Conversion to Points

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

I own a floating week at Bentley Brook leftover from Equivest. To convert to points will cost $2395 and I will get 164,500 points. I use this only to trade now.

Is this my best deal? If I could sell, I would, but I am trying to at least get better, easier trades. I spoke to Corporate last night and they are calling me today for my money$$$$$.

Should I do this?

Thanks,

Joan

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

Joan:

I saw your post on Yahoo group, since Glenn live close to that area, I thought it is best he answers it. Look like he is on vacation at a place with no high speed internet access.

These are the things I can think
1. they give you a point value worth of high season, I will say this is not bad. $2,395 is the price I hear for the 1st week
2. If you buy points, at this moment, you can probably assume you will spend around $15 - $22 /1000 points. I don't know if you sell that week, how much you can get now. Use 20, you will spend $3300 to $3400 on this amount of points. So if your week currently can sell more than $1300 (3300-2395 + 400 for all the trouble it cost), you may want to think to sell the week.
3. If you purchase some retail points, you can convert weeks with no cost or 189 per week, however you will loss more than that (2,395) on the purchase cost
4. If you convert more than a week, it will be $995 per extra week. But I doubt if it ever make any sense to buy more week just for the purpose to convert more than a week cheaper. Unless you can use the point, or your sole purpose is to buy and sell FF points, I don't think it worth that way.
5. Since your points is coming from FF, if later on you decide to pursue VIP, it will count. But usually VIP is not need, unless you do like to split week during travel and you usally need 1 BR. Or unless you do perfer some view (it is not guaranteed though). If you do that, I probably will add $200 to $1000 on comparison, so if you can sell more than 1500 (if you don't care about view) to 2300. If you think about that, you may want to ask into detail.

You can deposit these points at 28k (blue stdio) or 70 k (red stdio). I did not know the trading power of that resort, but I will guess if you get avg. week, it will trade like 28k blue, and if you get a good week, it will be like 70k. They probably not as good as a holiday week, or a ski week. But again, I don't know the trading power, so it just a guess. So by converted, you do get chance to deposit 2 weeks to 5 weeks.

However, I don't know how floating weeks work in ARP period, I will guess it is an area FF may easily mess up and become very inconvient. Hopefully, someone more experience will be here and tell you more about pro and con. However, if you just use the week for trading, it will not matter too much. And I will assume the MF per point will be in the lower range compare to most of FF resorts. At 10 month, you should still be able to get in most of the resorts at a time period that is desired.

The final consideration is what you think of FF as whole. If you have trouble to believe them, them you need to sell the week. If you are nuture, than it all depends on how much your current week will get you.

Jya-Ning

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

I own a floating week at Bentley Brook leftover from Equivest. To convert to points will cost $2395 and I will get 164,500 points. I use this only to trade now.

Is this my best deal? If I could sell, I would, but I am trying to at least get better, easier trades. I spoke to Corporate last night and they are calling me today for my money$$$$$.

Should I do this?

Thanks,

Joan

Joan,

NO, you shouldn't do this until you're sure one way or another. The ability to convert your unit to points from FF will always be there. The ability to not convert is gone the second you convert. So, sit back, ask questions and find out what the FF experts think. (I'm not one of them). Then after you have lots of sound advice make your move.

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

With regard to how you ARP a FF float week that's been converted to points, FF states the following:

"UDI or float week owners, have Advanced Reservation Priority to book reservations equal to or less than their annual point allotment at their home resort - as far as 13 months from the desired travel date. "

I have a red float week for FF Pagosa. I can ARP at FF Pagosa during the red week periods (there are two for me) for units up to the total amount my points allocated for the float week, in my case 174,000 points. Basically, it works like an UDI week EXCEPT you are limited to the weeks that the "float" applies to.

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

I also saw your post on the yahoo group and thought others would ask you questions. Since I haven't seen any, I'll ask a couple.

1. Since you are a local and can not use the BB week where will you be able or intend to use the FF points.

1. If you want to deposit weeks (points) into RCI there will be the soon the be $164/exchange fee to contend with that will add additional costs. How many weeks do you anticipate vacationing.

[SOS8260456 Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close SOS8260456]

Joan,
Where do you usually trade to and how often do you vacation?

$2395 is the best deal to convert your week to points if you are looking for an all out one week point conversion. You can do it for $189 only if you buy more points from FF for at least an additional 8000-10000 dollars. The costs to convert are not really negotiable.

Now, should you convert at this time? Alot depends on if the points will help you meet your travel needs. Also, it usually works out cheaper if you convert more than one week at a time, so if you think you will want more points, then it would make sense to wait until you have other weeks to convert. Also, if reaching VIP levels is something you are interested in, where you would need a developer purchase, then you may want to combine the conversion with PIC purchases and make one developer purchase.

If you don't have alot of money tied up in your fixed week then you really have nothing to lose by converting to points because by spending $2395, you have just made the resale value of your week higher than that. However, if you have more than $1000 invested in your week, then spending the $2395 may not be a good idea if you are not sure that points are for you.

For the record, we love the flexibility of points.

Lisa

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

Joan:
Mark & Lisa are right, you need to think if it worth to keep the week if you can not really use it, since exchange will involve multiple parties, and increase a chance you can not get what you wants.

Since you only get high week, you will not be able to get prime full week in that resort, which will be week 7 and week 52. If your floating week originally can reserve these two weeks, now you can not, then you have another decision to make. On the other hand, if you can not get them anyway, and you still want to keep the floating week, and you are still willing to use it just not as a full week, then after convert, you can get 3 or 4 days in high season, and use rest of the point deposit to RCI and get another week just for the purpose of trading. It is kind of like you bought another resort with no MF. So it may give you another view to think.

About the price you quote, for the past 1 year, that is the price I hear. The only case that beat this is because there is a whole conversion and HOA bargin for them, so I don't think the price will change in the near future, and I don't think it is possible to bargin if you only have one week to convert.

Jya-Ning

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

Thanks for all the replies. I did pay a lot (Developer, I know), so I don't want to sell it cheap. I would rather keep using it. We usually trade for Williamsburg VA so I think I have a lot of Fairfield options there. I am not interested in more points. We own Sunset Harbor which we use every year and we own a vacation home in the Catskills, which is why we no longer need the Berkshires.

So I would use the points to try out different locations. Not stuck on high season at BB, as we would never use it. We tend to travel off-season to avoid crowds and take the kids out of school, so I am not sure high season would be an issue for us.

This year my 2BR deluxe ski season got me a 1BR deluxe in Williamsburg in August. Doesn't seem like a fair trade, but we took it. So I would get rid of the stress of having to book a floating week, paying my maintenance in advance, deposit with RCI and pay $149 (or higher) and I prepaid 5 years RCI which they say I could get back.

He is also letting me pay the fee over 4 months, no interest. So I think we are going to do it.

Thanks again for all of the advice.

Joan

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

Joan:

I don't think the deal will be expired soon. But sounds like this is very good deal with no interest on 4 month and it give you flexibility to do exchange. Make sure it is in the contract you signed (although I believe they will honor this). Based on what you describe, you will love your options after the conversion both using internal FF reservation and external RCI exchange.

You probably will get your points from 1/1 and end at 12/31. There will be some chance you will be able to catch some FF discount before the end of this year. If not, wait until the close to the end of year and then determine how you going to deposit to RCI.

See if they can throw some small gift along the conversion like some RCI 1 on 1 exchange week or something like that, I will think it will be tough, but ... If it is go for more points or discover program, thank them but don't take it.

Jya-Ning

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

They tell me my floating week is actually week 2, so I will start my new year on Jan 1, 2007. Tom (the rep) has told me he will try (no promises) to get me some points for the remainder of this year. I may see if he can upgrade my VA unit to a 2BR. I am at Patriot's Place in August.

Looking forward to many better years of vacationing.

Joan

[jlfernandez5 Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close jlfernandez5]

Yes you will get your prepaid RCI subscription refunded. It will take them about a month to do this. You will need to contact RCI once Fairfield converts and codes your RCI subscription as a Fairfield paid one then you just contact RCI and ask for a refund for the unused portion. Just make sure that if you have not received a check from them in about a month that you call back and double check that it has been processed.

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

I did it! Conversion paperwork is on the way to me. The gift is a $50 Target gift certificate! But Tom says I may get "ghost" points this year, depending on how the rep who enters the points does it in the system. He made no promises but will et me know what I get.

My points year starts Jan 1, 2007. As soon as I get my new username and password, I will start using the Fairfield site to browse around and plan our vacations.

Thanks for all the advice. I did my research and I am happy with my decision.

Joan

[SOS8260456 Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close SOS8260456]

Joan,
Thanks for sharing your final decision. It is nice to hear back after discussions like this.

Happy Fairfielding!

Lisa

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

Joan:

Thanks for let us know. Sounds like Tom did his best to make a happy customer. If you do get some "ghost" point, you probaly can and should try to wait until the end of the year to deposit them. FF does come discount for a lot of area in Dec. And when you deposit as generic does not affect your trading power.

Jya-Ning