Are there different pools of units for 3rd party sites (like expedia)?

[Fatbaby52]

I understand that owners of a specific week have the first option to book that particular room/week. Then at 11 months, anyone else with points can book. Then at 48 days, bonus time reservations become available to charter members and resale owners with deeds at that resort. However, it looks like rooms also become available on 3rd party sites, like Expedia, at some point.

Is anyone here familiar with how the inventory on the 3rd party sites interacts with the inventory that's available to book with points and/or bonus time?

The reason I ask is, I like to sometimes put on my "evil" hat and imagine what I would do if I were the developer/bank/etc. and were prioritizing short term profit maximization over everything else.*

If I were BlueGreen and being especially greasy, I think that I'd prioritize the more profitable options first while trying to at least maintain some sort of plausible deniability. Since Expedia is charging $250 for a room that would be a $79 Bonus Time reservation, obviously I'd try to preserve inventory for Expedia.

One way to do that would be to have two pools of rooms- one for Expedia and one for Bonus Time. I'd say that I'm doing this to protect owners from overselling their bonus time rooms. However, I'd set it up so that every non-Expedia booking (points, RCI, etc.) came out of the "Bonus Time" eligible pool



*I started doing this 20 years ago. I was young and always hovering between $12 and $300 in the bank. For my fiance's birthday one year, I decided to get her the "Sex and the City" DVDs at Costco. There was a Costco coupon, but for some reason it would only work on one season per transaction. I checked my balance in the morning, I had $450 or so. I left the condo, put gas in the car (1st transaction, ~$50), went inside to get a drink (2nd transaction, ~$3). Then I went to Costco, and realized that I had to check out about 10 times (3rd-12th transactions, ~$20 each). At noon, I checked my balance, and I had about $200 left in my account.

However, at some point overnight, I had an autopay for my car or mortgage or something big. Bank of America rearranged the transactions, so the big one came out first, taking me into overdraft territory. Then, each of my other 12 transactions that day were overdrafts, so I had 12 separate $39 fees.

When I called Bank of America, they told me that they prioritize the bigger transactions, because that ensures that the important things (like mortgages) get paid. That's obviously bull, because Costco and 7/11 both got paid that day as well. They put the big ones first because it maximizes the number of overdrafts. It really pissed me off, but part of me respected their game.

Since then, I try to put on my "evil" hat when I'm dealing with a company that I don't totally trust, and guard against the worst I could do in their shoes.

 

[rickandcindy23]

I am not following your post at all. Maybe someone else understands, but I do not.

 

[tschwa2]

Unsold developer inventory, whenever someone lots forthe choice hotel reward points conversion, developer owner inventory, defaulted units (owner failed to pay my this year); all make up inventory that can be removed from member inventory and rented or used for promotional stays. The defaulted units and the unsold inventory if rented goes back to the hoa's minus a comission. The other types the rental profit stays with the developer.

 

[Fatbaby52]

I am not following your post at all. Maybe someone else understands, but I do not.

I don't think I was very clear, sorry about that. I've been looking at timeshares off and on for a decade and I still don't understand how everything works.

I guess what I'm asking is, say a resort has 100 rooms, and we focus on Week X:

• Theoretically, the 100 people who have deeds to Week X get the first crack at these in their priority time. Let's say 95 units make it through that window.
• At 11 months, anyone with points can book from those 95 rooms. Let's say that 50 units make it through this window.
• At 48 days, some of these will go to "Bonus Time", some will be available through Expedia and other travel sites, some might appear on RCI or similar, some will be allocated to marketing weekends, and some will still be available to book directly.

So, assuming we're now 47 days out, and there are 50 total vacancies for Week X (let's say that BG doesn't pull any for marketing)...

Are all 50 rooms now simultaneously available through all channels? Like will BG points bookings show 50 available, BG Bonus Time show 50, Expedia show 50, RCI show 50? So if someone books through Expedia, everything else shows 49?

Or will there be different pools. So like maybe 35 of the units are still only available to be booked with points, 5 units in RCI, 5 units to Expedia, and 5 units eligible for bonus time?

 

[tschwa2]

Most sales venues won't tell you how many are available. Some will tell you if there are less then 6 or 9 but none will ever tell you there are 35 available.
Any pool that BG controls that I listed above they can pull completely out of membership availability both points and bonus time. If it doesn't rent they can last minute if they choose dump it back into bluegreen and take another week within 60 days of check in as compensation.

 

[Fatbaby52]

Most sales venues won't tell you how many are available. Some will tell you if there are less then 6 or 9 but none will ever tell you there are 35 available.
Any pool that BG controls that I listed above they can pull completely out of membership availability both points and bonus time. If it doesn't rent they can last minute if they choose dump it back into bluegreen and take another week within 60 days of check in as compensation.

Thank you for the reply.

So the pool that BG controls consists of:

• Unsold or Developer Owned Inventory
• Owner Units Converted to Points
• Defaulted Units

I assume the owner controlled pool consists of whatever doesn't fall into that bucket? So if I own week 20 and choose not to use my priority privilege to book it, is that in the Owner-owned pool or BG owned pool?

Sorry for the series of dumb questions, but in practice, it looks like at least some of the Big Bear inventory is a Tuesday here and a Friday there. So if for unit 101, week 35, owners own M/W/Sat and BG owns T/Th/F/Sun, and no one chose to use points to book until the 48 day window shows up, do you know where that week would land?

Would the days be sprinkled into the different pools?

 

[tschwa2]

My understanding is if you choose not to book your week 20 and it is worth 12,000 points it would go into the the general pool. Say BG has 500,000 points worth in their wallet they can pull it out or whatever they want and if they pull it out and then don't rent it they can give it back to the members and then pull out another week using the same points. Defaulted units may have to be at the same resort as the default. The owner covert to reward points and developer owned inventory they can probably pull out whatever they want at the 11 months mark or any other time later. I think the unsold inventory is pulled out less than 60 days prior.

They started making the contracts random days to make it impossible or at least difficult for the member to use their priority time. If you don't book your contracted days or week prior to open availability, it dumps into general inventory becomes available for everyone to book. Members with higher status can waitlist. General owners can not. When the 48 day window opens for bonus week nothing is different other than if you want to you can book with cash. Points members can still book with points if they want to. If bluegreen wants to pull it out using their points allotment they can. The pool for bluegreen isn't any different until the pull something out. Once they pull something out until they cancel it is no different than any BG member reserving something. There is another pool. Members can deposit into RCI and depending on the deed some can deposit into Interval. Members generally book with points so then BG decides what to pull out of the general pool and give to the exchange company. Once that is deposited into the exchange company it isn't coming back to BG. Generally BG chooses less popular weeks to deposit. They may have some kind of agreement that they have to deposit so many "red" weeks but they can pick the less prime. For example at Big Cedar Wilderness club the deposits are studios and a few one bedrooms October through Early april but not holiday weeks.

Some of the resorts still have deeded non points owners (some resorts everyone is in points) and the non points owners actually deposit a specific week with the exchange companies.

 

[MrockStar]

We sometimes see this happen at the smaller resorts and as tschwa2 so excellently explained we assumed as he stated that is a developer owned or default unit that we as points owners don't have access to anyway.