I haven't posted recently but you might be able to find some of my old posts explaining, extolling, the benefits of owning points vs weeks.
We've had our RCI Points account for 20 years now. I make very good use of those points. In 2022, I found 2 fixed weeks here on TUG to use for Wyndham PIC weeks. That year it was past the time I could deposit the weeks in RCI to use for the PICs so we got the TPUs, Trading Power Units, for those weeks. I'm finally using up the last of those first year TPUs. It's been quite a learning experience with the RCI Weeks account.
If you're short points you can borrow points from your next use year. You have to prepay the next year's maintenance fees. You pay the current year amount and at the end of the year pay the difference if the maintenance fees went up. With Weeks/TPUs you'd also have to prepay the maintenance fees. And then deposit your week and pay the fee to combine the TPUs.
With Weeks you don't have the option to rent TPUs if you're short a few. With Points accounts you do have the option to rent the points you're short at, in my opinion, a reasonable cost.
Weeks owners only see the inventory from what other Weeks owners deposit for trade. Points owners see that inventory but also the more extensive inventory from all the underlying weeks inventory Points owners points are based on. Weeks owners don't see that.
I now have personal experience with comparing what's available with Points accounts compared to Weeks. Even before we had a Weeks account I would find and book stays on Hilton Head for my sister and BIL. They love HH and have a Weeks account but couldn't see the same inventory I saw with our Points account.
On your Grandview contract/deed, it shows a week number. For points owners, that week automatically goes into the inventory available to all points owners each year and you get your points. If one year you want to use your week instead of getting the points, there's a timeframe beforehand to do that. I think it's a minimum of 12-13 months? You have to tell the resort office, not the front desk, that you want to do that and they withdraw your week from points for that year. Probably have to contact RCI too.
The top Grandview weeks, Massanutten Regal Vistas weeks, I think the top Vacation Village at Williamsburg weeks, and a very few other resorts give the owners the most points. See the attached picture for how many points the different Grandview weeks get. All 1 bedroom owners pay the same maintenance fees regardless of how many points their weeks get. Same with the 2 bedroom weeks. As you can see from the picture, owning a week in the two highest point tiers gives you the most bang for your maintenance fee bucks. For Weeks owners, the number of TPUs they get depends on when they deposit their week. It's isn't an automatic fixed number.
Our first Grandview weeks were 98k point weeks because I wasn't willing to pay what 122k point weeks were going for back then. I was patient and kept watching. It took a couple years to find what I'd wanted at a price i was willing to pay. Then I rehomed our 98k point weeks. You'll see owners call it readjusting your portfolio.
Even before my husband retired he had the job flexibility for us to be able to take advantage of the reduced 4900, 6000, 7500, 9000 point weeks you can find typically only within a month of the check in date. I used see a lot more of the heavily discounted point stays within 6 to sometimes 8 weeks but haven't for a few years now. However RCI periodically runs deals/offers for discounted point weeks at a variety of resorts. They aren't nearly as heavily discounted, but they'll often be up to several months out. I've seen up to 6 months out but 2-4 months out is what you'll usually find.
I've always been able to get several weeks out of the points we get from our 98k or 122k point weeks. Yes, I have to pay the exchange fee for each of those weeks. I look at it this way. If I just used our week it has a value of $950 in maintenance fees. The current exchange fee is $299. So any stays we have after the first one cost us $299 without us having to own additional weeks. Say we get 4 weeks from a year's points. I will have spent a total of approximately $1850 or $460 a week. So $950 for just one week or $460 a piece for 4 weeks. If you have the vacation time, flexibility to go within that last month when the deep discounts can be found, watch the offers for dates farther out, and are willing to try different places/expand your horizons, it's not that hard to get 3 or 4 weeks, sometimes more, out of 98k or 122k points. This is very much an owner usage varies thing.
Some of our favorite places, resorts, are ones we gave a chance after checking them out. Always keep in mind when you read reviews that many people think they booked a hotel and have no idea how timeshares work. Search online to see what there is to do in the area. Post asking other owners about the resort and area. Call the resort and talk to them. Just try not to call at check in or check out times. Ask if it's a good time for them to answer your questions. If it's not ask when would be a good time to call back or if there's someone in particular you should try to talk to. If you've read some less than favorable things about the resort try to frame your questions to not put the employee on the spot. Pay attention if they seem hesitant or reluctant in their answers. They're trying to tell you without openly telling you and possibly getting in trouble.
It pays to look over the emails from RCI before you trash them. You can also log in and check out the current offers. In addition to point discounts or a reduced number of TPUs, RCI periodically offers money off the exchange fees. The promotions/deals usually only run for a couple of days.
Last month the offers were for a $199 exchange fee and discounted points/TPUs. I was able to take advantage of both in both our Points and Weeks accounts. I booked the week of 11/28 in a one bedroom/full kitchen unit at Shell Vacations Club Legacy Golf Resort in Phoenix, AZ for 4 TPUs. Then i booked the following week at Worldmark New Braunfels, Texas, in a two bedroom unit for 26,000 points. We've stayed at this resort before and are looking forward to going back to the area. Both were exactly what I needed, and we wanted, to make our way home on this year's 3 month fall trip using our timeshares.
The highest point stay I booked this year was 53,000 points for a 2 bedroom unit at the Holiday Inn Club Vacations Desert Club Resort in Las Vegas in late November. In addition to it being Thanksgiving week, it's also the weekend of the Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix race. The resort is convenient to the Strip, in view of the Sphere, and on the race route. I gladly used 53,000 points for that week! I'd been looking at, considering, various options for places we could go next on this trip when I saw that week show up. It pays to keep checking because new inventory gets added.
For this fall trip I did something I haven't done, needed to do, before this because I don't book for less than a full week. I booked two 2 night stays to break up our drive on our upcoming long fall trip. The points were minimal, the exchange fee for a 2 night stay is $79, and at check in we'll have to pay the $70/$79 housekeeping fees. At one resort the housekeeping fee is a little less than the other but it might just be a typo on RCI's part. You pay a pro-rated housekeeping fee for stays of less than a week. I checked out the prices of hotels then added up the fees and how much our maintenance fees are on the points i was going to use. The 2 night stays each came out to around what one night was going cost in a nice hotel or 2 nights in a basic okay hotel.
We're spoiled timeshare snobs; no way we wanted to spend 2 nights in a hotel, even a nice one! We're 74 and 76 but can still handle an 8-14 hour drive day. However we definitely want that second night to give us a full day to recover before we get back in the car, lol. I also checked out and selected those two resorts because of the areas they're in. Plus at both you park your car right in front of the unit. So not only safer but easier when unloading and reloading what we do have to bring in. We definitely wanted to avoid having to unload the entire car after a long day's drive. Not having to unload the.entire car means minimal reloading when we leave to get on the road quicker for the next long drive.
I pay for us to have the platinum benefits with RCI because I make enough use of the benefits to justify the additional expense. One of the benefits is an automatic extra year to use your points. The other benefits I use are the free holds, free ongoing searches, free upgrades (within 14 days of check in). Not as often the discount on the guest certificate fee, and discount on Last Call Weeks. The Last Call discount isn't much just a little more than the tax. Weeks owners don't get all the Platinum benefits that Points owner get. One that Weeks owners don't get is one of the ones I use a lot. Sorry, senior moment so I don't remember which one it is.
As an owner at a resort in the Vacation Village family of resorts, you get 2 Bonus Weeks each year. Like Last Call Weeks they don't require any points, just the exchange fee, and are within 45 days of the check in date. However there's more inventory available in the Bonus Weeks than there is in Last Call Weeks. Sometimes the exchange fee can be a little less too.
I know this is a long post and at times isn't entirely on topic. It's my hope that anyone who reads at least some of it comes away learning something helpful from it. Something more than they thought they might learn.
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