased before DVC moved westward to reach both CA and HI. Our current UY does not match our CA/HI travel windows.

While our WDW travel is easily inside the first 8 months of the UY ... our CA/HI travel is in the last 4 or 5 months, thus largely after the banking deadline.

 

[meekey7197]

Our April UY complicates things with my son's Spring Break schedule. When we purchased we were primarily traveling in September and January. Now that my son is older he doesn't want to miss school so we often travel during his Spring Break, which will always begin on the last Monday in March. *SIGH* We make it work (have other contracts with Feb UYs) but it is annoying.

 

[rg35]

We have a Dec use year and always travel in the summer. We haven't run into any issues.

It was a little weird at first to get used to the Dec UY points essentially being for the following year, but it hasn't caused any issues for how we plan.

 

[skippytx]

We have a Feb UY and haven't ran into any issues. We almost always travel in Feb or March. We did take a trip in October last year though and if we would have canceled it would have been past our banking window.

 

[mustinjourney]

At least for now, it can be frustrating to book online if your stay straddles use years. (Because of the limitations of the booking engine). You may end up with two reservations or have to call MS to finish your booking. This can be a problem if you are trying to book a studio for popular dates - could mean you miss out and have to waitlist.

I ran into this problem 2 years ago. I have a DEC UY, and had a trip planned the week after thanksgiving, with part of the stay in November and part of the stay in December. Major PITA.