# buying points vs. (fixed) week



## vivelefrance (Oct 10, 2022)

Hi Everyone! I have a general question ... are there any pros/cons to buying a resale DRI week at a single resort as opposed to buying points?
Of course, I realize that points allow you to visit different locations, but I'm honestly inclined to stick with one spot.   
Thanks for any thoughts!


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## Duh (Oct 10, 2022)

vivelefrance said:


> Hi Everyone! I have a general question ... are there any pros/cons to buying a resale DRI week at a single resort as opposed to buying points?
> Of course, I realize that points allow you to visit different locations, but I'm honestly inclined to stick with one spot.
> Thanks for any thoughts!



The one nice thing with points is that you are not stuck with doing week only vacations. You can book anywhere from 2 nights up to 29 nights (based on the points you own and when and where you wish to go). So you can do several weekends, mid-week stays, or long vacations that are weeks long.


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## winger (Oct 12, 2022)

In life, there is normally a premium that goes with flexibility, no different here with points.

Family friends owns a EOY deed at a decent DRI Hawaiian resort, going religiously for decades, sometimes getting an extra year in on some bonus/promo. They are now literally not looking forward to their EOY trips back their home resort and are looking into exchanging into other places. We on the other hand purchased deed(s) years ago primarily with exchanging in mind (paid to join II then paid more later to add the points option for even more flexibility) and never feel we are forced to visit a place that we are tired of.


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## artringwald (Oct 12, 2022)

When you buy points, you end up paying around 50% more in maintenance fees for the overhead of managing the collection trust. However, points certainly give you more flexibility, and provide partial protection from unusually large special assessments at individual properties. The trust owns the deeded weeks, so it still has to pay the assessments. Since the trusts own many weeks at many resorts, the impact of the assessments is lessened.

If you don't mind booking by the week, Diamond's own exchange program makes it easy to try other properties. If your ownership is one of the lower tier resorts, you can pan extra to book a higher tier resort. However, if you own at a higher tier resort, it seems like a waste of money to exchange it for a lower tier resort.

When we bought from the developer (  ) in 2004, they sold us a deeded with that came with Club membership. We get the lower maintenance fees, but the flexibility of booking with points. They didn't do that for very long before they started selling only points. Unfortunately, if we ever sell the deed, the Club membership will not get transferred to the buyer. We like staying at the same place each year, The Point at Poipu, so when we wanted to buy again, we bought deeded weeks on the resale market, at a fraction of the price we paid for the first week.


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## Seamaster (Oct 23, 2022)

When you buy HI Collection points on the 2ndry market, what timeline do you get for booking?


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## artringwald (Oct 23, 2022)

Seamaster said:


> When you buy HI Collection points on the 2ndry market, what timeline do you get for booking?


You can book anywhere in the collection up to 12 months ahead. You can't book outside the collection.


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## youppi (Oct 23, 2022)

artringwald said:


> You can book anywhere in the collection up to 12 months ahead. You can't book outside the collection.


12 months ? Are you sure of that ?
I don't think there is a difference between resale points and points purchased from the developer when you book inside your Collection. 
I think you can book anywhere in the Collection up to 13 months ahead with resale points too like points purchased from the developer.

You are right about resale points that can't be used outside of their collection because it's THE Club that manages the cross collections booking and resale points are not admitted in THE Club without a significant post purchases from the developer to readmit them.


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## artringwald (Oct 23, 2022)

youppi said:


> 12 months ? Are you sure of that ?
> I don't think there is a difference between resale points and points purchased from the developer when you book inside your Collection.
> I think you can book anywhere in the Collection up to 13 months ahead with resale points too like points purchased from the developer.
> 
> You are right about resale points that can't be used outside of their collection because it's THE Club that manages the cross collections booking and resale points are not admitted in THE Club without a significant post purchases from the developer to readmit them.


I'm not sure if collection points can be booked 12 or 13 months out. My Club points are attached to a deed and the limit for my points is 12. I didn't realize collection points could be different.


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## Duh (Oct 23, 2022)

artringwald said:


> You can book anywhere in the collection up to 12 months ahead. You can't book outside the collection.



13 Months.


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## Duh (Oct 23, 2022)

youppi said:


> 12 months ? Are you sure of that ?
> I don't think there is a difference between resale points and points purchased from the developer when you book inside your Collection.
> I think you can book anywhere in the Collection up to 13 months ahead with resale points too like points purchased from the developer.
> 
> You are right about resale points that can't be used outside of their collection because it's THE Club that manages the cross collections booking and resale points are not admitted in THE Club without a significant post purchases from the developer to readmit them.



There is a difference. While you still have the same booking window, you have no status so even if you owned 50,000 dirty points in collection, you'd still be lower than a Standard owner. You would get no benefits whatsoever.


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## DaveNV (Oct 23, 2022)

winger said:


> We on the other hand purchased deed(s) years ago primarily with exchanging in mind (paid to join II then paid more later to add the points option for even more flexibility) and never feel we are forced to visit a place that we are tired of.



That was how I got into Points in the first place.  I had owned Weeks deeded timeshares for years, and finally realized I don't always want to spent seven nights in the same place.  Moving to Points gave me more flexibility in time and location options than a deeded Week. 

The exception was a certain beachfront Hawaii location we really enjoyed.  But after visiting it ten or twelve times in a row we decided we wanted to go somewhere else.  We sold it, and then bought WorldMark. That worked very well, until we retired and moved to a less-convenient location.  Now WorldMark isn't working for us anymore.  The search continues.

Dave


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## geist1223 (Oct 23, 2022)

Prior to HGVC buying DRI there was a method to clean your resell Points. Let's say you had 20K DRI resell Points. If you bought 10K Points from DRI all your Points would be treated as Developer Points so long as you remembered to negotiate this as part of the purchase. We did this once with some DRI resell Points that we got for free. The seller even paid the transfer fees. I do not know if this is still possible.


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## Seamaster (Nov 8, 2022)

HGV Max says you’ll have to purchase $25,000 to “clean” the points.


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## winger (Nov 13, 2022)

Seamaster said:


> HGV Max says you’ll have to purchase $25,000 to “clean” the points.


Lol I'd rather pay someone a lot less to clean my undies


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## SABadshah (Nov 16, 2022)

There is a distinction. Even if you had 50,000 dirty points in your collection and still had the same booking window because you don't have status, you would still be below a Standard owner. You wouldn't gain anything at all.


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