Conversion of Shawnee Unit to Fairfield Points

[Guest Close Quarterbore]

We are on vacation up at Shawnee this week and yesterday we got to spend a couple quality hours with a sales guy from Fairfield and I figured it would be worth sharing the story and let the pros give their advise... moral of the story here is that as a Timeshare owner you still need to watch for the sharks!

In short, Fairfield purchased Shawnee about a year ago and they are finishing the current construction up in the Summit portion of the Shawnee resort. After they complete this section they are planning to start new construction up at the Ski mountain itself. The new resort will be a Gold Crown resort, at least according to the sales guy, and they will be building 2, 3, and 4 bedroom units.

Well, the sales rep indicated that Fairfield has an “opportunity” to convert our Ridgetop Village unit to points with the implication that we could spend our Fairfied points at any of the various Fairfield resorts. The numbers we were given are that Fairfield sells their points for $0.155 per point. Our Shawnee Ridgetop unit is worth 154,000 points but for us to convert this unit to points the sales guy indicated that we would need to make an additional purchase of Fairfield points. Now, these are estimates (of course they want you to get into a private meeting with their “closer” but they offered us two packages to get us into the door.

The first was a package that would double our points, an additional 154,000 points for an estimated $19,000. This first option would more then double our maintenance fees (we pay $360/mo for our Shawnee week and the extra 154k points would cost us an estimated additional $400) to about $760/year. With this option we are up over the 300,000 points level and we would receive “Fairfield VIP status” and we would get a 25% discount on Fairfield resorts (stay at 100,000pt resort for 75,000 point exchange) plus a unit upgrade.

The second package, their “foot in the door package” consists of 63,000 Fairfield points for $8,000 plus the 154,000 points for our existing week (217,000 points total). This would not provide us with the points we need for VIP status so we would not get the discounted exchange rate.

Now, I also asked the sales guy if there would be a way to convert the Shawnee week to points without an additional purchase of points and I was informed that this will not be possible an in essence we have two options.

1. Keep our fixed week as we own it
2. Buy additional Fairfield points and convert our week to points

We also asked if there will be an opportunity to convert our week to points in the future and I was informed that this will be possible but that Fairfield was offering a special incentive package at this time and that they are waving sizable fees for a limited time.

Well, I didn’t fall off the turnip truck this week so my gut feeling is that this is a trap best avoided but I am not knowledgeable of the Fairfield point system. I expect that it will be less expensive for us to just purchase Fairfield points off the resale market and either keep our fixed week 33 or sell it.

So, what do the points experts think?

Now, to show I am not a complete idiot, I will save the experts the trouble of showing what the reslae market is like for these same points. Check out the folowing link:

http://search.ebay.com/fairfield-points_W0QQfromZR40

You will notice we can buy the entire 300,000+ points off ebay for $4000 or less when you look at some of the recent completed auctions:

http://search-completed.ebay.com/sea...irfield+points

So, convert our unit for about $20,000 + fees... of buy for about $4,000 and we still own our week. Hmmmm, I wonder which I should do if I wanted points

[Jya-Ning Silver Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close Jya-Ning]

If just VIP, it does not worth the effort. If it is gold VIP, maybe a little bit calc needed.

The discount only applies, if you make reservation within 60 days of travel. In other word, if in 60days you can get an unit, you will get the discount. I could not remember the date range for regular VIP upgrade, but it probably is 30 days. In other word, if you have a reservation, and there is another unit opened at 30 days, then you can use it. really, really not worth it.

The retail price is around $.115 to $155. FF used to allow other resorts doing conversion without buying more points, but look like they change the method on your resort. The direct conversion is $2395 first week and $1000 the following week. You can check with their corp, title and owner service. But sounds like they just put 2395 into your estimate purchase price.

The good thing is you can still get your week in FF's ARP period. and your MF is based on the fix week structure with the FF membership add on top of it, which should includes a free RCI week account membership. With your week, the MF is cheap.

It really not worth it.

If you happen to have 2 other RCI fix weeks that is RCI red time and at least 2 BR in each unit, the third option may worth crunch the number. Or replace the RCI red week unit to fix week in your resort will be similar effect. If you have that, tell them you want to PIC these two weeks also with conversion (or convert all three week together), I could not remember the exact points you need to purchase, but it is around 110k or something, so you will end up to close 600k and a gold member. But I don't think it worth that kind of trouble personally. And try to get the $ to .10 or lower.

Jya-Ning

[wackymother Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close wackymother]

That's interesting, b/c we stayed at the Fairfield Atlantic City a few months back and they wanted to do a PFD thing with us (sorry, can't remember the name of the program) that was essentially like your first option. We DON'T own at Shawnee, we own at a non-Fairfield resort in Williamsburg. They were going to give us 154,000 points if we deposited our Williamsburg t/s with them AND bought an additional 154,000 points from them for about the $19,000 you mention. Then we would have VIP status. I think they were sweetening the pot with an extra bunch of points for the first year, but I stopped listening after I heard the $19,000 thing.

So basically, owning at Shawnee is not getting you any special privileges.

[davhu1 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close davhu1]

Quarterbore, thanks for the update. Has Ridgetop Village agreed to join FF?
I own at River Village and the Board is still considering their proposal.

Based on your numbers, I will stick with my week.

I have seen FF points as low as $.012 per point on ebay and many go for about $.020-$.025. At $19,000 for 300,000 point, that is about $.063 per point. For VIP you get 25% discount and upgrade. If I add 25% to the 300,000 for VIP discount and another 20% for upgrade, that will give me about 450,000. So, for VIP I am paying an equivalent of about $.042 per point if I exchange 1 unit, for 2 units at an equivalent 600,000 that would be $.031 per point...and the $ per point get lower. I guess it does not look that bad if you can use the discount and get the upgrades. On the other hand, I would not spend $19,000 on a timeshare but the sales pitch sounds good.

The other package at $6,000 for 217,000 points is about $.036 per point.

[Guest Close Quarterbore]

Thanks for the input. Yes, my oppinion was that at this point Fairfield is not giving us anything special. I have not heard if our HOA is going with FF or not and I believe from the conversation that Fairway is not going to be associated with Fairfield but this was based on the sales pitch and the sales guy seemed to be a very pro-Fairfield kind of guy.

I doubt we will be converting with these deals and we will either try to find a buyer that wants an end of Summer week for their family (that is what we use it for). If we sell, then we may just buy another fixed week with a slightly bigger unit or evaluate our options at that point. The numbers that we were offered sure don't sound attractive for us!

[SOS8260456 Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close SOS8260456]

Ken,
I wonder if they were really converting your week to points or were they allowing you to use their PIC program for your Shawnee week. I know that when we owned a unit at their Wisconsin Dells location in the older section, they would not officially convert it to points, but they would allow it to be "PICed". However, they kept refering to is as being converted. The big difference between the two would have been that the points for the week would not have transferred to a new owner if I resold the week.

A big thing to watch for with PICing now is that you are only allowed to PIC 2 weeks per member account, and if that is an option you want to take advantage of, then you want to make sure the units you PIC are 3 bedroom red units to get the maximum points.

Lisa

[davhu1 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close davhu1]

I doubt we will be converting with these deals and we will either try to find a buyer that wants an end of Summer week for their family (that is what we use it for). The numbers that we were offered sure don't sound attractive for us!

The numbers looks more like a sale than a conversion. It is very unlikely that we will convert also. We have not used our unit for several years now but we still use the owner discount for ski lift tickets. We used to trade it with II and it was not a great trader. Now we trade thru RCI converted to Points.