Can someone explain to me....

[MUTUAL Member Find all posts View Profile Close MUTUAL]

why Fairfield won't let me bank my week with Trading Places? I just got a letter from TPI that they can't process my request because my "resort and/or management company was unable to verify your reservation for the following reason: Reservation has not been made at home resort." What does this mean? My FF home resort is in Dolphin's Cove and I reserved for the FF Flagstaff at 10 months reservation. I thought at 10 months out you can reserve at any FF. Please help, I'm soo confused (again!!!)
Thanks,
Mutual

[lawren2 Malibu Beach Barbie & A Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close lawren2]

M,

Coincidentally I just sent you an PM regarding this.

Keep the faith.

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

I think the TP person that handle your case go through their regular process when deal with FF owner. And since FF has relation with them and you don't own that resort, FF gives them the answer they will give out assume you estatblish TP membership through FF. Since you have talked with the TP representative here, maybe you want send her a PM and ask her to go over the case herself.

Jya-Ning

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

How does this work? We just bought 154,000 points at Angelfire, NM, and I am wondering if I can reserve a ski week there and exchange the week with another company, like DAE.

I have other FF questions, too.

Can you add all your points together if you own multiple contracts and reserve a week somewhere with all the points?

When you buy each Fairfield resort, can you (or should you) have separate RCI accounts. I think it might be good to have them separate for the one-in-four rules that some resorts have. Has anyone done that?

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

How does this work? We just bought 154,000 points at Angelfire, NM, and I am wondering if I can reserve a ski week there and exchange the week with another company, like DAE.

You can do it with DAE and SFX. Mike has put some in the HOA forum. I have ask DAE in this forum and list the steps. Don't know about TPI.

Can you add all your points together if you own multiple contracts and reserve a week somewhere with all the points?

at 10 month, yes.

When you buy each Fairfield resort, can you (or should you) have separate RCI accounts. I think it might be good to have them separate for the one-in-four rules that some resorts have. Has anyone done that?

You need to have seperate FF accounts. People do that usually so they get one for RCI and one for II. But you are paying the membership. Why need to do that. Just buy a resell at the resort you know for sure you will be there more than 1 in 4. Then get rid of it after you done.

Jya-Ning

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

Thanks, Jya-Ning. I was just thinking that if we had separate RCI accounts for each Fairfield purchase we make that it would be smarter, since the fees always include an RCI membership. You don't think that is wise? Why would a person not want to do that?

I wanted to maybe put our kids on our account with us, one at a time. So for now, I would put Rick and our daughter's name on this new purchase for the RCI account. We have five of us on the deed for the Angelfire purchase.

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

Thanks, Jya-Ning. I was just thinking that if we had separate RCI accounts for each Fairfield purchase we make that it would be smarter, since the fees always include an RCI membership. You don't think that is wise? Why would a person not want to do that?

I wanted to maybe put our kids on our account with us, one at a time. So for now, I would put Rick and our daughter's name on this new purchase for the RCI account. We have five of us on the deed for the Angelfire purchase.

You do know FF at this moment can only accept 2 owners in one account, right? Although you could have infinite owners in the deed. Same as RCI week account that provide by FF.

If you want to have seperate account, you may want to have the deed recorded with name sequence different or just different name. It will need some work.

Also, the FSP membership charge is either a fixed amount if your total points in that account is less than 154k. Which means you will paying a premium for your membeship fee if you have less than 154k. The fee than is based on per point and keep reduced until you hit 300K. So if you have say 2 accounts trying to avoid the 1/4, So you can have say 1/2 instead of 1/4. And each has 154k, you end up paying a little bit more than if you have one 308k account. If you have 2 300k acount, it may not worth it. Even if you think 300k is running around $3,000 or less to purchase. It probably will end up cost you $900 for the MF at least.

If you just interesting in one particluar resort, and you buy that one, it probably will cost less in purchase and MF. Then you add that one to the FF/RCI week account, and now you are owner in that resort, so 1/4 is no longer apply to you. It is much cheaper that way.

The other route is you may as well to buy some other resort chains that will create an affliate RCI account. It will have the same effect, but you now have access to different chain, and their inventory will be much much more than exchange company. Also, if one went to bankrupt or sold to other investory, you will have much less impact

So say you have Bluegreen and FF. You still need to work to make sure RCI will not link both account together.

You can say deeded FF to your name, deeded BG to Rick's name, then since it is different owners, you will get 2 RCI accounts. You can rent out FF points and rent points from other BG's owner if they allow the point transfer, if that is more desired. It will create some probate issue though. A better solution is created a land trust or your own living trust with you as trustee that hold FF. And land trust or rick's own living trust for BG that Rick is the trustee for BG. But both trust has all the family member as the beneficary. So there is no need of probate, it works as joint tenant.

Then you can get 1/2 instead of 1/4 but you can get to multiple resorts instead of one. Plus now you access a lot more inventories from both systems

Jya-Ning

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

Jya-Ning, that is a good suggestion, having the names on the deed in a different order. That would get at least one of our kids both the RCI and Fairshare Plus accounts. I hope it is not too late to change that. Thank you so much for your valuable help. I appreciate your advice so much!

Sounds like I should have bid higher on the larger points package. I bid $7,100 for a max and it sold for $7,500. It would have been a good one, with low fees, at Fairfield's Smoky Mountain resort. I did the math and it was less than 4 cents maintenance fees. I should have bid higher on that one, but we are still considering that conversion purchase to VIP Platinum. Of course, they are taking away the benefits and even denying Platinum owners upgrades, if I am reading the information correctly.

About the upgrades, can you get a free upgrade from a regular two bedroom to a Presidential unit, or is that not considered an upgrade? Rick thought we would only get upgrades from 1 bedrooms to two and that free upgrades would not occur between "deluxe" and "Presidential." There was such a huge difference between the two at Waikiki Beach Walk. It was a staggering difference, truly. I was so excited to be "Platinum", when we walked into the Presidential units. Of course, Rick thought the extra points would be wasted on such lavish accommodations. A person can be TOO logical.

Thanks again, Jya-Ning. Did you purchase resale or from the developer?

I must be slow in learning this stuff because I go over and over the daily digests from the Yahoo group to catch little snippets of information that help me understand the system. It would take me weeks to read all the older posts. There is so much to learn!

I wonder what that 1,000,000 points at Atlantic City went for? The fees were $6,060 a year! That would be some expensive vacations, but hey, if you rent points regularly to get the ones you need, that would be an alternative.

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

About the upgrades, can you get a free upgrade from a regular two bedroom to a Presidential unit, or is that not considered an upgrade? Rick thought we would only get upgrades from 1 bedrooms to two and that free upgrades would not occur between "deluxe" and "Presidential." There was such a huge difference between the two at Waikiki Beach Walk. It was a staggering difference, truly. I was so excited to be "Platinum", when we walked into the Presidential units. Of course, Rick thought the extra points would be wasted on such lavish accommodations. A person can be TOO logical.

Thanks again, Jya-Ning. Did you purchase resale or from the developer?

Take your time. You need to play with it, then you will know if you like it or not.

My 1st is from retail, after I look around, I know I like this product, I just did not realize most of the asking price is usually impossible to get even close to it and I did not care. All the rest is from resell that is what a baby will do to you. It force you to care.

The upgrade rule is changed back. So you can use upgrade on a guest. The current rule is:

if there is upgrade opportunity, you can do it, but you can only upgrade once and it is to the lowest available upgrade.

So, if you look around, saw there is 1BD, 3 BD and 4 BD, and you plan to use 1BD to do upgrade, you will only be able to get 3BD.

Now, if there is only 1BD, and 4BD, then you can use 1BD to get 4BD. Since most place only have 1 or 2 4 BD, I double you will get that. I believe in vacation time, there will always be people that feel generous enough to spend big points for that.

If there is 1 BD, 2BD, 4BD, then you will be charged 2BD points to get 4BD.

If you only want pay 1BD, then the best you can upgrade is 2BD.

You can not use 1BD to upgrade to 2BD then use 2BD to upgrade to 4BD.

Jya-Ning

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

To Mutual:

Sorry we kind of off topic. I do that a lot. But can you tell me is your problem solved? I don't need detail if it is not good to say in public. But if it is solved and is not solved as one time exception, I would like to know. Been a small point package owner, I do rely on all the experience of other owners.

Thanks

Jya-Ning

[MUTUAL Member Find all posts View Profile Close MUTUAL]

Thanks for asking, Jya-Ning. I stopped reading this post when it got taken over. Yes, it was finally resolved. There was some confusion with the FF people that I was finally able to settle.

[lawren2 Malibu Beach Barbie & A Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close lawren2]

Thanks for asking, Jya-Ning. I stopped reading this post when it got taken over. Yes, it was finally resolved. There was some confusion with the FF people that I was finally able to settle.

Excellent news. Thanks for the update as I was wondering as well.

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

Thanks for asking, Jya-Ning. I stopped reading this post when it got taken over. Yes, it was finally resolved. There was some confusion with the FF people that I was finally able to settle.

Thank you. Glad it work out fine. And the great news is it is not a one time exception deal.

Thanks again

Jya-Ning