More on the Fairfield/Wyndham Discovery Club
A little birdie told me that you should *NEVER* buy into Fairfield / Wyndham Vacation Resorts without doing their Discover Plan. Even if you wanted to buy TODAY.
Here's what you do.
When you buy into the Discovery Club (which is essentially a Trial Membership), they give you 300,000 owner points, 12 months to use them, and 2 years to pay for them. If you convert to a full ownership, you're not responsible for further payments on the discovery club, and every penny (excluding interest) goes towards your downpayment on the full ownership.
Now, what if you wanted to buy today?
Well, you go in and buy into the Discovery Club, make your $100 downpayment to get you into the program. Then you go back tomorrow or next week or whatever, and convert your trial membership to the full ownership. They REFUND you the prorated portion of what you've paid so far - AND YOU GET TO KEEP the 300,000 points (with no maintenance fees) under the same plan.. you still have a year to use them.
Chances are good that when you buy, they'll also give you bonus points too. For example, if you buy 189,000 points, they might give you an additional 189000 bonus points with no maintenance fees to use in the first 2 years.
So if you've bought into the discovery package, you've suddenly got 678,000 points! The 300,000 discovery points and the 189000 bonus points are essentially free (nothing's free, of course)
so why wouldn't you do the Discovery Club if you were planning to buy anyway?
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How many points does it take to have a week long stay somewhere? Some example locations would be: Pacific Northwest, Napa Valley, New England (Vermont), internationally Italy Rome/Florence. It doesn't have to be the top end resort either it can be similiar to a Extended Stay America. A nice hotel with a decent, small, kitchenette.
Once the purchase price is paid off, you only pay maintenance fees, which are essentially like association dues, only more expensive because you're paying for MAJOR upkeep and amenities at a luxury level. Your typical timeshare doesn't even come close to offering the kinds of things you get at a Fairfield resort.
A week in the prime season at the Bonnet Creek resort at Disney World is 226,000 points for a 2 bedroom deluxe. It's 189,000 for the high season, and somethig like 154,000 for the "value" season.
Most of the resorts are priced similarly in terms of points, but some of them are more expensive to purchase at (like it costs more up front to buy at Bonnet Creek than at Williamsburg).
Of course, the 1 bedroom units are less. I think the 1 bedroom lockoff at Kingsgate in Williamsburg was 45,000 points or 54,000 points for 3 nights.