You will definitely get points back if you book and then they run a special, and the points are returned to the year they were borrowed from. We booked a 7 day cruise departing 12/8/01 using points on 1/8/01. We had to borrow points to do it. Then about a month later, Fall Fantasy rates were announced and all I had to do is call MS and then credited the points and included the ship board credit, and sent me a new confirmation. I am not sure if this would have happened if I had not called MS though. We saved about 70 points with the special rate. Definitely book as early as possible, which in this case will be in October, the general public has had the ability to book this cruise for a long time and it is well known that certain categories and dates book very fast.