Best cheap trader

[psuscott93]

I have a quick question. Now that the SA TS are no longer considered to be the great value that they were in the past, what is the opinion on what is the best cheap trader now? Try to consider the total price (inital cost plus yearly mf) when making your selection. Thanks for your opinion.

 

[AwayWeGo]

S.A. Timeshare Still Good (Even If Less So Than A Few Years Back).

We're still satisfied with our standard-grade 2BR red season South African timeshare. We've done 3 outstanding straight week-for-week trades with it & have done Points For Deposit with it 2 times. (We paid ahead on levies so we could deposit early.) Total purchase price in 2003, including several years' of paid-up RCI membership, was roughly equivalent to 1 year's regular maintenance fees at our Floating Diamond 3BR lock-off Orlando FL timeshare. Who'd a-thunk?

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

 

[Garnet]

What??? You own a TS in South Africa?

ok-I think this about owing a ts in South Africa. I'm guessing cheap to buy and cheap mfs? I sometimes think about Southeast Asia or maybe Mexico (a place I may actually use myself). I have a hard time buying something with a financial commitment that I haven't seen. Have you ever been there? How did you run into this? Purchase blindly or exchanges?

wow-really curious about the overseas stuff...

 

[Jennie]

Personally, I wouldn't buy anything just to use as a trader. The way things have been going with RCI in recent years, you can't even be assured of a decent exchange if you own at one of the best known, high demand, expensive Gold Crown resorts.

It's better to buy a week that you could see yourself using almost every year, one that would also rent for at least the cost of the maintenance fees. If you want to go somewhere else one year, rent it out and then use the rental income to rent what you want directly from an owner and by-pass all the uncertainty and drama of depending upon an exchange company like RCI.

This is what we have been doing successfully for the past several years.

 

[AwayWeGo]

It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time. (And It Was.)

ok-I think this about owing a ts in South Africa. I'm guessing cheap to buy and cheap mfs? I sometimes think about Southeast Asia or maybe Mexico (a place I may actually use myself). I have a hard time buying something with a financial commitment that I haven't seen. Have you ever been there? How did you run into this? Purchase blindly or exchanges?

wow-really curious about the overseas stuff...

Purchase price & annual timeshare maintenance fees (called "levies" among the timeshare folks in that part of the world) were lots less for USA buyers when the value of the S.A. Rand was lower than it is today against the US dollar. As I mentioned, our 2BR red-season standard-grade unit, with paid up RCI membership & everything, cost us about the same as 1 year of Orlando FL maintenance fees at the time (2003).

No, we've never been there -- & it is not likely we'll go. For a trip that far away, it's likelier we'd tour Australia or New Zealand or both -- but that's unlikely, too. (So it goes.) We bought it sight-unseen following advice we stumbled acrosss in TUG back in 2002 or so. (That TUG information is gone now -- couldn't find it when I looked for it just now with the idea in mind of putting a link to it in this TUG-BBS entry.)

Little enough money was involved in buying our overseas timeshare. So, risk-averse as we are, we decided to go for it anyway, feeling that if we got 3 nice exchanges into USA timeshares out of it, anything else we got would be gravy. That's pretty much the way it's been, even considering the eroding value of the dollar (or the climbing value of the rand, depending on how you look at it -- mox nix).

That is to say, we purchased it it sight-unseen but not blindly -- in that we were following some advice that's apparently gone today but which at the time was hidden away in an obscure corner of TUG. Even so, we still endorse the idea that the most practical way of timesharing for most folks is buying a resale timeshare week at a place you like well enough to be happy going back to again & again. Timeshare exchanging, while fun, is more of an adjunct & an accessory.

The ins & outs of advantageous timeshare trading are complicated & absorbing enough that the subject of deposits & exchanges & RCI & I-I & all that occupy space on TUG all out of proportion to the actual role of exchanging in the overall timeshare picture, & that could be somewhat misleading to Timeshare 101 students who have enrolled in TUG only recently.

Our timeshare history & our current timeshare situation -- based mainly on The Wisdom Of TUG -- are fine for us but not necessarily a model for others to follow, or not follow either. If you are at all interested in how our timeshare situation got that way, feel free to click here so you can read it with your own eyeballs.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

 

[Garnet]

Thanks for the read!

Thanks for your timesharing story-an interesting read. Although, I think I will not be looking at South African TSs...well, maybe peeking-for curiosity and dreaming...


Garnet

 

[rickandcindy23]

I doubt that anyone here is going to give up their best traders because there are eyes watching here. If you brag up the trade power of your resort, trade power will drop. I saw it happen.

This question is asked so often, but no one really gets any answers. I asked once. No answers at all.

 

[johnmfaeth]

I would say a Divi Resort in the Caribbean. Few Divi's get banked as most get traded to other Divi's or dates for $89 via Divi's internal system. Some are also non-mandatory usage so folks just skip the usage and fees when they have a non-traveling year. I think Aruba, St. Maarten, St. Croix, and Barbados are all pretty good for this purpose. You will have to hunt but towards November the resale market seems to be at it's cheapest.

PS. I don't think the trade power will drop because of their relative rareness even showing up on RCI. As indicated above, this is a structural situation which should not change. And it's a passport to a good chunk of the caribbean for yourself through their internal system.

 

[Bill4728]

I've said it before, The Monarch Grand Vacation MGV resorts in the SoCal trade well (not great) but are cheap (buy resale on Ebay of course) and the points can be used at any of the 9 resort locations. All locations within a drive from SoCal. ( except the newest in Cabo)