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Is PFD a cost effective option?

boyblue

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At what cost per point does PFD become a bad option?
 

Conan

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My rule of thumb for RCI Points is to aim to acquire the property for $.01 per point (including closing and transfer) and maintenance of $.008 per point.

PFD is the same (the $26 fee is negligible) except there's no guarantee RCI won't someday cease to offer it.
 

baakfamily

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My rule of thumb for RCI Points is to aim to acquire the property for $.01 per point (including closing and transfer) and maintenance of $.008 per point.

PFD is the same (the $26 fee is negligible) except there's no guarantee RCI won't someday cease to offer it.

Wow. I thought I had done well buying a 59,600 annual point timeshare on eBay for about $1250 including closing costs, transfer, and RCI Points membership. That works out to $0.021 per point to purchase (double your target acquisition price). My maintenance fee and taxes are about $750 or $0.0126 per point (nearly double your target mf price). How do you do so well? Where do you buy and what properties?

For newbies like myself, what is PFD?
 

gorevs9

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Wow. I thought I had done well buying a 59,600 annual point timeshare on eBay for about $1250 including closing costs, transfer, and RCI Points membership. That works out to $0.021 per point to purchase (double your target acquisition price). My maintenance fee and taxes are about $750 or $0.0126 per point (nearly double your target mf price). How do you do so well? Where do you buy and what properties?

For newbies like myself, what is PFD?

PFD is Points for Deposit. Since you own at a Points Resort, if you can pick up a cheap/low MF "Weeks" Resort, then you can deposit that week to get additional points. The amount of points you get are based on location, rating, size, and season of your weeks resort. If you have a lockoff, you can deposit the two parts separately and get more than if you deposit the one unit as a whole (though it costs an additional PFD fee). The only caveat is that the weeks resort cannot be converting to the Points program.

I believe the previous poster's rule of thumb (buy week for $.01 per point; MF of $.008 per point) applies to the purchase of a cheap weeks resort. In any case you would not want to pay more than $.02/point since you can buy points for this amount (some limitations apply).
 

janej

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I remember the standard was 3 cents per point for purchase and 1c MF per point when we purchased 3 years ago.

For PDF, I would just deposit as regular week and see how it trades. If you have a strong trader, you can trade up. You would get more that way. If it does not pull what you see on the point side, then you can call in and do PDF.
 

Conan

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Where do you buy and what properties?

A reasonable target is 75,000 points for $750 at maintenance of $600/yr.

Set an ongoing search on Ebay with search terms that work for you, bid low at the end of the auction, and be patient.

If you search completed auctions for some of the high-volume sellers you'll see where the market is these days.
 
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JMAESD84

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Costs

Assuming closing costs of $400 and $224 RCI Points transfer/account fees for someone first becoming an RCI Points member, that's $624 before you bid.

So the suggested target of $.01 per point on the puchase is almost unachieveable (but given the trend in resales who knows).

With MF's always increasing finding resorts still under $.01 per point on MF's costs is also becoming a challenge.....still a good target though.
 

janej

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A reasonable target is 75,000 points for $750 at maintenance of $600/yr.

Set an ongoing search on Ebay with search terms that work for you, bid low at the end of the auction, and be patient.

If you search completed auctions for some of the high-volume sellers you'll see where the market is these days.

75k points is probably for a 3 bedroom, red unit. It may not be too hard to find MF under $600 if you just want a red week to do PFD.

I am not sure how many rci point resort would fit this price range.
 

Conan

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An RCI Points property (so no PFD needed) that I was watching on Ebay recently got no bids at a $99 starting price, no reserve for 69,000 points and 540 maintenance.

Closing costs were listed as 400 + 300 to transfer.

So if you'd bid the $99, your purchase cost would have been
800/69000= 1.16 cents/point to purchase
and
540/69000= .78 cent/point to maintain

That's pretty close to my 1 cent / .8 cent target!
 

Jennie

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Since I have a deep distrust of RCI/Cendant, based upon all the "games" they have played through the years, when I decided to venture into the world of RCI Points, I hedged my bets by purchasing an "underlying" week that I would be glad to use as a fixed week every year, just in case the rules of the RCI game gets changed, or the availability of decent exchanges dwindles.

The underlying week is a 2 bedroom/2 bath lock-off unit in February in Ft. Lauderdale (President's week) at a resort we love. The acquisition cost through an Ebay auction was $1100. (all in) and the maintenance fees are $860..

While this is above the usual TUG recommended price limits, it is well below what the week would sell for as a fixed/deeded week (not converted to Points). It rents easily for close to twice the maintenance fees. I like the fact that if we are not pleased with the way it functions in the RCI Points program, we can discontinue our membership and let the week revert back to being a fixed deeded week for our own use or rental.Or we can easily sell it for far more than we paid.

So for all of these reasons I did not hesitate to pay the price we did.

Sometimes a bargain may turn out not to be a bargain if it doesn't work the way one expects, or the cost of maintaining it goes up too much. I personally would not feel comfortable owning points at some podunk resort that I would never want to use for my own vacations. If the RCI Points program deteriorates or becomes too costly, then what would I do with that week? Pay a PCC to take it off my back? I started out owning blue weeks which, for years, easily traded up. Then the scenario changed and they became a useless burden. I don't want to wind up going down the same path with a cheap Points package. Maybe I'm too conservative (paranoid?) but I'm glad to pay a little extra to acquire and maintain a top quality week. I consider the extra costs to be a cheap form of insurance.
 

Conan

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I hedged my bets by purchasing an "underlying" week that I would be glad to use as a fixed week every year.

It rents easily for close to twice the maintenance fees.

So for all of these reasons I did not hesitate to pay the price we did.
I personally would not feel comfortable owning points at some podunk resort that I would never want to use for my own vacations.

I'm glad to pay a little extra to acquire and maintain a top quality week. I consider the extra costs to be a cheap form of insurance.

I can't disagree with that....
 

boyblue

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Since I have a deep distrust of RCI/Cendant, based upon all the "games" they have played through the years, when I decided to venture into the world of RCI Points, I hedged my bets by purchasing an "underlying" week that I would be glad to use as a fixed week every year, just in case the rules of the RCI game gets changed, or the availability of decent exchanges dwindles.

Not the first time I've seen this strategy mentioned but I'd never subscribe to it because we really prefer to go to new places each trip.

Now that we've been snowmobiling for a few years now I could see us going back to a particular location even if only for one of our two trips each year.

I think I’m going start looking for units with a place and time in mind.
 

elaine

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I also paid a bit more, but got a good underlying week

I also wonder about the points system. I know the underlying week (summer Hilton Head 2 BR, GC), will trade well with RCI and I could also deposit with alternative exchange companies. I was also concerned about the "pig in a poke" situation and wonder how long we'll stay with RCI---it might not have been that absolute best deal around, but I am comfortable having an "insurance policy" by paying a few hundred more.
 
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