For the most part, your Use Year doesn’t have much impact on when you travel. What actually matters is how many points you have at the time of your travel dates (not what you have at the time of booking). For example, if you have a June Use Year, you don’t have to wait until June 1 of each year to book your trips.
However, there is one scenario that can get a little dicey: booking a trip at the end of your Use Year. I admit I used to regularly book a trip at the very end of my February Use Year, but looking back, it did have its risks. Here’s why.
A Refresher on Banking and Cancellation Rules
To understand why the end of the Use Year can be tricky for booking, let’s take a step back to review a couple of important rules for DVC points.
Banking Rules
DVC points are flexible in that unused points can be banked for use in the next Use Year. Nevertheless, every Use Year has a banking deadline, and you can only bank your points in the first 8 months of your Use Year.
Should you have a reservation that lands in the last 4 months of your Use Year and you decide to cancel that trip, you would not be able to bank those points since you would be past your banking deadline. Instead, the points would expire at the end of the Use Year, which gives you less time to use those points for another trip.
Cancellation Rules
The trouble with being unable to bank your points gets compounded further by cancellation rules. Should you cancel your trip 30 days to 1 day before your check-in date, the points go into a holding account. Points in holding expire at the end of your Use Year and can only be used to make reservations 60 days out or less from your check-in. For example, if I were booking something with holding points today (November 30, 2025), I would only be able to book as far out as January 29, 2026.
Holding accounts also apply to any points leftover when a DVC Member modifies a reservation between 30 days and 1 day from their check-in date. That is, if you modify a reservation under 31 days out from check-in, and the new reservation requires fewer points than the original reservation, the leftover points would go into holding.
All in all, If you cancel or modify a trip at the end of your Use Year, you would only have a few months at most to use any holding points. With availability being limited for last minute trips, holding points can be challenging to use.
What Can You Do If You Need to Cancel Your Trip?
If you do need to cancel your end-of-the-Use-Year trip, not all is lost; it’s just harder to use your points. You can try to rebook a trip for whatever time is left in your Use Year. If you’re flexible with your dates, resort, and room type, you may be able to piece something together.
If you realize that you won’t be able to travel again before your points expire the end of your Use Year, you could also consider renting out your reservation as is.
Bottom Line: You can use your DVC points to book a trip at any time of the year, including towards the end of your Use Year. However, if you book a trip at the end of your Use Year and think there’s a chance that you may end up canceling it at the last minute, be aware that those leftover points may be harder to use.
Chris Rosencutter
March 13, 2026My UY is October and we booked a 3 night trip in September. I was concerned about losing the points. What I did was use membership beyond to buy 12 points and get 12 free, and then at 7 months booked Saratoga. The room is 27 pts and so I technically only risked 3 pts plus the 12 purchased (buy 12 get 12 free).