With any luck, we’ll be closing on a DVC resale contract at Bay Lake Tower in mid-November. It will have no points with the first award at its use year** of August of 2026. While hot, we like the low crowds and cheap rates in September, so that seemed a good contract for us. As it’s a resale contract I’m not expecting a lot of proactive help and guidance from Disney. I also want to move fast as soon as I get the contract and hopefully avoid mistakes, so know where to ask for guidance… Hi!
Below is what I think I will be doing, but asking if I’m missing something or if there is a better way. I’m using DVC Resale Market, so believe they will be walking me through the process up until I get the welcome letter and login credentials for making DVC reservations.
Get the DVC welcome letter and website credentials
Our preferred timeframe will be ~10 months out, so well within the home resort period.
Even though we will have 0 points, we won’t need to borrow points for a reservation that will be after our award (August award, rezzie for Sept)
For the reservation, anything I need to have besides room type and dates?
I read something about I can only make a 7-night rezzie initially, then I have to wait a day or so to fill it out to my desired 10 nights.
If I can’t get all 7 days (or 10 days later), don’t panic, get on a waiting list.
Up to step 3 is the happy path. From reading here, if you get on the waiting list early it is first come first serve, so odds are decent you will be able get what you want. I troll the dvcvacations.com availability website and September bookings are starting to become visible and at least for now all the 1-bedroom villas are green. Looking back toward August and July (more along my 10-month window) they are all still pretty green. Is that a good sign?
Any insights are appreciated. I’m trying to be as prepared as possible. Thanks in advance.
will
** I am sure this is discussed somewhere, but “Use Year”??? It isn’t when you use the points, it is when they are awarded and the answer is a month, not year. Very weird. Award Month seems more syntactically correct. Yea, a newbie.
Your use year is August (me too!), you will or will not get August 2026 points?
A reservation that is made for use (your vacation) between August 1, 2026- July 31,2027 will either use August 2026 points or will borrow points from your next use year that begins August 2027.
Rereading it, I can see it’s not clear. I was taking it as it has no current points (2025), with it’s first “award” (points incoming) at it’s Aug 2026 dump. I take point # 3 to mean they will get points during August in time for the September rental so they won’t have to borrow.
@PrincipalTinker and @drvillarejos :
Yea, it is confusing! I am sure there are rants about “use year” somewhere. The contract I am getting will have used up all its 2025 points, so will have a zero balance until the award in August 2026. The reservation I hope to make will be in September, so should not need to borrow any points. I’ve read lots of posts how that can get messy in ways I don’t yet understand, so happy it is not something I have to worry about.
You will need the names of each of the guests on the reservation (the lead cannot be edited, but the guests can be edited by you later)
Yea, you are limited to 7 days. You will then modify the reservation to add days.
Yes, you can always set up a wait list. You might want to book something at 7 months if your wait list has not come through ( and keep your wait list).
I definitely will need to edit guests. My grown kids can’t plan that far ahead, so don’t know yet which ones (and spouses) will be able to make it! My plan is is to make the rezzie first, then let negotiations commence.
You can just add the lead guest when you book and then go back and edit guests when you have everything nailed down.
One expectation that I want to set is that if you are not closing on the sale until mid-Nov, it can take some weeks before you are able to use the points. It might be closer to mid/end of December. You should be still well ahead of 7 months but I just wanted you to know.
