So-called "weeks raiding" a one way street? - see this!!

[Cayuga]

jojoless,

When we confirm Nightly Stays for Weeks members, we are actually using the Points system and using surplus nightly availability from RCI Points.

Your host resort may charge a housekeeping fee since the stay is not a traditional 7-day check-in/check-out. You would be well advised to contact the resort directly to inquire.
__________________
~ Madge

*************************************************************
I don't mean to jumpstart the debate again but I thought this comment was interesting. There are those who have painted the relationship as one way and predatory.
Madge's comment appears to contradict that notion! There seems to be some level of equity in who gets what and how! Correct me if I'm wrong or misinformed!!

 

[Carolinian]

There is a big difference in pawning off surplus inventory, as Madge states in this situation from giving rights to prime inventory that Weeks members would want for themselves, but Points members can snatch at will through the unfair generic points grids for crossover exchanges for low point levels.

If Weeks members had access to ALL Points inventory, and the crossover terms between the two systems were evenhanded, then there would be no raiding. Even with this appartently new access to some surplus Points inventory, things are a LONG way from being evenhanded between the systems.

 

[cancun dish]

so weeks members can use nightly stays? Weeks members are gettign a points benefit and you think this is bad and unfair?

 

[Carolinian]

No, I am saying that a few crumbs of what is clearly described as surplus inventory does not even come anywhere close to making up for Points members ability to take any prime Weeks inventory they want based on the fraudulent numbers of the unfair generic points grids for the one-way crossover exchanges.

What we need to do is get Points hands out of Weeks pocket entirely. Who cares about a few surplus nightly stays! Let their system sink or swim on its own without looting ours to prop it up!

 

[timeos2]

so weeks members can use nightly stays? Weeks members are gettign a points benefit and you think this is bad and unfair?

Interesting. This is a good feature, one people like and one that helps sell the idea of points. It is a real benefit to get access to it from the more rigid and inflexible weeks system. That RCI is offering it to the traditional side shows they are making efforts to do what they can to make weeks better than it is by design. And the benefit is going to timeshare owners. Whats not to like?

 

[BocaBum99]

so weeks members can use nightly stays? Weeks members are gettign a points benefit and you think this is bad and unfair?

Let me explain this paradox.

Weeks purists are against anything other than a week-for-week exchange between owners. They want a closed system so that non-owners cannot participate. They call this "exclusive" membership. They only tolerate rentals because there is nothing else to do with inventory about to expire (i.e. check in dates are near). They prefer that those rentals ONLY go to owners within the system. Renting to the general public eliminates the exclusivity of the club.

They want trading power formula to be hidden and managed by a benevolent organization who comes up with some type of "fair" trading power formula that enables exchange via something that attempts to mirror actual supply and demand of the underlying weeks within the system. That supply/demand curve is based on the supply provided by the depositers and the demand for locations to which those depositers wish to exchange. This supply and demand curve is skewed and different from the overall supply and demand for accommodations in the general rental market because timeshare developers are NOT incented to balance supply and demand of timeshare exchange. They only develop where there are ample supply of potential buyers. There is no penalty to developers who oversupply an exchange market since they get their money upfront at highly inflated prices. So, this skewing of the supply and demand curve for timeshare exchange vs. the general market for accommodations creates a huge opportunity for arbitrage..... for owners AND for renters.

It is very easy to arbitrage this type of system because the underlying supply and demand curve is not known to the new owner buying into the system. Those who study the supply and demand behavior of the system quickly learn which resorts in which locations have the highest trading power for the lowest overall price (upfront capital and MFs). Many less sophisticated owners in such a system get nothing for their deposits and many also have to settle for a trade down in value because they have not yet learned the system as well as the expert exchangers. So, at the end of the day, this battle is about who actually gets access to and can most effectively capitalize on those poor depositers who got nothing or traded down for their weeks.

In the prior paragraph, I mentioned that this situation creates a huge opportunity for arbitrage by owners and for renters. It is this "AND for renters" clause that is the central magnet for controversy for weeks purists. That is because in one fell swoop a non-owner can reach into this previously exclusive club and reap the benefits of arbitraging the system without having to own or spend years tracking exchanges on a daily basis to find where the good opportunities are. This angers weeks purists to a fervor that closely resembles fanaticism. Some label non-owners as "pillagers" and "thieves" and other negative terms. They do it in the name of purity, but in reality they are trying to prevent others from capitializing on their arbitrage opportunities. I have never understood the logic that if a non-owner acquires a week from prime week owner on the cheap that they are thieves. And yet if an owner does it, they are just smart timesharers? If one is a thief then both are thieves.

So, how does this relate to the paradox of weeks owners not jumping for joy over being afforded points benefits?

Point systems, a relatively new innovation in timesharing, represents the antithesis of what a weeks purist wants to see. It is attempting by design to eliminate as much arbitrage in the system as possible, upfront. This is a noble goal that makes it fairer for all owners. Points systems are gaining traction in the timesharing industry. The majority of new offerings are now point based as opposed to traditional weeks based exchange. Since free markets trend toward those systems that best match supply and demand, this should continue as currency based systems (i.e. point systems) of trade have proven to be far superior to barter systems (i.e. weeks systems).

Here are some of the reasons why weeks purist loathe point systems:

a) Points represents the elimination of much of the trade up opportunities once available in weeks exchange by assigning differential value for each week in the system. There are still arbitrage opportunities within point systems since no system is perfect. But, those opportunities are greatly reduced.

b) Point systems have found ways to aggregate their exchange power. This aggregation of exchange power have enabled them to negotiate very favorable deals with the weeks exchange companies to afford their members automatic access to top trading power without having to work for it. This really angers weeks purists because it neutralizes the edge they have developed over the years. Arbitrage opportunities in greater numbers are going to the point owners rather than the weeks experts.

c) Point systems have figured out how to turn timeshare accommodations into other travel products and nightly rather than weekly stays. By offering such products, it entitles the point systems to rent weeks to pay for those products. It doesn't matter if these rentals did represent a fair exchange. Weeks purists are against them because it allows many more methods for non-experts to arbitrage effectively the inherent weaknesses of the weeks exchange system.

So, at the end of the day, weeks purists see this as a battle between purity and non-purity. Purity leads to exclusive access to those arbitrage opportunities wherEas non-purity of any kind opens the door to sharing the spoils.

Therefore, weeks purists do not want points benefits because they will then have to admit that there are good aspects of point systems that aren't available in pure weeks systems. If they did that, then they would be headed down the slippery slope of allowing others to capture value from their righteous province.

 

[timeos2]

Great analysis Boca. Every aspect right on the mark. It's a brave new world.

 

[Carolinian]

The Points crowd seems to think that this is a huge bone thrown to Weeks that compensates for Points fraudulent access of Weeks prime inventory all the time through the one-way crossover grids. It isn't. It is a tiny insignificant crumb, especially when it is only excess inventory.

As far as Boca's points:

1) As to trade up opportunities, there are far more of them in Points than in Weeks, and they are frozen in place all the time, not just market situations when the stars are all in alignment like in Weeks. One of the most outrageous trade up opportunities in Points, is the ability to loot prime inventory of Weeks through the crossover grids. Points owners in the overpointed overbuilt areas also love points, because it gives them more trading power in the rigged Points system than a market-based system would ever give them. They can trade up in Points like they could never imagine in Weeks and they love it. Boca has it backwards. The trade up crowd is the Points crowd. Many of the Points crowd falsely contends that 45-day window trades are ''trades up''. This is distressed last minute inventory which for that reason legitimately has a lower exchange value.

2) The problems with publishing trading values are twofold - a) accurate market-based trading values have to adjust constantly for everchanging supply and demand factors. Publishiing numbers in a paper and ink format would not allow such adjustments. It may be that an electronic publication format could solve that problem, but RCI still relies heavily on paper and ink; and b) published numbers mean that developers will politick the exchange company for higher numbers, as clearly happens in Points, which leads to the overpointing problem. This could be solved by also publishing the formula to establish the numbers and all of the data necessary so that anyone could check that the numbers are accurate. Until that is done pubishing numbers creates a serious intergrity problem. RCI has always considered formulas and data to be proprietary information.

3) Other products don't add value to the system. They are overpriced, and lead to the explosion of rentals which undermine the ownership/exchange system. Timesharing is much better off without them.

4) As to rentals, most if not all of the comment about looting has been directed at the exchange companies looting the exchange system to put the money in their own pocket, rather that at the actual person renting. You have cleaverly tried to twist this in another direction.

5) When non-owners get equivalent of better access to timeshare inventory as owners, there will no longer be any reason to own, and timesharing will collapse. This is also true if these conditions come into play in any significant part of the timeshare year for a resort. Winter bailouts in CapeCod or hurricane season bailouts in Florida can create a chain reaction that destroys the resort as increasing m/f's for other weeks to pick up the slack drives even more bailouts. Who is going to buy the cow when RCI is providing the milk for pennies? This is one question that Boca always seems to sidestep.

So often, the loudest Points advocates own at places that are not that highly valued by a market-based system, and they love the rigged and frozen numbers at RCI Points that allow them to make trades up that a market based system would not.

Let me explain this paradox.

Weeks purists are against anything other than a week-for-week exchange between owners. They want a closed system so that non-owners cannot participate. They call this "exclusive" membership. They only tolerate rentals because there is nothing else to do with inventory about to expire (i.e. check in dates are near). They prefer that those rentals ONLY go to owners within the system. Renting to the general public eliminates the exclusivity of the club.

They want trading power formula to be hidden and managed by a benevolent organization who comes up with some type of "fair" trading power formula that enables exchange via something that attempts to mirror actual supply and demand of the underlying weeks within the system. That supply/demand curve is based on the supply provided by the depositers and the demand for locations to which those depositers wish to exchange. This supply and demand curve is skewed and different from the overall supply and demand for accommodations in the general rental market because timeshare developers are NOT incented to balance supply and demand of timeshare exchange. They only develop where there are ample supply of potential buyers. There is no penalty to developers who oversupply an exchange market since they get their money upfront at highly inflated prices. So, this skewing of the supply and demand curve for timeshare exchange vs. the general market for accommodations creates a huge opportunity for arbitrage..... for owners AND for renters.

It is very easy to arbitrage this type of system because the underlying supply and demand curve is not known to the new owner buying into the system. Those who study the supply and demand behavior of the system quickly learn which resorts in which locations have the highest trading power for the lowest overall price (upfront capital and MFs). Many less sophisticated owners in such a system get nothing for their deposits and many also have to settle for a trade down in value because they have not yet learned the system as well as the expert exchangers. So, at the end of the day, this battle is about who actually gets access to and can most effectively capitalize on those poor depositers who got nothing or traded down for their weeks.

In the prior paragraph, I mentioned that this situation creates a huge opportunity for arbitrage by owners and for renters. It is this "AND for renters" clause that is the central magnet for controversy for weeks purists. That is because in one fell swoop a non-owner can reach into this previously exclusive club and reap the benefits of arbitraging the system without having to own or spend years tracking exchanges on a daily basis to find where the good opportunities are. This angers weeks purists to a fervor that closely resembles fanaticism. Some label non-owners as "pillagers" and "thieves" and other negative terms. They do it in the name of purity, but in reality they are trying to prevent others from capitializing on their arbitrage opportunities. I have never understood the logic that if a non-owner acquires a week from prime week owner on the cheap that they are thieves. And yet if an owner does it, they are just smart timesharers? If one is a thief then both are thieves.

So, how does this relate to the paradox of weeks owners not jumping for joy over being afforded points benefits?

Point systems, a relatively new innovation in timesharing, represents the antithesis of what a weeks purist wants to see. It is attempting by design to eliminate as much arbitrage in the system as possible, upfront. This is a noble goal that makes it fairer for all owners. Points systems are gaining traction in the timesharing industry. The majority of new offerings are now point based as opposed to traditional weeks based exchange. Since free markets trend toward those systems that best match supply and demand, this should continue as currency based systems (i.e. point systems) of trade have proven to be far superior to barter systems (i.e. weeks systems).

Here are some of the reasons why weeks purist loathe point systems:

a) Points represents the elimination of much of the trade up opportunities once available in weeks exchange by assigning differential value for each week in the system. There are still arbitrage opportunities within point systems since no system is perfect. But, those opportunities are greatly reduced.

b) Point systems have found ways to aggregate their exchange power. This aggregation of exchange power have enabled them to negotiate very favorable deals with the weeks exchange companies to afford their members automatic access to top trading power without having to work for it. This really angers weeks purists because it neutralizes the edge they have developed over the years. Arbitrage opportunities in greater numbers are going to the point owners rather than the weeks experts.

c) Point systems have figured out how to turn timeshare accommodations into other travel products and nightly rather than weekly stays. By offering such products, it entitles the point systems to rent weeks to pay for those products. It doesn't matter if these rentals did represent a fair exchange. Weeks purists are against them because it allows many more methods for non-experts to arbitrage effectively the inherent weaknesses of the weeks exchange system.

So, at the end of the day, weeks purists see this as a battle between purity and non-purity. Purity leads to exclusive access to those arbitrage opportunities wherEas non-purity of any kind opens the door to sharing the spoils.

Therefore, weeks purists do not want points benefits because they will then have to admit that there are good aspects of point systems that aren't available in pure weeks systems. If they did that, then they would be headed down the slippery slope of allowing others to capture value from their righteous province.

 

[Dean]

There is a big difference in pawning off surplus inventory, as Madge states in this situation from giving rights to prime inventory that Weeks members would want for themselves, but Points members can snatch at will through the unfair generic points grids for crossover exchanges for low point levels.

If Weeks members had access to ALL Points inventory, and the crossover terms between the two systems were evenhanded, then there would be no raiding. Even with this appartently new access to some surplus Points inventory, things are a LONG way from being evenhanded between the systems.

No one has access to any given week evenly. Higher demand weeks are simply less available for a number of reasonsand for exchanges this is likely even more true. This will be doubly true for a points system since the inherent nature of points systems is that essentially all of the high demand times fill up with "owners" and those who come in later will have lower and mid seasons available. Plus, it's likely that any points given up for cash equivilents (cruises, etc), will be used to reserve higher demand weeks for rental to recoup the money paid for those cash options.

Some ways to do away with the crossover grids include a total separation (possibly with RCI totally dropping weeks) or all resorts converting to points at least on paper. As long as there are crossover grids, there will be some inequity with some weeks being higher and/or lower than your or I might think they should be. Just remember that having a full weeks points at a resort you could book day by day IS NOT the same as a weeks points you could only book for a week at a time. They may be the same number of points or not, but I'm just saying it's not the same. Even if person a is staying for a week, the fact of having the possibility of shorter or day by day stays means higher costs. I'm sure you will say those costs are already being paid by the points members when they pay maint fees and I'd agree but only partially. I also have no doubts that it's RCI's goal to change the resorts over and they will tend to give points members advantages.

 

[timeos2]

The Points crowd seems to think that this is a huge bone thrown to Weeks that compensates for Points fraudulent access of Weeks prime inventory all the time through the one-way crossover grids. It isn't. It is a tiny insignificant crumb, especially when it is only excess inventory.

As far as Boca's points:

1) As to trade up opportunities, there are far more of them in Points than in Weeks, and they are frozen in place all the time, not just market situations when the stars are all in alignment like in Weeks. One of the most outrageous trade up opportunities in Points, is the ability to loot prime inventory of Weeks through the crossover grids. Points owners in the overpointed overbuilt areas also love points, because it gives them more trading power in the rigged Points system than a market-based system would ever give them. They can trade up in Points like they could never imagine in Weeks and they love it. Boca has it backwards. The trade up crowd is the Points crowd. Many of the Points crowd falsely contends that 45-day window trades are ''trades up''. This is distressed last minute inventory which for that reason legitimately has a lower exchange value.

This argument has been repeated over and over again but doesn't hold water. The "looting" of weeks can only occur if the weeks are available in the system , the points owner wants that specific time/resort AND has the points required to claim it. To get the number of points needed they must place into the system a use period or multiple periods of equal or greater value as defined by the points system used. This is the investment they have made in timesharing just as it would be if they traded a single week for that same week they are claiming. Now people can disagree as to whether or not the assigned points value are indeed reflective of the value of the use period claimed but that works both ways. It's easy to take pot shots at the points owners for doing this as the value is an open book. In weeks the same "underpaid" argument can be made but is much harder to document as the process, and values used, are hidden. Those hidden values have long covered up the exact same type of "raiding" that is claimed for points under the guise of "trade power and VEP". No difference except one is published and is being adjusted over time to better reflect the true value of the ownerships while the other is hidden and only utilized by those willing to make a study of how to play the system to their advantage.

One side always points to an east coast area as being undervalued by points as the example of the "unfair" system. I would look to more popular areas in the south and say the weeks system obviously "overvalues" the east coast deposits in the secret system as it once allowed easy upgrades to those owners at the expense of the southern depositors. As the real market speaks - those who have control of the system in their hands not the secret value procedure - it is clear where the true values reside. It is not with the septic tank equipped motel conversion on a beach. Nice to visit in a prime summer week - not much value 9 months of each year.

2) The problems with publishing trading values are twofold - a) accurate market-based trading values have to adjust constantly for everchanging supply and demand factors. Publishiing numbers in a paper and ink format would not allow such adjustments. It may be that an electronic publication format could solve that problem, but RCI still relies heavily on paper and ink; and b) published numbers mean that developers will politick the exchange company for higher numbers, as clearly happens in Points, which leads to the overpointing problem. This could be solved by also publishing the formula to establish the numbers and all of the data necessary so that anyone could check that the numbers are accurate. Until that is done pubishing numbers creates a serious intergrity problem. RCI has always considered formulas and data to be proprietary information.

We are arguing only over timeframes. The published values are being reviewed year round and adjusted when needed annually (in the RCI system). That gives a nice, long term view that should better reflect true value over the long haul not the alledged "minute by minute" adjustments claimed for the older system. That simply isn't happening in weeks based trades. It is the informed trader that is grabbing the good stuff and leaving the dregs for the average user. The "balance" of that system is a pipe dream and heavily tilted toward making the developers look good then leaving the uninformed buyers to twist in the wind. If the balance factors claimed was being applied to weeks trades it still doesn't make it better than a less frequent adjustment applied under the open published points system. Hidden is bad no matter how often it may be adjusted as the user has no knowledge of what is going on or how to maximize their value in that system.

As for formulas to assign those values neither side is disclosed so do each user has to ask am I better with a secret value being applied once or twice? One is secret and then you decide of the values are fair and how to use them. The other is secret and then has additional hidden factors applied in a "trust us" barter you cannot see or influence.

3) Other products don't add value to the system. They are overpriced, and lead to the explosion of rentals which undermine the ownership/exchange system. Timesharing is much better off without them.

They don't add value IMO. But some think they do and why should us non-believers tell them what they can and cannot do with their ownership? The weeks believers want to sound like the champions of free enterprise but they are really for secret values and total control of ownership rights. No points, no outside user, no outside products - you take the trade we give you and you will like it! What could be more closed and dicatorial than that?

4) As to rentals, most if not all of the comment about looting has been directed at the exchange companies looting the exchange system to put the money in their own pocket, rather that at the actual person renting. You have cleaverly tried to twist this in another direction.

Until the flow of poor value weeks that make up the vast majority of deposits are stopped there will always be an abundence of rentals needed to clear out inventory. Once the system goes to a majority of points based weeks those will only get the real, lower value they are worth and the system will self balance. If you only have a limited amount of points you will do what you can to make them useful. Unlike the sulking weeks owners who bemoan the lack of a great trade up and simply let the time go unused, points owners have options to take low value time or options for non-timeshare related goods and services to get value out. Rentals pay for those options. I don't deny there is a stiff overhead cost involved as basically the exchange system is doing the work for the owners. You do pay for that service.

5) When non-owners get equivalent of better access to timeshare inventory as owners, there will no longer be any reason to own, and timesharing will collapse. This is also true if these conditions come into play in any significant part of the timeshare year for a resort. Winter bailouts in CapeCod or hurricane season bailouts in Florida can create a chain reaction that destroys the resort as increasing m/f's for other weeks to pick up the slack drives even more bailouts. Who is going to buy the cow when RCI is providing the milk for pennies? This is one question that Boca always seems to sidestep.

So often, the loudest Points advocates own at places that are not that highly valued by a market-based system, and they love the rigged and frozen numbers at RCI Points that allow them to make trades up that a market based system would not.

With points and the averaging of values those systems bring to the table the ownership of a hurricane or winter time becomes irrelevent. It is a key to the points systems that a prime fixed week owner might see as a negative (although they shouldn't as they get the top value out of a points system - just not quite as high as it would be if it was a fixed, July 4 week vs an averaged, mid-June to late August period). By using those averaged values it makes the whole year a viable and cost effective way to own. Rather than concentrate the value into a select group of 8-10 weeks per year and let the rest hope for free upgrades via trade everyone gets the blended value and thus a good return for their investment. It is a reason to continue to own even poor value time and pay those annual fees.

Weeks owners want to maintain the super advantage of a few weeks of the year that they pay subsidized rates for. Points owners would rather see a healthy resort with happy owners all benefitting from the location and features of their ownership. Points accomplish that in a way weeks never could. Having value in every ownership is why owners prefer points over weeks and why developers have moved to a points based model that makes it easier to clearly identify that value. While it may threaten the false "you can trade anywhere" model many older, more seasonal areas were sold with in the long run a good points based system is more viable as every owner can clearly identify what they own and what it can get.

 

[Carolinian]

Looting of weeks that are there is what matters, and if Points owners take them for the rip-off generic crossover grid values out of the Weeks system, they certainly won't be there for Weeks members.

The crossover grids use a systematic methodology of overaveraging to undervalue the prime Weeks inventory so it can be looted by Points members. Carriage Manor at Lake Royale, a dumpy resort on a small manmade lake in the boondocks of red clay Franklin County in central North Carolina is given the same value as an oceanfront NC resort. A pink week 15 or 41 on the beach is given the same value as a prime red week 27. By averaging all of this together, the Points members are given a bargain basement price on prime weeks at the best resorts. Also, since nothing is taken into account for location, which is the main driver of demand, location resorts are also systematically undervalued. The whole crossover grid system is a massive fraud being perpetrated by RCI on its Weeks members.

Even within Points, overaveraging is still a problem, although not nearly as bad as with the crossover grids. On the OBX, they give the same value within Points to a mid August week 33 as a late October week 43. That is just plain nuts.

Yes, I do use the OBX often for examples, as I am most familiar with this area, but it is hardly the only area getting hosed by the crossover grids. Anyother Tugger who is familiar with southern California has said that area is systematically cheated. I have posted quite a few examples from other areas including Europe and the Caribbean. These problems exist all over the landscape with RCI, not just the OBX.

As to a partly open and partly closed system being better than a totally closed system, you are simply wrong. It encourages developer politicking of the exchange company for higher numbers.

A system where the resulting number is published but not the methodology gives both the incentive (published number) and oportunity (closed methodology) to cheat. It is the worst of all worlds. A totally open system lacks the opportunity to cheat since the whole process is out in the open, while a totally closed system lacks the incentive, since there is no benefit to rigging a number that will not be known and thus not be usable as a sales incentive by developers.

This argument has been repeated over and over again but doesn't hold water. The "looting" of weeks can only occur if the weeks are available in the system , the points owner wants that specific time/resort AND has the points required to claim it. To get the number of points needed they must place into the system a use period or multiple periods of equal or greater value as defined by the points system used. This is the investment they have made in timesharing just as it would be if they traded a single week for that same week they are claiming. Now people can disagree as to whether or not the assigned points value are indeed reflective of the value of the use period claimed but that works both ways. It's easy to take pot shots at the points owners for doing this as the value is an open book. In weeks the same "underpaid" argument can be made but is much harder to document as the process, and values used, are hidden. Those hidden values have long covered up the exact same type of "raiding" that is claimed for points under the guise of "trade power and VEP". No difference except one is published and is being adjusted over time to better reflect the true value of the ownerships while the other is hidden and only utilized by those willing to make a study of how to play the system to their advantage.

One side always points to an east coast area as being undervalued by points as the example of the "unfair" system. I would look to more popular areas in the south and say the weeks system obviously "overvalues" the east coast deposits in the secret system as it once allowed easy upgrades to those owners at the expense of the southern depositors. As the real market speaks - those who have control of the system in their hands not the secret value procedure - it is clear where the true values reside. It is not with the septic tank equipped motel conversion on a beach. Nice to visit in a prime summer week - not much value 9 months of each year.



We are arguing only over timeframes. The published values are being reviewed year round and adjusted when needed annually (in the RCI system). That gives a nice, long term view that should better reflect true value over the long haul not the alledged "minute by minute" adjustments claimed for the older system. That simply isn't happening in weeks based trades. It is the informed trader that is grabbing the good stuff and leaving the dregs for the average user. The "balance" of that system is a pipe dream and heavily tilted toward making the developers look good then leaving the uninformed buyers to twist in the wind. If the balance factors claimed was being applied to weeks trades it still doesn't make it better than a less frequent adjustment applied under the open published points system. Hidden is bad no matter how often it may be adjusted as the user has no knowledge of what is going on or how to maximize their value in that system.

As for formulas to assign those values neither side is disclosed so do each user has to ask am I better with a secret value being applied once or twice? One is secret and then you decide of the values are fair and how to use them. The other is secret and then has additional hidden factors applied in a "trust us" barter you cannot see or influence.



They don't add value IMO. But some think they do and why should us non-believers tell them what they can and cannot do with their ownership? The weeks believers want to sound like the champions of free enterprise but they are really for secret values and total control of ownership rights. No points, no outside user, no outside products - you take the trade we give you and you will like it! What could be more closed and dicatorial than that?



Until the flow of poor value weeks that make up the vast majority of deposits are stopped there will always be an abundence of rentals needed to clear out inventory. Once the system goes to a majority of points based weeks those will only get the real, lower value they are worth and the system will self balance. If you only have a limited amount of points you will do what you can to make them useful. Unlike the sulking weeks owners who bemoan the lack of a great trade up and simply let the time go unused, points owners have options to take low value time or options for non-timeshare related goods and services to get value out. Rentals pay for those options. I don't deny there is a stiff overhead cost involved as basically the exchange system is doing the work for the owners. You do pay for that service.



With points and the averaging of values those systems bring to the table the ownership of a hurricane or winter time becomes irrelevent. It is a key to the points systems that a prime fixed week owner might see as a negative (although they shouldn't as they get the top value out of a points system - just not quite as high as it would be if it was a fixed, July 4 week vs an averaged, mid-June to late August period). By using those averaged values it makes the whole year a viable and cost effective way to own. Rather than concentrate the value into a select group of 8-10 weeks per year and let the rest hope for free upgrades via trade everyone gets the blended value and thus a good return for their investment. It is a reason to continue to own even poor value time and pay those annual fees.

Weeks owners want to maintain the super advantage of a few weeks of the year that they pay subsidized rates for. Points owners would rather see a healthy resort with happy owners all benefitting from the location and features of their ownership. Points accomplish that in a way weeks never could. Having value in every ownership is why owners prefer points over weeks and why developers have moved to a points based model that makes it easier to clearly identify that value. While it may threaten the false "you can trade anywhere" model many older, more seasonal areas were sold with in the long run a good points based system is more viable as every owner can clearly identify what they own and what it can get.

 

[boyblue]

I'll say it again. The guys that came up with the points grid are the same guys that came up with the hidden weeks formula.

Who's to say that it's not the same tool used for weeks trades?

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

...

A system where the resulting number is published but not the methodology gives both the incentive (published number) and oportunity (closed methodology) to cheat. It is the worst of all worlds. A totally open system lacks the opportunity to cheat since the whole process is out in the open, while a totally closed system lacks the incentive, since there is no benefit to rigging a number that will not be known and thus not be usable as a sales incentive by developers.

I agree totally. It's really aggravating to go to the grocery store, and see the prices posted for everything but not have any idea how the store came up with those prices.

Grocery stores should just remove all of the prices from the items and the shelves and have us bring our loaded carts to the cash register. We would then open our wallet and put all our cash on the counter (no credit cards). The store will take all of our money, put it in the cash register, and then tell us whether there was enough money for everything in our carts. If we don't have enought money to satisfy them, they take our cart from us and return everything to the shelf. Then they give us a magnetic card in exchange for our cash. The value of our cash, of course, is encrypted in the receipt and can only be read in registers at their checkout counters. And the only way we can use the receipt is to bring a cart full of goods to the counter again, give them our card, and see if they will take back their card in exchange for our cart full of goodies.

Now that's a system that can rrespond instantly to changes in supply and demand. With the old pricing system, you have to send employees out into the aisles to manually change the price on the shelf or on the items. With a "no disclosed price" system, the store can sense instantly if five people have hit the checkout stand with similar items in the last ten or fiftenn minutes. Then the price for that item can be instantly adjusted for the sixth and succeededng customers until demand slacks. It's beautiful, because the customers won't even know that the store just jacked up the price.

Makes sense to me.

 

[BocaBum99]

I agree totally. It's really aggravating to go to the grocery store, and see the prices posted for everything but not have any idea how the store came up with those prices.

Grocery stores should just remove all of the prices from the items and the shelves and have us bring our loaded carts to the cash register. We would then open our wallet and put all our cash on the counter (no credit cards). The store will take all of our money, put it in the cash register, and then tell us whether there was enough money for everything in our carts. If we don't have enought money to satisfy them, they take our cart from us and return everything to the shelf. Then they give us a magnetic card in exchange for our cash. The value of our cash, of course, is encrypted in the receipt and can only be read in registers at their checkout counters. And the only way we can use the receipt is to bring a cart full of goods to the counter again, give them our card, and see if they will take back their card in exchange for our cart full of goodies.

Now that's a system that can rrespond instantly to changes in supply and demand. With the old pricing system, you have to send employees out into the aisles to manually change the price on the shelf or on the items. With a "no disclosed price" system, the store can sense instantly if five people have hit the checkout stand with similar items in the last ten or fiftenn minutes. Then the price for that item can be instantly adjusted for the sixth and succeededng customers until demand slacks. It's beautiful, because the customers won't even know that the store just jacked up the price.

Makes sense to me.

ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :whoopie: :whoopie:

 

[G. B. Wayne]

We have all traded up on occasion and sometimes we have been forced to trade down. It happens with points as well. I used a 154,000 FF point deposit (2-BD, red week) to search for a 1-BD Manhattan Club in the spring with a 9 week window and started the search about 10-12 months in advance. In spite of seeing TUG members that got bulk banked Manhattan Club weeks, I was never offered the MC. I ended up settling for a one bedroom unit in Lake Tahoe that I could have gotten with a very modest week trader. This isn't the first time my "points" failed to get the desired resort. I didn't get any points refunded for taking a smaller unit, so perhaps the weeks system
benefitted. As a result, I don't believe "weeks raiding" is a one-way street.

Mrs. Gypsy B. Wayne
Tug Member

 

[Carolinian]

That is real simple to answer.

Anyone who has used the Weeks system knows that all Red weeks do NOT trade the same for a given resort (nor all blue weeks, either, for that matter). In Points all red weeks of a given resorts of the same size are given the same point value, an overaveraging that certainly does not exist with Weeks. Within Weeks, a 2BR red week 27 on the beach is always going to be MUCH more valuable than a ''red'' week 15 on the beach, 2BR at the same resort. In the Points crossover grid, they are given exactly the same value, significantly undervaluing the week 27 while over valuing the week 15. A Points member would have to be nuts to do a crossover trade for a pink week, but makes out like a bandit for the undervalued prime weeks.
]

I'll say it again. The guys that came up with the points grid are the same guys that came up with the hidden weeks formula.

Who's to say that it's not the same tool used for weeks trades?

 

[Carolinian]

Ah, comrade, welcome to the Peoples Points Cooperative. Capitalist notions like the market are abolished. Who cares about supply and demand as long as the points politburo is there to protect the proletariat consumers. We will decide what everything is worth so those nasty capitalists won't oppress you with their market nonsense like supply and demand. So what if we siphon off the best items for a special store only the politburo can use for ourselves? Didn't you see that even in that capitalist movie you are supposed to ignore the man behind the curtain? Yes, we will tell you how many roubles you are supposed to pay for everything, and if arbitrary prices often means that no items of certain types are availible, that is just one of the joys of living in the proletarian points utopia. Oh, we still do let those revisionists who still want to do things on their own have their little market, but if a good member of the proletarian points cooperative goes to their market, he gets a special price that the politburo sets where the market based revisionists have to hand over their best goods for a lot less than they are really worth to the good proletarians. Yes, we say we give them something back, but hey, where do you think we dump the shoddiest goods from our collective farms and factories. Let those market-based capitalist pigs have our rotten tomatoes while our proletarians take their best goods (that is, except for the very best which we keep for out special store for the politburo). And a good proletarian member of the Peoples Points Cooperative should not complain when the Politiburo decrees that his August beach week is worth the same as another proletarians late October week. Remember, the politburo makes the rules for the greater good of the collective, and our hero Karl did give us that glorious slogan ''from those according to their ability, to those according to their need''.

And, and please do report any counter-revolutionary Weeks revisionists to the KGB!

I agree totally. It's really aggravating to go to the grocery store, and see the prices posted for everything but not have any idea how the store came up with those prices.

Grocery stores should just remove all of the prices from the items and the shelves and have us bring our loaded carts to the cash register. We would then open our wallet and put all our cash on the counter (no credit cards). The store will take all of our money, put it in the cash register, and then tell us whether there was enough money for everything in our carts. If we don't have enought money to satisfy them, they take our cart from us and return everything to the shelf. Then they give us a magnetic card in exchange for our cash. The value of our cash, of course, is encrypted in the receipt and can only be read in registers at their checkout counters. And the only way we can use the receipt is to bring a cart full of goods to the counter again, give them our card, and see if they will take back their card in exchange for our cart full of goodies.

Now that's a system that can rrespond instantly to changes in supply and demand. With the old pricing system, you have to send employees out into the aisles to manually change the price on the shelf or on the items. With a "no disclosed price" system, the store can sense instantly if five people have hit the checkout stand with similar items in the last ten or fiftenn minutes. Then the price for that item can be instantly adjusted for the sixth and succeededng customers until demand slacks. It's beautiful, because the customers won't even know that the store just jacked up the price.

Makes sense to me.

 

[e.bram]

Why points exist

The reason for points(and it's close cousin floating weeks) existance is to allow developer to sell 10 prime(bright red) weeks to 30 buyers, letting all 30 believe that they have prime weeks. End of story!

 

["Roger"]

Re: Why points exist

The reason for points(and it's close cousin floating weeks) existance is to allow developer to sell 10 prime(bright red) weeks to 30 buyers, letting all 30 believe that they have prime weeks. End of story!

That doesn't make any sense (at least to me).

30 weeks are declared red (in the Weeks system) and the developer sells them ALL to people who think that they have bought a prime (bright red) week. Points comes into existence and the "fixed point charts" only have ten listed as having the highest point values. (You can quibble about this week or that, but in the end, the range of highest value weeks within the Points system are narrower than the "red" week classifications.)

By going to Points, the developer is less able to pull off the deception that you refer to that what he could do within Weeks.

 

[Carolinian]

Re: Why points exist

The reason for points(and it's close cousin floating weeks) existance is to allow developer to sell 10 prime(bright red) weeks to 30 buyers, letting all 30 believe that they have prime weeks. End of story!

You can expand that even further if you go to overbuilt Orlando and declare all 52 weeks red! And then set point values that are completely unrelated to supply and demand, including in some of the resorts with the biggest oversupply problem in the entire RCI system (as Bootleg told us, and he is in a position to know).

 

[JEFF H]

Nightly Stays is just another RCI rental option benefit available to all RCI members where RCI happens to use excess Points system deposits.
I don't see much difference from the EXTRA Vacation program where they Use weeks inventory.

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

Re: Why points exist

The reason for points(and it's close cousin floating weeks) existance is to allow developer to sell 10 prime(bright red) weeks to 30 buyers, letting all 30 believe that they have prime weeks. End of story!

I don't know about that.

Let's say a person is sitting in a sales presentation and is shown a resort calendar has 30 weeks identified as red weeks over which the ownership floats. I don't think it takes a lot of intelligence for our buyer to figuure out that he will be competing with owners of 30 weeks for the most desired weeks in that pool.

If our buyer can't figure that out, he won't be able to figure out similar problems when buying cars, making travel arrangements, selecting shoes, or making personal investment decisions.

 

[BocaBum99]

Re: Why points exist

The reason for points(and it's close cousin floating weeks) existance is to allow developer to sell 10 prime(bright red) weeks to 30 buyers, letting all 30 believe that they have prime weeks. End of story!

Two word response: Maui Marriott.

 

[BocaBum99]

Ah, comrade, welcome to the Peoples Points Cooperative. Capitalist notions like the market are abolished. Who cares about supply and demand as long as the points politburo is there to protect the proletariat consumers. We will decide what everything is worth so those nasty capitalists won't oppress you with their market nonsense like supply and demand. So what if we siphon off the best items for a special store only the politburo can use for ourselves? Didn't you see that even in that capitalist movie you are supposed to ignore the man behind the curtain? Yes, we will tell you how many roubles you are supposed to pay for everything, and if arbitrary prices often means that no items of certain types are availible, that is just one of the joys of living in the proletarian points utopia. Oh, we still do let those revisionists who still want to do things on their own have their little market, but if a good member of the proletarian points cooperative goes to their market, he gets a special price that the politburo sets where the market based revisionists have to hand over their best goods for a lot less than they are really worth to the good proletarians. Yes, we say we give them something back, but hey, where do you think we dump the shoddiest goods from our collective farms and factories. Let those market-based capitalist pigs have our rotten tomatoes while our proletarians take their best goods (that is, except for the very best which we keep for out special store for the politburo). And a good proletarian member of the Peoples Points Cooperative should not complain when the Politiburo decrees that his August beach week is worth the same as another proletarians late October week. Remember, the politburo makes the rules for the greater good of the collective, and our hero Karl did give us that glorious slogan ''from those according to their ability, to those according to their need''.

And, and please do report any counter-revolutionary Weeks revisionists to the KGB!

Very Good. That's pretty funny. Too bad the analogy is a fairy tale.

I'll bet your next argument will have Enron or new Coke in it.

 

[JeffV]

Don't dignifiy those rantings as arguments. :ignore:

I'll bet your next argument will have Enron or new Coke in it.