WEEKS owners - FACTS/QUESTIONS - new RCI Program

[rickandcindy23]

Aloha,
I have figured out how to screen scrape data from this new system into Excel. Here's an interesting tidbit I thought I'd share.
Right now, a Shearwater with Friday check in 25-Nov-2011 is 21 points. A two bedroom Kauai Beach Villas with same check in date is 23 points.
Anyone else find that surprising?
Jack

I find it amazing. I would say RCI has more demand for the sunny side of the island. I talked to one of the board members at our CO resort who owns PAHIO Kauai Beach, and he said Princeville and Hanalei are boring, no nightlife, and it's really dark there. He didn't complain about the weather, which I thought would be his reason to never take a Shearwater.

 

[jlwquilter]

The reason to 'uncombine' is to get your £66 ($99) back from RCI! Having combined you may discover that you would have gotten the same deals in the old system with no need for combining.

Can someone please explain how RCI can possibly justify such a high figure for combining, At the end of the day it is a simple electronic process not even worth a $25 'administration' fee.

RCI charges $99 because they can. No justification needed. But here it is anyway: someone figured out that was the amount that would maximize their profits. Any less would leave money they could have gotten out of us - and charging anymore would turn off too many customers and profits would go down.

My mortgage company charges $4.95 to pay them electronically when it's cheaper for them, faster, etc. than when they have to deal with a paper check. They charge it because some will pay it as it's easier and it's a money maker for the company. But due to them charging they get a paper check from me every month _ I'll pay for the stamp instead.

 

[Mel]

The reason to 'uncombine' is to get your £66 ($99) back from RCI! Having combined you may discover that you would have gotten the same deals in the old system with no need for combining.

Can someone please explain how RCI can possibly justify such a high figure for combining, At the end of the day it is a simple electronic process not even worth a $25 'administration' fee.

Whether or not you can uncombine, I believe RCi states the fee is non-refundable. So even if you did, you wouldn't get your money back.

I could see charging $25 if the combined points were restricted to the use period of the original points, but they are not. They charge what they do because they can, and because it is an amount they believe people will be willing to pay. For a slightly higher fee you can take two expiring deposits and extend them each for 3 months, or extend one for 6 months. Already at least one TUG member has combined at least 3 deposits to extend the credits out two years.

The best strategy is obviously to combine several deposits or leftover deposit credits into a single larger credit, which could be used for multiple exchanges.

 

[Carolinian]

Some other RCI policies & practices

I wonder what this change will mean on some other RCI programs and practices.

1) color coded seasons - these should now be a do-do bird.
2) VIP program - This is for resort managers, developers, and HOA board members and allows them or the resort to get anything in the system except London, regardless of trading power, for a week of the same color season and size. This was challenged as part of the lawsuit but was not part of the ''settlement''.
3) restricting some of the better European deposits for European members only. I had heard of this a time or two, and when an RCI guide remarked about what she told me were the only weeks at a particular resort ''availible to American members'' and further questioning brought a response that there was additional inventory availible to European members, I switched my membership to Europe and immediately found a good bit more choice especially for UK, Italy, and France. They definitely did this in the old system, but the question is whether they are still doing it. Given some of their points lite numbers both places, there is an even bigger need for ringfencing some of this inventory today.
4) VEP filters. While the upward filter always made some sense, the downward one was always assinine. Hopefully these have now disappeared but some of the findings on availibility that some have posted have suggested they may still be in place.

 

[ajmace]

the fee for 'combining' weeks

Thanks for the explanations. I agree that it could be a way of extending deposits with little shelf-life left. In my case, on November 15th, by combining two 2012 weeks I was reducing the deadline from 2014 to 2012. Perhaps they should have been paying me £65 ($99) !

I did it, of course, to 'see' directly what availability would be available to me with a higher trading power. (I didn't know then that I could 'see' all RCI deposits anyway). The answer was - not a lot! I did not see any deposit that I wanted with a trading power over 30. I feel that the new point system is a little misleading if all weeks are rated from 5 to 60. This gives you the idea that there ARE weeks above 30 which might be available. From my experience this outcome seems somewhat unlikely.

What do others think?

 

[Conan]

I did it, of course, to 'see' what availability would be available to me with a higher trading power.

So long as you have any RCI Week deposited in the system, whatever its trading power, you can see the full inventory of available weeks. At the top of the screen, select "All Available RCI Vacations" before searching.

 

[ajmace]

So long as you have any RCI Week deposited in the system, whatever its trading power, you can see the full inventory of available weeks. At the top of the screen, select "All Available RCI Vacations" before searching.

Yes Conran I didn't realise that in the early hours of November 15th and , anyway, the speed of the site does not really allow you to investigate things very easily!

What do others think about my other point about there not really being many weeks available in the RCI system with TP above 30?

Which resort is MC? Are these actually weeks available or are they just values from the deposit calculator?

 

[jlwquilter]

Yes Conran I didn't realise that in the early hours of November 15th and , anyway, the speed of the site does not really allow you to investigate things very easily!

What do others think about my other point about there not really being many weeks available in the RCI system with TP above 30?

Which resort is MC? Are these actually weeks available or are they just values from the deposit calculator?

MC is Manhattan Club in New York City. A very desired place to stay if you are visiting the city apparently. I've never been but am thinking about it for next summer. The posting was of actual weeks that were available at the time of the posting. The units may have been taken by now.

Limited resorts available with a cost of more than 30 TPUs can be a result of many things. People with such valuable weeks may not be depositing them as they can rent them for much more money (always been the case and even more so over the past several years as RCI worthwhile exchanges dried up). Or these more vaulable weeks were once deposited but were taken before the conversion to this new system and new deposits haven't occurred yet. Or RCI priced the vast majority of exchanges at or under 30 TPUs so more people could reasonably get them and there simply won't be alot of exchanges priced over 30.

This last is what seems to be what RCI says re: their grids. So combining weeks to get a mega account is only worth the fee IF:
1) you want one of the few high priced weeks (if they show up for exchange at all of course) or

2) you need to combine small change to get to a workable number of TPUs or

3) you need to combine in order to "save" close to expiring weeks/TPUs or

4) you need to "activate" a very early deposit (Michael pointed out that this can be done).

Well, that's the 4 reasons I know about.

 

[bnoble]

What do others think about my other point about there not really being many weeks available in the RCI system with TP above 30?

Just looking at raw number of available units, and assuming that there wasn't a global revaluation this week, that's been the case for a while now. My highest current deposit is 31, and over the past six months or so it has consistently seen within 1% or so of the total number of units attributed to tigers.

 

[Carolinian]

It would be interesting to have a European member look at what they can see in Europe at and below a certain points lite number and compare that with a US member. In the past, RCI used to ringfence a fair number of European deposits that were not availible for exchange except to European members. I saw my own availibility go up significantly in Europe when I switched my membership from North America to Europe.

Now they seem to be saying that everyone can see everything. Given some of the values I have seen assigned in Europe and some reported in the states, if this is so, then it is going to make it easier for North Americans to trade into Europe and harder for Europeans to find exchanges in their own backyard, other than of course, Europe's own overbuilt areas like the Canary Islands. That may help drive European timesharers to other venues, whether II, DAE, UKRE, or SFX. One London resort, Sloan Gardens Club, dropped RCI and moved totally to SFX a few years ago and seems to be happy with that move. Maybe others will choose to go that route.

 

[bellesgirl]

I did it, of course, to 'see' directly what availability would be available to me with a higher trading power. (I didn't know then that I could 'see' all RCI deposits anyway). The answer was - not a lot! I did not see any deposit that I wanted with a trading power over 30. I feel that the new point system is a little misleading if all weeks are rated from 5 to 60. This gives you the idea that there ARE weeks above 30 which might be available. From my experience this outcome seems somewhat unlikely.

What do others think?

What you are seeing is the inventory that no one has requested, or at least no one with the point value needed to nab it. Anyone with an ongoing search would get the most desirable deposits, I would think. I know that is the way my best trades were acquired.

However, I do enjoy window shopping and I have gone on several exchanges that I would not normally have considered. The shopping is even more fun now, because you can find some real last minute bargains at reduced rates. I would never have considered trading my whole week for some of these options, but for a fraction of a week, I can see where RCI will move a lot of inventory and make a lot of additional revenues via extra exchange fees. As long as it works for many of us (not everyone is happy obviously) why not?

 

[dukebigtom]

Days in Advance of Deposit Start Date % Value

Can someone please explain the "Days in Advance of Deposit Start Date" chart. I think I understand, but want to be sure.

Is the chart saying that if you deposit your week < 14 days before the start of the actual week you are depositing you get %45 of the Trading Power you would have gotten if you had deposited the same week 276+ days days before the start of the actual week you are depositing? So in other words, if the week was deposited 300 days out and was worth 20, if I deposit it less than 14 days out, it would be assigned a Trading Power of 9?

Also, does the value of your deposit go down as you get closer to the end of the time you have to use your week or once assigned a Trading Power does it stay the same until used or it expires?

Thanks,

BigTom

 

[suzanne]

Maybe I missed this, but did not see it posted. Say I have 5 credits left over from an exchange and I want to use those 5 credits and another week worth say 15 credits to get another exchange that requires 20 credits to get. Do I have to pay the $99 fee to combine the 5 credits and the 15 credit week to get the 20 credits needed plus an exchange fee to get the resort?

Suzanne

 

[bellesgirl]

Maybe I missed this, but did not see it posted. Say I have 5 credits left over from an exchange and I want to use those 5 credits and another week worth say 15 credits to get another exchange that requires 20 credits to get. Do I have to pay the $99 fee to combine the 5 credits and the 15 credit week to get the 20 credits needed plus an exchange fee to get the resort?

Suzanne

Yes, that is my understanding.

 

[pbenham]

Internal Preference with new RCI system (trading back into home resort)

I was concerned that at my home resort (Smuggs) I was not able to see any weeks with trade value above that of my float weeks. Clearly this would be a major change since I have often traded back into Smuggs with lesser value (color) weeks.

I called Smuggs owner services, who in turn called their RCI contact. Here is what I was told – “One will not see any weeks of higher trade value by doing a “quick search”, but when an Ongoing Search is initiated there is functionality built into the system that does give owners some sort of priority when trading back into their home resort”.

I have not tested this yet, but am curious to see if anyone is able to verify this.

 

[Rene McDaniel]

Well that's encouraging, and I hope it's true.

I wonder if anyone knows if this is also true of mini-resort systems preferences, such as VRI resort preferences, or sister-resorts like the Pueblo Bonito Resorts, Grand Mayans, etc. who were always given a "window" where resort group owners were given a preference on deposits before they could be seen/picked up by others.

-- Rene

 

[london]

Internal Preference Home Resort

We had traded our week 44, red time, at Club Regency in Myrtle Beach, for a summer week at the same resort, as an internal exchange.

We did this 3 or 4 times, in last few years.

Now my week 44 has a value of 10, with a summer week a value of 25 to 40.

The new system is probably fairer, based on true demand for the weeks.

 

[abdibile]

I just started a trade test thread on that topic on the Sightings board.

I will repeat the test later to rule out variations in timing.

RCI US members, please post your results there.

It would also help if RCI Europe members would participate to see if VEP filter has any impact on results.

Thanks!

It would be interesting to have a European member look at what they can see in Europe at and below a certain points lite number and compare that with a US member. In the past, RCI used to ringfence a fair number of European deposits that were not availible for exchange except to European members. I saw my own availibility go up significantly in Europe when I switched my membership from North America to Europe.

Now they seem to be saying that everyone can see everything. Given some of the values I have seen assigned in Europe and some reported in the states, if this is so, then it is going to make it easier for North Americans to trade into Europe and harder for Europeans to find exchanges in their own backyard, other than of course, Europe's own overbuilt areas like the Canary Islands. That may help drive European timesharers to other venues, whether II, DAE, UKRE, or SFX. One London resort, Sloan Gardens Club, dropped RCI and moved totally to SFX a few years ago and seems to be happy with that move. Maybe others will choose to go that route.

 

[Carolinian]

You always seem to miss the fact that while an inefficiency in the market is a negative for one side, it's a positive for those on the other side of the transaction. You can choose which side of the transaction you're going to be on.

Generally, I tend to prefer accuracy over inefficiency.

 

[Carolinian]

Thanks for the trade test. If I had anything in the bank to check with I would help out, but thankfully I emptied my account before this tsunami hit. It would help if European members specified they were European members and looked for specific areas of Europe like England and Italy. While the VEP issue is interesting, the bigger interest for me is whether RCI is still ringfencing part of the European inventory and only making it availible to European members. If they are not, it is all the more reason to urge our resorts, at least those of us who own in Europe, to encourage members to deal with other exchange companies.

I just started a trade test thread on that topic on the Sightings board.

I will repeat the test later to rule out variations in timing.

RCI US members, please post your results there.

It would also help if RCI Europe members would participate to see if VEP filter has any impact on results.

Thanks!

 

[Carolinian]

Looking at the absurd grid block that lumps all OBX weeks from 11 to 21 inclusive into one points liite value, I called an aquaintance (thanks to Skype, I can call the US for less than 2 euro cents per minute) who I remembered had both a March and a May OBX week and did at least some trading with both. Actually during this period and extending to week 25, desirabliity increases incrementally week by week, rather than having magic jumps at certain cut off points.

My acquaintance, it turns out has weeks that are about at each end of this continuum, a 2BR week 12 and a 1BR week 21 at the same resort. He always trades the 12 and sometimes has used but more often trades the 21. He had not heard anything about RCI changing the game on exchanging. He told me that, of course his 21 had always outtraded his 12 for the places he like to trade to, the Caribbean and the US east of the Mississippi. He gave me some examples mostly from the Caribbean of the differences of what each week would typically see. When I told him his week 12 now had more trading power than his week 21, because it was 2BR, he was flabbergasted. He said he was going to immediately get on his computer and check out the new landscape for himself, but he did say that it looked like he would be using his week 21 every year from now on and all RCI would get would be the 12.

I also mentioned the new timetable for full value of deposits, and again he seemed stunned, immediately picking up on the implications of that for frequent flyer tickets. It turns out that between business trips and credit card spending, he always gets enough AA miles each year for at least two tickets to the Caribbean and has been regularly combining these with a timeshare exchange. Now, he is either in a position of reserving his ff tickets when he knows he can get them and keep his fingers crossed a timeshare will be availible the same week, or waiting to get the timeshare exchange and keep his fingers crossed that all the ff tickets have not been booked. It will make scheduling his Caribbean vacations a lot more of a crapshoot. What RCI has clearly done with its new timing scheme on deposits is to make timesharing a whole lot less user friendly for members.

 

[abdibile]

Ongoing searches for high points value weeks?

Did anyone understand how ongoing searches work now?

Do you search against one of your deposit and only get a match if this one deposit has enough points to get what you want when it becomes available?

Or is there a way to have an ongoing search to look for what you want and if found ask you if you are willing to spend that many points (e.g. by combining several of your weeks)?

How do you handel that?

 

[beejaybee]

Did anyone understand how ongoing searches work now?

I wish I understood as I have one in, and everytime I try to access it, I get that spinning circle over the first half of my ongoing. I have yet to see if my selected resort search is still in place.

 

[bellesgirl]

I wish I understood as I have one in, and everytime I try to access it, I get that spinning circle over the first half of my ongoing. I have yet to see if my selected resort search is still in place.

I am glad to know it is not just me getting the spinner.

I had another search that matched and I was sent a notice informing me. When I look at my account it tells me how many points (for lack of a better term) it would take to confirm the unit. As far as I can tell, you cannot search for more points than you have in the week. I think you would have to combine first if you need something stronger - but I don't know that for sure because my week had sufficient points.

One other thing - I don't know if it is just during this transition, but RCI gave me a long time to decide. I got the alert on Tuesday and they gave me until the end of business on Friday to decide.

 

[Cathyb]

How about sister resort priority?

I was concerned that at my home resort (Smuggs) I was not able to see any weeks with trade value above that of my float weeks. Clearly this would be a major change since I have often traded back into Smuggs with lesser value (color) weeks.

I called Smuggs owner services, who in turn called their RCI contact. Here is what I was told – “One will not see any weeks of higher trade value by doing a “quick search”, but when an Ongoing Search is initiated there is functionality built into the system that does give owners some sort of priority when trading back into their home resort”.

I have not tested this yet, but am curious to see if anyone is able to verify this.

Grand Pacific Resorts own 5-6 different places. I wonder if the 'internal' priority given those owners will work as it has in the past and how this new value system will work with that???