What use year should I be looking for?

[dbkelly]

Still trying to buy a resale for OKW. One resale that we are looking at has an August use year. If we always vacation during February or April school vacation, what use year would be to my advantage. Do I want my first 6 months of my use year to include February and April? If yes, what is the reason why?

Thank you.

P.S. This site has been the most wonderful source of information and I like to thank everyone for their help.

 

[Richyams]

You want your use year to be before your usual vacation time. The only reason for this is cancelations. If you do cancel, you will still have plenty of time to bank or reschedule.

Best example: Jan use year. Jan 1 2000 I make a reservation for Dec 1 2000. October 15 I cancel the vacation. I am way past my banking window and no matter what I do, my points expire and Jan 30.

Same example, Jan 1 I make ressie for Dec 1, this time I have Sept use year. I cancel on Oct 1. I have all the time in the world to bank, I can probably reschedule for Feburary.

Use year is completely and totally meaningless in every single situation and for every purpose but one, that is cancellations.

Sure, your use year dictates when you banking deadlines are, but they are all the same, 6 mos this, 3 mos that, etc. The only real consideration is if you vacation during a certain period every year and may be cancelling.

We have been members since '92 and our use year has never been an issue. On the list of things to evaluate concerning a resale, use year comes in about dead last.

 

[Doctor P]

In general, use year only matters if you are cancelling your reservations. The issue with use year is being able to bank your points should you decide to cancel your reservation. You are able to bank 100% of your year's allotment of points any time up to six months into your use year. Thus, if you had a February use year, you would be able to bank all of your points up until July 31 in a given year. In general, a February use year would thus seem to work well for you if you are going to travel in February or August all the time.

 

[Dean]

You have gotten the correct answer times two. I personally have come to feel that it is more important than most people seem to think. It also is just one more factor to complicate the resale process of use year, # of points, points availability, direct cost, closing cost and ? to reimburse seller for maint fees (and how much is fair). It is for this reason that I feel that smaller contracts are not particularly worth it resale, especially with the current prices. Of course, you can save money on larger contracts and also buy properties that are othrwise sold out like OKW and BW. Good luck and let us know what happens.