Exchange Basics- Fairshare Wyndham

[pinrob711]

I am looking at buying a Fairshare points package and I have a few questions for exchanging.

1) If it costs 154K prime points at my home resort to reserve a one bedroom week will I have to deposit that many points into RCI to get 105K RCI red week points? Or do i only have to deposit 105K to get 105K?

2) With the point system I am looking at buying does "trading power" even apply as I would be depoisting points not weeks-- right?

3) Does anyone have experience with exchanging into a cruise through RCI?

I appreciate all of your help...I am just trying to arm myself with knowledge BEFORE I buy!

Nicki

 

[jkkee]

1. For a 105K deposit into RCI you would use 105 points. Thats one of the things I like about the Wyndham FF system is that I can break my points up into smaller bunches to have multiple RCI deposits.

2. Trading power does apply. RCI Points does not = Wyndham points. You deposit Wyndham points to deposit a WEEK into RCI. Wyndham reserves the right to choose which week gets deposited based on the number of points you deposit. So, you don't have much say in what the trading power of that week is going to be. Some have been unhappy with thier trading power, I have always been able to get exchanges that I am more than happy with.

3. I haven't traded for a cruise, but it seems to be the popular opinion here that you can find a better value on your own than using your points.

Hope that helps. I'm sure someone more knowlegable will be along shortly that may answer more clearly than I have

Jen

 

[pinrob711]

Thanks Jen...this info is incredibly helpful!

Can I ask for clarification on #2 though. How do I turn my points into a week? Is that done when I call Wyndham to book a reservation? So, would it be better to own at a "hot" resort so that you might have good trading power? I think I might be a little confused on this one.

Thanks for your help!

Nicki

 

[Bill4728]

My understanding is that FF deposits many weeks into RCI then assigns them to owners as the owner request a RCI week/deposit. So it doesn't matter where you own, the week which you get from FF is already been determined.

 

[jkkee]

Bill's Understanding is correct. You call Fairfield, tell them you want to deposit a 1 bedroom red season (which is the 105000 pts), and they pick the week and at which resort. Your only guarantee is that it won't be less than a red season 1 bedroom. It doesn't matter which resort you own at. Owning at a "hot" resort isn't going to help you here. You don't have a choice on which resort or week gets deposited with RCI.

That said, I have been happy with my trades. It all depends on how flexible you are. My husband and I both work and have no children, so we aren't limited to school vacations. One vacation a year is dedicated to Winter week someplace warm, and we haven't had a problem. This year we're heading to Italy for 2 weeks in November around Thanksgiving. 1 week so far has a timeshare trade. Have a request in for the other week, but if we don't get it we'll do a hotel or B&B or something, I'm not worried about it.

Jen

 

[pinrob711]

Thank you all!

Its the little pieces that are the hardest to understand!

Nicki :whoopie:

 

[Conan]

You call Fairfield, tell them you want to deposit a 1 bedroom red season (which is the 105000 pts), and they pick the week and at which resort.

Actually there are two ways to deposit those 105K Wyndham points (or 28K or 70K, etc.) into RCI Weeks. One is described above, where Wyndham deposits an actual week of their choosing into your RCI weeks account. This is known as a "visible" deposit and you can search online with it on the RCI Weeks website just as if you were the owner who deposited it.

The other method is to ask Wyndham to make a "generic" (sometimes called "invisible") deposit of 105K or whatever number of points from your account. They then make some sort of book entry into RCI Weeks on your behalf. Since there's no actual week deposited you can't search online - - you have to phone RCI Weeks and ask them to look for what you want.

A signficant benefit to generic deposits though is you can make a temporary or search-first deposit. So you can phone a special phone number at Wyndham, ask them to move say 28K points to RCI Weeks, and they'll do that on the spot and transfer your call to the RCI Weeks desk. If you don't find what you want in RCI Weeks, you have 24 hours to call back Wyndham and have those points re-deposited to your Wyndham account all free of charge. Best of all, if 28K doesn't do the job you can go through the same process with 70K, 105K, etc. in hopes something will "hit," and if it doesn't you have the same 24 hours to revert the points back to your Wyndham account.

Search first is especially handy for Tuggers who know there's been a bulk deposit or other "find" in RCI Weeks. Knowing there's availability, you use the generic search first and see how many Wyndham points you need to spend to grab it. [Although in some cases you'll discover that the deposit is off-limits to your Wyndham points and no number of points will hold it.]

 

[sandkastle4966]

the bottom line...

if you are looking for "hard trades" - don't plan on wyndham pulling them in rci

if you are looking for off season, or heavily populated time- share areas (orlando) - you will be VERY happy with wyndham cheap 28k trades

 

[Conan]

if you are looking for "hard trades" - don't plan on wyndham pulling them in rci

I've used Wyndham points (ranging from 28K to 105K) to make the following trades in RCI Weeks:

El Moro El Cid, Mazatlan (4/4), May week

Antigua Village Beach Club (4/2), November week

Kona Hawaiian Village (6/4), December week

Manhattan Club (4/4), March week [using ARP depost no longer permitted]

Charter Club of Marco Beach (6/6), March week [using ARP depost no longer permitted]

Grand Mayan Nuevo Vallarta (8/6), March week

La Casella, Italy (6/4), April week

Antigua Village Beach Club (6/4), March week

Casa del Mar, Aruba (6/6), May week

Village Cascais Suites, Portugal (4/2), July week

Pestana Madeira Beach, Madeira Portugal (4/4), July week [using ARP depost no longer permitted]



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