# Viking Cruises



## ZoNiE (Apr 19, 2015)

Hi Folks, new here, but a TS owner for 15 yrs. I recently bought a value member pack of DRI so that I could combine and get better use of my TS. I was duped into doing this as they told me they would "buy" my old TS. Well, I can only really deposit it, so now I am paying MF on two weeks and get about a week and a half only. Kind of crappy on their part, but We're gonna make the best of it. What I really wanted was out of the old TS to begin with.

We get 6,000 for our old TS plus 2,500 for an annual total of 8,500 DRI points. 

We are Club Select members, and they tell us we can use our points for Viking cruises if we are in Club Combo, which we have to buy *something* to convert.

The least amount I can pay, it seems, is $2,800 for 15,000 one time points that are MF free, (is this true?). This is supposed to get us into silver for a few years and convert us to CCombo permanently.

That's 18 cents a point. Is this a good deal, or is it just more good money after bad? 

The appeal of this is that we can get Viking cruises for 2 people for a week for as little as 12K points and as much as 25K.  So more than likely the 12K number will be nearly impossible to get, but may be possible as we tend to go off season anyway. I usually add vacation to business trips to offset my airfare anyway.

With our 8,500 points per year, that gives us 17K over two, which would seem that may be possible to cruise one year (12K) and have 5K or more left over for an exchange week elsewhere. We just got Maui for 3,500 points for 7 nights...

It seems on the surface that forgetting what I have already paid for my old TS and my 2,500 points, plus the $2,800 for 15K extra points, my roughly $1,600 per year spend on MF's will pay off pretty well, and I'll have those extra points to get a cruise pretty soon. If I get a cruise for 15K points, I basically paid $2,800 for a $6K cruise.

We've cruised Viking, they rock, but we spent $6K for one trip, so this seems to hold water, even if we only get a cruise every three years or so. 

Comments?


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## Bill4728 (Apr 19, 2015)

Almost never is paying for extras like a cruise a good use of your points in any TS system.


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## ZoNiE (Apr 19, 2015)

Bill4728 said:


> Almost never is paying for extras like a cruise a good use of your points in any TS system.



Not sure what you mean. Can you rephrase that? 

I'm intending to redeem points to pay the entire cruise, not for something extra...

If I can use 12K points every two years for a $6K cruise, why is that not a good use of points?

Any points left over will be used for a few weekend getaways...


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## rickandcindy23 (Apr 19, 2015)

ZoNiE said:


> Not sure what you mean. Can you rephrase that?
> 
> I'm intending to redeem points to pay the entire cruise, not for something extra...
> 
> ...



You shouldn't believe your salesman and anything he said about Viking River Cruises.  It's most likely not a great deal doing that.  I would be saying, "prove it," to that salesperson. Diamond has to get their cut of your MF's, and how are they going to profit, if they pay for a cruise for you.


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## ZoNiE (Apr 19, 2015)

Yeah, they're supposed to show me tomorrow...before I sign.


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## DeniseM (Apr 19, 2015)

ZoNiE said:


> Yeah, they're supposed to show me tomorrow...before I sign.



In most cases, a cruise will cost your timeshare deposit, plus a fee which is about equal to the discounted rate on a cruise - not a good deal at all.


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## ZoNiE (Apr 19, 2015)

Yeah, I have seen the deals with the price basically what I can get already without the points, and I brought this up, but they said there are some that are points only. Tomorrow will tell.

Someone will log in with Club Combo and we will search.


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## tahoeJoe (May 29, 2015)

*So......*



ZoNiE said:


> Yeah, I have seen the deals with the price basically what I can get already without the points, and I brought this up, but they said there are some that are points only. Tomorrow will tell.
> 
> Someone will log in with Club Combo and we will search.



So what happened? It's been  over 2 months,  don't leave us hanging.  I'm guessing thry weren't able to do,  or it was a one time "signing" bonus thing.


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## ZoNiE (Jun 23, 2016)

Sorry, I forgot about this. Yeah, it was bogus.


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