Opinions Please

Opinions Please

Not sure where to post this, so have placed it in Wyndham since we are considering the purchase of Wyndham points off of Ebay. We have also placed a similiar post over younder.

Wanting to reorganize the timeshare we own for better utilization.

We currently own 4 weeks:

One at Sunterra Bent Creek, Gatlinburg, TN (Odd Year - 2 Br Lockoff - Non points)
One at Mariner’s Point, Crossville, TN
Two at Sudwalla, South Africa

The Sunterra week we use or break up and use one week and deposit the other in RCI. We can only stay during odd years.

I am thinking about purchasing another week in Gatlinburg since we can only use Bent Creek during the odd years and perhaps Branson or purchase points on ebay in either Wyndham - Fairfield or Diamond -Sunterra.

I am starting to think we should own in locations where we can use occasionally rather than placing in RCI year after year and having to pay the RCI exchange fee's.

We can be flexible in our travel dates. We live in the Florida Panhandle and vacation mostly on the east coast and central USA with one week in the north east due to family. We currently vacation about 3 - 4 weeks of the year and in 5 years when wife retires we hope to vacation more.

We enjoy areas like Branson and Gatlinburg.

We have the paperwork to sell the two South Africa weeks back to Ron at Fairfields.

The 2 weeks at South Africa and 1 week at Mariner’s Point have always been deposited in RCI and used for exchanges. The trade power has gone down on both resorts.

Our RCI membership is paid up till 2012.

Thanks

Joe

xnavyss said:

...considering the purchase of Wyndham points off of Ebay... I am starting to think we should own in locations where we can use occasionally...

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Good idea!

We can be flexible in our travel dates... vacation mostly on the east coast and central USA with one week in the north east due to family. ... enjoy areas like Branson and Gatlinburg.

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Sounds like a points system with resorts in these areas would be a good fit.

The 2 weeks at South Africa and 1 week at Mariner’s Point have always been deposited in RCI and used for exchanges.

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Since they've lost some trade power, it sounds like selling them is a good idea too. It used to be possible to get them into the PIC program w/Wyndham, converted to FSP points in the years you wanted that, with a small developer purchase. But the developer purchase is now substantial when doing this. So it's cheaper to sell them yourself, then buy resale points.

This is the way to go, given your usage interests. If you want to exchange through RCI, either Wyndham or Sunterra may work for you, with resorts where you want to go. If you want to exchange through II, I'd look more closely at Sunterra. But either way, look at their respective websites to see if their resort locations would work for you. Then study up on making the most of either purchase and make sure that you purchase at a home resort that would suit you (ex., one that trades with the exchange company you prefer or with maint fees that are acceptable to you).

We have a combination of fixed/floating weeks and Wyn FSP points. The added flexibility of the points is great! If we stop getting a good value from RCI trades, we'll sell our fixed weeks and use all of our points for direct reservations. It's only a little more expensive than trading up through RCI and it cuts out the uncertainty of waiting to see if you'll get what you want. HTH.

Lisa P

I am thinking more towards Wyndham because there are more resorts to select from.

However by selecting Wyndham I feel like I will be paying for RCI membership twice (at least indirectly) since I am paid up through 2012 through the South Africa purchase.

Initially I thought Sunterra - only because we one one, but the one that we own is not points.

Joe

Lisa P said:

Good idea!


Sounds like a points system with resorts in these areas would be a good fit.


Since they've lost some trade power, it sounds like selling them is a good idea too. It used to be possible to get them into the PIC program w/Wyndham, converted to FSP points in the years you wanted that, with a small developer purchase. But the developer purchase is now substantial when doing this. So it's cheaper to sell them yourself, then buy resale points.

This is the way to go, given your usage interests. If you want to exchange through RCI, either Wyndham or Sunterra may work for you, with resorts where you want to go. If you want to exchange through II, I'd look more closely at Sunterra. But either way, look at their respective websites to see if their resort locations would work for you. Then study up on making the most of either purchase and make sure that you purchase at a home resort that would suit you (ex., one that trades with the exchange company you prefer or with maint fees that are acceptable to you).

We have a combination of fixed/floating weeks and Wyn FSP points. The added flexibility of the points is great! If we stop getting a good value from RCI trades, we'll sell our fixed weeks and use all of our points for direct reservations. It's only a little more expensive than trading up through RCI and it cuts out the uncertainty of waiting to see if you'll get what you want. HTH.

Click to expand...

Way back when we bought our FSP points, we owned some SA weeks too. We were then given a new RCI account with the FSP ownership. We called RCI and asked them to combine the accounts. Once they did this, we notified Wyn (then FF) of our account number so they (FF) would pay the annual dues. RCI refunded us our prepaid membership fees for the balance of time on the cancelled account. I don't know if it's still possible to do this. Perhaps call RCI to find out.