# Raintree



## robbied111 (Dec 6, 2007)

Hey All - just trying to get Raintree clear in my head before I go crazy!!!

Anyone seen where you can buy Raintree points per say?  I was told by a self-proclaimed expert that this was possible.

Thanks


----------



## Blondie (Dec 6, 2007)

Not sure- from what I have read here you buy a unit in a season and it is worth X number of points. I have a Club Regina week which is worth points if I convert it but, I have not seen where you can just buy points. I think it is good to have an actual unit as opposed to a number of points.


----------



## robbied111 (Dec 11, 2007)

*Raintree Conversion Costs?*

What are the costs to convert a Week (eg. Whiski Jack) into the Raintree system?


Thanks Blondie...I guess the guy I spoke to was full of it!!!


----------



## PerryM (Dec 11, 2007)

*Big Foot started RainTree...*



robbied111 said:


> Hey All - just trying to get Raintree clear in my head before I go crazy!!!
> 
> Anyone seen where you can buy Raintree points per say?  I was told by a self-proclaimed expert that this was possible.
> 
> Thanks



Raintree is run by Big Foot in my opinion – I can’t really figure out where the HQ is and I believe the system was designed in a bar one night by some salesreps who were over the alcohol limit and started doodling on a paper napkin, waiting to sober up.

I just have an uneasy feeling with RainTree but I must admit this is just a gut feeling backed up with no facts.  Maybe its a great system but every time I start to investigate it I get a headache and that feeling of stepping into something squishy and that rings alarm bells.

I do know that buyer beware - where you buy your Emeralds, Diamonds, Gold and whatever makes a difference.

Sorry I can't add more.


----------



## T_R_Oglodyte (Dec 11, 2007)

With Raintree, you don't exactly buy points.  You buy a certain level of membership in the Club, such as silver, gold, platinum, emerald, ruby, etc.  Each of those levels of membership then translates into a specific number of points.  

In that sense it's possible to buy points, but you can only buy points in the specific amounts correlated with each level of membership.

****

The points, incidentally, are the same as RCI Points.  Within Raintree, internal reservations are booked in terms of RCI Points, and if you exchange through RCI you exchange using the points as RCI Points.


----------



## geoand (Dec 11, 2007)

robbied111 said:


> What are the costs to convert a Week (eg. Whiski Jack) into the Raintree system?
> 
> 
> Thanks Blondie...I guess the guy I spoke to was full of it!!!



It appears that you own at one of the RVC sites.  I have no idea what it costs now to convert to RVC at any of the sites.  I am willing to guess that the cost varies depending on where one owns.

I have been a very happy owner since 2000 or 2001.  I have traded my RVC unit within the system since joining.

I also think that RVC is a confusing organization.  For example, we are able to use RCI points to trade, however, we have to rely on RVC to tell us the value of the unit or units that we want to trade into.  We know what we own in terms of points.

Headquarters is in Mexico based on the last communication I had with them (3 weeks ago).


----------



## DonnaD (Dec 15, 2007)

*Raintree has a good flexible system if you study it.*

We have owned Raintree since 1997 when it was Club Regina.  I like the program and have studied it to use it to our best advantage. 

As explained in another post, your points are based on the level of ownership. The use of the points can be very flexible using a silver  level 27000 points in May or September and get a 1 bedroom unit. The rest of the year, that silver gets you a studio except for the holiday weeks.

A gold level 45000 points gets a 1 bedroom prime season, 2 bedroom select season (May & September) or a studio in holiday season.

One of the nice things about the points program, if you are over 55 (distinguished member) and you convert to points, it allows distinguished members to double their use and make reservations up to a year in advance. effectively, you use time from the end of your membership in 2046, pay the maintenance fee for that year also, and you can get twice the use in any year you want to double up.

Example: A sapphire (117,000 pts) can be doubled in prime season and 
you could reserve 5 weeks of a one bedroom unit. That sounds mighty good looking out at an Ohio snow storm... I don't have to pay the extra maintenance fee unles I want to take the extra time. Great for planning toward retirement when we will have more time.

Also, Raintree usually offers some extra opportunity when you pay your main.fees early. We can rent an extra week of a 1 bedroom for $479...and you are allowed 2 per membership.

We put our grown kids on as members with us so they can go without paying any guest fees. When we die they can continue the membership.

You can buy memberships on ebay, Redweek.com, or from individuals.  Look for Raintree Points of a gold or higher level. The closing costs are the expensive part if you buy a low level membership.

One of the things I learned is that if you want to upgrade, they value what was paid for the membership from the developer as the credit toward your upgrade and that price has risen over the years. /that is the catch in buying an older membership....so find out what people paid for the membership before you commit to buying it. 

If you have any questions or additional ideas, feel free to write me. I want to learn as much as I can.  

Donna D


----------



## JMAESD84 (Mar 6, 2008)

*SOLD on eBay 3/5/08*

Here is your chance to own 117,000 Annual Raintree (RCI) Points! This Raintree package consists of 117,000 Annual Points. Your Points are transferred to you as a Perpetual Membership (expires 2047) at Raintree's Club Regina Westin Puerto Vallarta, an RCI Gold Crown Resort located in Puerto Vallarta, MEXICO. This is a Sapphire Ownership which allows you to travel one week in a One Bedroom, One Bathroom unit (sleeps 4), FLOATING RED WEEKS 1-52 or you have the option of using the 117,000 at any other time and resort annually. Usage starts this year 2008.  Maintenance fees are billed every year in the amount of $1005 (taxes included). 

BID 		$8155
Closing/Xfer	$ 804
MF		$1005

Total		$9964

I had my eye on this package when I first saw it listed on eBay.  Evidently, I was not alone.   

My hopes for getting a great bargain on a Sapphire week quickly evaporated as the bid jumped to the final sale price from $3500 in the final moments of the auction.

Any comments on this resale price for owners.....shoppers?


----------



## Bill4728 (Mar 6, 2008)

TUG is looking for anyone to write a quick summary of the raintree system so we can post it here.  Something in just a little more depth than what Donna wrote in post #7 above.

Anyone??


----------



## nyparadigm (Mar 9, 2008)

JMAESD84 said:


> Here is your chance to own 117,000 Annual Raintree (RCI) Points! This Raintree package consists of 117,000 Annual Points. Your Points are transferred to you as a Perpetual Membership (expires 2047) at Raintree's Club Regina Westin Puerto Vallarta, an RCI Gold Crown Resort located in Puerto Vallarta, MEXICO. This is a Sapphire Ownership which allows you to travel one week in a One Bedroom, One Bathroom unit (sleeps 4), FLOATING RED WEEKS 1-52 or you have the option of using the 117,000 at any other time and resort annually. Usage starts this year 2008.  Maintenance fees are billed every year in the amount of $1005 (taxes included).
> 
> BID 		$8155
> Closing/Xfer	$ 804
> ...



This sold for for about what I would have expected it to go at on the acution market.  The seller also had indicated in their eBay write up that the original developer cast was $40K - this too is believable.

IMHO the winning bidder got really good value.

Chris


----------



## DonnaD (Mar 11, 2008)

*Raintree Vacation Club explained.*

I don't know exactly what else you would like to know.

Raintree Vacation Club has numerous resorts including Westin Club Regina in Cancun, Cabo, & Puerto Vallarta. Connected to the Westin Hotel, these resorts have use of all hotel facilities.

There are also boutique resorts in Acapulco, Oaxaca, Ixtapa, Zihuatanejo. These resorts are smaller and most units lack a kitchen.

There are also resorts in USA at Jackson Hole, Park city, Palm Springs, Las Vegas, Park City Utah, Birch Bay Washington. There are numerous ski resorts in Jackson Hole also associated with Raintree.

To use the resorts, we have a point system which designates how many points are needed at the different resorts for the different size units at different times of the year. The SILVER studio unit is worth 27,000 points, the GOLD 1 bedroom unit is worth 45,000 pts., PLATINUM 2 bedroom unit is worth 64,000 points, the SAPPHIRE IS WORTH 117000 POINTS.

There are higher levels of membership also which can be broken down any way the owner wants to use them to reserve days or weeks at the resorts.
With the point system, one can check-in mid week in order to get the better airfares, which is a nice feature, but I would guess that the reservation would have to be made earlier in order to find a mid-week check-in time. Most people arrive Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, thus  it would seem that the weeks might be easier to get if you arrive on one of those days.

The seasons of the year dictate whether the location is prime time or select season for a particular resort...like the ski resorts woud be prime in the winter. The beach resorts in Mx. would be prime time except for rainy season during October and May.

A use calendar is provided which shows what level of points is required for each resort, so one can look up the resort desired and determine when they can reserve according to the number of points that they own.

One time I wanted to go to Jackson Hole in the summer and found that the only unit they had available was a 3 bedroom and it would have taken all the points of my sapphire membership. That just wasn't a good use of my points for 2 people to stay in a 3 bedroom.

When you own a higher level of points than is required for a single week, the first reservation is free but each additional reservation costs $29.

Reservations can be made a year in advance if the maintenance fees are paid ahead. Frequently, an offer is made to rent additional weeks if m.fees are paid early. That is a great deal. This year it was $479 I think for a 1 bedroom week if available for the week requested. 

If buying in secondary market,  make sure that membership is listed as Raintree with an expiration of 2046 or 2047.  If it is listed as points rather than weeks, the value is higher as points have sold more recently. If you combine lower level memberships to gain the higher level, you will save on main. fees per week of use. Example, sapphire costs about $400/wk/1bdrm at current level and sapphire points gets about 2.5 weeks in a 1 bdrm.

I hope this information is helpful. Let me know what else you want to have explained.
DonnaD


----------



## geoand (Mar 19, 2008)

I would like to add to what DonnaD  posted.  Raintree also has many units in Whistler Whiskijack and some on the Kona Coast.

I think the rules of Raintree may vary based upon where one's week is based.  I know that my whiskijack unit allows me to trade within RVC using my Emerald value.  I contact RVC direct and a RVC rep handles my trade request.

If I want to trade outside of RVC, then I still use RVC reps but I have the choice of using points or weeks to make my trade.  If I use weeks, then I get a week thru RCI.  If I use points, then I have approx 144,000 RCI points to use within RCI.  I state this but have never traded outside of RVC system.


----------



## geoand (Mar 19, 2008)

Bill4728 said:


> TUG is looking for anyone to write a quick summary of the raintree system so we can post it here.  Something in just a little more depth than what Donna wrote in post #7 above.
> 
> Anyone??



Good luck on finding that someone! LOL

Our resident cave man has stated it so eloquently.  RVC is a confusing system and probably does not lent itself to a "Quick Summary."


----------



## Bill4728 (Mar 19, 2008)

Is it true, like many other system which have gone to points, that a great many of the raintree weeks are weeks only and not in RVC points.  I've heard that almost all the Whiski jack weeks were sold as fixed weeks and are not "point weeks".  If this is true, does anyone know how much it costs to get into RVC points?


----------



## CapeNordique (Mar 19, 2008)

Bill, we were told at our rvc presentation last week at Whistler, that our Emerald 144k points were "worth" $57K......


----------



## geoand (Mar 19, 2008)

Bill4728 said:


> Is it true, like many other system which have gone to points, that a great many of the raintree weeks are weeks only and not in RVC points.  I've heard that almost all the Whiski jack weeks were sold as fixed weeks and are not "point weeks".  If this is true, does anyone know how much it costs to get into RVC points?




Bill, I joined RVC before they offered the points.  I have never used them.  However, when talking to the reps and reading all of the newsletters, I have the option of using weeks or points on a yearly basis.  To make this clearer, I can use my 2009 week at Whiskijack and trade using the points value in 2009 (fee is under 75. I believe), and then trade 2010 week using weeks and amount is similar.  Of course, all of this has been untested by me.


----------



## T_R_Oglodyte (Mar 19, 2008)

Bill4728 said:


> Is it true, like many other system which have gone to points, that a great many of the raintree weeks are weeks only and not in RVC points.  I've heard that almost all the Whiski jack weeks were sold as fixed weeks and are not "point weeks".  If this is true, does anyone know how much it costs to get into RVC points?



Whiski Jack was originally sold as weeks - the prime winter and summer weeks are fixed; offseason spring and fall are floating.

When Raintree acquired Whiski Jack, Raintree began offering Raintree Vacation Club as an option.  When we did a sales presentation in 2001 they were doing both Whiski Jack and Raintree sales.  They were also offering WJ owners the option of joining Raintree.

At the old Club Regina properties they were selling Raintree memberships and offering existing CR owners the option to convert.  

At that time, Raintree was not a points program - they had the various gem levels, and the sales person said they were working on setting up a points program.

By 2003 they had decided to piggy back onto RCI Points.  When we did a presentation at that time in Cabo, they were selling both Raintree Vacation Club and Raintree Vacation Club "powered by RCI Points".  By that time we had an ordinary RVC ownership, and we had to pay more to get the "Powered by RCI Points" feature.  An ordinary RVC week traded in the weeks system through RCI, which made it an awful trader because of the way Raintree/Club Regina did bulk banking.  A Points RVC unit traded pretty well because owners got the value of their points.  Raintree Points owners were automatically enrolled in RCI Points as part of the Raintree membership.

Sometime after that, I'm not sure when, Raintree simply converted the whole system over to RCI Points, so that now everyone in Raintree is in RCI Points as well. Members who were not in the "Powered by RCI Points" were added at no cost to the members. 

At the same time, Raintree converted their reservation system over to  Points, so that now owners can book time on a nightly basis instead of needed to reserve a whole week.

****

None of these changes were ever communicated to owners; it just happened. I've only figured out what's happened by piecing information together, such as getting more information about how reservations are made, figuring out why reservation reps kept talking about my Points when I didn't think I had points, and tracking down why RCI showed two accounts registered in my name.  (Turned out I had my old weeks account and a previously unknown Points account that I could only access through Raintree).

****

Raintree is probably the most confusing mini-system out there.  It's a good system and works well when you figure it out. But its confusing, complicated, poorly documented and almost totally lacking in explanation.


----------

