We were given two RCI Bonus weeks per year. We were told we could book these weeks as far as two years in advance based on availability. Ok, what limits availability? Are there black out times when BWs are not available? Do only certain resorts have availability for BWs? In other words, what keeps me from booking my BW at a sweet resort during a prime week two years in advance?
Generally bonus weeks don't have a heck of a lot of pull. Although they aren't assigned tpu's my guess is that they can't pull anything above 10-13. If your cert is available online for you to search with, you should be able to search with them and judge the restrictions by what you can pull. I have heard that the ones given to Vacation Village owners (in Florida, Grandview in LV, and Massanutten in VA as well as other places) who bought from developer are blacked out of most places in the summer except places where the summer is considered off season (like the desert).
If you just bought and the BW is one of the things that convinced you buy and you can still rescind you may want to. I think that it would be rare to find a place that you can use a bonus week which would still require a $199 (current price) exchange fee that would cost you more than $250-$400 to book through RCI as an Extra Vacation and sometimes when RCI has vacations sales it may cost less to purchase than use a bonus week. So for the most part bonus weeks may save you and average of $100 per week.
If you were sent a physical bonus week certificate it should have the terms and conditions on the back. If not you may be able to call RCI and see if they can either send you a copy or at least read you the restrictions and rules of the cert.
Edit: I just read it was from Coral Resorts (I own there too but not a developer purchase). You may want to get out of that upgrade too if you can. There salespeople use a lot of fuzzy math and again the bonus weeks aren't going to be worth more than $50-$200 each. Try to contract Reba Management and not Coaral sales staff ASAP and get a copy of the terms of conditions of the bonus week. If you are beyond rescission time you don't have to do it right away but I think you will be disappointed in what you are getting compared to the way they made it sound.
Tracey