BocaBum99 said:
A 2 bedroom cabin is 18000 points in the summer. I'd put up that cabin against ANY marriott in the entire system. It will probably direct exchange for any Marriott.
You can buy 18000 points on the resale market comforably for $7000-8000. You can obviously do better if you know what you are doing.
The maintenance fees on 18000 points are $758. Or, $.042/point.
Here's what you can do for exchanging:
1) for RCI, you can book any week and deposit it for exchange. I use Christmas Mountain Village Blue weeks to trade into Orange Lake Country Club for cheap. But, to make it easier on myself, I wouldn't count on RCI weeks. I would just use RCI points or the cross over grid into weeks.
2) for RCI Points, you can use 8000 points to reserve a red week at Mountain Run which is worth 55,500 RCI Points. That is a MF ratio of $.006/rci point. It's even lower if you own more points. So, you can get into Morritt's Grand in a 2 bedroom for red season for 75,500 points. That would cost $453 plus the exchange fee. When I went this year, it only cost me 44000 points.
3) for II, I'd deposit a May white week at Christmas Mountain Village for which qualifies for an accommodation certificate. At 8000 points, it would cost you $336 for that week. I would use the exchange to trade in the Marriott in Branson for that $336 fee plus the full $135 exchange fee. Bruce just did that. And, I would use the accommodation certificate to get a 2 bedroom Old Key West on flexchange of $299.
4) for DAE, I would book a 2000 point Big Cedar January studio unit. That would cost $84 plus the exchange fee for any unit there. It would be hard to trade down there.
5) for SFX, I would deposit a 1 bedroom unit at Lodge Alley Inn or one of the many others they take. The cost would be 8000-10000 points. For a cost of between $330 and $420. That would qualify for an exchange, a bonus week and a mexican bonus week. And, you can get 2 bedroom units if you are a platinum owner.
6) for HTSE, I haven't tried it yet, but I will be doing that soon. I'm sure it will be cheap.
Also, you could just rent the week. You'll get at least $2000 for the week. Probably up to $2500 depending on where you advertise. But, you can definitely get $1800 if you rent different resorts for your 18000 points. That is a gross profit of $1800-758 = $1042 or 13% return on capital if you paid $8000. Alternatively, you can use your rental profits to rent a different Marriott.
Lastly, if you are thinking that those 18000 points cannot pick up a Marriott in Aruba or Maui, you should consider that the capital investment was no more than $8000. To buy a 2 bedroom unit at either of those resorts during platinum season would cost you well more than $16000. So, you could actually buy 36000 points for that price. Doing so would lower your maintenance fees even more per point ($.034/point vs. $.042) thereby lowering all of the previous costs. The total maintenance fees for 36000 points is $1226. Since you would be a gold owner, you could book 2 July 4th week cabins by getting first on the waitlist at 13-months prior to checkin and rent those 2 units for between $4-5,000. Then, you could rent that Aruba President's day week or the Maui Marriott July week.
So, for the flexibility you get, I'd take 18000 points at Big Cedar over ANY Marriott except for a fixed week that I planned on using every year. I'd take 36000 if you are comparing it to a Maui or Aruba property.
Boca, you know we use our Bluegreen Points to book Prime 4th of July weeks at CMV and use most our CMV UDI reservations for other things.
In fact last Thursday we used 130,000 RCI Points gotten from our CMV UDI Weeks used for the RCI weeks for deposit for 2 RT airfares for week 6 (Feb 10, 2007) flying from Chicago to one of our 3 weeks we own at the Hotel On The Cay on St Croix, US Virgin Islands. Total cost for both tickets was about :whoopie: $550 or about $275 per RT airfare.
WE are going to the Fairfield in Nashville this Sunday for 5 days for about 20,000 RCI Points. Costs $78 for exchange and about $70 worth of RCI Points.
Last summer we used one CMV UDI white week with a cost of $48 and the II exchange of $129 for a total cost of $177 to trade into the Marriott Horizons in Branson.
We traded into a "Branson Sleeper" for our 42nd Wed Anniversery for a Sept 10, 2005 check in to a 2 bedroom unit # 13 at "The Cabins At Green Mountain" again using a white CMV UDI white week. Seeing we made the trade on Aug 3, 2005 the total cost was the same as the Marriot above.
Ad $5 to the Branson trade because of the $6 II increase this year on II exchanges so our total cost to stay at the II Marriott Grand Chateau for week 42 this year is up to $183. We used a CMV UDI Blue 2006 Thanksgiving week for this trade.
After seeing some of the noise concerns about the noise levels in the Big Cedar Logde, RCI Points was kind enough to let us change the date by one week and change the the one bedroom Lodge unit to a 2 bedroom Big Cedar Cabin unit 2041c on the cove.
This cost us 52,000 RCI Points. A CMV UDI white week banked only 90 days out is worth 28,500 RCI points so 2 of these $48 per week, weeks would be be worth 57,000 of RCI Points. But then we have to pay $26 per week to deposit a week into RCI Points so the total cost per single deposited week is $74 x 2 = $148 = the $149 exchange fee for a total cost of $197.
If I would use a CMV UDI white week banked 45 days to 89 days before its check in date we would get 75% of its value or 21,375 RCI Points. In that case it would raise our cost by about $37 for those 52,000 RCI Points or to about a wopping :whoopie: $234 to stay a full week in that Cabin unit.
Do you think a direct cost of :whoopie: $33.42 per night is too much for a Big Cedar 2 bedroom Cabin on the Cove?
We both know that those CMV UDI's can generate the lowest cost per RCI Point or the lowest cost per decent( and I did not say great) II weeks trade if used right.
Bluegreen Points can be very cost effective to especially if you have a good amount of the newer program Bluegreen points with the lower Bluegreen maintenance fee cost. Of course you know that because you are so much more knownledgeable in Bluegreen Points compared to me.
We only have the 27,000 yearly Bluegreen Points that were added to our CMV UDI's before we bought them.
JLB, we hope to see you and your lovely bride at least once this year during our 2 two trips to Branson this year.
Bruce
can you?
