# Conversion of "Week(s)" of Timeshare to RCI Points [merged]



## cds62 (Apr 14, 2010)

A friend of mine attended a sales presentation which talked about converting his Summer Bay (Orlando, house) from a week based program to RCI points. Although I have owned timeshare for many years I am not familiar with the RCI points. 
He told me that they want to charge him $8000 for the conversion and that will get him 95,000 RCI points. They were pushing the concept that at the 45 day window he would be charged no more than 9500 points for a weeks stay and thus he could technically get 10 weeks of vacations for his one week that he originally owned. If he was to book the week in September that he usually uses that would use most of the 95000 points.
This just sounds like another traditional timeshare scam from the developers to get more money from owners but since I am not familiar with points it is hard to understand the concept. Could someone please explain the benefits and disadvantages of converting from a week to points?
Thanks for the help.


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## klynn (Apr 14, 2010)

cds62 said:


> A friend of mine attended a sales presentation which talked about converting his Summer Bay (Orlando, house) from a week based program to RCI points. Although I have owned timeshare for many years I am not familiar with the RCI points.
> He told me that they want to charge him $8000 for the conversion and that will get him 95,000 RCI points. They were pushing the concept that at the 45 day window he would be charged no more than 9500 points for a weeks stay and thus he could technically get 10 weeks of vacations for his one week that he originally owned. If he was to book the week in September that he usually uses that would use most of the 95000 points.
> This just sounds like another traditional timeshare scam from the developers to get more money from owners but since I am not familiar with points it is hard to understand the concept. Could someone please explain the benefits and disadvantages of converting from a week to points?
> Thanks for the help.


 
I think $8,000 for 95,000 points is too much.  I recently bought at a Gold Crown resort where I get annual points of 82,000 and my purchase price was only $700. including closing costs.


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## JudyS (Apr 14, 2010)

A number of people here (including me) use RCI Points.  I like RCI Points, but $8000 is WAY too high for a points conversion. Most people here buy their weeks already converted.  

The 9000 point inventory is last-minute leftovers.  There are sometimes good 9000 point weeks, but there are other ways to get them, such as through RCI Last Call or RCI Extra Vacations, usually for about $400 or less. So, even forgetting about the huge conversion fee, you don't save that much on 9000 point weeks. 

RCI Points is flexible and has access to more inventory than any other timeshare system.  But, RCI only charges the resorts about $250 for a "conversion." The resort pockets the rest. 

What Summer Bay is offering is not technically a "scam," but it certainly is WAY overpriced!!!


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## timeos2 (Apr 14, 2010)

*Bad "deal"*



cds62 said:


> He told me that they want to charge him $8000 for the conversion and that will get him 95,000 RCI points. They were pushing the concept that at the 45 day window he would be charged no more than 9500 points for a weeks stay and thus he could technically get 10 weeks of vacations for his one week that he originally owned. If he was to book the week in September that he usually uses that would use most of the 95000 points.



Unlike he other recent post asking a similar question where the cost to convert was $500 and the answer was go for it, this is WAY too much money to convert. Not a good deal in any way, shape, form or manner. Tell them to decline. They can get the same type of access into RCI points with an inexpensive points lease or a low cost purchase at a resort already n RCI Points & not charging such a totally outrageous fee.


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## josh (May 3, 2010)

my H.O.A. is considering converting to rci points. is that a good deal and how much is it going to cost me.


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## teepeeca (May 3, 2010)

*Josh*

It shouldn't cost you anything, "IF" you just keep your deeded week.  If you decide to convert to "points", it will probably cost you from around $300 to over $8000.  The "conversion people" are out to SELL, and take your "hard-earned: $$$.  Your resort will probably get little, or nothing paid to convert from weeks to points.

Tony


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## Bill4728 (May 3, 2010)

Generally, when a resort convert to RCI points it is a very bad thing for the owners. Not because RCI points is bad, BUT the company which helps convert the current owners to points will often charge huge fees over the small $200 fee that RCI charges.  So instead of charging you $200 ( the RCI fee) most resorts want $3000 - $4000 ( some as much as $8000) 

When this happens it is a complete rip off. 

If your resort does convert to points, IMHO tell them you *will not *be converting to points and they can't make you convert.


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## josh (May 4, 2010)

*why points*

Are points better than my week in orlando?


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## rickandcindy23 (May 4, 2010)

Josh, what week in Orlando?  What resort do you own?  What points are you asking about?  There are Wyndham Points, RCI Points, Bluegreen Points....

A little more information, and we can give you an answer.  A week in Orlando, if you use it every year and don't want to trade it is fine.


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## Bill4728 (May 4, 2010)

Josh, responding to this question ( and seeing your other question about your resort going to RCI Points) 

RCI points can be broken into many small last minute trips. AND RCI pts allow you to combine all your weeks together so you can combine two poor trading weeks together to get enough pts to get one great trading week.  BUT if all your doing is to trade one week of TS for another week, RCI weeks may work just as well as pts.

The biggest thing is that RCI pts TS can be purchased for very little money. So there is no reason at all for paying a large amount of money to convert your RCI weeks TS to a RCI pt one.


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## e.bram (May 4, 2010)

Points was invented so developers could sell the eight prime(school's off)weeks to more than eight people, by promising them to all buyers on a availability(whatever that is) if you have the points which all points buyers have. conversion points(RCI, Inseason, Festiva, Wyndham points partners)are just an extension of that paradigm.


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## josh (May 4, 2010)

*weeks vs points*

I own with celebrity resorts and cant get exchanges through the weeks sys. i own a floating week.


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## DeniseM (May 4, 2010)

Josh - I have merged your 3 threads - if you have any more questions/comments, please post them in this thread, instead of starting a new one. - Thanks.


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## tschwa2 (May 4, 2010)

Some resorts convert to RCI points because they are persuaded/convinced that they can make a lot of extra money for selling something without providing anything additional.  Some do it because they are trying to do something to help provide additional value to the owners and give them some additional flexibility with their ownership and to help sell developer/HOA owned weeks.  For some owners points ownerships do provide additional value for other owners sticking to a weeks ownership works out better.  It depends on what you own and how you like to plan and vacation.

As to the cost involved it depends on who and how the developer/HOA contracts with to convert the weeks.  RCI charges $199 for the conversion.  Some resorts contract with groups who provide owners "updates"and might offer a gift to convince owners to "upgrade."  Most use a hard sell and a few use a soft sell (usually the less expensive conversions)  It depends how much the developer/HOA pays to the outside contractor and how much additional money the HOA wants to fund other expenses.  Including the $199 RCI fee the conversion cost could be $299-$599 on the lower end and $4000-$5000 on the upper end.  For awhile it seemed $1999-$2999 was the standard going rate at most resorts.


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## Carolinian (May 6, 2010)

Points are actually the oldest type of timeshare.  The world's very first timeshare developer, Hapimag, a Swiss company started as a points based system and remains so until this day.  A short time later, a rival French developer came up with the weeks-based system, and that is what took off.  The market clearly prefered weeks, and that is what crossed the Atlantic to the US.

The concept of conning weeks owners to pay a fee to ''convert'' to points is a concept developed by a former tallyman (South African term for loan shark) working for Club Leisure Group in South Africa.  They try to claim it is something ''new'' and ''improved'' even though it is only the lesser system that has been around since the dawn of timesharing.  RCI has picked up on this scam.  Club Leisure group is clearly part of the DNA of RCI Points.


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## itisme (May 8, 2010)

*[Moderator Note:* To those visting this thread.  The OP on April 14 was Cds62.  JudyS on April 14, 2010 was the last direct response to the OP's question prior to itisme's post here on May 8,2010. In between, Josh on May 3rd created a completely separate thread that basically asked the same question presented by Cds62, therefore, the threads were merged with a new title.*] *



JudyS said:


> The 9000 point inventory is last-minute leftovers.  There are sometimes good 9000 point weeks, but there are other ways to get them, such as through RCI Last Call or RCI Extra Vacations, usually for about $400 or less.



From the previous postings here, my understanding is anything on the 9000 pts or less (45 days out) also shows up as last call vacation for RCI Weeks members. Most of them are less than $300.  9000 pts @ 0.02/pt = $180 + exchange fee of $139  works out to $319.  I don't see how the instant exchange  for 9000 pts or less 45 days out is a plus point for points membership What am I missing.

I am looking into RCI points. I am a weeks member for the past 8 years. I was on this board 8 years ago when I purchased my TS from the Developer   You guys were a great help. I was happy with the weeks system. Even though I paid developer prices for a resort in over built area (Orlando) and a pink week (week 18), I thing I  still got value out of it.  I always deposited my 2BD lock-off as 2 1BD units and exchanged them to 2 2BD units during shoulder season (June or September). So the cost of a week in a 2BD unit was around $500 (including MF, exchange fee and weeks membership).  Now that my eldest will soon be going to school, I may not be able to do two weeks in shoulder season. I can see good availability during school holidays in overbuilt areas but nothing within 8 hr driving distance from where I am. Hence, I am doing some reading to see whether it is beneficial to move to RCI points. Of course, I am not going to pay the resort a hefty conversion fee. I will buy an already converted unit from EBay and give away the current weeks unit.

Any suggestions?

Thanks


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## josh (May 12, 2010)

*H.O.A.*

Is the H.O.A. the only one that can say hey were going into points? Can we go to RCI and pay the $199 to convert into points?


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## teepeeca (May 13, 2010)

*josh*

You can't "join points" if your resort isn't invlolved.  Sorry for the "bad" news.  (Of course, "I" do NOT consider it bad news !!!!)  I'm NOT  in favor of RCI points.  Some of the "other" points systems are "GREAT", BUT, in "my" opinion---RCI doesn't qualify.

Tony


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## Ironwood (May 13, 2010)

Attended a 'points' conversion session thinly disguised as a resort update this past weekend.  Hadn't sat in on an 'update' for 3/4 years.  When is this industry going to change?  The whole process is so sleasy! Picked up by a consultant as we arrived, subjected to the usual probing process, told of a few resort upgrades then right into the points conversion pitch.  I told our 'consultant' we had legitimate time constraints of a reception to attend nearby, and reminded her twice that she should get to the offer as we had to run.  On advising her, we had to go in 2/3 minutes, she immediately summoned the closer, who not taking 30 seconds to determine where we were in the sales process, proceeded to close.  When told of the 5 figure conversion cost, as cheap for the benefit, I almost burst out laughing, but restrained myself as he was interior lineman size and we were pressed for time.  When I raised a few TUG responses relating to cost and benefit, TUG was quickly dismissed as uninformed.  While no one was rude, as I have experienced  before, the whole process remains sleasy, underhanded and not in tune with sales practices today.   However, I well see how the uninformed are readily pressured into getting out their chequebooks.  Needless to say, we didn't convert from weeks to points.  Points has it's merits, mainly flexibility, but not at even 25% of the cost proposed.
Looking back over 25 years of interval ownership, we have had some memorable trips, but I wouldn't do it again.  You can vacation just as well doing it yourself online today.


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