Use year ?

[Dyanna]

We signed up for DVC in Nov of 2009. They gave us a use year of April. This was not a choice to us it was what was given. I know they have 3 months in whice they dont have use years. How do they go about picking your use year & what is the significance for it other than a time to "refill" your points. What is the purpose of not using the 3 other months?

[DizneyRox]

It's mainly a "refill" as you say, however it also controls when you have to bank your points by, and/or when you need to use points before they might expire.

For example, borrowed points MUST be used in the use year they are borrowed into. Points not used by your use year expire (gone for good). There are other cases where it's really important, it's all in the member handbooks they send out every year. Might not seem like it means much, but if you think about the process it's pretty critical.

[FiggyFan]

I looked at the Vacation planner they give to DVC members, and found that there are 8 months used as the start of use years. January, May, July, and November are not used. Here is the best explanation I can think of: Since banking must be done 4 months or more before the end of your use year, that means there is no banking deadline for anyone on August 31, December 31st, February 28th, and June 30. Avoiding December 31st makes perfect sense - they are busy enough anyway, and may be short-staffed. Ditto for June 30th (so close to July 4th holiday). Avoiding a deadline at the end of the short month of February kind of makes sense. I'm not so sure why they would avoid an end-of-August deadline.

Having done that, I think they just spread all of the points at a given resort across the 8 available starting months for use years to even out the bookkeeping and the end of deadline phone call volume. You just randomly get whatever they have available. Now, if you are doing an add on, you really want the same use year as your previous points, and Disney should take that into account.