If you are on top of your game with your Destination Points, you have already made your reservations for 2022 — at least your major trips. And I know your excitement after you have your confirmation of your reservation!! But putting the date of your vacation in your calendar isn’t all you need to add to your calendar when you make the reservation. ALWAYS include in your calendar 60 days prior to your travel as well. If you don’t know exactly what that date is, use the “When Can I Reserve?” tool on the website to get the exact date. For instance, if we are scheduled to arrive on May 29, 2022, I find from using the tool that 60 days prior to that check-in date is March 30, 2022.
Why is this date important? TWO very big reasons! First, as long as you cancel before this 60-Day Window date, you will have no penalties. All Destination Points will be put back into your account as they were when you reserved them. It’s very sad when I hear from owners that they decided not to go because of conflicts, and missed the 60-Day Window date because they “forgot about it”. SAD because now all their points will be become Holding Points — no exception.
And a little suggestion to help you even more regarding this tip. The entry in my calendar for the May 29th trip would be about 67 days out — WHY the extra week? Because when I see the reminder on my calendar, I know I have 1 week to make a final decision on that trip. I contact all parties involved, verify my transportation reservations, whatever I need to do to make a final decision about the trip. Believe me, there has been a few times when I didn’t have it on my mind, and when I saw that deadline creep up on my calendar, I was able to cancel it with no penalties.
Another important reason to have that deadline on your calendar is that if there is inventory available at the same property, same room type, same dates, you can actually call Owner Services and cancel your current reservation and REBOOK the same trip with the discount available for all reservations made within 60 days. Chairman and Presidential level status gets 35% discount, 30% off for Executive level. What does that mean? It means if you had a reservation that took 4000 MVC points initially, and there is inventory within 60 days of travel, if you cancel and rebook, you would save up to 1400 points! Same vacation, 1400 points less! I have saved thousands of points using this tip. The extra points will be holding points to use within 60 days of travel — I consider these “free vacations”.
Don’t plan on high requested properties to be available using this tip. But if you are traveling somewhere off season or frankly, lately during COVID, you can increase your points by watching this important deadline and checking for availability within 60 days of your current reservation.