# RCI/Peak Week Trade Power



## DanM (Oct 9, 2006)

This is mostly to vent. I tried to be as clear as I could in my communications with feedback, but they seem incapable of grasping that they should have a systems expert check the integrity of the data communicated from SA into their trading formula database. At this point I am a loss to figure out how to get a better answer than that a p.r. person has been told "There is no known problem overall with the way our system is calculating Trading Power.  It is working now for South Africa weeks exactly the way it always has for other weeks in our system."
My last resort will be to point Madge to this thread and see if there is any way to get past the communications staff to someone who could actually analyze the concerns several of us have voiced before responding. The basic question is simply how weeks that are always taken in exchange and are rated peak by RCI SA for internal trading (with higher point values in their system) could be trading dogs compared to other SA weeks that are, in fact, seldom taken in exchange.

Following is the back and forth with feedback, most recent message first:

Hello,

We would appreciate it if you would refrain from using sarcastic or rhetorical language in your communications with our staff.  

There is no known problem overall with the way our system is calculating Trading Power.  It is working now for South Africa weeks exactly the way it always has for other weeks in our system.  

If another member has concerns about their own deposits and would like for us to make a special request for Inventory Management to review them, we will be glad to submit such a request at the behest of Madge.  
However, we will need to receive permission from the specific member involved.

Thank you for following up. 

Sincerely,

E-Communications
RCI - North America


------------------------
Can you read? 

-----Original Message-----
From: Feedback [mailto:feedback@rci.com] 
Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2006 1:09 PM
To: Dan Margulies
Subject: RE: TUG-Madge (KMM1426922I10L0KM)

Hello,

Thank you for your e-mail.

Please contact Mount Amanzi regarding your 2007 deposit.

Thank you for your interest in RCI.

Kind regards,

Kathy Showalter
Customer Communications Specialist
RCI North America

Original Message Follows:
------------------------
As the bbs thread I sent you indicated, the problem wasn't just with my
deposits. Several owners of peak SA weeks had the identical issue. I 
didn't
want you to check my week, per se, but rather have the programmers check
the
integrity of the resort data for SA weeks generally. Your U.S. computer
trade power analysis seems at odds with the RCI SA findings. I am 
reluctant
to deposit my week until I am assured that a systems analyst, not a
communications specialist or guide, has reviewed the general problem. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Feedback, RCI [mailto:Feedback@rci.com]
Sent: Monday, October 02, 2006 3:18 PM
To: danmarg
Subject: FW: TUG-Madge (KMM1413436I10L0KM)

 Hello, 

Thank you for your patience.  As we prepared to send your request to our
Inventory Management staff, we noticed that you currently have no 
deposited
weeks from Mr. Amanzi that are eligible for exchange.  Your
2007 week was withdrawn upon request in March 2006.  It will not be 
possible
for us to evaluate the Trading Power of your 2007 week since it is not
deposited for exchange.

Sorry for any confusion.  If you do wish to deposit a Mt. Amanzi week in
the future, please let us know.   We will be pleased to submit the
research request for you and attempt to expedite the response.  

We hope this information is helpful. 

Sincerely, 

E-Communications
RCI - North America 



-----Original Message-----
From: Feedback [mailto:feedback@rci.com]
Sent: Friday, September 29, 2006 7:12 PM
To: Dan Margulies
Subject: Re: TUG-Madge (KMM1413436I10L0KM)

Hello,

We are responding at the request of Madge.  

Please allow us a few days to check with our Inventory Management staff.
We will make every effort to address your questions; however, it is
important to note that the internal workings of our system are 
proprietary.
Detailed information will not be available for us to share with you
directly.

We value your participation in our program.

Sincerely,

E-Communications
RCI - North America


Original Message Follows:
------------------------
Several TUG members have recently had an online discussion with Madge 
over
the accuracy of the trade power formula for South African resorts,
particularly where the information provided by RCI US conflicts with the
information provided by the resorts and RCI SA. We can't help believing 
that
there are still data issues that should be checked. I've excerpted the 
bbs
thread below to explain the issue and would appreciate anything RCI's
programmer's can do to explain the anomalies. Thank you. (By the way, I 
just
did a search of online exchange availability in SA for all of 2007 and I
did
not see any of the RCI SA  "peak" weeks at issue available. I own a peak
week 1 and none of those were available for 2007 or 2008 at any SA
resort.)

Following is the bbs thread including Madge's comments:
cerralee
TUG Member

Peak Week Problems/Strange findings in self investigating Hi Madge,

I have two Mt. Amanzi peak weeks that I deposited for 2007. They have
experienced a very noticable nose dive in the trading power over my 
previous
deposits. On one of the other boards someone suggested contacting RCI 
and
seeing if they were assigned to any one yet. I contacted RCI and the rep
very kindly put me on with his supervisor who checked into the weeks and
himself noted that the power was greatly reduced from previous years. 
When
he looked at the weeks he noted that as far back as he could go the 
weeks
were never assigned out. These are peak weeks and I find it hard to 
believe
that they have never been used. I did a little investigating on my own 
and
used a week that has a check in date a little over two weeks away to 
search
for ( basically itself) at Mt. Amanzi a week this year and a week during
the
same time frame next year. According to the search there was no 
availability
for either year. Now it does seem that a peak week would have the 
trading
power to pull itself. Matter of fact there seem to be a total of only 
three
South Africa resorts that my deposits will pull at all in a random 
search
over the next year or so out. I have white weeks at another resort that 
out
pulls it by far. It so feels like there is an error somewhere in the 
system.
I plan to check with the resort in SA to see if the weeks have ever been
used and maybe it is a glitch between SA and the USA. Do you have 
anymore
suggestions or advice for me? There must be someway to verify that 
something
is amiss somewhere.

UPDATE--After posting the above and contacting Mt. Amanzi, the weeks 
have
always been assigned. Each and every year, the weeks have been assigned 
and
used. The information seems to not be filtering back to the USA data 
base.
So if the weeks appear unused in the USA database could this be the 
reason
they are assigned such a low trading value while in reality they are 
very
high in demand?

Lee

Aldo
Guest

I received exactly the same run-around from RCI with regards to my peak
Sudwala weeks.

They were given almost zero trading power, and the RCI reply was because
they had gone empty, unused, unrequested....inquiry with the resort 
proved
otherwise, (which is why they are called "peak" weeks)...I was unable to
get
any satisfaction whatsoever with RCI on this.
Aldo

DanM
TUG Member

Ditto, exactly the same, as you may remember from a previous thread.

Madge
TUG Member

cerralee,

South Africa still uses its own separate system for South Africa 
residents,
even though the weeks deposited into the RCI mainframe database are 
treated
the same way as all other deposits now. Weeks that are used in the South
Africa system can appear to Guides as if they were unassigned. It sounds
as
if this may have been behind the conflicting information you received.

Trading Power is being calculated now the same way for South Africa 
deposits
as for all others in our program. However, some fluctuations may be seen
year over year for a while as more data is accumulated. It is likely 
that
your Trading Power was somewhat artificially high in previous years.
However, if you would like for the Communications Team to review your
account, please send an e-mail to feedback@rci.com. They can check to be
sure there is nothing else happening.
__________________
DanM
TUG Member


Madge,
Are you saying that the mainframe that calculates trading power is doing
it
with a different database than the Guides see on the same mainframe?
It seems more likely that it is the same data, not transferred properly 
from
the SA system, and that is why the resorts say our peak weeks are high
demand and always taken in exchange while the trade power calculation 
comes
out nil.

I'm sure we could all write feedback again, but it might be helpful if 
you
could just point out the anomaly to some of the programmers and have 
them
run a data check with SA.

Thanks.

Nancy's Avatar
TUG Member

Madge,

I also have a peak S.A. Mt. Amanzi week that now trades the same as my 
worst
trading blue week. Although I'll buy that it may have artifically traded
higher than it should have in the past, it should at least trade better 
than
my blue week. This is not just a one person problem. There are many of 
us
with this problem.

grest
TUG Member


To further complicate things, my peak week and floating week at the same
resort trade identically (Mt. Amanzi)
Connie

Madge
TUG Member

DanM,

Some South Africa deposits can "appear to Guides" to have gone unused.
However, Trading Power for South Africa weeks is, for the first time, 
being
calculated the same way as for other weeks in our system. I will not go 
into
greater detail about the South Africa system here.

While many South Africa owners have reported negative changes, others 
have
reported that the changes have been positive for them. The weeks are 
being
treated differently now than they were in the past; however, they are 
being
treated the same way as non-South Africa weeks.
__________________
DanM
TUG Member

Thanks Madge. I know that's what the programmers think is happening. I 
just
keep trying to point out that the empirical evidence provided by our 
resorts
indicates otherwise. It would be nice if someone could explain how the 
trade
power calculation could be correct when, essentially, there is no trade
power for weeks that are always snapped up in exchange. Conversely, 
weeks
that aren't routinely taken in exchange trade as well or better than 
weeks
that are. Sorry, this does not compute.

Madge
TUG Member

DanM,

If you genuinely believe there is an error occurring with your deposited
weeks, please do send an e-mail to feedback@rci.com. We can at least 
have
someone who can actually review Trading Power take a look at it. These 
folks
have been generous in researching such requests from Tuggers; it is not
something they typically do.
__________________
~ Madge


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## Laurie (Oct 9, 2006)

Dan,

I'm thinking that your use of the term "peak" weeks, as used in SA, may not be "computing" with Madge and/or the folks answering your emails. 

Maybe you need to go into more detail about the differences between that term in SA, and in the US. Here, a peak week either means specific week intervals, or specific holidays. In SA, peak weeks aren't determined until school calendars are set. 

So your Sudwala "peak week #1" isn't necessarily week #1, which always happens to be a peak week. Rather it's the first peak week that appears in their annual calendar.

I used to own a Sudwala high week #6. Sometimes the dates of that week varied annually by more than a month. Sometimes it was the week after Easter - but not always. So not only was it not a fixed week, it also didn't flow in direct relationship with actual holidays.

You'd think RCI's programmers would have taken this into account, but perhaps they are only using similar general historic data to set trade power in SA now, in terms of dates and actual holidays, but the problem is in how the peak weeks migrate. Perhaps these school calendars aren't taken into consideration, or maybe they become available too late for them to utilize them. 

You might try emailing with RCI-SA to see if you can get more info since they would know right away what you're talking about.


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## Aldo (Oct 9, 2006)

What, you expect RCI to admit they are deliberately understating the trading power of our peak weeks in order to cover for their skimming from the pool of deposits so they have inventory for rentals?


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## DanM (Oct 9, 2006)

Re: peak weeks changing slightly with the SA school calendar, you are probably right that I shouldn't use the term. Life is probably confusing enough for RCI experts. On the other hand, I still think they have a data problem. Theoretically, we should see SA week availability online. When I've checked with my own SA week and top U.S. trader I have never seen much availability from mid-December to about the 10th of January. This is high summer in SA and always coincides with school holidays. These are "peak" weeks in the SA system and they never vary. They should have uniformly high trade value, but they don't. 

There also could be a problem with deposit patterns. I have found with my U.S. weeks that if I deposit a normally good trader just after maintenance is due and there are several other deposits of the same week in RCI's bank that my trade power is lower than usual...even though it is a high demand week and all the deposits will eventually be taken in exchange. As far as I am concerned, this is a bug in their projections software. But it could be that because several SA resorts won't let you deposit until the school calendars come out that there is a rash of deposits at that time and it hurts the trading power...even though the software ought to be sophisticated enough to know the historic demand.


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## Nancy (Oct 10, 2006)

*Thanks*

Dan,

Thanks for your work on this.  They just don't want to acknowledge that there is a problem.  I'll hold onto mine a little while longer, just because I think it will eventually get better.

Nancy


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