Minimum Points and 11th Month Priority

My wife and I are enjoying our DVC membership! Definitely a great decision for us. We have stayed at a number of resorts but have determined that out favorite for our style of vacation is Bay Lake Tower.

Currently we own 160 points at AKV and I mentioned on a bus ride with fellow DVC owners that we are considering selling our AKV points and purchasing additional points at BLT.

One party suggested keeping the AKV points and instead just purchasing a small contract of BLT points to get the 11 month booking window.

Can anyone shed more light on this. I have received conflicting information and would like to do it the best way. Say I want to book a trip that takes 200 points. I have a 160 points at AKV and 50 points at BLT - would I be able to use my AKV points in addition to my BLT points to book the vacation at 11 months?

Sorry if this has been answered elsewhere.

simon.fisher.2 said:

...would I be able to use my AKV points in addition to my BLT points to book the vacation at 11 months?

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No, sorry.

Only points at a particular home resort can be used more than 7 months out. You can't combine home and non-home points until the 7 month window opens.

However you could bank and borrow your 50 points for 150 total points ever three years to make a 11 month priority booking at Bay Lake. Another option would be to alternate years between Bay Lake and AKV.

Bay Lake on the resale market will cost close to $100 per point while you AKV after broker fees will only net you app $70 per point ($30 per point for the 11 month booking window). Only you can determine if it is worth it to you.

Some people will book for example Bay Lake at 11 months and than at the 7 month mark if it is available change to your AKV points.

I think the real question is whether you would need to book at 11 months for BLT.

Both BLT and AKV are fairly large resorts and therefore usually available at 7 months except for the Thanksgiving - New Years crunch. You won't get MK View or standard view (low points) at BLT probably, but you should be able to get Lake View.

Jack's point above about the hit you would take switching home resorts is very valid. I would not switch home resorts without some compelling reason. I would have to currently own a home resort that was really not working for me.

In addition, if you prefer BLT now because you have young kids, that preference may change as the kids grow up and their interests change.

that preference WILL change

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A slight edit to Jim's otherwise excellent post.

Keep in mind you really only need to book the first day of your reservation at 11 mos., then at 7 mos. you can extend that reservation using AKV points. If you look at the Resort Availability Tool at exactly 7 mos. you'll notice only the first day of the window is booked so you can still book subsequent days (which you can do with non-home points at 7 months + 7 days, so as long as you block the first night in the 11 month window, you are effectively blocking the entire week by blocking the first day since if you block that day a non-BLT owner can't book subsequent days without that first day, however you can since you already have the first day. With this approach you only need enough to book the largest room you would need in the highest season you would go (see my consolidated WDW point chart). One downside to this approach is small point contracts are more expensive per point, and your are spreading the closing costs over a small number of points, making them even more expensive. My advice is to buy a large point contract at a cheaper resort (e.g. SSR) to get lower cost per point and lower closing costs per point, then buy small point contracts at the resorts you want to book at 11 mos. -- enough to book 1 day at the highest season/room type you want.

Another voice to add to the "do you really need the 11 month priority" at all times. We stayed at a 1BR lake view BLT over Christmas 2013 (12/21-12/27) on a combination of 2 nights via rental points from a BLT owner (because I was short and I was concerned about priority) and 4 nights via my BCV points booked at 7 months + waitlist success. Looking at how my waitlists all came through (for the one night before and 3 nights after the rental nights) I think I could have secured those other 2 nights (booked via rental) on my own if I had enough points. Unless you absolutely need to know that you have a confirmed reservation at the 11 months mark (maybe to help you coordinate frequent flyer airline awards) for all trips, consider whether that certainty is worth paying the extra costs to buy BLT points (because your AKV points are worth significantly less than BLT on resale and you have closing costs to pay for both transactions).

Thank you all for your comments. I believe I understand the 7 month and 1 day example, but not entirely. Can you please elaborate more on that method?

rfc0001 said:

Keep in mind you really only need to book the first day of your reservation at 11 mos., then at 7 mos. you can extend that reservation using AKV points. If you look at the Resort Availability Tool at exactly 7 mos. you'll notice only the first day of the window is booked so you can still book subsequent days (which you can do with non-home points at 7 months + 7 days, so as long as you block the first night in the 11 month window, you are effectively blocking the entire week by blocking the first day since if you block that day a non-BLT owner can't book subsequent days without that first day...

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except this plan is a total bust if a BLT OWNER decides to book the next 6 nights during the home resort priority window. while a nonhome owner cannot book those 6 nights until 7 months out, the owners can take whatever they want.

it also is kinda cheating the system. i expect that eventually when you cancel that first night that you booked at 11 months out, it will drop to the first person on the waitlist rather than remain available for you to rebook with AKV pts at 7 months out. at this point, the waitlist waits and runs in batches so it will probably work but in theory, the system is intended to block the replacement of home resort pts with nonhome resort pts and force a cancel and rebook that allows the first person on the waitlist to pick up that canceled BLT night.

but in general (not in early december, but other times of the year), you probably can book BLT lake view at 7 months out, regardless.

chalee94 said:

except this plan is a total bust if a BLT OWNER decides to book the next 6 nights during the home resort priority window. while a nonhome owner cannot book those 6 nights until 7 months out, the owners can take whatever they want.

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Theoretically possible, yes, but doesn't happen in practice very often, with the exception of BLT Standard Views. For all other views, the first day at the 7 mos. window sells out very fast at 7 mos. -- you have to be on the trigger at 8AM @ 7 mos. However, if you look at the 7 mos + 7 days window -- they almost never are sold out beyond the first day (with the above exception). So, by booking the first night you can leisurely call DVC member services, extend (not cancel) the 1-day reservation to 7 days and even swap out your BLT points with AKV for the entire stay. If you are worried about the week selling out to BLT owners, a slightly more conservative approach is to buy enough points for two weekend nights (Fr, Sa) and book the weekend nights since if anything is going to sell out it is those. If you want to be extremely conservative and book the entire week, you still only need to buy 1/2 the BLT points you need, borrow next years, therefore you have an entire week worth of points, then you book the entire week @ 11 mos, wait until inside 7 mos, and swap out half the points with AKV (keeping the ones you borrowed since they can't be banked, and banking the current year points to rinse and repeat the following year).

it also is kinda cheating the system.

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There is no cheating -- only what is allowed and what isn't

i expect that eventually when you cancel that first night that you booked at 11 months out, it will drop to the first person on the waitlist rather than remain available for you to rebook with AKV pts at 7 months out. at this point, the waitlist waits and runs in batches so it will probably work but in theory, the system is intended to block the replacement of home resort pts with nonhome resort pts and force a cancel and rebook that allows the first person on the waitlist to pick up that canceled BLT night.

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You can do this all through MS without cancelling your original ressie -- you can leisurely sleep in on the 7 mos. mark, call DVC MS, extend the ressie to 7 days (since at that point it's inside the 7 mos. mark) and even swap out your BLT points entirely -- all without cancelling.

rfc0001 said:

Theoretically possible, yes, but doesn't happen in practice very often...

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if the owners aren't booking it up during the home resort period and there's plenty of availability, there's really not much benefit to the scheme.

There is no cheating -- only what is allowed and what isn't.

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the issue is that it is not likely to continue to be allowed. so i wouldn't sink thousands into a new contract to try to pull this off.