We’ve been tinkering around for a while now with strategies for tracking our DVC points. Historically, DVC has allowed owners to bank points from one year to the next, or to borrow from future allotments. The flexibility of saving your points for a big trip is a great advantage! However, it may also cause some confusion and challenges. In fact, it is not uncommon that owners have found themselves searching for last-minute reservations to use up points that they forgot to bank.
No question about it: DVC is best for folks who like to plan in advance, by a margin of at least 6 months or even a few years. And who doesn’t like to think ahead about their next vacation?!
With these needs in mind, we developed the DVC Points Ledger. It calculates how many points are available in each Use Year as you bank and borrow. It also deducts points for reservations and alerts you to any leftover points that might need to be banked. Even better, as you are forecasting your future trips, the DVC Points Ledger will alert you to the number of points still needed if your reservations exceed the number of points available. Check it out!
One thing to note: it is generally not possible to combine points from different contracts, unless you transfer points to yourself from one contract to another. Currently, the Ledger does not account for point transfers.
Our strategy for making use of two different contracts is to divide the vacation into two blocks and make separate reservations from each contract. Technically, DVC is not obligated to honor them as one reservation and keep you in the same room — but we have always discussed this upon check-in and have never been required to move mid-vacation. Another strategy is to do a split stay! We sometimes do this intentionally to take advantage of resort location: we plan to stay at a Magic Kingdom resort for days we go to MK, and we move to a more centrally located resort for the rest of the trip.
In any case, DVC Points Ledger could help with forecasting trips for each contract!
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