Tweet
Hi all, first off I am so grateful for forums such as these. As stated I am a newbie here and in the timeshare market. I am finding it hard to find information on the internet to educate myself on how to most effectively take advantage of the timeshare my wife and I purchased on December 2008. It seemed like a great deal and that it would work for us and I still believe it can and will. Trying to find information and educate myself on what we purchased and how to effectively get the best from it is another story. Maybe I need to do the research and write my own book for others sake as well as my own. But in the mean time I am sure there are many here who where once where I am now and hence why I am so greatful for these forums and the knowledge the people bring to them. To my question(s), as stated my wife and I bought a weeks timeshare into the Real Resorts located in Cancun and the Playa Del Carmen. A Platinum membership with 240 weeks along with a 3 year paid for RCI membership after which we need to pay the yearly membership fee, included 5 free weeks to the Gran Porto Real Playa Del Carmen 2weeks in 2010, 2 in 2011 and 1 in 2012. We are using our first 2 weeks this January and once there hope to pay for an upgrade to The Royal. In any event what I've managed to learn so far is that the resort holds our weeks and so if we want to use or take advantage of our RCI aspect of the membership we would call the resort and ask them to deposit a week or whatever into our RCI account after which we can then book an exchange or vacation through any of the RCI affiliated resorts. We would pay our resort and fee depending on whether we want a studio, 1 bed , 2 bed etc. and then we would pay a fee to RCI for the booking. In the end, on the surface of it, it appears a one week resort is still a whole lot cheaper than renting otherwise. I suppose my biggest question is, is any one familiar with this kind of membership or can anyone point me somewhere where I can get information and educate myself on how to use this timeshare effectively. We have no yearly maintenance fees, the use of our weeks is not limited. Basically, if staying at any of the Real Resorts we would get a 30% discount off the rack rate and use 1 to 3 of our weeks per week depending on which class of resort we choose and if staying at an RCI affiliated resort we would use 1 to 4 of our weeks depending on whether we are staying at a suite, 1 bed, 2 bed, etc. Any help or advice offered would be truly appreciated, thank you Rob.