WorldMark^® Words

I don't use the online vacation planning search function very often. I normally use the 4 month booking calendar when I am checking availability. Today I decided to check for Bonus Time during the upcoming Labor Day weekend and logged in to use the search function for that purpose.

There has been a change in the search results display that I was not aware of. Now when there is availability for multiple resorts a tab for each of those resorts is displayed. For example, when I asked for a search for Bonus Time in Oregon there was availability in 5 different resorts. There was a tab for Eagle Crest, Gleneden Beach, Running Y, Schooner Landing, and Seaside, all of which had Bonus Time available in the next two weeks. When you click on the tab for a resort you bring up a page with a separate table display for each different unit size at the resort that has availability.

It's a nice improvement over the original display results display. On that one you had to page through all of the results to go from resort to resort. Now you just have to click on the tab for each resort you are interested in. I guess I should check things more often so I don't miss upgrades like that.

In case anyone is interested, there was Bonus Time before and after the Labor Day weekend in Washington, Oregon, and California. I didn't check any other areas. I did not find any Bonus Time available in those states for the Friday, Saturday, or Sunday nights of Labor Day weekend. That didn't surprise me, the time to book those nights is long past. Any nights that were available when the 90 day booking window opened were probably quickly snapped up using credits.

Everyone probably knows about Bonus Time, booked up to 14 days in advance at 5 cents per credit. It applies to any resort that has space available within the 14 day booking window. A maximum of 4 days can be booked on Bonus Time.

But do you always remember the other options for booking with cash rather than with your WorldMark credits? Here's a quick owner ed review (or overview).

Inventory Specials are available at selected resorts which are announced online and in the Destinations Magazine. Inventory Specials are typically at resorts and time periods that are not expected to have heavy booking. In the summer you will find very few if any Inventory Specials. Off season there will be multiple resorts available. Inventory Specials can be booked for any duration and can be booked up to 60 days in advance of check in. They are booked at the same rate as Bonus Time.

The Vacation Stimulus Plan which has been revived again for the third or fourth time, allows booking any resort for cash at 8 cents per credit. Reservations can be made up to 13 months before check in. The Vacation Stimulus plan is currently scheduled to end on November 30.

The Monday Madness program allows booking of select resorts at 6 cents per credit. The resorts offered change every Monday and are announced on the WorldMark web site. Typically there are two or three resorts available for Monday Madness booking. Those reservations can be booked up to 11 months in advance.

There are some additional restrictions on both the Vacation Stimulus Plan and on the Monday Madness program. You will find the rules details on the WorldMark web site.

If none of the above cash deals will work for you there is also FAX time. Currently booked at 8 cents per credit, FAX time is subject only to the normal booking restrictions with one exception. You can only use FAX time once every 5 years in Red Season at the 8 cents rate. Additional Red Season reservations are available at a higher rate.

The Vacation Stimulus Plan, Monday Madness, and FAX time are all developer programs and may end at any time. There is no guarantee of how long they will exist.

In case you are not familiar with the 48 hour rule, it states that for WorldMark reservations made within 48 hours of your arrival time certain booking guidelines do not apply. Specifically excluded under the 48 hour rule are the length of stay requirement, the number of credit reservations requirement, and the single Bonus Time reservation at a time rule.

The first exemption refers to the rule that states that you cannot book only one day of a weekend (Friday or Saturday) if both nights are available. If it is within 48 hours of checkin you can book a single day. For example, on Wednesday you can book Friday night as a single day, even if Saturday night is also available.

The number of credit reservations exemption refers to the rule that states that you may have only 1 weekend only reservation per quarter for each block of 5,000 credits that you own. You can book a weekend reservation that would put you over that limit if your arrival date is within 48 hours of the time you make the reservation.

The Bonus Time exemption refers to the rule that you may have only one Bonus Time reservation at a time. It means that even if you already have an existing Bonus Time reservation you may book a second one for checkin within the next two days. Also covered under this exemption is the restriction concerning the number of Bonus Time weekend only reservations you may have.

Note that it is not really 48 hours, it is two days. You can book a 48 hour exemption reservation at 6:00 in the morning two days before your check in date, even though check in time is officially not until 4:00 in the afternoon.

You can book 48 hour rule reservations online at the start of the 48 hour period, or two days in advance of checkin. I recently did that, booking one night at Santa Fe on Bonus Time while we were staying at Pinetop on Bonus Time. If you wait another day you will need to call the Vacation Planning Center. It is only during the first day of the 48 hour period that you can book these reservations online. For both the day before arrival and the day of arrival you will need to make the reservation by phone.

Spacebanking with RCI underwent a change when the new RCI search and booking interface was added to the WorldMark web site. In case you are not familiar with the term, spacebanking, or deposit first, means depositing some of your WorldMark credits into your RCI account without making an immediate exchange. It is most commonly talked about as a way to extend the life of soon to expire credits. Spacebanked credits can be used for an RCI exchange up to 2 years after they are deposited. It does not matter what the expiration date of the credits you deposited are, you have two additional years to make an exchange using them.

Prior to the recent change, when you spacebanked credits a specific week at a specific WorldMark resort was deposited in your RCI account. If you deposited 4,000 credits a Blue season studio unit was deposited. If you deposited 10,000 credits a Red season 2 bedroom unit was deposited. You did not choose which resort the deposit came from or which specific week it was. The exchange department handled that. After the week was deposited you could log into your account on the RCI web site (or call RCI on the phone) and search for an exchange you wanted. You were searching with that specific unit, not with all of WorldMark as you did with Confirm First.

With the new system that changed. Now when you spacebank you do not have a specific unit deposited, you have credits deposited. The credits go into your WorldMark RCI account and are displayed when you log into RCI through the new WorldMark link. When you look at your account on the RCI page you see two entries. One shows the number of credits that are in your WorldMark account and the second entry shows the number of credits you have spacebanked with RCI.

If you find an exchange you want credits are deducted from your account, with the spacebanked credits used first and your normal WorldMark credits second. For example, if you have 6,000 WorldMark credits spacebanked and book a 10,000 credit exchange, the 6,000 spacebanked credits and 4,000 normal credits will be deducted from your account. Under the same scenario, if you book a 4,000 credit exchange only spacedbanked credits will be used, leaving you with a balance of 2,000 spacebanked credits in your account.

This is a big improvement for most WorldMark owners. No longer will you have to worry about what week you will get for a deposit and whether or not that week will produce a good exchange. Now you will always be searching with all of WorldMark, whether you are using current credits or spacebanked credits. The only disadvantage is for those few owners who spacebank a small deposit (4,000 or 5,000 credits) with the intent of trying to get an exchange which would require more credits. That option is no longer available. All exchanges will require the same number of credits as shown in the RCI exchange tables, it makes no difference if the exchange is completed using regular credits or spacebanked credits.

It is important to note that this new spacebanking of credits applies only to deposits made since the new system went into effect. If you had spacebanked credits before the change the fixed week you received is still in your RCI account. You access any such weeks through the RCI website, not the WorldMark web site. Similarly, any new deposits are accessible only through the WorldMark website RCI link, they will not be visible if you log into the your RCI account directly on the RCI website.

When does a reservation end? That may seem like a strange question but it is one that came up on our most recent trip. We were headed to Las Vegas and I booked 1 night at St George on Bonus Time as a stop along the way. We were planning on coming home through Pinetop a week later and I wanted to make that reservation on Bonus Time also. You can't have two Bonus Time reservations at the same time so I couldn't book Pinetop until the St George reservation was complete.

After we arrived at St George and were checked in I went online and looked at Pinetop availability. There was a unit available for the three nights I wanted to book. I looked at our existing reservations and it showed the St George reservation in the reservations history section, not in the current reservations part. If the St George reservation was history even though we were still there, did that mean I could book Pinetop on Bonus Time? Nope, the online system would only let me use credits or FAX time for the reservation.

I called the Vacation Planning Center to see if it was only an online problem. Maybe I could book it by phone. Nope, couldn't do that either. I was told that the current reservation did not end until the last day of the reservation and I couldn't make another Bonus Time reservation until then. That's the way I thought it worked. I also asked if I needed to wait until we checked out on the next day before making the new reservation. The answer to that question was no, I could make the reservation as soon at the VPC opened. I was told I would have to call, the online system would not allow me to make the reservation that next morning.

The next morning I called in and booked Pinetop using Bonus Time. I had checked online first to see if there was still availability. I also tried making the reservation online, but the system would not let me use Bonus Time. I don't know if I could have made the reservation online later in the day, after the noon checkout time. That is a question I did not ask. I was happy to get the Bonus Time reservation I wanted an did not pursue it any further.

I know, it's not even summer of this year yet and I'm talking about summer of next year. But if you want to book a WorldMark unit at one of the more popular resorts for the summer of 2011 you need to be doing your planning now. Today is May 20, 2010 which means you can book a week for a June 20, 2011 arrival.

Here's an example of why early planning is necessary.

The image shows the availability for a 3 bedroom Phase 1 unit at Depoe Bay. As you can see, there is already a lot of booking activity with some days in June, 2011 completely filled. The screen shown is from around noon. There may have been more availability earlier in the day and may be less by now.

If you can use a 2 bedroom unit at Depoe Bay next year in June there is no problem. The booking page shows 5 or more units available for both Phase 1 and Phase 2 two bedroom units for the entire month of June, 2011.

Don't delay if you think you want one of those units, they will fill fast. Late June through mid August tend to be the most popular times so planning for those periods is especially important. Seaside is offline for booking right now for some unknown maintenance issue so there will be even more pressure on the other Oregon coast resorts. With the generous WorldMark cancellation policy you can book a unit now and cancel up to 30 days before your check in date if your plans change.

You often hear people talking about the advantages having a large WorldMark account. 40,000, 50,000, 100,000 credits or more. Lots of credits, lots of choices of how to use them. It's all well and good to talk about the advantages those large accounts but it takes a significant investment to reach those levels.

You will also hear people talking about how to book 4 or 5 or more weeks at resorts with a much smaller account. I do that here from time to time. It's all well and good to talk about how to book additional weeks with a small account by using Bonus Time, Inventory Specials, RCI or II 4,000 credit exchanges, credit rentals, etc., but the additional vacations you get via that route cost money too.

The minimum account currently sold is 6,000 credits and there are a lot of owners at that level. You don't hear much about how you can vacation with a minimum of additional expense over and above your normal maintenance dues if you own 6,000 credits.

The first thing you discover is that 6,000 credits is not enough to book a unit in Red Season at any WorldMark resort. A Red Season studio is typically 7,000 credits and if you need a 2 bedroom unit it will cost you 10,000 credits. If you are a family with children in school and limit your vacations to periods when school is out, you don't have many non-Red Season opportunities. So if you need a 2 bedroom unit, you need to go on vacation in the summer, and you own 6,000 WorldMark credits, what are your options without spending any additional money on credit rentals, Bonus Time, or anything else?

One option is to book less than a week. WorldMark has the flexibility to let you do that. For example, at the Running Y resort you can book 4 nights with a Saturday arrival for 5,700 credits. Move the check in to Monday and 4 nights only requires 5,000 credits.

The problem with this approach is availability. You can only book less than a week in Red Season at 90 days or less before your arrival date. At many of the WorldMark resorts you will not find much available in the summer if you wait until 90 days to make your reservation. That doesn't necessarily mean you are locked out though. Over 30% of all WorldMark reservations are cancelled so if you put your name on the wait list you could end up with the days you want.

Another consideration is that well beyond 90 days you will often find groups of four stand alone days available. An example would be no availability on Saturday, Sunday through Wednesday available, and no availability on Thursday. How that happens is a different story, but it is something you can take advantage of. If a group of stand alone days becomes available you can book them for any arrival date up to 13 months in the future.

Another option is to borrow credits from your next year's allotment to book this year's vacation. If you have a 6,000 credit account you can borrow up to an additional 6,000 credits to use this year. To book a 10,000 credit Red Season week you will need to borrow 4,000 credits. It's important to remember that you are borrowing, and like any loan it has to be repaid. Next year when you receive your 6,000 annual credits 4,000 of them will be used to repay that loan, leaving only 2,000 credits in your account. You still can borrow 6,000 credits from next year but that's not enough to book the 10,000 credit 2 bedroom unit. You will have to skip a year, waiting for the following years allotment to book your week. You don't have to skip every year, with 6,000 credits you can book a 10,000 credit unit three times in five years.

If you can use a smaller unit size you can do better. A 1 bedroom unit is typically 8,000 credits for a Red Season week and a studio is 7,000 credits. If you are not restricted to travelling during school breaks or other seasonal reasons you have many more options. A 2 bedroom unit in White Season is typically 7,000 credits for a week and in Blue Season it is 5,000 credits. But for summer season booking the two options I listed are your main choices. Unless you want to go to the desert. Rancho Vistoso in Arizona has a White Season period in the summer and Palm Springs and Indio in California have White and Blue Season periods in the summer.

Are you an RCI member? Do you visit the RCI web site? They have a feature on the web site called RCI TV. It's not a brand new feature, I believe it was announced sometime last year. I finally got around to looking at it. In the Resort Showcase section you will find video presentations for a number of resorts available as RCI exchanges. I viewed the one for the Grandview at Las Vegas since that is a resort where we have stayed several times. It's a very slick presentation and gives a good overview of the resort.

You can view the RCI TV offerings at the RCI web site. The link takes you to the non-member version which includes some general timeshare information. If you are an RCI member you will find a RCI TV link on the top right of the page after you log in. That version appears to have the same resort information without a lot of the general information. The "View Channels" button on the left side of the simulated tv set is a menu of the available programs. You can use those links to select the program you want to view.

The WorldMark web site says that the Owner Education handbook is being updated. There has also been talk about new WorldMark owner education material that is in the works. I don't know how much if any of that new material is in video form, but something along the lines of the RCI TV presentation would be a nice addition. Owner education has been cut back in the past couple of years as the economy stumbled, it would be nice to see some new activity in that area.

The October, 2009 Destinations magazine has been available online since last week and I have received my copy in the mail. As I predicted when I first posted about this issue of the magazine, it is a special 20th year anniversary issue. There are several articles dealing with the history of the club; a timeline presenting some significant events that have occurred over the 20 years the club has been around; and a feature article about WorldMark Eagle Crest, where it all began.

If you are interested in the history of the club don't overlook your Destinations magazine. Obviously everything cannot be included in a 32 page magazine, but it is a good start. It's interesting reading, check it out either online at the WorldMark web site or with the copy of the magazine you receive in the mail.

I finally added some information about booking exchanges to my main web site. That is something that has been on the back burner since I first set up the web site over three years ago. The wheels of progress sometimes roll very slowly. But at least they roll!

Here's the link if you want to directly to the exchange page on my site. Or you can go to the home page using the link on the left and then click on the Owner Education button. The information isn't complete yet but it is a good start. If you have questions I'll try to ask them. Use the Ask a Question form at the top right of this page or the Contact button on the left. Also, if you spot any errors, either typos or in the content, let me know.