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Post by Adelard of Bath on Jan 30, 2023 11:35:37 GMT -5
We all know that being in DVC means you get the opportunity to plan your vacations way further in advance than normal people. Some people can't comprehend it. I couldn't tell you want I want to eat for dinner tonight (it's too early, my mood will dictate what I want when that time comes) but for some reason I'm mostly okay getting excited about a trip that's a year from now or whatever.
I found it hilarious this morning when I was staring at some numbers on my computer screen, thinking about where points fall if this happens and that happens, and suddenly I'm saying "Well we'll probably take a trip January 2025" and "as long as we go before March 2026", etc. Over three years away.
Hilarious!
I will say, that where my wife works, the vacation requests happen in about Sept/Oct and we don't know by then, making January trips hard to plan because we all know that's only 3-4 months out and getting rooms can be problematic.
At my old job we just requested days when we felt like it, on a form we put in the inbox. One time in the fall I put one in there for October. She said, "Let me get this straight - this is for NEXT year?" I said "I like to give you guys as much notice as I can."
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Post by a1000monkeys on Jan 30, 2023 13:59:34 GMT -5
I keep a personal spreadsheet for my vacation plans I have a multi-year spreadsheet for time off my team at work. I always need something to look forward to so I love advance planning.
A few people on my team are advance planners too so it's not uncommon for people to note time off (even if tentative) more than a year out.
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Post by brp on Jan 30, 2023 14:25:07 GMT -5
We plan far in advance. We get airlines tickets often at 11 months, right when they go on sale as prices are best (at least on AS). So, our Disney trips are planned at 11 months. This has nothing to do with parks or dining. Just when we're going. Same with Hawaii trips and several others. Really easy to do for us.
I track all booked trips on a spreadsheet, including all confirmation numbers. Also, since we need stay nights and spend for Hyatt status, i have some complex formulas for tracking those stays in terms of current and booked. This is across a couple of eyars.
Airline status miles is tracked in another sheet.
Disney point usage is yet another.
Excel was created by the divine!
Cheers.
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Post by helenabear on Jan 30, 2023 14:30:17 GMT -5
Non stop airlines only do tickets about 6-7 months in advance it seems - well layovers I could book early but I prefer non-stop flights. I will book at 11 months when I can and hope the airlines are decent with flight times. I never really think further out than about a year or so. I have rough ideas but not entirely. We're also stuck to school schedules. This year I didn't realize we'd move our spring break 2 weeks and annoyingly be the week before Easter. Points are high. We might go elsewhere. Not entirely sure. Otherwise I rarely think that far out.
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Post by Wiltony on Jan 30, 2023 14:50:42 GMT -5
Yep, we started planning our Christmas 2022 trip in 2020. It was a huge point use and with the 50% borrowing restriction I had to very carefully plan trips before then in order to have enough left over to make the 880 point ressie at 11 months out (Jan 2022).
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Post by johnb on Jan 30, 2023 15:41:20 GMT -5
11 month out planning is easy for us right now. DD is the only of our three kids who still enjoys WDW, and she's in college, plays on the soccer team so our trip dates are predetermined by her summer preseason. So it's last weekend of July into early August. We get home and she's off to school. We've been using miles/points for airfare, so I grab flights when the airline schedules are open for our trip dates. I book a rental car around the same time as our resort booking, then check frequently for price drop, then rebook.
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Post by brp on Jan 30, 2023 15:53:54 GMT -5
Non stop airlines only do tickets about 6-7 months in advance it seems - well layovers I could book early but I prefer non-stop flights. 330 days. I think that's a federal sort of upper limit. AS, AA, UA, DL at the least, independent of non-stop or layover. WN are the on;y ones I know with a rolling window. We book our AS tickets at 330 days, or thereabouts. Not always necessary with AA as they do fluctuate.
Cheers.
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Post by helenabear on Jan 30, 2023 16:57:34 GMT -5
Non stop airlines only do tickets about 6-7 months in advance it seems - well layovers I could book early but I prefer non-stop flights. 330 days. I think that's a federal sort of upper limit. AS, AA, UA, DL at the least, independent of non-stop or layover. WN are the on;y ones I know with a rolling window. We book our AS tickets at 330 days, or thereabouts. Not always necessary with AA as they do fluctuate. Cheers. None of those fly non-stop to locations I want for Disney. Southwest, Allegiant, Spirit etc are the only ones who do fly non-stop. They don't do 330 days. They often aren't out when SW drops as well so SW by default gets us. That and they have multiple flights a day vs once a day or only every other day at times. |
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Post by brp on Jan 30, 2023 17:20:55 GMT -5
330 days. I think that's a federal sort of upper limit. AS, AA, UA, DL at the least, independent of non-stop or layover. WN are the on;y ones I know with a rolling window. We book our AS tickets at 330 days, or thereabouts. Not always necessary with AA as they do fluctuate. Cheers. None of those fly non-stop to locations I want for Disney. Southwest, Allegiant, Spirit etc are the only ones who do fly non-stop. They don't do 330 days. Interesting. So the other LCCs also don't do 330 days. Did not know that. But I've never had occasion to fly them. Just WN and the majors. Thanks for the info.
Cheers.
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Post by helenabear on Jan 30, 2023 17:22:37 GMT -5
None of those fly non-stop to locations I want for Disney. Southwest, Allegiant, Spirit etc are the only ones who do fly non-stop. They don't do 330 days. Interesting. So the other LCCs also don't do 330 days. Did not know that. But I've never had occasion to fly them. Just WN and the majors. Thanks for the info. Cheers. Yup, they are delayed in listing as well. I used to do Delta all the time but they removed non-stop from my home airport. I could go to Cincy and do non-stop but SW works well for me. |
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Post by brp on Jan 30, 2023 17:46:48 GMT -5
Interesting. So the other LCCs also don't do 330 days. Did not know that. But I've never had occasion to fly them. Just WN and the majors. Thanks for the info. Cheers. Yup, they are delayed in listing as well. I used to do Delta all the time but they removed non-stop from my home airport. I could go to Cincy and do non-stop but SW works well for me. Sounds like a great plan. Coming from the west coast we are lucky enough to have AS flying non-stop from SFO -MCO. SJC is our "home" airport, but SFO is not far. Abd 11-month tickets are typically not too bad in price, especially weekdays.
Cheers.
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Post by a1000monkeys on Jan 30, 2023 17:56:43 GMT -5
330 days. I think that's a federal sort of upper limit. AS, AA, UA, DL at the least, independent of non-stop or layover. WN are the on;y ones I know with a rolling window. We book our AS tickets at 330 days, or thereabouts. Not always necessary with AA as they do fluctuate. Cheers. None of those fly non-stop to locations I want for Disney. Southwest, Allegiant, Spirit etc are the only ones who do fly non-stop. They don't do 330 days. They often aren't out when SW drops as well so SW by default gets us. That and they have multiple flights a day vs once a day or only every other day at times. Speaking of AS, I just scored killer deals on SFO-MCO booking as far out as possible. One way it was offering 12,500 points coach/30,000 First one-way. I kept getting error messages when trying to book First claiming the flight was no longer available but I was able to book coach. I really hope it's not a mistake fare and they end up cancelling me. The fare was available yesterday for the day prior but it ended up changing by the evening. |
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Post by BWV Dreamin on Jan 30, 2023 18:09:52 GMT -5
Non stop airlines only do tickets about 6-7 months in advance it seems - well layovers I could book early but I prefer non-stop flights. I will book at 11 months when I can and hope the airlines are decent with flight times. I never really think further out than about a year or so. I have rough ideas but not entirely. We're also stuck to school schedules. This year I didn't realize we'd move our spring break 2 weeks and annoyingly be the week before Easter. Points are high. We might go elsewhere. Not entirely sure. Otherwise I rarely think that far out. I was on SW site the day they opened up flights for my Seattle trip. They had NO direct flights for our travel dates. I think SW has drastically reduced the number of direct flights in general. This has me looking at least to Spirit for a discount airline. |
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Post by brp on Jan 30, 2023 18:44:46 GMT -5
Non stop airlines only do tickets about 6-7 months in advance it seems - well layovers I could book early but I prefer non-stop flights. I will book at 11 months when I can and hope the airlines are decent with flight times. I never really think further out than about a year or so. I have rough ideas but not entirely. We're also stuck to school schedules. This year I didn't realize we'd move our spring break 2 weeks and annoyingly be the week before Easter. Points are high. We might go elsewhere. Not entirely sure. Otherwise I rarely think that far out. I was on SW site the day they opened up flights for my Seattle trip. They had NO direct flights for our travel dates. I think SW has drastically reduced the number of direct flights in general. This has me looking at least to Spirit for a discount airline. For Seattle it may be worth looking at AS as this is their home airport. Often some pretty good prices in advance. Could be competitive with the LCCs.
Cheers.
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Post by sawickipedia on Jan 30, 2023 23:52:04 GMT -5
Yep, we started planning our Christmas 2022 trip in 2020. It was a huge point use and with the 50% borrowing restriction I had to very carefully plan trips before then in order to have enough left over to make the 880 point ressie at 11 months out (Jan 2022). 880 pt ressie? Wow! Never have imagined one so high! Hopefully was a fantastic trip! |
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