# How to spend 150,000 points



## Bonnie_Raitt (Dec 18, 2009)

My wife and I have 150,000 points to spend before June 1. We live in the northwest. I'd like to hear some ideas about how to spend the points. We can't spend a great deal of time away fromhomebut could leave for a month or 6 weeks. All ideas are welcomed


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## vacationhopeful (Dec 18, 2009)

What type of points do you have?


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## Bonnie_Raitt (Dec 19, 2009)

Sorry. RCI


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## Conan (Dec 19, 2009)

You could search CA and AZ on the Weeks side of points....


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## Passepartout (Dec 19, 2009)

Well, cruises are overpriced on RCI points. You could use a bunch of them that way. Maybe combined with a week at each end in a nice CA or Vegas or Florida TS depending on where you wanted to cruise.

Looks like a nice problem to have.

Jim Ricks


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## vacationhopeful (Dec 19, 2009)

Hawaii

Disney Vacation Club resorts.

Manhatten Club in NYC

Give away vacations weeks for Xmas presents.

Or 16 weeks using the 9,000 Pts week to book at the 45 day mark in RCI Weeks.


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## charford (Dec 20, 2009)

Use them for airline tickets/rental car/hotel.


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## Bonnie_Raitt (Dec 21, 2009)

Thanks for the ideas. Think we'll try Hawaii


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## wilmark (Dec 30, 2009)

*A Nice Problem*

I have a similar problem - Unless you have an unlimited time to actually book and travel to resorts, I think RCI points are now worthless. Since RCI made that 1/3 per annual allocation - its worthless. I have the same problem and i wont be able to travel in the next 8 months (unless i want to come home to No Job) - points partners hardly a deal. Considering all the fees and memberships you pay I am about the tell RCI GO F^%$ your selves, take back my TS and use my week.


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## Jennie (Dec 30, 2009)

Instead of accepting Points in a given year, you can call RCI 12 to 13 months before the check-in date and inform them that you will be using your own  unit next year instead of accepting the points for it. It will be as if you owned a fixed-deeded week. 

However, if you are not interested in staying at your own resort, then of course the above strategy will not be useful. 

We own several weeks at the same resort, all bought resale. They were converted to Points by the previous owners. Most times we choose to use our weeks instead of receiving the Points.  I would never purchase points just for exchanging for other weeks or airline tickets, cruises, etc.. especially RCI Points, because they can, and do, change the rules too often, and it's never in favor of the owners. 

With our RCI Points we spend 5 weeks back to back in a 2 bedroom lock-off unit in Ft. Lauderdale in February. This saved us from buying a winter condo when we retired. We can always drop out of RCI Points and revert to owning 5 fixed deeded weeks if (or I guess I should say "when") RCI's greed makes the Points program untenable.

For years I have felt that people buying a Points package based solely upon how low the acquisition and maintenance fee costs are, were going to regret it later. Our maintenance fees are about $850.. Our units were worth 58,500 Points each. But the resort has been nicely upgraded over a 3-4 year period since VRI became the management company and in 2009 the Points value rose 7500 for each of our units. We can rent the units for 50% or more than the annual maint. fees if we decide not to use one or more of them in a particular year.


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## wilmark (Dec 31, 2009)

If i were to regularly go back to my points home resort - why would i want to keep paying the 124$ annual fees. Dont you think that paying mtce fees of 3400$ per month for your FLL 2br to be high - wont it be cheaper to rent an apt for two months. While i share your sentiment about RCI toward the points partners program - i suspect that it wont keep getting bad - if enough of us rant about it and it bringing down the value of the points system they will probably make it attractive again. I have a 1w 1br in barbados which gives me 86000 points and mtce fees around 650$. Most of my bookings are inside 45 days or last call which gives me a ton of points. I am thinking the best thing is to take back my barbados resort and use it on time - buy the cheapest (mtce and cost - some are almost free) triennial week i could find and put this on my RCI membership to maintain this so i could continue accessing RCI's inventory and last call.


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## Egret1986 (Dec 31, 2009)

*This sure didn't work in the case of RCI Weeks*



wilmark said:


> While i share your sentiment about RCI toward the points partners program - i suspect that it wont keep getting bad - if enough of us rant about it and it bringing down the value of the points system they will probably make it attractive again.



It has kept getting bad, many ranted, a Class Action was initiated, many fought the settlement, the value of the Weeks system has been steadily going down and in no way has RCI made any attempt to make it attractive again.

So don't hold tight to that logic that if enough folks rant that it will get better.  Ranting doesn't work.  Many here on TUG believe the only way to let their voices be heard is through leaving RCI and hurt them in the pocketbook.


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## Jennie (Dec 31, 2009)

wilmark said:


> Dont you think that paying mtce fees of 3400$ per month for your FLL 2br to be high - wont it be cheaper to rent an apt for two months?



We bring my 93 year old MIL with us. She looks forward to it all year. She has made friends with other senior "snow birds" and they "hang out" around the pool playing cards and gabbing. 

At her age she tends to doze off several times during the day so at night she isn't usually that tired. She watches a lot of tv then. She may decide to fix breakfast at 3:00 a.m.  , take a shower, sing hymns, etc...Hey, she has earned the right to do as she pleases. Having the lock-off unit is a godsend for us. We are able to get a good night's rest without having to ask Mom to be quiet. A childhood girlfriend from the Bahamas, age 90, often times flies up and spends a week or 10 days sharing the lock-off unit with Mom. Of course we all use the entire unit during the day.

Unfortunately I know that Mom will not be with us forever. When she leaves this earth, we will rent out the lock-off part of the unit. The going price is $750. per week during this prime month of February. Then our actual out-of-pocket cost will become about $125. per week. You can't even rent a motel room for one night at that price. There are virtually no one month or 6 week rentals in the area during this time of the year. People who rent at all do so for the season (3-4 months). 

Even if the price were the same or less than what we pay for our unit, we would prefer to be at our resort. It is in a prime area, one block from the beach and within walking distance of restaurants, a mall, a park, etc...There's an on-site swimming pool, gym, restaurant, organized activities, etc...plus twice a week cleaning and unlimited towel exchange. I don't think renting someone's apartment or home would provide the same great experience, nor be more cost effective.

If I see something of interest when doing an RCI Points search, I can cancel one of our reserved FLL weeks and use the points to confirm the unit. Or I can borrow points from the following year. Two years ago I saw a 2 bedroom unit available on the southwest coast of Florida at a fabulous resort that is seldom available as an exchange. The owners can rent their weeks out for close to $3,000. that time of the year. I grabbed it for 7500 points, then rented out our FLL unit for the same week.  We already had airline tickets and a rental car reserved for those dates. We just had to drive across the Everglades to get to the "replacement" resort.


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## Jennie (Jan 2, 2010)

wilmark said:


> If i were to regularly go back to my points home resort - why would i want to keep paying the 124$ annual fees.



We also own some fixed-deeded weeks at other resorts that we bought in the 1990's to use as traders--back when the RCI Weeks exchange program was operated fairly. Although all but one are decent resorts and decent traders, we do not wish to vacation at those locations. So we keep an RCI Weeks account to exchange them. 

When we acquired the Florida weeks, at unbelievably low prices via Ebay, that had already been converted to RCI Points by the prior owners, we joined the RCI Points program, and the Weeks acount became free. In fact, they refunded us for the extra years still remaining on the weeks account. (Years ago we had paid $500. for a 15 year Weeks membership and there were still a few years left on it). So what we pay for our Points account is the same as we would be paying for the Weeks account, therefore there is no extra money out of our pocket. Essentially we have a buy one, get one free deal.


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## espnlola@msn.com (Jan 2, 2010)

Bonnie_Raitt said:


> My wife and I have 150,000 points to spend before June 1. We live in the northwest. I'd like to hear some ideas about how to spend the points. We can't spend a great deal of time away fromhomebut could leave for a month or 6 weeks. All ideas are welcomed



 I would use those points to see different southern places, like Orlando.
Fla. or down the gulf of mexico. The wether is fantastic in April and May.


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