The best points based system

[Sharp Traveler Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Sharp Traveler]

What seems to be the best points based systems with regards to flexability, ease of use, etc? We are a family of 5 with children ranging in age from 11-5 and like to take several vacations a year, usually from end of November to beginning of April with the whole family or just hubby and I. End of May beginning of June with just the kids and I. My DH runs a paving operation and so is busy from April to mid November.
We do own one timshare unit, but we are thinking of buying something else. Would the points based systems be a good choice for us? I am doing my research on them, but at this time do not know enough about them. Any info you can share with me would be wonderful.

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

What seems to be the best points based systems with regards to flexability, ease of use, etc? We are a family of 5 with children ranging in age from 11-5 and like to take several vacations a year, usually from end of November to beginning of April with the whole family or just hubby and I. End of May beginning of June with just the kids and I. My DH runs a paving operation and so is busy from April to mid November.
We do own one timshare unit, but we are thinking of buying something else. Would the points based systems be a good choice for us? I am doing my research on them, but at this time do not know enough about them. Any info you can share with me would be wonderful.

IMHO, each point base has its good bad point. In your case, since your travel time is not in high demand season, you should be able to enjoy most of them. It is up to you to set up criteria and give them priority in order to figure which one is best.

For example, Disney is pretty flexible, but it has limit resorts in the system, and MF is pretty high, thus make exchange not desired.
Fairfield has one of the lowest entry fee (resell price is low), it has mid to high MF, it is flexible enough, it has good availability. But the company has some operation problem (that probably cause the resell price to be low). It has a lot resorts to select, and it expends aggresively Especially into city area. It is now close to national. But it does not trade well in II.
Bluegreen is probably more flexible than FF, it is based on FL, but it does try to expand around east coast. But it's point system is new, and there will be expected changes, also it resell market is unestablished since the system is new. That means you may have good chance to get a good deal. But the company maybe in the process been take over. It does has low MF.
WM is one of the resorts that has strong foot in West, and very flexible. It is one of the company that use high tech most. It has mid to low MF for now, since its developer is the same as FF, people think the company will try to destroy their value, plus, they have higher level resell price.
I am not family with Sunterra, But the have European part, but they maybe in the selling out process.

I will suggest to find one with more resorts around your area, so you can take advantge in low demand season. But that is because I am very consertive and think you probably will buy them to use internally most of the time.

Jya-Ning

[Bill4728 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Bill4728]

Jya-Ning failed to mention the biggest name in point base TS which is Hilton.

To use Hilton, you buy a HGVC TS somewhere and HGVC assigns points to that TS based on size and season. A 2 bd during platinum is 7000 or more points. You can then use those points at any HGVC TS 9 months before check in. OR you can convert your HGVC to Hilton Honors hotel points.

Also not strictly point based is Starwood-Westin-Sheraton. You buy resell at a resort (if you buy a mandatory resort) you can use staroptions to trade to other Starwood resorts all over the US

There are a couple of other westcoast TS as well:
Monarch Grand (almost all SoCal locations) Very cheap to buy resale
Shell Vacations (many west coast locations) Very cheap to buy resale
Vacations Internationael ( several west coast locations)

Hope that helps

[BocaBum99 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close BocaBum99]

My two favorite point systems are Bluegreen and WorldMark. I like staying in top resorts for bargain basement prices. That's what Bluegreen and WorldMark allow me to do.

For instance, I am writing this message from the Four Season resort in Scottsdale. I exchanged for it with 4000 WorldMark credits on Flexchange. Total cost: $375 (since I rented the credits). Next month, I will be in the Four Seasons Aviara that I got using WorldMark again. This time 10000 credits. Total cost $735. I was out of position on that one, so I used WorldMark. But, if I deposited a top Bluegreen resort instead, I would have been able to get that unit for cheaper.

I own Bluegreen, WorldMark and Fairfield. I bought Fairfield because I like Fairfield resorts better than Bluegreen and WorldMark. I don't use them for exchanging.

I just bought a Marriott that will help me get many of those Marriott's that my points can't get.

As someone else mentioned, each point system has its strengths and weaknesses. I always tell people that they should first buy into the program that has resorts they will most likely use. If you have hotel brand taste, you should buy one of the hotel brands. If you are value conscious, you should consider Bluegreen, WorldMark or Fairfield.

But, at the end of the day, they are all more alike than they are different.

[Sharp Traveler Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Sharp Traveler]

Thank you Jya-Ning, Bill4728, and BocaBum99

There is so much to learn about these darn timeshares and then you add points to the mix and it really gets confusing! Maybe I'm making it harder than it should be..... you think?
Anyway, I appreciate your time and expertise.

[BocaBum99 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close BocaBum99]

Yes, it is very easy to over analyze the situation. I know, I did it and I and I am still doing it. If timesharing is right for your family's needs for travel accommodations, then it almost doesn't matter what type of resort group you pick. Pick the one you think you'll like the most and you'll probably like it a lot. As I said, they are more alike than they are different.

Then, come here and we'll help you find the best deal for what you want.

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

There is so much to learn about these darn timeshares and then you add points to the mix and it really gets confusing! Maybe I'm making it harder than it should be..... you think?
Anyway, I appreciate your time and expertise.

Yes, I had the same feeling you have. Most of the companies that doing TS perfer to operate in a black box. I guess it gives them a level when sell their product (like anyone will care to do comparison). Sometime when I try to buy computers or cars and found out all those small options, it make comparsion really really hard. I usually just pick few criteria I must have then go looking for matches, that make it easier for me.

Most of the companies do want to keep their owner happy if it don't hurt their bottom line. Most of the people works for these companies do care to serve their customers right if you treat them with respect. And sometime they have no idea what will affect their bottom line. So just pick any big company and try to find a best deal you can find. Most of the time, you will not regret. If you can not make it work, but you get a good deal, you can just sell it and move on. IMHO, the most important thing is learn how to exit. You will find the system you like.

Even some fix week system will allow you split the week, just think point is a way to allow you split the week.

Jya-Ning

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

We like Fairfield the best

We like Fairfield since there are so many resorts available and then can exchange into RCI very easily and with better trading power than say, in II.

We owned a Hilton HGVC and found them very limiting - not so many resorts as FF, most resorts in FL - and fees every time you turned around, even booking for HGVC resorts internally. The two times I exchanged, I was only able to use the full week into RCI and not partial points, like I can in FF. Thus, for me, it was not worth as much since I can get many more weeks per point with FF. As well, the two HGVC resots we were in, we did not like as well as the FF. Notably, at Eagle's Nest in Marco Is - which is no longer GC, we found the maintenance at the resort much below Fairfield's standards.

We even used them for Hilton Honors reservations - fees again to do so though - and used the Opportunity nights in Hilton Hotels, but those have been much reduced in numbers now and pooints value per nights raised in most HH otels.

This said, Worldmark has more resorts in the West. We were once planning on retiring in Seattle and then leaving a car on the East coast in order to timeshare there in the Fairfields and Florida and eastern coastal TS's. . (That plan may be changing, so now we are wondering where to make an alternate home base.)


It does takea learning curve to learn to use the point systems..

JOAN

[btejada Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close btejada]

We bought into Fairfield first and like that system because we have access to some very nice resorts and the system is expanding. Then we bought Worldmark since we live in the West and had many close to home options. We primarily use FF for our "big" vacations through both internal and RCI trades. We mainly use Worldmark for long weekends and Flexchanges through II. Finally, we bought a small RCI Points contract - it's an every other year so it doesn't give us a lot of vacation time, but it is handy to have that account to do online searches (then often use FF points to book the exchange).

Turnoffs for me are points systems that charge internal exchange fees. Bonus time charges are OK, though. Hiltons are too focused on Vegas, Hawaii and Florida. Sunterra resorts haven't been particularly memorable (at least the ones I've seen) and their company seems to often be in disarray. That's the extent of my knowldege on the points-based resorts....

[mshatty Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close mshatty]

I have Fairfield points. It's hard to beat its resale purchase price right now. It can be very simple to use. It can also be very sophisticated in finding real exchange values at GC resorts.


I am also in the process of getting a small WM credit package. I have learned about its remarkable trading power and flexability in II through members here and on TUG.

Either would be very good in my opinion.

[timeandenergy Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close timeandenergy]

As a Fairfield and Starwood (Sheraton and Westin) owner, I must say they are both great in their own way. Fairfield however has the greatest flexibility of the two. With FF you can do short or long vacations and have a choice of many more resorts for internal trades. For the resale prices now (1-3 cents per point vs developers 12-20 cents per point), it is a great time to get in on the FF action for a bargin. Starwood's resorts are more luxorious, but the system is more focused on it's owners using full weeks.

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

Since you live in the west, Worldmark might be a good choice since the distance to travel would be shorter.

Must you schedule your vacations with your children around Thanksgiving Christmas and New Year's and Spring Break or are you more flexible? If you are flexible, you should be sure to check out what each systems options are for off-season travel.

With FF, you can often deposit 28K points (a blue studio) or 42K (white studio) into RCI and exchange it for a much larger unit when traveling during the off-season or to areas where supply exceeds demand.

[nursetanya1973 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close nursetanya1973]

We like Fairfield since there are so many resorts available and then can exchange into RCI very easily and with better trading power than say, in II.

We owned a Hilton HGVC and found them very limiting - not so many resorts as FF, most resorts in FL - and fees every time you turned around, even booking for HGVC resorts internally. The two times I exchanged, I was only able to use the full week into RCI and not partial points, like I can in FF. Thus, for me, it was not worth as much since I can get many more weeks per point with FF.


JOAN

We own at both FF and Hilton. We get more use out of our FF, for about 25% of the initial price.

We love our Hilton, but their points structure is set in stone and we find it less flexible. For instance, to exchange with RCI, to get a 2 bedroom in red time, it cost 4800 points. That means even if you want a resort that no one else wants, it will cost that much. If you want the highest demand, it will cost that many points as well. There is no bargain to be had, and those points just do not stretch very much. We like ours, because we always go to Orlando anyway. And it does have strong trade power when we have used it to trade. But I'm not sure we would do it again, if given the choice all over.

We bought the FF later, and with a small points package, we can really do a lot. There is a lot of flexibility and a lot of resorts to choose from. There are the noted technical problems with their system which can be very annoying. And there is a very large learning curve to make the most of your points.

All in all, FF can be a very affordable option.

[CatLovers Member Find all posts View Profile Close CatLovers]

We picked SVC points

We only just recently bought into points after several months of research. I must admit that despite all the reading and asking questions I have done on this subject, I haven't still figured out all the ins-and-outs of all the systems. Anyway, after all the research, we bought into Shell Vacation Club (SVC) points. Lots of reasons, but the two most important ones (for us) were that they had great locations in Hawaii (our preferred destination), and they are higher-end luxury resorts. Also, they seem to be adding new resorts to their portfolio at a nice steady rate - 1-2 per year. The biggest disadvantage is that their MFs are on the higher end of the scale. But we've always believed that "you get what you pay for", so we made the plunge.

I think the best advice I can give you (which I got from others) is to pick a system that you would be willing to work "within" (instead of having to go externally to other trading options) and buy in that system. So, in our case, our preferred location of Hawaii was the #1 criteria for our selection.

[Joestein Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Joestein]

Many of the posts here have good advice, but I would recommend that you start with FF.

My reason is that FF is extremely cheap, and you can get a decent points package and get your feet wet and see if you like it for much less than the resale on the points program.

Whatever you do, you are starting in the right place by looking at resale, rather than developer purchase.

Good Luck

Joe