Could Use Some Assistance Booking Dec to Jan

[Baggi]

My family and I are booking a trip from Dec 23rd to Jan 3rd 2025 to 2026. We already booked Dec 23rd to Dec 31st but I'm having issues booking that last 3 days.
I can't book just 3 days because you have to book 3 nights (4 days) minimum. I can't book the entire trips because I'm 20,000 points shy. They tell me to book the entire trip I need to "borrow" points from 2026 (Which doesn't make sense to me because I'm booking in 2026) and to do that I need to wait until I'm 3 months away from my trip.

I don't want to wait because it might get booked up. Any help? What can I do here?

 

[kaljor]

I think they gave you the correct info. It may not seem to make sense but it's how the program works. The only solution that comes to me to get the last 3 days of the trip by booking the minimum 4 days and taking the loss of points for that last day that you don't need.

Others may have a better answer.

 

[Fido Chuckwagon]

Yeah this is the program working the way it’s intended to. Essentially, you don’t have enough points to book this all as one trip. I had a similar thing happen to me last year as I needed to book Bonnet Creek across New Years Eve (Until January 3rd). The only other option is to wait until the express priority period, hope it’s still available, and then do the booking as one transaction borrowing the excess points you need. That runs the risk of it being gone, so I wouldn’t do that. Instead, my strategy would be as follows:

1. Book the second leg of the trip for four for days now.
2. Hope that it is still avilable at 90 days; and
3. IF it is, cancel and rebook the second half of the trip at 90 days since the 3 night minimum goes away at that point.

Otherwise you just have to eat the cost of the extra day’s points use if you want to do this.

 

[chapjim]

Something I don't understand here. If your current reservation ends on 12/31 and you want to check out on 1/3, you need three nights -- the nights of 12/31, 1/1, and 1/2.

Will it let you modify the reservation to add the three nights?

 

[HitchHiker71]

Something I don't understand here. If your current reservation ends on 12/31 and you want to check out on 1/3, you need three nights -- the nights of 12/31, 1/1, and 1/2.

Will it let you modify the reservation to add the three nights?

^^^ This - was wondering the same thing. Just Modify the current reservation. Does the system bridge the points across use years if you have a reservation start date of 12/31 (current use year), and two nights in a future use year? Or because the reservation start date is 12/31 - will the entirety of points be pulled from the current use year (assuming a calendar year use year)? Never tried this myself.

 

[jp10558]

I also don't entirely know how it all works, but can you use the travelbank to take points from a future year and use them immediately? I seem to recall reading this was possible at some point in the past. Though again, IDK how the use year vs drawing points works...

 

[HitchHiker71]

I also don't entirely know how it all works, but can you use the travelbank to take points from a future year and use them immediately? I seem to recall reading this was possible at some point in the past. Though again, IDK how the use year vs drawing points works...

Typically you can only pull from the future use year when making a reservation within the ERP (the 90 day express reservation period).

 

[kaljor]

I suspect you can't use the modification feature to access future year points to complete a rez made with present year points, but like others, I would love to know for sure. In this specific case, the OP (Baggi) should give it a try and let us know. If it works his problem is solved, if it doesn't he's no worse off than he was before.