Fried_shrimp
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- Feb 18, 2021
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That's true, but you also need to consider what you are paying in points to book at that affiliate.
We are members in Raintree Vacation Club, which is also a DRI affiliate. So I can see what it costs me in Raintree to book at one of their resorts (say Club Regina Puerto Vallarta) vs. making the same booking using DRI points.
Converting the DRI and Raintree points required to $ based on maintenance fees - I would pay more for a one-bedroom unit booking it through DRI than I would pay for a 2-bedroom unit for the same period booking through my Raintree account.
Just for fun one time, I used a similar comparison to compare what it would cost me to stay at a Great Wolf Lodge using DRI points as compared with just booking it as an ordinary guest. It was significantly more expensive to burn my DRI points as Great Wolf than to just book directly with Great Wolf.
So when I've mucked around, I've concluded that the affiliate resorts don't really offer value. As I've posted elsewhere, the primary reason they exist is so that DRI can put more dots on the map. The only time I would seriously consider staying at an affiliate resort is if I had points that were going to expire at the end of the year and I couldn't roll them over, so I was faced with salvaging whatever value I could before they became worthless.
It depends on the affiliate. Yes, there are some affiliates I would never book with my Diamond points as the cost of the points spent (in maint fees) is astronomical. But not all affiliates are that way. I have stayed at some night affiliates through Diamond that cost no more than booking a normal Diamond resort (Gatling Town Square and Coconut Palms II in New Smyrna Beach come to mind).