ANY PLUSES TO HAVING 2 DIFFERENT USE YEARS

[Ben E N]

One other possible advantage, and I am digging deep here. On your second, smaller contract, you could add more distant family members from different households, such as adult brothers, as owners. You would then transfer the points out each year, but they would get to take advantage of ownership benefits, as long as you added another direct 25.
It comes with a lot of risk. Someone may steal your points, for example. It also is added hassle, but this could technically be tallied as a "plus" that you cannot do having all the same UY.

 

[Dean]

If you do this under one account, is there a good chance you do not have to move rooms? Say I did 2 nights in a Lakeview studio with the DDP, and then 4 nights in the same room type without. Would I just call the resort ahead of arrival and let them know that they don't have to switch my room, or would that then link my reservations, making it so I either had the plan for all the says or none?

If you reserve directly under 2 contracts and link the reservations, you likely wouldn't have to move but it would be treated as one stay and you couldn't get the DDP for a segment. If you do it under different contracts and don't link them or under the same contract with different names or similar so they're not linked, it'd be treated exactly the same either way. If you have sufficient points you can make 2 separate reservations ending with the dates you want to end up with then cancel the leading days later and that's true 1 contract or 2. In none of these scenarios does having 2 UY help unless one is straddling the UY for a given trip where one would have to call to book the days in the next UY if doing it under one account. Either way, unless they're linked, there's a risk you'd have to move even if the same villa type but there are ways to minimize this risk. The issue is that the ways to decrease the chances of having to move also increase the chances of having them linked and/or the obligation to check in again. IMO if this were my goal, I'd just do a real split stay and avoid the risk related to the DDP and the aggravation of worrying about whether I'd have to move or check in again. Trying to play games and micromanage the situation just adds risk and creates aggravation and potential stress. YMMV.

 

[Dean]

One other possible advantage, and I am digging deep here. On your second, smaller contract, you could add more distant family members from different households, such as adult brothers, as owners. You would then transfer the points out each year, but they would get to take advantage of ownership benefits, as long as you added another direct 25.
It comes with a lot of risk. Someone may steal your points, for example. It also is added hassle, but this could technically be tallied as a "plus" that you cannot do having all the same UY.

I mentioned this earlier and IMO it may be the largest benefit for a smaller segment of the membership. This is exactly what we've done. We added on to AKV 100 pts at 4*25 with my daughter on it and sold the underlying original contract. Our intent was to sell all and keep on 25 pt for the perks but we haven't actually carried the full plan out since we still own the 100 AKV and larger BWV contract. Given the current prices we likely should do so and possibly do a moderate size resale contract at SSR as a replacement.

 

[disneynutz]

If you do this under one account, is there a good chance you do not have to move rooms? Say I did 2 nights in a Lakeview studio with the DDP, and then 4 nights in the same room type without. Would I just call the resort ahead of arrival and let them know that they don't have to switch my room, or would that then link my reservations, making it so I either had the plan for all the says or none?

A good chance isn't for me. Calling the resort gets you to a call center who acts like they are the resort and your request may not be forwarded to the resort.

Bill

 

[Ben E N]

I mentioned this earlier and IMO it may be the largest benefit for a smaller segment of the membership. This is exactly what we've done. We added on to AKV 100 pts at 4*25 with my daughter on it and sold the underlying original contract. Our intent was to sell all and keep on 25 pt for the perks but we haven't actually carried the full plan out since we still own the 100 AKV and larger BWV contract. Given the current prices we likely should do so and possibly do a moderate size resale contract at SSR as a replacement.

Now that is some impressive DVC scheming. I hadn't even thought of selling the underlying original contract. Now I wish I had a mixture of the funds and the people that I like enough/don't live with while the minimum add on is still only 25 points.

 

[Dean]

Now that is some impressive DVC scheming. I hadn't even thought of selling the underlying original contract. Now I wish I had a mixture of the funds and the people that I like enough/don't live with while the minimum add on is still only 25 points.

There are always options to put oneself ahead of others but it often takes effort, education, planning, dollars and risk management. The trick is to find one's sweet spot in terms of cost, risk and benefit. With DVC, having sufficient additional points often gives one a lot more options but at an obvious cost and potentially, added risk. One of the problems with those that buy in to DVC is the emotions often take them far away from that balance.

 

[WebmasterDoc]

We have three different Use Years (and used to have four). This arrangement allows for a lot of flexibility in planning travel as we are always 4+ months away from our UY for travel plans so a cancellation will never affect our ability to bank the points.

As Dean stated above "If one can balance a checkbook, they can manage the points". In our case, the different use years were due to finding resale contracts of interest more than a plan to use the points, but in 21+ years of DVC Membership we have never lost any points due to expiration.

YMMV.

Enjoy!

 

[Matty B13]

Writing down your contracts with the UY and points on a simple sheet of paper and then figuring out which UY your trips fall in is pretty simple, you don't need a complicated spreadsheet to keep track. Only if your into spreadsheets would I suggest doing that.

We have 3 UY at 2 resorts, it just takes a little planning.

 

[HookdonWDW]

We have 2 different UYs, but only because the second UY is for a fixed week contract. We could have gotten the same UY, but it would have meant 50 years of points v. 51, and the UY difference doesn't matter for that contract.