No. Points go into holding if you cancel inside 31 days of arrival -- regardless of where you are in your UY.
Here's the situation I'm talking about:
We make a ressie for mid-July. Our UY is October, so that means that our new absolute banking deadline is the end of May. On June 5th, we find out we can't go for whatever reason. Too bad -- we don't have "holding account" problems, but the points used for that ressie have just become "use or lose."
In the old system, we would have had until the end of June to bank 50%, or until the end of July to bank 25% of the total points in our account. But with the new system, we would not have that option -- the banking deadline would have passed. We would have to use the points by September 30 or they would expire.
This scenario is a not-uncommon one for people with school aged children.
In his post above, however, Caskbill outlined a situation which could affect anyone...no matter what their UY. That mess is going to be very difficult for many families -- especially those who can't book at 11 months and rely on waitlisting. They are going to really have to stay awake, or they're going to get in trouble with the new system.