I was misled while purchasing a Timeshare unit. I bought a timeshare unit at Kona Hawaiian Village on the Big Island, Hawaii. During the sales process, I was told I could use my Fairfield Points to book with RCI without any transfer fee or search fee because Fairfield had "recently bought RCI" (Not true)-I beleive they're sister companies or similar, but RCI was not purchased by Fairfield and does not do "FEE-less" business with Fairfield owners.
The process actually works like this: If you want to book time at an RCI resort you call Fairfield and have points tranferred to RCI (as time instead of points, since RCI doesn't use point system). That transfer costs you money. Then (based on my experiences) RCI tells you there's nothing available where you want it, when you want it, but they'd be happy to do a search for you and get back to you if they find anything (each searched is $149.00). Then you'll get what you asked for to begin with (as if the "search" was needed). Think of what it all costs in the end.
When you add up all the fees (if you're told about them up front), in my opinion, Fairfield is not worth it. The folks in sales know this, so they don't tell you about those fees - and in some cases, like mine - they'll actually lie to make the sale.
Be careful - do your math - take all the money you're going to pay for the unit (don't forget finance charges and interest if you don't pay cash up front), add the maintenance fees, add the transfer of points fees for ANY use of points other than a "Fairfield" resort booking. Add to all of that the search fees that you'll likely be charged by RCI, which is probably who you'll end up needing to book with in the end since they book far more resorts than Fairfield. Add to that the money you would've been making in interest if you'd just kept your hard-earned money in a minimual interest bearing account such as a money market account or equivilent.
You'll see that you'll be paying through the nose for your vacation resort stay, IF you're able to book one AT ALL when and where you want.
In my opinion it is a SCAM (especially in my case), but they're pros at riding the fine line between legal and illegal and have gotten away with it so far. Good luck to all potential Timeshare Buyers. Don't make the same mistake I did.
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