I am purchasing 250? points at Riviera next week. I initially planned to split it into three contracts of 150, 50 and 50 points, respectively. Then I started trying to decide if I wanted to purchase a favorite week with the larger portion of points as a hedge in case once more resale contracts happen that it may be difficult to get standard view studios. The Sunday to Sunday isn't ideal but if booking becomes difficult, we could make it work and add days before or after from our other points. Most years we would likely trade out of the favorite week for the additional points and possible do some split stays combined with a MK resort. We don't ever plan to travel Between Thanksgiving and New Years so we plan to get a March use year.
For the fixed week contract we have some flexibility as we can adjust the other contract amounts if we choose a week less than 150 points. We were initially thinking Week 41 or 42 in mid October for the timing and point requirement. These weeks sometime align with Columbus Day and sometimes align with a partial week school break in our state which would be nice when the kids are in school. The other option we initially considered was Week 10 in early March for spring break. The October dates would be before our banking deadline and the March date would be at the start of the use year so both options make sense.
I have put way too much thought into this and crunched the numbers from the initial
point charts to the current point charts and determined which weeks have adjusted up and which have dropped in points. This resulted in Week 39 being a potential contender. Week 39 is usually the last few days in September and the first couple days in October which provides a built in savings on the October days given the current price premium in October and November.
Here is a breakdown of the 2019 points to the 2024 points for each of the weeks we are considering:
Week - 2019 GW Cost - 2024 FW Cost - Contract Point Breakdown
Week 10 (Early March) - 176 points - 171 points - 171 / 79
Week 39 (Sept/Oct transition week) - 129 points - 114 points - 114 / 68 / 68 or 114 / 86 / 50
Week 41 or 42 (Mid October) - 130 points - 153 points - 153 / 50 / 50
This has me strongly considering Week 39 based on the point adjustments over the past few years. I think I prefer the fall dates for food and wine festival and the ability to still have 3 contracts in case I ever want to downsize points (#subtractoffitis?). While our kids are in school Week 39 is less likely to be used but when we are empty nesters I could see us traveling then. If we did Week 41 or 42 we would purchase 253 points total. If we purchased Week 10 we would purchase two contracts instead of three.
My thought is that the favorite week is a no brainer for the main portion of my contract at a restricted resort. I just keep waffling on which week makes the most sense. If you were in my shoes what would you do?
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