1. How many points will you need for those stays at the different Wyndham resorts in the size unit you need? See the point charts below.
2. How much will it cost you to get those points?
3. How much will the maintenance fees be on those points/how much will the stays cost you?
4. Will you need to buy extra housekeeping credits?
5. Will you need to buy extra reservation transactions?
I like to use Grand Desert for my examples because it has lower average maintenance fees and you can usually find someone selling points there pretty cheaply. So the 2020 maintenance fees at Grand Desert are $4.96 per thousand points for building 3 and I believe $4.87 for buildings 1 and 2. Add another $0.62 per thousand for the program fee or a minimum of $160. Cypress Palms and Star Island resorts because are the least number of points to book. I'll pick a 4 day weekend checking in on Friday in each of the three seasons in a two bedroom. I know you said 4 times a year but to keep it simple it's easier to go with three stays, once in each season. That means you'll need 293,000 points at both Cypress Palms and Star Island and 337,200 points for Bonnet Creek. The maintenance fees and program fee for Grand Desert buildings 1 or 2 on 293k points would be $1608.57. For Bonnet Creel 337,200 points, $1851.23. You'll get one free housekeeping credit for every 70k points so the free ones you would get will be enough for the three stays a year. But if you need more than that they will be $159 each. You get one free reservation transaction fee for every 77k points you own so again you'll have enough for your three stays. However if you do need more they're $19 online or $39 over the phone. You can deposit any points you won't be using into one of the next two use years and that costs $39 or $49 if you call in to do it. However if you're going to do that you must do it within the first three months of your use year. If you are making a reservation within 90 days of the check in date you can borrow points from your next use year and there is no charge to do that. The other alternative to carry over points is to deposit them into RCI. If you book a week with those points in RCI the exchange fee is $249. If you book less than a week the exchange fee is less but I believe you also pay a housekeeping fee. With your Wyndham ownership you get a free RCI weeks account.
Now I'm going to suggest something else. Take a look at a small number of points at Grandview at Las Vegas which will give you an RCI points account. A middle level week in a one bedroom every other year would get you 49,000 points every other year with 2020 maintenance fees of $208.75 per year. There are even triennial years available and that would get you 16,333 points every third year with 2020 maintenance fees of $139.67 per year. You can usually find someone giving away the middle level Grandview weeks. Sometimes they will pay or split the $250 resort transfer fee and the around $225 fee LT Transfers charges to handle things. Sometimes you will find the other person isn't keeping their RCI points account and that can also be transferred to you and the cost is $98. If you have to set up a new points account the fee is $222 but included the first year RCI membership worth $124. The current annual RCI membership fee for a points account is $124 but if you pay for more than one year there is a nice discount.
Grandview is a resort in the Vacation Village family of resorts which gets you two extra weeks a year with no points needed just the $249-$299 fee plus tax. You can only book these weeks within 45 days of the check in date but there is always plenty of inventory in Orlando that you can get. Another option is the last call weeks that have a little higher fee and also require no points. I find that there are more choices of what's availability with the extra weeks than the last call weeks but there's still plenty in Orlando with last call weeks. Just to give you an example that you can find some great stays in those Vacation Village extra weeks on September 9th I booked the week of October 23rd in a three bedroom/three bath unit at Reunion. Reunion has a great water park for the kids. Wyndham and Worldmark both have units there and it was a Worldmark unit that was available. The RCI exchange fee recently went up from $239 to $249 so the cost was the exchange fee and tax. Our granddaughters love the Vacation Village at Parkway resort and if I can only find a one bedroom in the extra weeks or last call weeks I've always been able to find a two bedroom when I needed it in the discounted point weeks you can find within 1-5 weeks of check in. At VV at Pkwy I get those discounted point weeks for 4900 points. I've also booked Star Island and usually see Cypress Palms available too in the extra weeks, last call weeks and discounted 7500 point weeks. However if I wanted a 2 bedroom at either I'd make sure I was looking at 45 days. RCI almost always has some type of sale going on. Right now it's a $199 exchange fee for weeks in Orlando through sometime in March. I think there is another sale currently going on that gives you $50 off the $269 for last call weeks that are available within 45 days of check in.
Because you pay a housekeeping fee for stays of less than a week with RCI I find it's cheaper to just book a full week and not use the whole week when you can get those extra weeks, last call weeks and discounted point weeks. Another thing to mention is that you can borrow points from your next use year however you do have to pre-pay the maintenance fees when you do that. If there's an increase in the next year's maintenance fees you will pay the additional amount at the end of the year. I believe there is a fee if you have points you want to carry over for a second year.
If you found a point week at Grandview that someone's giving away and you had to pay the resort fee of $250, LT Transfer's fee of $225 and $222 for your RCI account, your buy in would be $697 and include the first year membership in RCI.
If you have a one bedroom every other year 49,000 point week with maintenance fees of $208.75 per year and pay the RCI membership fee just one year at a time so $124 in two years you will have paid $665.50 for those 49,000 points making them cost $0.01358 per point. If you booked a 4900 point week at Vacation Village at Parkway in Orlando that week with the exchange fee of $249 costs you
$315.55. A 7500 point week like we just had a Reunion (our 4th or 5th time saying there with the discounted point weeks) or at Star Island those weeks would cost you
$350.85. Though RCI we've also gotten the discounted 7500 point weeks at Silver Lake. We've stayed there a couple of times and love that it's so close to Animal Kingdom. You can find discounted 23,500 point weeks at Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort and there's a $190 fee you pay at check in. That makes the week at Saratoga Springs Resort
$758.13. And don't forget those two Vacation Village extra weeks you will get every year and the last call weeks that are
under $300. Those stays give you full weeks so you can decide to stay 3 nights, 4 nights, have a last minute change of plans to stay longer and if you aren't staying the whole week you can use the extra days to have a late check out and not have to worry about being out of the unit by 10am.
We live in Florida, have two granddaughters ages 4 and 9 and go to Orlando a lot. I've never not been able to find a week we could use through RCI. That includes holiday weeks other than Christmas. Since we've never gone to Orlando over Christmas I can't speak to that time being available in the discounted point weeks. I doubt it's in the extra weeks or last call weeks. In 8 or 9 years the only time I've booked a full point week in Orlando was for Animal Kingdom Villas Kidani Lodge in a savanna view unit the first week of March. You only find one bedroom units at the Disney resorts through RCI. Animal Kingdom Villas are the only one bedroom units that have two full baths. The one bedroom units Animal Kingdom Villas and Old Key West both sleep 5. OKW is another one you can sometimes find in the 23,500 point discounted weeks. Saratoga Springs Resort sleeps 4. That's not counting the pack n play crib in the closet of the units at all three of those Disney resorts.
If you owned 293k Wyndham points need for the 3 four night stays at either Star Island or Cypress Palms with maintenance fees of $1608.57 the cost averages out to
$536.19 a piece for each for just four night stays with a 10am check out time.
The one advantage with Wyndham is that you can cancel 15 days before the check in date without losing your points. When you book a reservation with RCI you have until 11:59PM of the following day to cancel with no penalty. RCI offers points protection for a fee but it doesn't cover the exchange fee which is a lot more than the value of the points with the discounted point reservations. However because of COVID RCI is currently giving credit for the exchange fee if you have the protection and cancel.
Cypress Palms
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