Vacatia ownership

[RickL]

Vacation Villages at Parkway (Celebration/Kissimee)
Ok having an issue with booking at vacation villages at parkway since Vacatia has purchased.
Other years there were always deals and availability, but this year many weeks just not available, and point deals are also almost impossible to find, compared to pre Vacatia.
As well they raised the point value for 1 bedroom to 50000 instead of 40000,
Two bedroom to the ridiculous amount of 92500,

I was told by sales staff it is because “this will be the flagship resort now”
Since they are building Ovation next door ( a Disney springs sort of place)
Reservations have become more difficult for owners now, can’t imagine when that happens in their estimated 3 years.

One thing for sure it appears they are renting out a lot of units for a few days or so for 82 bucks a night on there Vacatia site.
Because of this the typical 7 day weeks does not seem to be as available to owners. Owners are noticing and getting frankly quite upset.

Not happy with this company at this point. RCI customer service told me that they are not handing over many weeks to them for exchange, that certainly appears to be the case.
I have been pretty happy with my timeshare here until now.
Anyone else having issues with the new Owners? and or can share any insight.

Thanks in advance

 

[Mowogo]

What is occurring is that they aren't depositing extra exchange units. I still have had an easy time getting Extra Vacation weeks. And this reduced amount also means a reduced inventory for discounted rates. What you are seeing for points values are the regular rates, which previously have been discounted regularly so it seems like prices are higher while instead we are just no longer getting the discounted rates. And in truth, they are only required to deposit in RCI the units that are deposited for exchange via weeks or points. Offering extra units for exchange has been a bonus because Vacation Village did not have a good booking platform so they figured the best thing for the extra units was to put them in RCI to try and get an exchange. Vacatia has a more robust direct platform as well as building a subscription product to get people in the resorts with much less commitment.

And this being the year of transition where Vacatia has bungled so many aspects from maintenance assessments, general contact, and rental reimbursement means that the irritation is hitting all at once and compounding so we don't have confidence in them as existing owners because we are feeling the pain and they are changing things we've always known. This would definitely be a good year to attend your annual meeting, and I was actually just able to book a last call to attend the Grandview meeting next month specifically to be able to hear directly from people involved instead of spinning our wheels in angry groups because things have changed.

 

[RickL]

What is occurring is that they aren't depositing extra exchange units. I still have had an easy time getting Extra Vacation weeks. And this reduced amount also means a reduced inventory for discounted rates. What you are seeing for points values are the regular rates, which previously have been discounted regularly so it seems like prices are higher while instead we are just no longer getting the discounted rates. And in truth, they are only required to deposit in RCI the units that are deposited for exchange via weeks or points. Offering extra units for exchange has been a bonus because Vacation Village did not have a good booking platform so they figured the best thing for the extra units was to put them in RCI to try and get an exchange. Vacatia has a more robust direct platform as well as building a subscription product to get people in the resorts with much less commitment.

And this being the year of transition where Vacatia has bungled so many aspects from maintenance assessments, general contact, and rental reimbursement means that the irritation is hitting all at once and compounding so we don't have confidence in them as existing owners because we are feeling the pain and they are changing things we've always known. This would definitely be a good year to attend your annual meeting, and I was actually just able to book a last call to attend the Grandview meeting next month specifically to be able to hear directly from people involved instead of spinning our wheels in angry groups because things have changed.

Actually points have definitely increased from last year and previous years. One bedrooms were 40,000 now they are 50,000 regular points likewise partials and two bedrooms have both went up. This is at the vacation village at Parkway, discount weeks have went up from 4900 points to 7500, not that that’s a real big deal however they are not as available.
As far as the discount point weeks, they are definitely far and few between not like other years, owners were promised during sales presentations that we would get these discounted weeks. It is part of the sales pitch. Everyone I’ve spoken with was told your points will be able to last because you will get them at 4900 points and or 7500 points so if you buy now you’ll be able to vacation for long periods of time each year, that has changed. We will see what happens. But right now they have a lot of upset owners, especially when we are paying maintenance fees that are high and they are renting out the units for $82 a night all taxes included on the vacatia site, not to mention limited availability for owners… this weekend was absolutely crazy here with renters.

 

[youppi]

Actually points have definitely increased from last year and previous years. One bedrooms were 40,000 now they are 50,000 regular points likewise partials and two bedrooms have both went up. This is at the vacation village at Parkway, discount weeks have went up from 4900 points to 7500, not that that’s a real big deal however they are not as available.
As far as the discount point weeks, they are definitely far and few between not like other years, owners were promised during sales presentations that we would get these discounted weeks. It is part of the sales pitch. Everyone I’ve spoken with was told your points will be able to last because you will get them at 4900 points and or 7500 points so if you buy now you’ll be able to vacation for long periods of time each year, that has changed. We will see what happens. But right now they have a lot of upset owners, especially when we are paying maintenance fees that are high and they are renting out the units for $82 a night all taxes included on the vacatia site, not to mention limited availability for owners… this weekend was absolutely crazy here with renters.

Maybe you booked lower season in the past and now you looked at peak season week.
Peak season was always 42,500 and 50,000 respectively for partial and full kitchen 1 bdrm (42,500+50,000 = 92,500 pts for the full 2 bdrm).

Points system owners can book also from the weeks inventory and thus maybe the number of points assigned to those weeks were lower than those enrolled in the points system in the past and maybe now RCI assigned them the same value ?

You can see the table below for units enrolled in the RCI points system at https://www.rci.com/static/docs/en_US/pow/help/rci-points-grids.html
In the past, I parsed this web page and put the info in a spreadsheet and the last time I parsed it was in 2022 and all values were the same (week # and points) as per my spreadsheet.

I logged into a friend RCI account and I saw the same week available in both systems (units from the week system can be put on hold and units from the points system can't be put on hold) and they are at the same number of points but not the same fees.

 

[RickL]

Strange, I booked the same weeks every year and I have never seen them at 50,000 points for a full bedroom, typically they were 40,000 is the table that you posted from this year?

 

[youppi]

Strange, I booked the same weeks every year and I have never seen them at 50,000 points for a full bedroom, typically they were 40,000 is the table that you posted from this year?

The table is a screen shot from the web page and the web page indicates: "Information on the chart is current as of June 25, 2021. Don't forget to check the RCI Points values and ranges at the time of confirmation."
Which week did you book (https://www.rci.com/content/dam/panorama/docs/en_us/fixed-weeks/fixed-week-2025-2026.pdf) ?

Also, in the RCI calendar, Friday, Saturday and Sunday are independent. Week 1 is the first day of the year for each (2023 was a good example of this behavior: https://www.rci.com/content/dam/panorama/docs/en_us/fixed-weeks/fixed-week-2023-2024.pdf where week 1 was Friday Jan 6, Saturday Jan 7 but Sunday Jan 1st).

The calendar with II is different (both Friday, Saturday and Sunday are linked together and week 1 is related to the first Friday of the year and thus in 2023, week 1 was Friday Jan 6, Saturday Jan 7 and Sunday Jan 8).

2022 was another year where in RCI calendar Friday, Saturday and Sunday were not consecutive days (week 1 was Friday Jan 7, Saturday Jan 1 and Sunday Jan 2 https://www.rci.com/static/docs/en_US/wow/help/fixed-week-2021-2022.pdf).

So, with RCI, if you book a week at the limit of 2 seasons, depending on the year, a Friday, Saturday or Sunday checkin can be in different season for the same weekend. Example, in 2022 if you look to book the weekend starting Friday Jan 5, Saturday Jan 6 and Sunday Jan 7 then the Friday checkin was week 5 (40,000 pts) and the Saturday Jan 6 and Sunday Jan 7 were week 6 (50,000 pts).