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“Own” Your Favorite Hotel Suite

“Own” Your Favorite Hotel Suite

Friday, August 4, 2006

Author: Staff Contributor | Topics: ,

Condo hotels offer timesharing with more availability and flexibility

Owning a condo hotel suite provides you with guaranteed accommodations in your favorite luxury hotel. Unlike a timeshare, condo hotel suites are available to owners for as many or as few weeks as you choose to use them. During the times you are not using the hotel suite it can be made available for rental by the hotel management. It will then be booked like any traditional hotel room. Room rental is typically split about fifty/fifty between the suite’s owner and the hotel itself.

There are plenty of condo hotels available. Developments magazine reported on one recent study which revealed that “70 percent of all new hotel construction has some type of condo hotel component.” Timeshares, vacation clubs, and fractionals like the San Francisco Ritz Carlton renovation project I wrote about in June are no longer the only options in the world of vacation ownership.

Condo hotels are proving to be a great idea for hotel developers. Units can be pre-sold before construction, thereby reducing the financing the developer needs to secure. Unlike timeshare, where the owner pays for only the days and nights he or she schedules to use, condo hotel suite owners bear the full upfront cost and then seek to offset that cost by using their property as a rental.

Cancellation Policies for Bonus Time

Cancellation Policies for Bonus Time

Friday, July 28, 2006

Author: Staff Contributor | Topics: , , ,

Special terms apply when canceling bonus timeshare

Earlier this week I mentioned the incredible values offered by RCI through bonus time. The same types of great timeshare deals can be had from Interval International, and in many cases, through your resort itself. Timeshare bonus time represents some of the best-priced vacation opportunities available on any terms and with timeshare vacation pricing this good, you can’t complain about the cancellation fees. You do, however, need to realize that cancellation penalties exist and that the rules are different for changing last minute timeshare (bonus time) than they are for changing your regular timeshare weeks or points.

As an example, look at the cancellation policies for Resort Condominium International. RCI’s current policy is: cancel within 24 hours of confirming the reservation and as long as the start date of the reservation is fifteen days or more in the future, you receive a full refund on your payment. You receive 50 percent refund if you cancel between 15 and 60 days of your start date and 70 percent refund if you cancel 61 days or more before the first day of your confirmed start date. However, if you cancel after 24 hours of making your timeshare reservation, and it is within two weeks of your scheduled reservation start date, you receive zero refund.

Know the policy before you buy and then take advantage of incredible vacation pricing as often as you can.

You Don’t Have to Pay Quite This Much for a Timeshare

You Don’t Have to Pay Quite This Much for a Timeshare

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Author: Staff Contributor | Topics: , ,

Golf great Phil Mickelson is a new timeshare owner, and it only cost him $3.4 million

I’ve suggested before that you plan your timesharing to put you in the right place for viewing the major (or even the minor) events of the PGA Tour and the Champions Tour. Perhaps golf legend Phil Mickelson is now taking advice from SellMyTimeshareNOW.

With the 2010 British Open scheduled for St. Andrews, Phil Mickelson has recently spent $3.4 million for the use of nine weeks annually of a penthouse suite with views to the first and eighteenth holes on the famous Old Course. The building, currently in use as a dormitory by St. Andrews University, will soon be renovated as a private club and timeshare.

Let’s see, Mickelson’s timeshare in Scotland (which I think should really be called a fractional) averages out to a little less than $400,000 per week. You may not be able to get a view of the first tee at St. Andrews, but I think you can shop the timeshare resales at SellMyTimeshareNOW and find a great golf timeshare for a whole lot less.

Bonus Time in Your Timeshare

Bonus Time in Your Timeshare

Monday, July 24, 2006

Author: Staff Contributor | Topics: , , , ,

Make the most of your timeshare ownership by taking advantage of bonus time opportunities

Until you own a timeshare, you may not fully appreciate bonus time. The term bonus time means deeply discounted vacation rates offered either by a timeshare resort, a group of resorts, or through a timeshare exchange company.

Resort Condominiums International, for example, offers two types of bonus timeshare to its members. Extra Vacations are the available days created when RCI members trade their timeshare points or weeks for another travel product, such as discount airfares or a cruise. The result is extra timeshare inventory in certain resort locations and great deals for RCI members. Members can purchase Extra Vacations for a period of one-week and use them for themselves or give them to someone else through a gift certificate.

Last Call is RCI’s clearance-priced bonus timeshare. Last Call timesharing is truly last minute planning, but the prices are incredible. Currently RCI Last Call reservations for studio units are $129 per week; one bedroom units at $179 per week; and two bedroom units priced at $219 per week – discounts well worth making a last minute effort to enjoy.