# RCI Points What is a good price?



## Larry (Oct 28, 2007)

I own only fixed weeks and have been looking at perhaps purchasing a points program on Ebay. It appears to me that I would need at least 60,000 points to exchange into a gold crown resort 1BR during the winter in the Caribbean. So here are my questions.

1) What is a good price to purchase per point?

2) Does it matter what the underlying resort is as long as it has reasonable maintenance fees? Example I would have no interest in Orlando fixed weeks but does it really matter since I would just be purchasing my points to exchange.

3) OK here is the important question am I wasting my time given the fact that I would want to trade my 60,000 points for a week in let's say January in Aruba, Grand Cayman, Barbados etc. at a gold crown resort. Are my chances just like with fixed weeks ( very very difficult trade) for this trade or better with points? I may even accept a studio for certain resorts.

So what should I do? I already own 8 fixed weeks.


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## Bill4728 (Oct 28, 2007)

Larry,

If your 8 fixed weeks are at TSs that are in RCI but not "RCI point resorts" you'd be able to add to your point account by doing PFD (points for deposit) this will greatly add to you number of points. 

Personally, I'd try out points with the leased RCI point packages before I'd commit to buying a RCi point resort.


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## JMAESD84 (Oct 28, 2007)

*RCI Points*

I included these comments in a post I made a couple of months back relative to the purchase of RCI Points with deeded property and I think they get to your point.

"I'll throw this in for RCI Points purchases. My current analysis of the market place suggests that the following is a very good purchase of an RCI Points unit. This is based on the annualized number of RCI points deposited for the owners use.

Total Acquisition Costs / Annual RCI Points should be less than .0275 
Annual MF(including taxes) / Annual RCI Points should be less than .0091"

I do think that Bill's advise about the leasing an RCI Points package, is very sound advise, as you will be able to easily surpass each of the ratios above with the lease program and have a built in exit strategy if you decide not to stick with RCI points.  

I have RCI Points from both sources.  I like certainty of the deeded property as a long term source, but I also like the lower price avialability provided by the lease source.  

When you take a close look at the lease source, at least the one that I'm involved with, it's a house of cards of sorts that may collapse before reaching the leases full term.  It involves good people creatively trying to make the best of an ugly situation, that ultimately they may loose control over.

Regarding your thoughts on whether it matters where you buy your points, I agree that they are a commodity of sorts (points are points) so the location only matters to the extent that the place is under solid management.  One of the most important consideration being the annual MF to RCI Points ratio, so a well run resort that keeps MF's stable and avoids SA's is important to keeping this a good ratio.

Hope this helps.


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## Larry (Oct 28, 2007)

Bill4728 said:


> Larry,
> 
> 
> Personally, I'd try out points with the leased RCI point packages before I'd commit to buying a RCi point resort.



OK so where do you get a "leased RCI point package" and what is the rotal cost to purchase at least 60,000 points????


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## JMAESD84 (Oct 28, 2007)

Larry said:


> OK so where do you get a "leased RCI point package" and what is the rotal cost to purchase at least 60,000 points????



http://www.tugbbs.com/class/showproduct.php?product=988&cat=69&limit=views&date=1157909772

I believe the acquisition cost is $498 no matter the number of RCI Points leased.


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## KarenL (Nov 3, 2007)

Larry
We purchased RCI points using the plan at Trinidad through Bill Riney [bill_riney@yahoo.com] and it has worked very well for us. We purchased 104,000 points per year for 3 years and are happy we took the points plunge.
Karen


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## Larry (Nov 5, 2007)

Larry said:


> I own only fixed weeks and have been looking at perhaps purchasing a points program on Ebay. It appears to me that I would need at least 60,000 points to exchange into a gold crown resort 1BR during the winter in the Caribbean. So here are my questions.
> 
> 1) What is a good price to purchase per point?
> 
> ...



Thank you all for your responses and the advice to purchase a 3 year lease package however I still haven't had any responses to my original 3 questions listed above. Can someone PLEASE HELP ME OUT. I am still not sure if a purchase of 60,000 points will get me what I want and what is a good price to pay per point. Thanks


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## BillR (Nov 5, 2007)

Larry said:


> I own only fixed weeks and have been looking at perhaps purchasing a points program on Ebay. It appears to me that I would need at least 60,000 points to exchange into a gold crown resort 1BR during the winter in the Caribbean. So here are my questions.
> 
> 1) What is a good price to purchase per point?
> 
> ...



*1.  Less than $.091/point
2.  NO!  Points are points!
3.  I have found points for weeks superior to weeks for weeks.  I no longer deposit weeks.  I either go there or deposit (if not a points resort) into PointsForDeposit.

At the current time, it appears that in the Caribbean, only Dominican Republice is available in January in Points for Weeks.*


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## JMAESD84 (Nov 5, 2007)

Larry said:


> Thank you all for your responses and the advice to purchase a 3 year lease package however I still haven't had any responses to my original 3 questions listed above. Can someone PLEASE HELP ME OUT. I am still not sure if a purchase of 60,000 points will get me what I want and what is a good price to pay per point. Thanks



 

1. Less than $0.0091 per RCI point annually, ratio to  MF or dues.
2. No.  Except as it might impact #1 above, in future years.
3. 60,000 points is probably enough to book a 1 bedroom in most locations, for instance I booked Morritt's Grand Cayman for 45,000 for the spring of 2009 months ago, so you need to be booking way in advance to find quality exchanges.  Obviously, if you require a larger unit it will be more points.

You will have much more success going the RCI points route (versus weeks) if you a willing to book so far in advance.


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## brucecz (Nov 6, 2007)

This Saturday on the yearly ebay November-early December blood lettings we picked up our :whoopie: 4th RCI resort that was already converted to RCI 53,400 yearly points for $810. There are no closing costs to be paid.  That figures out to be about a  buying cost of 1.511 cents per RCI Point.

The yearly maintenance fee is $495 and that equals .91 cents per RCI Point.

There will be a one RCI timetranser fee of  $224 making a total purchase price cost of $1,034 or only 1.93 cents a point which is 30% less  than the 2.75 cents per RCI Point guideline recommended earlier in this string.

I fully exspect to when the time comes to sell this ownership for more than I paid for it like most of the 20  previous timeshare ownerships I have sold.

I consider this to be a fairly good deal but not a real great deal.

2 things I will be doing differant than most would with this  RCI Points ownership is what  I tipically do with our other RCI Points ownerships most of the time.

I will not take the yearly 53,400 points but the use the underlieing week 31 as a rental and to controll the cost per RCI point factor.

 If it does not rent then we will use it as we only live about 130 miles from this resort that we had stayed at in the past while looking at Door county ownerships about 70 miles away from this resort.

Then we will use this ownership to put in less exspensive weeks in to this account by using the weeks for RCI  Points program.

In my  3 to 4 years of RCI Points experiance this amount of points will get you most one bedroom Red time Gold Crowns units out of the RCI Points Resorts and most  of the 2 bedroom Prime Time  Silver Crowns (with about 10,000 point left over) out of the weeks side of your account.

We  have not used or looked for the 9,000 last mintue exchanges  up to this point but may do so in the future.

Bruce


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## KarenL (Nov 6, 2007)

Larry
Even when taking into account the purchase price, maintenance
fees, etc., our total cost for 104,000 points was less than a penny a point. 

I don't know about January, because I am a teacher with time off in the summer, but I didn't have any trouble pulling Aruba and Cayman Island Gold Crown resorts in the summer. (Yes, I realize there might be a hurricane, but I don't have much of a choice so I took out cancellation insurance)
One bedroom gold crown in Aruba was about 75,000 points, and a two bedroom at Morritt's Grand, Cayman Islands, was 76,000 points.
I would imagine if you were looking at points resorts and got on it the maximum time out (10 months), you should come up with something in winter.Likewise, if you used the weeks inventory, you would likely have to search two years out. Currently, if I search points inventory 10 months out, and weeks inventory 2 years out, I come up with Aruba and Grand Cayman, but, of course these timeframes are not for winter weeks. One would have do a search around January or February to really test exchange power for the time you are looking to travel
Karen


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## rickandcindy23 (Nov 6, 2007)

What's with the .0091 per point cost?  That is an odd amount.   Please explain what specific resort you are talking about.


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## brucecz (Nov 6, 2007)

Check completed ebay auction number 320176315757 as it has all the details.

On MF reread post number 3.

Bruce


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## thetimeshareguy (Nov 17, 2007)

JMAESD84 said:


> Total Acquisition Costs / Annual RCI Points should be less than .0275
> Annual MF(including taxes) / Annual RCI Points should be less than .0091



I wish to understand this formula better. Are you saying that a person should buy points for less than two cents per point (.0275/point) and pay an annual maintenance fee of less than a thousandth of a cent per point?

Or (as I expect) are you saying that a person should divide the total acquisition cost by the number of points? Then divide the annual maintenance fee by the number of points?

To help me (since I'm not great at math) please use the example of a person buying 80,000 RCI points for, say, $1,200 and paying an annual MF of $600. What would that look like?


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## JMAESD84 (Nov 17, 2007)

thetimeshareguy said:


> I wish to understand this formula better. Are you saying that a person should buy points for less than two cents per point (.0275/point) and pay an annual maintenance fee of less than a thousandth of a cent per point?
> 
> Or (as I expect) are you saying that a person should divide the total acquisition cost by the number of points? Then divide the annual maintenance fee by the number of points?
> 
> To help me (since I'm not great at math) please use the example of a person buying 80,000 RCI points for, say, $1,200 and paying an annual MF of $600. What would that look like?



Sure it's a very straight forward calculation.

Let's say your purchase with closing cost and transfer fee (I include everything but the RCI membership fee) = $1200 / 80000 = .015 per point = nice buy.

MF $600 / 800000 = .0075 per point = nice buy.

If you can find such a deeded RCI Points package to purchase, I would say that you have done very well for yourself.

The .027 and .0091 numbers where based on an informal study of the market place this past summer.  As MF's rise these numbers get affected.  Usually the farther you go below .01 on the MF ratio, this gets offset by a higher purchase price.  It really is a balance between the two numbers that you should look at.


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## thetimeshareguy (Nov 18, 2007)

JMAESD84 said:


> Sure it's a very straight forward calculation.
> 
> Let's say your purchase with closing cost and transfer fee (I include everything but the RCI membership fee) = $1200 / 80000 = .015 per point = nice buy.
> 
> MF $600 / 800000 = .0075 per point = nice buy.



Okay, so help me with the decimals here. (I graduated from highschool 30 years ago!) How many cents per point is the person paying? Does the .015 equal 1.5 cents per point? Does the .0075 equal .75 cents per point (i.e., three quarters of a cent)?

I don't want to make an error translating the final number of the formula into dollars and cents.


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## brucecz (Nov 18, 2007)

thetimeshareguy said:


> Okay, so help me with the decimals here. (I graduated from highschool 30 years ago!) How many cents per point is the person paying? Does the .015 equal 1.5 cents per point? Does the .0075 equal .75 cents per point (i.e., three quarters of a cent)?
> 
> I don't want to make an error translating the final number of the formula into dollars and cents.



You are correct in your math. It would help others if they express any such figures in dollars or cents per point.

IMHO I think for most it would be easier  for most to understand if expressed in cents per point.

Bruce


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## makhkhichoos (Nov 28, 2007)

Bruce,

Thanks for the informative post. I am new to the timeshare world and I have a few questions.

1. If I am considering buying RCI points, does it matter which resort it's deeded to? Which company, which place, Gold Crown or not, week, 1BR/2BR? Or all these factors are already considered when the RCI points are calculated?

2. Is there anything called 'trading power' of the unit, if it's points based. When I try to book a resort in Aruba in Winter (for example), does it matter if my unit is in Wisconsin?

3. How much is risk of inflation with the points based system? For example, my current 75,000 points may be enough for a week in Aruba but will it be enough 5 years from now? Who decides the 'points value' of a resort? I doubt if it's only RCI. There has to be some consideration for the market value of the resort rooms, right? In this case, wouldn't it be better to go with the week based resort, since your property will also go up with years so you are somewhat protected by inflation?

thanks


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## JMAESD84 (Nov 28, 2007)

makhkhichoos said:


> Bruce,
> 
> Thanks for the informative post. I am new to the timeshare world and I have a few questions.
> 
> ...



Questions 1. and 2. have already been answered in this thread.  Feel free to read what has already been posted.

Question 3. Once the RCI points value for a unit at a resort has been set it is likely that it will remain the same unless something significant has occurred to result in a reevaluation.  Significant might be a major improvement to the resort making it more desireable (think adding a waterpark or major renovation) or a major change such as years of neglect that make the resort run down or less desireable.

Exchange capabilities with existing resorts will remain stable as it is now (except as your resort or the others are affected by a significant change).

New developments built in future years might receive higher point values for units than your resort making trading to the new resort/units cost more points than you currently receive.  

Points partner programs like using points to acquire airline tickets will adjust for inflation.


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## brucecz (Nov 29, 2007)

JmaesD84  and the others have pointed out to  you some good information.

What I am trying to say if RCI changes the RCI Points program so that you feel that you do not want to continue with it, what would be best type of RCI Points ownership to buy in any case?

A few years ago there was a moderator on Tug named Dani "Danelle who I through gave some good advice in regards to RCI Points resort ownership.

She said get something that has underlieing "Inherit value. 

Another words if the only value from your points ownership comes from it being a RCI Points resort and not the underlying deeded week, you could have a problem  if there are more changes in the RCI Points program that lessen the value of your points ownership.


Here is what I said on another string Quote" We own a couple of RCI' resales that is deeded at The Cliffs in Las Vegas plus a couple of other resale RCI Points resorts.

I bought in Las Vegas not for "Points trading power" but to use as a vessal for PFD and then renting out our ownerships to cover the ongoing ownership costs.

If you can find a RCI Point resale at a resort that you would want to go to, that might be one to consider especially if the buying price and the amount of RCI Points to maintenance fees are something that would work for you.

The other posters are correct. Why pay about 10 times more for something that gives you no benifiets." unquote.

We  have owned 5 RCI Points ownerships and presently own 4 RCI Points ownerships and I will briefly explain why we bought them.

The First one was a 1 bedroom November week in a inland Texas resort to use in the RCI PFD program. It was a small 10,000 Point every year ownership who's maintenance fees were $238. This had no real "inherit value" as a place and time that I would want to stay at or that would be easy to rent out to recover maintenance fees.  This unlike the other RCI Points ownerships was not bought on ebay.

The second RCI Points resort we bought was a one bedroom week 42 in Las Vegas at Cliffs Club in Las Vegas.   This had to us real "inherit value" as a place and time that I would want to stay at or that would be able to rent out to recover the $450  yearly maintenance fees.

 For the 2 years we have owned this week 42 we have rented it out and more than covered our maintence fees, the guest  certificate and that ownerships yearly RCI Points membership dues.  Before our Texas timeshare  was costing us $238 in maintenance fees plus the $99 yearly RCI Points membership dues for a yearly out go of $337.  We put a value of those 10,000 RCI Points at about $37 so the net out go was about $300 for that setup.

We sold that Texas timeshare for about what we had in it as part of a "combo" sale. With a little work our week 42 saves us the $300 yearly cost of what that Texas ownership did plus gives  a little bit of rental profit.

We own a Tri annual at Cliffs which is a week 37. that to us had some real "inherit value" as a place and time that I would want to stay at or that would be able to rent out to recover the $450  maintenance fees due every thrid year.

Last year RCI changed the rules for the PFD so that you can only deposit 4 weeks from a RCI resort that is not a RCI Points resort into a RCI Points resort.  The year before we had deposited about 36 weeks from 2 RCI non RCI Points resorts into one RCI Points account.

So we bought in Las Vegas again at  the "Summer Bay" because of the changes now going on. If you check the Tug BBS Western section you will find out why I and others feel that last they were a real bargin. IMHO this had to us real "inherit value" as a place and time that I would want to stay at or that would be able to rent out.

Our last purchase was in Wisconsin at a resort that we stayed at is about only 130 miles from us.  The name of this Points resort is Fox Hills and to us this had to us real "inherit value" as a place and time that I would want to stay at if we were not able to rent it out.  This unit is deeded as a week 31 which is high red time in Wisconsin and it is with in 1 hours drive off Door County, Green Bay, ect.

The 4 RCI Points resorts we presently own to us have that  "inherit value" that we want so no matter how RCI changes the RCI Points program that these units still have value. Even if took these units out of the RCI Points Program they have enough "inherit value" that we could get most if not all of our  :whoopie:  money out of them.  WE might even be able to make a bit of a   profit on some of them.

But again, I tend to use my RCI Point resorts and RCI Points differantly than most Tuggers do.  So what is right and  makes good common sense for me may not be right for others.

But that being said if you can can a RCI Points resort that has a lot of "inherit value" for you even if you later took it out of the RCI Points program then IMHO that RCI Points resort with good to excellant "inherit value" is the type to look for.

All 3 of our  yearly RCI POint ownerships have a yearly maintence fee to cost ratio of less than 1 cent per RCI Point.

Bruce  




makhkhichoos said:


> Bruce,
> 
> Thanks for the informative post. I am new to the timeshare world and I have a few questions.
> 
> ...


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## Jim McLaren (Nov 29, 2007)

brucecz said:


> This had no real "inherit value" as a place and time that I would want to stay at or that would be easy to rent out to recover maintenance fees.



Excellent points Bruce.  Sort of like, "Buy where you wouldn't mind going."  Especially in light of the way RCI is messing with the exchange systems, both weeks & points.

BTW, I think you probably mean "inherent value" meaning they have an underlying value independent of the points system.  Without that value, RCI could render your points almost useless if they change the points system enough.


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## brucecz (Nov 29, 2007)

Jim, thank you for the spulling help and you are indeed correct.

The  points you raised in your post I agree with.

A good example of that type of ownership is the one I mentioned in posting number 10 in this string.  It is a prime Wisconsin summer week (week 31) at a non Gold Crown rated RCI Points resort with  including closing costs we bought it for under $900.

It is only about 130 miles from our home so if we do not rent it out we can use it as it is close to several areas like Door County, Green Bay, Lake Michigan, Lake Winniebago, trout streams and other things that we and others would enjoy.

According to II summerweeks in Wisconsin have a high demand rate.  I know from renting out about a average of 10 Wisconsin summer weeks per year for the last 5 years and 20 last year that does have good enough "inherent value" for what comparatively little we have in it.

If we would decide to get rid of it we would not have much to lose, but we just might make a  little bit of profit on it. 

Bruce  



Jim McLaren said:


> Excellent points Bruce.  Sort of like, "Buy where you wouldn't mind going."  Especially in light of the way RCI is messing with the exchange systems, both weeks & points.
> 
> BTW, I think you probably mean "inherent value" meaning they have an underlying value independent of the points system.  Without that value, RCI could render your points almost useless if they change the points system enough.


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## Pit (Dec 1, 2007)

I will just add a comment here concerning availability in the RCI system. Since RCI can only offer what gets deposited, and because of restrictions on exchanges between Points accounts and Weeks deposits at Points resorts, I would suggest the following approach.

Pick a few resorts that you would like to exchange into, then try to determine if the majority of the weeks owned at those resorts are exchanged through the Weeks system or the Points system. How to determine this? It is mostly empirical... call, email, or visit the resort and ask, make regular checks for availability in both systems, check auctions on ebay to see if the majority of sellers are Points owners or Weeks owners, also the age of the resort is a factor since older resorts will have a large percentage of owners in the Weeks system (even if the resort is now listed as a Points resort).

Once you have determined if the weeks you would like to exchange into are primarily Points or Weeks, then you have some idea as to the availability within the exchange system. 

If you are trying to exchange into Points weeks at Points resorts, then you need a Points ownership. If you are trying to exchange into Weeks weeks at a Points resort, then you are better off with a Weeks ownership (because a Points owner will never see these deposits available for exchange). 

If you are trying to exchange into Weeks resorts, you can make those exchanges further out with a Weeks ownership than you can with a Points ownership. On the other hand, with a Points ownership you can take advantage of Instant Exchange for last-minute (typically 14-21 days to check-in) deals. So, if your target is Weeks resorts, you have to decide if you prefer making exchanges 1-2 years out (in which case you need a Weeks ownership) or if you prefer last-minute deals (in which case a Points ownership is more economic).

It's a little difficult to digest, but this is my understanding of how the system works and the best way to evaluate which exchange strategy is likely to yield the desired results. HTH.


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## alanraycole (Dec 3, 2007)

*If I understand teh last post correctly, I disagree.*

I have a points account and never worry about what I "see." I simply put in an ongoing search for weeks resorts for up to 2 years out, so, I have all that the VC sees or better, whatever the RCI computer pulls up. RCI then puts it on hold till I reserve it or decline it over the phone.

Is anyone saying that I am missing out on some inventory with this approach? I would really like to know. I have a weeks resort unit, but I go the PFD route with it. If I am missing inventory, I may have to change that.


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## brucecz (Dec 4, 2007)

It would depend if your week would be a weak, middling or strong trader if deposted on the weeks side.

I would assume it would be one of the first two unless it somehow gets tons of points from the undervauled PFD.

But with any  on going search I found in the past that being pro active and calling RCI about the on going search can yield better results than  waiting for RCI to call.

But again that is just my opinion.

Bruce  



alanraycole said:


> I have a points account and never worry about what I "see." I simply put in an ongoing search for weeks resorts for up to 2 years out, so, I have all that the VC sees or better, whatever the RCI computer pulls up. RCI then puts it on hold till I reserve it or decline it over the phone.
> 
> Is anyone saying that I am missing out on some inventory with this approach? I would really like to know. I have a weeks resort unit, but I go the PFD route with it. If I am missing inventory, I may have to change that.


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