Expiring points

Hello all, I am a fairly new owner and just found this great site.
I have 240,000 that expire at the end of this year and no clue what to do with them because I can't travel enough to use them all.
Are there any other trade programs besides dumping them into RCI?

RobP said:

Hello all, I am a fairly new owner and just found this great site.
I have 240,000 that expire at the end of this year and no clue what to do with them because I can't travel enough to use them all.
Are there any other trade programs besides dumping them into RCI?

Click to expand...

Welcome to TUG. It would be helpful to know exactly what system you are talking about (it sounds like Wyndham or other system that uses that magnitude of points).

If Wyndham, unless you are VIP, you only have the choice of using them on a reservation in 2014 (to use yourself, give to a relative/friend, or rent out), or deposit them to RCI for use sometime in the next two years. You can prevent this in the future by credit pooling your next year's points before they are valid (i.e. credit pool 2015 points before 12/31/2014 if you have a January use year). Although this makes the points lose any ARP status, this does extend their life for 3 years from date of pool.

If all of this sounds foreign to you, I encourage you to peruse the Wyndham subforum: http://tugbbs.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=47

Yes they are Wyndham points, I wasn't sure if they expired in RCI at the same time as Wyndham but I guess not, Thanks for the reply and the link, I will look into it more.

If going to deposit in RCI wait until December since two years start with deposit date. Will require RT but should have 3 free. Also will cost $209 to do a reservation.

Since you will have big deposit with RCI do the credit pool for $39. You can use anytime for next three years. Again wait until December.

There are other exchange companies but not familiar with polices.

Worst case use to get about $600 credit on ball park MF of $1,500 you paid.

pacodemountainside said:

If going to deposit in RCI wait until December since two years start with deposit date. Will require RT but should have 3 free. Also will cost $209 to do a reservation.

Since you will have big deposit with RCI do the credit pool for $39. You can use anytime for next three years. Again wait until December.

There are other exchange companies but not familiar with polices.

Worst case use to get about $600 credit on ball park MF of $1,500 you paid.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info but I don't know what RT & MF mean.

Sorry bout dat. As a Wyndham owner of over 13 years forget newbies are still learning a very complicated system.

RT is Reservation Transaction. You get one free for every 77K points on January 1 and have to use for most transactions.

MF is what you pay each year to run resort (HOA) and VOI Trust(POA).

HOA fee which runs from around $4.00/1,000 points and up depending on resort, Developer subsidizing on new resorts, points inflation, amenity charges, reserves, insurance, ad infinitum.

POA fee is minimum $118 but since you own more than 210K points is $.56/ 1,000.

PS: If you click on red triangle on left and ask mods to move to Wyndham forum will get better response.

Ah, thank you sir, now I feel as dumb as I look.

Hey, no reason to feel dumb. Even us so called experts learn new tricks as Wyndham , et. al. regularly charge rules.

See addition on prior post about moving to Wyndham forum.

Sign up for on line access and request a Directory and keep in touch here!

RobP said:

Thanks for the info but I don't know what RT & MF mean.

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MF stands for "Maintenance Fees," composed of the two fees described above.

"Credit Pooling" is the term for Wyndham's method of banking and borrowing points.

Unless you have VIP status, you have to credit pool prior to the start of your Use Year. So, to credit pool your 2015 points (or some portion thereof), you would have to do so before 12/31/14 if you have a January Use Year (which most have).

Credit pooled points are valid for stays for three years from the pooling date -- so they would still be valid during 2015, and also 2016 and part of 2017. You can also pull points from future years via credit pooling. If you needed points for a 2015 reservation, you could pull them from 2016, for example.

Read your "owner's manual" for the details on credit pooling to be sure you understand the ins and outs.

Besides RCI there is Trading Places and TPMaui (you may have to have a Hawaii resort for that) . I used Trading Places a couple times and liked that they don't charge a membership fee and the exchange fee is less. With a small membership fee to Trading Places, you can use an exchange for something like $700 towards a cruise or airfare. Never tried that, so I'm not sure how that works. Checked into RCI's car rental program and found that to be a terrible use of points. But RCI does have a lot of properties and you have 2 years from the day you deposit your points until you have to use the.

RobP said:

Hello all, I am a fairly new owner and just found this great site.
I have 240,000 that expire at the end of this year and no clue what to do with them because I can't travel enough to use them all.
Are there any other trade programs besides dumping them into RCI?

Click to expand...

I may have missed this bit of advice, but I did not see anyone suggest that the Rob use the 240,000 points to pay "some" of his maintenance fees.

Someone can correct me if I have the wrong figure, but I think that Wyndham will trade points at $2/1000 points towards maintenance fees. Granted, this only gets back about 30% of what has been paid, but it still might appear to be better than using RCI to someone who is averse to doing that.

Jim

jebloomquist said:

I may have missed this bit of advice, but I did not see anyone suggest that the Rob use the 240,000 points to pay "some" of his maintenance fees.

Someone can correct me if I have the wrong figure, but I think that Wyndham will trade points at $2/1000 points towards maintenance fees. Granted, this only gets back about 30% of what has been paid, but it still might appear to be better than using RCI to someone who is averse to doing that.

Jim

Click to expand...

Yes! See Post 4.

Did math on calculator and would be 240K points X $.0021 or $504.

Worst case use to get about $600 credit on ball park MF of $1,500 you paid

Oops, checked and can only be done for first three months of use year.


__________________
Paco

jebloomquist said:

I may have missed this bit of advice, but I did not see anyone suggest that the Rob use the 240,000 points to pay "some" of his maintenance fees.

Someone can correct me if I have the wrong figure, but I think that Wyndham will trade points at $2/1000 points towards maintenance fees. Granted, this only gets back about 30% of what has been paid, but it still might appear to be better than using RCI to someone who is averse to doing that.

Jim

Click to expand...

pacodemountainside said:

Yes! See Post 4.

Did math on calculator and would be 240K points X $.0021 or $504.

Worst case use to get about $600 credit on ball park MF of $1,500 you paid

Oops, checked and can only be done for first three months of use year.


__________________
Paco

Click to expand...

Jim, we are not all as lucky as you to have the VIP Platinum 9-month limit for MF conversion!

uscav8r said:

Jim, we are not all as lucky as you to have the VIP Platinum 9-month limit for MF conversion!

Click to expand...

Thanks for the correction.

Jim