Trading Points for Restricted Resorts?

True, renting is probably the safest and best financially speaking. Certainly so if you can afford to rent a few nights there without renting out any of your points to cover the cost. I’m guessing from what you said that that’s not an option.

The problem with buying a RIV contract, as you’re likely weighing, is not getting what you paid for it should you not like RIV enough to hang onto the contract. Durned resale restrictions, anyway.

How much time you’ve spent hanging around RIV can be a decent indicator that buying a contract will work. However, not necessarily, which is why I think springing for a short term rental is advisable. We bought a small BWV contract a few years ago, never having stayed there but hanging out in the vicinity enough that we thought it could work for small-to-big split stays. Stayed two nights and realized BWV wasn’t for us. Sold it.

You really never know till you know.

Maybe you could pop over to the RIV forum and see if anyone there bas a Riv Resale contract they’d like to swap points with you for a year….

I have the same questions and I hope you'll report back with your experience. Thanks