Help Understanding Biennial Timeshare!

[oliv_boliv]

Hi everyone,

first time poster and new-ish to the timeshare world! Wondering if someone can help me understand the ins and outs of a biennial timeshare before I put in an offer! My apologies as I don’t know all of the proper terminology.

I’m looking at an EOY week at Vacation Village Parkway. I’d also want to use RCI to exchange at some point. With this listing being EOY, the first week is in 2021. I’m going to assume I won’t be able to travel this year, at least during the deeded week in March. If I use RCI to bank the points, can I use them in 2022? Or am I required to use them during the odd years only?

Related to that, with a biennial week, and RCI, would I get the points allotment every 2 years, or divided between the 2 years? I guess I’m just trying to understand how much flexibility I’ll have with these points as far as dates!

TIA!

 

[rboesl]

Biennial, or EOY, means you have the right to use your home week every other year. Or, if you choose not to use the home week, you can have the points deposited in your affiliated exchange company. In this case RCI since it's a Vacation Village resort. With Vacation Village they will automatically deposit your points in RCI. If you want to stay at your home resort/home week you need to contact Vacation Village at Parkway as soon as possible so they don't make that deposit. It'll save you an exchange fee.

You need to know if your year is the odd year or even year. I'm going to assume, based upon what you stated, that it's the odd year which means you should be able to book your home week this year or have the points deposited in RCI for exchanging this year. Once the points are deposited in RCI you can use them for travel in your use year or the following year. In this case you can use the points in 2021 or 2022. With the deeded week being in March I would assume you won't use your first deeded week since the date's so close but the points should be deposited in RCI for use.

When I had an EOY week I used the points to exchange in my use year (2021 for you) and used RCI Get Away weeks to travel in the non-use year (2022 for you). In your case, with the use week being so close, I would plan on exchanging for a 2022 week using the 2021 points and in 2023 using the 2023 points. After that use getaways in the even years and your points in the odd years.

I don't know of any resort system that would give you half your points every year. Sort of contradicts the definition of every other year. But, there are some resort systems that allow you to pay half your maintenance fees every year to make it a bit more affordable.

 

[AwayWeGo]

We formerly owned triennial 2BR units at Vacation Village At Parkway.

Every year we received 1/3 of the unit's annual points value (its use-year points value, that is). We were billed the full use-year maintenance fee amount during our use year, then nothing for the 2 off years (even though we kept receiving our points allocations during those off years).

We also formerly owned a biennial floating-week at a different Orlando timeshare. For that, we were billed every year for approximately 1/2 the use-year maintenance fee. It was not a points timeshare, so we were able to make reservations for our use years only, with no usage during the off years.

BTW, we find it convenient to abbreviate odd-year biennal units as EOY (Every Odd Year) & even-year biennial units as EEY (Every Even Year). But not everybody does it that way, so any time an EOY timeshare is offered, it's important to find out whether it's for even years or odd years. I might think of EOY as Every Odd Year, but others might think of it as Every Other Year. So it goes.

After downsizing, the only timeshare we have left is a 1BR triennial points unit out in Las Vegas. For that, we also receive 1/3 of the unit's annual points value (its use-year points value), same as when we had triennial units at Vacation Village At Parkway. Unlike Vacation Village At Parkway, however, we get billed every year for approximately 1/3 of the unit's use-year maintenance fee. Go figure.

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

 

[T-Dot-Traveller]

first time poster and new-ish to the timeshare world! Wondering if someone can help me understand the ins and outs of a biennial timeshare before I put in an offer! My apologies as I don’t know all of the proper terminology.

As an FYI -
1) - not all VV Parkway weeks contracts are also in RCI points.
Some contracts are weeks that can be deposited into RCI for TPU's. or used for a stay at the VV Parkway resort.

2) - there are various RCI point values associated with VV Parkway contracts based on the "desirability" of the underlying associated week.
The MF is the same regardless of point value. Since you are buying resale for approx. $ 1.00 you want a contract with the most points per MF dollar.
(the original buyer paid more for the higher point value contracts).

3)- There is a Florida real estate tax associated with TS ownerships. Some resale listings (on e-bay etc). may include it in a listing and others may not.
Florida charges it regardless of how the resale listing is shown, so make sure you are aware of what your $ all in annual payment will be.

I am not a VV owner but @rboesl and @AwayWeGo are TUG members who own VV and may be able to answer further questions.
There is also now a Vacation Village sub-forum on TUG and you way wish to read all the legacy threads shown.

 

[rboesl]

We formerly owned triennial 2BR units at Vacation Village At Parkway.

Every year we received 1/3 of the unit's annual points value (its use-year points value, that is). We were billed the full use-year maintenance fee amount during our use year, then nothing for the 2 off years (even though we kept receiving our points allocations during those off years).

We also formerly owned a biennial floating-week at a different Orlando timeshare. For that, we were billed every year for approximately 1/2 the use-year maintenance fee. It was not a points timeshare, so we were able to make reservations for our use years only, with no usage during the off years.

BTW, we find it convenient to abbreviate odd-year biennal units as EOY (Every Odd Year) & even-year biennial units as EEY (Every Even Year). But not everybody does it that way, so any time an EOY timeshare is offered, it's important to find out whether it's for even years or odd years. I might think of EOY as Every Odd Year, but others might think of it as Every Other Year. So it goes.

After downsizing, the only timeshare we have left is a 1BR triennial points unit out in Las Vegas. For that, we also receive 1/3 of the unit's annual points value (its use-year points value), same as when we had triennial units at Vacation Village At Parkway. Unlike Vacation Village At Parkway, however, we get billed every year for approximately 1/3 of the unit's use-year maintenance fee. Go figure.

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

Interesting. The Every Other Year timeshare I owned was with Tahiti Village. We were able to pay 1/2 the maintenance fee each year. But, we only received our points in our use year. Just goes to show every system is different.

 

[BingoBangoBongo]

I have a HGVC EY 7000 point deed and a HGVC EOY-Odd (or EOY depending how you like that coded) 12,600 point deed. I will pay MF's for the EY every year and the EOY-Odd in odd years. The nice thing with having a mix of EY/EOY with HGVC is that it allows you to Save points out a year (for a fee) and pull points forward (no fee), allowing me to move points with a ton of flexibility. There is even a scenario I have plotted out that if I want to have a monster year, I could push the 19,600 points from an odd year into an even year, where I would also be receiving the 7000 points on the Even year deed AND pull forward the 19,600 points from the following odd year, which would give me 46,200 points to use that year. Of course I wouldn't have any available the year before or after, but I could always try to buy points from someone else if I needed to.

 

[AwayWeGo]

various RCI point values associated with VV Parkway contracts based on the "desirability" of the underlying associated week.
The MF is the same regardless of point value. Since you are buying resale for approx. $ 1.00 you want a contract with the most points per MF dollar.
(the original buyer paid more for the higher point value contracts).

All Vacation Village At Parkway ownership is 2BR lock-offs.

"Weeks" ownership at Vacation Village At Parkway is all red season. I don't know whether that means the TPU values of the "weeks" units are all the same. Some weeks might be redder than others, I don't know.

"Points" ownership at Vacation Village At Parkway comes in 3 levels based on seasonal demand. Those work out to 55,000 points & 74,000 points & 92,500 points, respectively, all with the same maintenance fee amounts irrespective of points levels, meaning savvy resale buyers should shop eBay for the 92,500-point units.

As it happens, Vacation Village At Parkway is where we caught the timeshare bug in 2002 on a high-pressure sales tour. We were so naive that even after we saw the model units, we didn't know the difference between Vacation Village At Parkway & Parkway International Resort right across the Parkway. We did not buy (too expensive), but we definitely caught the bug.

Later, we bought a nice resale unit at a different resort, which we enjoyed to the hilt. Still later, we joined RCI & swung some bargain reservations to stay in other people's Vacation Village At Parkway units, which we specially enjoyed because that's the resort that hooked us on the idea of timeshare vacationing.

Even later than that, we bought a resale triennial Vacation Village At Parkway points unit (eBay all the way) that got us 30,333 points every year.

More recently, we sold off our triennial Vacation Village At Parkway unit (via TUG) & bought an eBay triennial Grandview At Las Vegas 1BR unit that gets us 16,333 points every year. (Vacation Village At Parkway & Grandview At Las Vegas are both links in the same timeshare chain.) We would have preferred a Grandview unit that provides 20,333 points each year (for the same maintenance fee cost), but we never found 1 like that, so we settled for the 1 with fewer points. We've owned that 3-4 years now. So far, so good.

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

 

[T-Dot-Traveller]

As I follow this thread- I will add some additional use possibilities.
Please feel free to add or correct - since this is from general TUG learned knowledge and not VV ownership.

1) - I believe one benefit of owning a VV Parkway -that is NOT in RCI points is that you can split the unit.
I believe some owners will do this and stay in a one bedroom for 2 weeks for 1 MF.

20- If you split and deposit one half into RCI for TPU's - you could stay 1 week in a one bedroom and use the RCI TPU's
for a vacation somewhere else by paying an exchange fee.

 

[moonstone]

Interesting. The Every Other Year timeshare I owned was with Tahiti Village. We were able to pay 1/2 the maintenance fee each year. But, we only received our points in our use year. Just goes to show every system is different.

We don't own there, but our EOY Points and maintenance payments are the same as you stated. We can use all our points in the first year or save them to use all of them in the 2nd/last year. We only saved them all once after finding RCI charged us a fee for not using any of our points during the first usage year. Now we make sure to use some of them in the first year, even if its just a 7K sale week.

~Diane