Resort Credit

[ACP]

I have 700 Dest Pts that expire at the end of this year and I have little use for them in the next 6 months.

I appreciate I could try and rent them, but as an alternative I was looking to use them to buy 2 x $100 resort credits (cost 650 Dest Points) for Grande Vista Florida where we are staying next year.

You can only buy credits at certain resorts (GV being one of them) and you must have a reservation for that resort - I have a reservation using DP so I'm OK on both those counts.

Although I have a reservation with DP I also have the same week with II so I planned to buy the resort credit and then cancel the reservation with DP and put them back in my account - so far so good me thinks.

However when I called and spoke to a Customer Advisor (I speak to call being a European Owner), I was advised that at the moment the credits are only available for stays up to the end of this year - 2017. When I asked when 2018 will be available they do not know. Obviously if they do not become available until early 2018 this will be of no use as my 700 points will have expired.

Does anyone have any experience of buying credits and when 2018 will be available? Also what form do these credits take, are they a voucher that I receive and take to the resort? My main concern is if I manage to get the credit before the end of 2017, what will happen to the credit/voucher when I cancel the DP reservation.

Many thanks for any input

 

[GregT]

I just used restricted points to buy resort credit at Ko Olina. I obtained the certificate at the Welcome Desk and it was applied at check-out. It indicated that it needed to be used on current visit and can't be applied to a future visit. It's a nice option to utilize excess (especially restricted) points, but it's not clear that this is going to be viable for 2018 for you, and I'm not surprised that they don't know either.

Sorry I couldn't be more helpful here, but please do post with however the experience turns out.

Best,

Greg

Edited to add: I looked again at the certificate and it doesn't specify a 12/31/17 expiration as I had originally posted, so perhaps the credit would have been utilizable in a future (2018) visit.

Best,

Greg

 

[SueDonJ]

I used DC Points that were going to expire for a Tanger Outlet Shopping credit in conjunction with a SurfWatch stay. The certs that I got at check-in had an expiration date on them* but at the outlets they took the certs from me and gave me a gift-type card which didn't have an expiration date. I used that one card over three trips to Hilton Head during the next two years.

*I can't remember if the cert expiration was 12/31 of the year they were issued or a full year after issue, but unlike Greg's there was definitely an expiration date. Doesn't really matter because that was the first year they offered that type of usage for DC Points and things have probably changed since then, and it may be that the different options have different terms, so I'd ask before confirming the final order on any credits.

 

[PaulaC]

We also had points expiring this year and we used them in May at Marco Island. We picked up the certificate at the Welcome Center and the credit was automatically applied at checkout. I believe we had to use the credit on that visit, but other resorts may vary.