Having recently decided to spend a summer week in New Hampshire I have been looking at the options from all of my available sources. Here is what I found:
- FF doesn't have a resort in the area I desire but I can use points for an affiliate resort or as an RCI weeks exchange. I would need to use 126,000 FF points for the deposit required and pay the exchange fee of $149 for a total cost of $614. The unit available using this trade is a 1 br in the original section of the Eastern Slope Inn (although there are other choices I will stick with one resort just to have some degree of continuity). We have stayed there before, it is an average resort with a lot of charm but unranked.
- If I deal in straight week for week trades I can use either my Westgate or Cypress Pointe which can be placed into the weeks pool. If I do either my week is gone along with my annual fee. Plus the exchange fee. Using my 2 BR Westgate I'd get the same Eastern Slope unit for my annual $645 plus $149 or $794. Using my three bedroom CPR I'd spend $685 plus $149 - $834. And once used that week is gone - no change back.
- If I convert my weeks above into PFD (Points For Deposit) they create two wildly different results. The 2BR Westgate is considered a standard, unranked resort so I get 38,000 for my $645 + $26 deposit fee (since 1/1/06) - $ .018/pt. While my CPR as a Gold Crown 3 BR brings in 74,500 points or $.0095/pt.
Now comes the fun part. Using RCI Points I search for available units. There are the same exact use dates and units I saw in weeks but the points cost is 22,500 to 24,000. And there are options for many different unit configurations that range from 15,000 points to 54,000 for that week at that resort. In weeks there were three unit options and picking any one of them meant 100% of my week deposit was gone - here I can decide to use some or all of my weeks value as best fits our needs. I can get "change back"! Lets use the 24,000 point time and the cost is $353 using my CPR points or $ 557 using my Westgate points. And I get change back from both. I'm ahead already.
But, like a Ginsu knife commercial, there is much more to the story. Now that I'm viewing the world from RCI Points I see that I'm not limited to the original Eastern Slope Inn anymore. Behind the Inn are brand new townhomes known as the Suites at Eastern Slope Inn that are not in the RCI Weeks system at all. When we visited in 2004 we were given a tour of those and we all commented that while we liked the original Inn and it's charm we preferred the more "timeshare" like units that the Suites offered while still enjoying the common areas of the original Inn. The best of both as it were.
So now I see it takes 65,500 points to get a 1 BR Suites unit on 8/13. There are also options for studios and 2 bedrooms with various point values. If I use my CPR points my cost for a 1 BR is $721.25 but I'm now staying in a Gold Crown resort much closer to what we enjoy at our "home resort in Orlando and still getting 9,000 points back for future use. I call that a much more balanced exchange than the whole week for a 1 BR in the old Inn. But there is STILL more!
Turns out school starts the third week of August so demand goes down for units. I can save another 13,500 points if we can travel on 8/20 rather than 8/13. Yet that same time in weeks would still cost me either my whole 2 or 3 bedroom week and I'd still be at the unranked Inn rather than the Gold Crown Suites. So now my cost is $619 after the PFD fee and the $99 exchange fee. And I still have 22,500 of my CPR points left to spend over the next two years. I'm getting a far superior unit for less than the weeks exchange cost and still have more points to use later.
Now all of this focused on only 1 specific resort and the various options I saw there. In reality in RCI Points there were 9 different resorts available in that area and each had many of the options I listed above for unit size, ranking or no ranking and variations on points required based on dates and the unit features/size we picked. In weeks there were only 4 choices from 8/9 to 8/20/06. All of this only 7 months from the use date so we are fairly sure what our available dates will be rather than trying to guess 18-24 months out.
When I speak of flexibility in exchange finding 9 resorts and literally a hundred different ways to reserve use 7 months away from use defines the word for me. Being able to shop my points until I find the best cost/value is flexible. Having multiple unit sizes and point values is flexible. Having clearly defined point costs - thus identified dollar cost - that I can pick and choose is flexible. Not having to give up my full deposit for one fixed week (and not even at an equal quality of resort) is flexible. To me this small exercise proves beyond a doubt why people prefer a good points based exchange system over the old fixed week model. I get to choose and I get to save or splurge depending on my choices. That is flexible. Not even Carolianian can tell me that the old fixed week model did better than that, can he?
Long live points.
- FF doesn't have a resort in the area I desire but I can use points for an affiliate resort or as an RCI weeks exchange. I would need to use 126,000 FF points for the deposit required and pay the exchange fee of $149 for a total cost of $614. The unit available using this trade is a 1 br in the original section of the Eastern Slope Inn (although there are other choices I will stick with one resort just to have some degree of continuity). We have stayed there before, it is an average resort with a lot of charm but unranked.
- If I deal in straight week for week trades I can use either my Westgate or Cypress Pointe which can be placed into the weeks pool. If I do either my week is gone along with my annual fee. Plus the exchange fee. Using my 2 BR Westgate I'd get the same Eastern Slope unit for my annual $645 plus $149 or $794. Using my three bedroom CPR I'd spend $685 plus $149 - $834. And once used that week is gone - no change back.
- If I convert my weeks above into PFD (Points For Deposit) they create two wildly different results. The 2BR Westgate is considered a standard, unranked resort so I get 38,000 for my $645 + $26 deposit fee (since 1/1/06) - $ .018/pt. While my CPR as a Gold Crown 3 BR brings in 74,500 points or $.0095/pt.
Now comes the fun part. Using RCI Points I search for available units. There are the same exact use dates and units I saw in weeks but the points cost is 22,500 to 24,000. And there are options for many different unit configurations that range from 15,000 points to 54,000 for that week at that resort. In weeks there were three unit options and picking any one of them meant 100% of my week deposit was gone - here I can decide to use some or all of my weeks value as best fits our needs. I can get "change back"! Lets use the 24,000 point time and the cost is $353 using my CPR points or $ 557 using my Westgate points. And I get change back from both. I'm ahead already.
But, like a Ginsu knife commercial, there is much more to the story. Now that I'm viewing the world from RCI Points I see that I'm not limited to the original Eastern Slope Inn anymore. Behind the Inn are brand new townhomes known as the Suites at Eastern Slope Inn that are not in the RCI Weeks system at all. When we visited in 2004 we were given a tour of those and we all commented that while we liked the original Inn and it's charm we preferred the more "timeshare" like units that the Suites offered while still enjoying the common areas of the original Inn. The best of both as it were.
So now I see it takes 65,500 points to get a 1 BR Suites unit on 8/13. There are also options for studios and 2 bedrooms with various point values. If I use my CPR points my cost for a 1 BR is $721.25 but I'm now staying in a Gold Crown resort much closer to what we enjoy at our "home resort in Orlando and still getting 9,000 points back for future use. I call that a much more balanced exchange than the whole week for a 1 BR in the old Inn. But there is STILL more!
Turns out school starts the third week of August so demand goes down for units. I can save another 13,500 points if we can travel on 8/20 rather than 8/13. Yet that same time in weeks would still cost me either my whole 2 or 3 bedroom week and I'd still be at the unranked Inn rather than the Gold Crown Suites. So now my cost is $619 after the PFD fee and the $99 exchange fee. And I still have 22,500 of my CPR points left to spend over the next two years. I'm getting a far superior unit for less than the weeks exchange cost and still have more points to use later.
Now all of this focused on only 1 specific resort and the various options I saw there. In reality in RCI Points there were 9 different resorts available in that area and each had many of the options I listed above for unit size, ranking or no ranking and variations on points required based on dates and the unit features/size we picked. In weeks there were only 4 choices from 8/9 to 8/20/06. All of this only 7 months from the use date so we are fairly sure what our available dates will be rather than trying to guess 18-24 months out.
When I speak of flexibility in exchange finding 9 resorts and literally a hundred different ways to reserve use 7 months away from use defines the word for me. Being able to shop my points until I find the best cost/value is flexible. Having multiple unit sizes and point values is flexible. Having clearly defined point costs - thus identified dollar cost - that I can pick and choose is flexible. Not having to give up my full deposit for one fixed week (and not even at an equal quality of resort) is flexible. To me this small exercise proves beyond a doubt why people prefer a good points based exchange system over the old fixed week model. I get to choose and I get to save or splurge depending on my choices. That is flexible. Not even Carolianian can tell me that the old fixed week model did better than that, can he?
Long live points.