1st time booking question

Saratoga2019

Earning My Ears
Joined
Apr 30, 2019
Today was my 7 month widow( 1st time DVC booking )and we would like to do a split stay ( 4 & 4). We booked BLT for the 1st and are looking to do Poly for the 2nd. My worry is in 4 days it won't be available and BLT will be filled. So my question is should i make BLT for 8 nights just in case poly is not available? In 4 days would there be a penalty if i change my reservation to the origonal 4 & 4 if Poly is available ? I hope is makes sense thanks
 
Generally it's a good strategy to book *something* so you know you have a place to stay that you'll like, then change to what you prefer when that booking window opens. But I have two general concerns with this:

1)
Based on the specific room categories you're looking at, which resort uses more points? Will you have to borrow for this booking?

If your temporary/backup stay uses more points than your final stay AND you have to borrow points to complete the temporary/backup stay, you may be limiting your future point flexibility slightly, or even losing points in extreme scenarios.

Hypothetical Example:
Stay at BLT for 4 nights requires 100 points
Stay at PVB for 4 nights requires 80 points
Stay at BLT for 8 nights requires 200 points.

You book the 200 point stay, borrowing from the next year, then at the 2nd 7month booking window you successfully modify your reservation to the split stay. In this result, you'll have unnecessarily borrowed 20 points. Those points may not be lost as long as at least 20 points used to book were also not borrowed, then you can maneuver the points around, use the borrowed points first, and bank 20 points from the current UY. But you have pulled points forward and there is a little bit of lost flexibility from that.

Those hypothetical 20 points may be lost if you do have to borrow for the entire stay AND you don't have plans to take another trip during this year. This is because points can't be unborrowed.

2)
You can only book up to 7 days at a time at exactly the 7mo or 11mo booking windows. To pull this off, you'd need to do be on the site for 3 mornings:
Morning 1: book 7 nights at BLT
Morning 2: modify the first reservation to be 8 nights.
Morning 5: modify the first reservation to be 4 nights. Book the 4 PVB nights immediately after.
 
Do you own BLT? If so, you should make now an additional and separate 4 day reservation for the last 4 days of your trip. Then, at exactly 7 months out from that second reservation you will be able to modify it to Poly If Poly is open.

If you do not own BLT, then you cannot book 8 nights at BLT until tomorrow, unless you mean only a total of 7 nights, because at exactly 7 months out, you cannot reserve more than 7 nights.

As to changing the reservation now to all of your nights at BLT, that would assure you have all nights you want. But to change to a split reservation in four days will be a two step process if Poly is open. I am assuming you will need points from that longer BLT reservation to reserve the four days at Poly, That will require you to first modify the BLT reservation to the first four days by dropping the days you want for Poly. You will then have to make a new reservation for Poly separate from that modification. You will have a risk of losing the last four days of your vacation because between the time you modify the BLT reservation and attempt the Poly reservation, Poly could be filled by others seeking it.

Personally I would just reserve BLT now for all the nights you want and drop any idea of a split stay because of that risk of losing those last four days. Normally, for April time, I would suggest otherwise because Poly is typically open at 7 months out in April. However, the time you want appears to be part of the Star Wars race weekend and that changes everything because that is a time of very high DVC demand when there may be a real risk of Poly disappearing between the time you modify the BLT reservation to four days and then attempt the Poly reservation.
 
Where do you own? I would keep the BLT as is. I would book a second reservation at your home resort for the second half of the split stay. If you have enough points to extend the BLT portion without borrowing or impacting the ability to make or modify the second half you could do that.
 



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