WE DID IT! We bought Fairshare Plus Points and are reading all the literature!

[rickandcindy23]

Okay, so we took the plunge just yesterday and paid the price to convert to Fairshare Plus. We are now platinum VIP. It cost us $18,100 for the conversion + closing costs and that bought us another 154,000 annual points. What do you think? We wanted something more flexible and less dependent on RCI.

Our kids are on our deeds, yet our kids can't be on the membership. Is that going to be a problem when they stay as guests? No housekeeping midweek, is what we understand. Can they use points for hotel stays? Sounds like they cannot. What do you know about guest status with Fairshare Plus.

 

[myip]

Okay, so we took the plunge just yesterday and paid the price to convert to Fairshare Plus. We are now platinum VIP. It cost us $18,100 for the conversion + closing costs and that bought us another 154,000 annual points. What do you think? We wanted something more flexible and less dependent on RCI.

Our kids are on our deeds, yet our kids can't be on the membership. Is that going to be a problem when they stay as guests? No housekeeping midweek, is what we understand. Can they use points for hotel stays? Sounds like they cannot. What do you know about guest status with Fairshare Plus.

I don't get it. What is so great about Fairshare Plus? I see 350,000 annual points selling for only $3500 on ebay. Why are you paying $18,100? What benefits do you get?

 

[jerseygirl]

Yikes! What will this give you that's worth $15000?

 

[BocaBum99]

Cindy,

I think you can get about the same deal for $9000. That's what I'm working on now.

 

[Sandy]

I am also surprised. From what I have read of your posts here in various forums, I thought you bought resale.

 

[Timeshare Von]

We can all get caught up in the "it feels right" at the table. I nearly did the same thing a couple of years ago at FF Flagstaff, but when they refused to put in writing our VIP Gold status with the conversion + purchase we did, we backed out the next day.

 

[myip]

What is Fairshare Plus?

 

[Steve]

I think you paid WAY too much. In fact, I'm kind of stunned that with all of your timeshare knowledge and experience that you would do this. If you had the money to spend and you are happy with your purchase, then that is fine, but that was NOT a good deal.

Steve

 

[johnmfaeth]

I'm not sure where you see the value in this. Frankly I'm a little shocked as you are long term Tuggers. Maybe there's something I missing here?

 

[rickandcindy23]

Yes, I think you are missing that we are going to be VIP Platinum and all of our PAHIO weeks were converted. Jya-Ning, bnoble and mshatty all thought we should probably do this. I think that was their recommendation. VIP means you can use half as many points for Fairshare Plus resorts within 60 days and we can also get free bumps up to larger units when available. We will have 1 1/2 million points and resale can't be VIP, is our understanding.

We did this yesterday, so we have days to think about it and rescind. Boca, we will see you on Oahu. I will send you our phone number or you can send us yours.

 

[donnaval]

If you are a Platinum VIP then you get free guest certificates so if you do have to get them for your kids, well, they're free! With that big of an investment, you might want to look into establishing a trust for your FF timeshares where your children can be recognized as co-owners (lots of info on this on the FF Yahoo group site).

We own almost 1 million points now but all resale, so no VIP for us. But since we like exchanging into non-FF resorts as much or more as into FF resorts, it works best for us to make small deposits into RCI and see what we can find. It's pretty hard to beat those exchanges even with a Platinum VIP discount. BUT--it is usually a whole lot easier to just make a reservation with Wyn/FF (if you can get into the website that is). It all boils down to how you like to play the timeshare game, I guess!

One thing I'd urge you very strongly to consider is whether you are comfortable in essentially paying for valuable Hawaii time to get mediocre time in return. I don't know what your sales rep told you, but you no longer have trade power with RCI. You cannot reserve a week at the resorts you own in Hawaii and deposit those weeks into RCI. You can only deposit what FF gives you to deposit--instead of a Pahio red week you will most likely be given a Williamsburg or Branson pink week. Or you may only be given an "invisible" week which means you have to call RCI every time you want to make a trade, to see if you can get it. It can be a real kick in the pants to pay Hawaii MFs but get no better than Branson trade power.

I wish you well in your decision as to whether to keep or rescind.

 

[rickandcindy23]

Donnaval, those are good points you are making, no pun intended.

I am bordering on RESCIND right now. We just did this yesterday and have until midnight May 4th to do that. I am thinking we should just do it and forget this whole thing.

People on TS4MS have been great as well.

I am worried about trade power of generic weeks. I thought I could pull Shearwater from RCI with a two bedroom, 154,000 week. This won't work?

 

[johnmfaeth]

Hi Rick and Cindy,

Could by you get the same effect by first buying resale 150,000 FF points for $1,500 followed by buying a 57,500 EOY point package from FF for $9,000?

John

 

[bnoble]

Probably not. My guess is that the 308K EOY was the minimum that FF sales would allow to do all of those conversions/PICs. You might be able to negotiate that down, I don't know.

I said this OT, as well, but Donnaval's point about a trust is a good idea to consider. That will help you get significantly more value from VIP.

I guess bottom line is that if you aren't 100% sure this is what you want, then wait until you are. I'm not sure I would do it, but without a home equity loan I also don't have 18K in capital assets that I could plow into timeshare right now.

If I did, well, I might. You've gotten within spitting distance of resale costs for those points, and while VIP isn't worth a *lot*, it certainly is worth something.

 

[vincenton]

You cannot reserve a week at the resorts you own in Hawaii and deposit those weeks into RCI.

This is not correct. She still owned those week at Bali Hai. She still have rights to reserved them at 13 months and still be able to deposit them with RCI if she chooses.

Only UDI points don't have rights to ARP anymore, this does not effect Convert weeks.

Vincent.

 

[jtridle]

This is not correct. She still owned those week at Bali Hai. She still have rights to reserved them at 13 months and still be able to deposit them with RCI if she chooses.

Only UDI points don't have rights to ARP anymore, this does not effect Convert weeks.

Vincent.

And I'm not sure that is correct Vincent. I belong to the FF Yahoo site and it was my understanding from what I was reading over there that even converted fixed weeks owners can no longer ARP the week they own and deposit it, which if true of course gives even less reason to buy from the developer cause before they always bragged that you could deposit your strong week into RCI (in order to sell you on FF). I may be wrong and have wondered about this myself.

RickandCindy: I own FF points through converted fixed resale weeks. I have VIP gold to date because I was grandfathered in. The official line from FF is that resales do not count towards VIP gold. There may be ways around this. Most knowledgeable about this is Angel England with RPMI in Arkansas. I would suggest you contact her as she recently has made comments on the FF group website (definitely join it if you are going to own FF) about obtaining VIP gold with resales. She is extremely honest and is the person I worked with to obtain my resale weeks and conversions. None better than Angel. While I very much enjoy my gold status I'm not sure that it is worth paying what you paid and I would hate to lose the trading power that you surely have with those Pahio weeks. While it is true that you can get 50% point discounts and upgrades to larger units, that is all based on availability of course and at 1 to 2 cents per thousand points on the resale markets it might be worth it to just buy twice as many and get the same effect. Also, you can buy less points than you really want resale and cheap and then rent them from FF Yahoo group members (and they rent out immediately) at $5-6 per thousand points when you need extra points and that may be less than your maintenance fees on average.

I believe Angel's phone number is(or was anyway) 800-844-8404. If it's changed I am sure you can find RPMI's number on the internet. Seriously, I would call her tomorrow and find out what she can do for you. Good luck.
Jackie

 

[vincenton]

And I'm not sure that is correct Vincent. I belong to the FF Yahoo site and it was my understanding from what I was reading over there that even converted fixed weeks owners can no longer ARP the week they own and deposit it, which if true of course gives even less reason to buy from the developer cause before they always bragged that you could deposit your strong week into RCI (in order to sell you on FF). I may be wrong and have wondered about this myself.

And I also, and this is the first time I hear anyone say what you have just said. I also owned some converted fixed week. It would be a cold day in 'Hell' if Fairfield stop allowing this. The converted fixed week you owned, you are only paying Fairfield each year in assessment fee to be able to convert your week into points.

Each year you have the option to use your week anyway you choose from 13 - 10 months.

With that said, you can always opted out of your contract with Fairfield and get your weeks back.

Vincent.

 

[EAM]

Were your Hawaii weeks PIC'd or turned into FSP weeks? If they were PIC'd, you can keep on depositing them into RCI. If not, you should try to get something in writing stating that you will ALWAYS be able to deposit your Hawaii weeks into RCI.

See this thread where Madge stated that one won't necessarily get any available week in RCI, even with a deposit of a 3BR red week worth of FSP points:
http://www.tugbbs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37400&highlight=Fairfield

 

[mshatty]

With regard to ARPing a converted fixed week and depositing it into RCI, I have had RCI add my converted week as a week for future deposit to my RCI account. The way I see it is that when or if I ARP the week, I can then deposit into RCI.

 

[vincenton]

Were your Hawaii weeks PIC'd or turned into FSP weeks? If they were PIC'd, you can keep on depositing them into RCI. If not, you should try to get something in writing stating that you will ALWAYS be able to deposit your Hawaii weeks into RCI.

See this thread where Madge stated that one won't necessarily get any available week in RCI, even with a deposit of a 3BR red week worth of FSP points:
http://www.tugbbs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37400&highlight=Fairfield

The thread Madge was refering to is using points to get a week into RCI. This is totally different.

Converted weeks are fixed week you owned, are like PIC weeks other than it being from Fairfield resort rather than non-Fairfield resort.

With converted weeks, you can only ARP the weeks that you originallly purchase as fixed week. This is why they can never take this away from you.

Vincent.

 

[philemer]

I am worried about trade power of generic weeks. I thought I could pull Shearwater from RCI with a two bedroom, 154,000 week. This won't work?

If Shearwater does a bulk deposit you wouldn't have any problem. SA weeks seem to get them. But if it's a random week that is deposited you may, or may not, be able to see it. Maybe someone who has done this with a 154K deposit will chime in. Remember, things change. Sometimes daily!

Phil

 

[Bill4728]

You have alot of PAHIO, and from what i'm reading it seem to me that FF is going to try and kill PAHIO. So if you can buy alittle more FF and get all your Pahio converted then you may be doing the right thing.

 

[skinsfan]

So if someone has a VIP package and sells their timeshare, does the new owner receive the VIP status? Also does the RCI membership fee still get waived?

You have alot of PAHIO, and from what i'm reading it seem to me that FF is going to try and kill PAHIO. So if you can buy alittle more FF and get all your Pahio converted then you may be doing the right thing.

 

[mshatty]

So if someone has a VIP package and sells their timeshare, does the new owner receive the VIP status? Also does the RCI membership fee still get waived?

VIP does not transfer except to immediate family. RCI Weeks account is part of the Fairshare Plus fee you pay every year. So if you buy resale, FF/Wyn sets up a RCI weeks account for you that is paid by FF/Wyn.

 

[skinsfan]

I just contacted Wyndham (before I saw this post) and I asked the rep if the VIP status was transferable and he said yes... maybe he was confused?

VIP does not transfer except to immediate family