Tracking Points - Is there a better way?

How does everyone else manage their points to plan the next few trips? Do you all have color coded spreadsheets too? Or is there a better way?? I haven’t really found an app. I have another tab that tracks banking/borrowing, etc and feeds the top numbers.

I honestly don’t. It makes my head hurt.

1 Like

And you have way more points! I have 73 that are banked and I’m so paranoid we’ll misallocate somewhere along the line. Since we are planning a (now rather expensive) trip in Dec to use 10 banked points from last year, lol.)

How do you pick where/how long? I definitely am ok with SSR but want to at least try for monorail next time. Even though DH said “meh” when I suggested the Poly. :scream:

Hint: use them all up so that you’re not in a bank situation :laughing:

I have 79 points left through 11/30/22 based on what is already booked. I will soon be booking a DH and Me trip for Sept 2022, which will use most of those. and I won’t actually have m(any) left to bank, which I won’t even need to think about until July 2022. So, problem basically solved.

And that is how I keep track of my points. :smiley:

2 Likes

I poll the family. I always assume we will be at OKW, and then if they want to move to somewhere else I see how many points I am using for that booking and figure I can use that many points or less for the modification.

We love Poly, but it’s tight for the 4 of us. But, my DD is a senior this year so our all-four-of-us trips are not a guarantee after April. So for April, she gets to pick where we split to (she has chosen AKL).

I want to stay at GFV like you don’t even know but nobody else has that hankering. So, might be a minute

And we all want to stay at BLT eventually, but nobody ever picks it when it’s time to modify :laughing: so I guess we don’t want it all that badly.

DH and I are aiming for BWV for Sept 2022

1 Like

Me. I have that hankering. Let me know if you ever want to do a trip with a random you met on the internet!

1 Like

Noted!

1 Like

I use a spreadsheet too, but it’s not quite that involved. We have a much shorter list of places everyone can agree on. Until covid, not once did we have the “problem” of banked points.

So looking forward to the day my kids don’t whine about staying there! What. is. wrong. with. my. kids.

1 Like

I don’t bother.

For our own trips we use banked, current and borrowed. I book Bay Lake for as many nights as our points stretch to at 11 months, and then see where people might like to stay for the extra nights using cash. Ultimately I make the final decision!

The last few years we’ve rented our points out. I just take the first person to ask, see what’s left and try and rent them out too. I use the DVC dashboard to remind me how many points I have left.

For next year we know we’ll also need a few nights on cash. I’ll book that once I’ve booked Bay Lake. Last time we had too many splits so it’ll just be cash at either OKW or SSR and then Bay Lake unless people want to try for elsewhere.

I have tried a couple of DVC apps in the past but I have never mastered them.

I haven’t played with this https://www.dvchelp.com/page/dvc-tools

2 Likes

I’ve used it and I like it. ^

1 Like

I’m very tempted to do this but I keep thinking that what if we want to “go big” next time! It’s frustrating the gap between the studios and one bedrooms. They shouldn’t be almost double the points. For now, we fit pretty well in the studios, especially like at the Poly with the extra little twin bed.

I second a ladies trip to the GF!

We very, VERY much lucked into our one night at BLT this December. It wasn’t even our top choice as I wanted something on Crescent Lake but it was the only thing and I figured I would grab it. Then our plans changed and now we have the Xmas party and it will be PERFECT! So I’m kind of glad to try it out and see if we like it. I’ve always felt the theme and pool were pretty meh, but I’m curious if it will grow on us.

1 Like

I will try this, thank you!

1 Like

I have one chart that I use for decision making on my trips into the future - “if I do one thing, then what does that mean for future trips?”

This one started without all the 2024 choices, but included calculations for my 2022 Hilton Head trip. To make sure I would have points for what I wanted to do in the future.

I also had to keep detailed track of where points were coming from for reservations, because I had to cancel so many trips everything was a mess. This is that chart, it used to be waaay worse. With several canceled trips no longer on ther.

2 Likes

Ooooh looks good! I love the home grown spreadsheets.

I’m trying to sign up for the DVC Help page but it’s giving me an error. I’ll try again next week.

I have a spreadsheet that only uses color to denote trips not booked. It confuses my DH. I can’t make any decisions without it. It has all of our history back to the beginning of time and also includes cash stays. It’s basically my “every trip to Disney” spreadsheet that now tracks DVC points. With three contracts over two homes, it started to get too complicated to keep track of in my head.

Ooh, I don’t know what this is! I must look into it.

I have one incomprehensible page that tracks my total DVC spend, actual cost per stay, what it would have cost to stay with cash, and what it would have cost to stay at the place we would have actually stayed if we didn’t own DVC (i.e. mods instead of deluxe). My husband, a speedsheet guy, refuses to look at it because it is a mess.

I need all three of my pages to make any decisions. I will be happy when my transfer points go away so I don’t have to account for them. I am sure 2 contracts adds complications. Especially these last 2 years where everything got more complicated.

I did pretty up my “what if” page for purposes of sharing with you all. The colors made it immediately clear what I needed to do for my next two trips. Of course the chances of me sticking to a plan through 2024 is zero.

What is the error you got?

I got some odd error about not reading to the database. I emailed them and they fixed it though, so I have an account now! Are you trying to sign up?

1 Like