What good value!

We didn't mean to book another holiday. We were just brwsing around the RCI website when we decided to go to Florida again next year.

And all of a sudden we found a resort to die for in Sarasota on Longboat Key in September 2010.

The second week soon clicked into place with a lovely resort on Marco Island.

A quick phone call to RCI Points and we're booked.

For 95000 points, we have 2 weeks of frontline accommodation. We are very choosy. Our unit must fully face the beach and those resorts are quite hard to find.

95000 is exactly the value of my week at Clowance. So for the annual maintenance fee of £515, we have 2 weeks of superb accommodation in Florida. The advertised prices for these 2 resorts are in excess of US$1000 per week which is approx. £700 per week.

What great value!

timetravellers

Ways of using your Timeshare

There are quite a few ways of making your timeshare work for you.

First of all, you can use it. In actual fact, you can use that week in the unit you own however you want to (following the rules of the resort, of course!).

Also you can lend it to someone else or, better still, rent it out. I occasionally see specific weeks for rent on ebay at little more than the cost of the maintenance. Just make sure you notify the resort with the names of those who will
be using it.

Moving on from that, you can swap it for another place each year. There are several timeshare exchange companies and your resort will be affiliated to either RCI or Interval International (II) or both. There is another exchange company called Dial an Exchange (DAE) which is cheaper than the other and gets very good reports. You put your week into a 'Spacebank' and choose another to take out and use instead.

And last of all, you can cede your week into a points system. There are several different ones and some are linked to specific resorts. My weeks are ceded into RCI Points which works very well for me. Each of my weeks is given a Points value which sits in my Points Account. I book other weeks by spending my Points. Sometimes, the resorts I book are worth more than the weeks I put in and other times, they are worth fewer Points. But I get good value. I have put in 3 weeks and I generally get to book 5 weeks against these and frequently have Points over.

Last year, I actually booked a mini cruise to the Bahamas using my Points. It was great.

timetraveller