Have you run into this?

[GrayFal Silver Contributor and supermoderator Find all posts View Profile Close GrayFal]

I think someone listed in a earlier post that that particular week for a one bedroom is 12,000 points so if I could purchase 14k points like you did I should be good to go. Were the maintenance fees you quoted me on your purchase every year or for a 3 year period since you only get 1 week every 3 years.

Rob - I posted the unit earlier using my Bluegreen points which is not the same as RCI points - the unit you wanted IS in the points side of RCI, it would cost me (a Bluegreen owner) 12K Bluegreen points to get it - but is actually the number of RCI Points that chriskre posted earlier.

People who own with Bluegreen, Wyndham, Hilton and some other vacation club ownerships access RCI thrua portal and our exchanges show up as ow many points in OUR system it costs to get the unit.

Sorry to confuse you.

[robk Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close robk]

Wait until you get to the point where one of them says, "We have a legal department for people like you," after I was somewhat miffed when they canceled an exchange after saying if they confirmed it, it would be OK.

That was 13 years ago.

The timeshare equivalent of a waiter spitting on your food order.

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

The timeshare equivalent of a waiter spitting on your food order.

In timesharing, they spit early and they spit often.

[SallyHoover Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close SallyHoover]

I could be wrong but I think the problem is you are trying to use a bonus week for a holiday. Christmas may not be as popular as New Years but it is more popular than the 1st three weeks in December. When I just checked Vegas in weeks the only thing available the week you were looking for was a studio at Tahiti. Inventory is still popping in and out though. If you use the tpu's from your regular deposit you should get the discounted exchange fee of $139 for the week as a Vacation Village internal exchange. You may need to save the bonus week for another time.

[robk Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close robk]

I could be wrong but I think the problem is you are trying to use a bonus week for a holiday. Christmas may not be as popular as New Years but it is more popular than the 1st three weeks in December. When I just checked Vegas in weeks the only thing available the week you were looking for was a studio at Tahiti. Inventory is still popping in and out though. If you use the tpu's from your regular deposit you should get the discounted exchange fee of $139 for the week as a Vacation Village internal exchange. You may need to save the bonus week for another time.

I have tried to book with my regular week. I just had wanted to use the bonus week since it expires in December. I would use my regular week if it would help. I wouldn't cry over losing the bonus week.
I just booked at the Gold Coast for $261 taxes in for the week plus the $3 day resort fee so 261+21=$282. Not bad for a week.

[chriskre Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close chriskre]

Rob, trying to book a holiday week a month in advance usually is very difficult in the timeshare world.
These types of holiday vacations require either good luck when someone cancels and you pick it up, or months,
sometimes years of planning in advance.

I have a week booked for New York City for New Years eve that I booked a year in advance.
I doubt I would have been able to get it last minute unless someone gets sick and cancels their week.

I'm sorry you are frustrated with your ownership, it can be quite frustrating if you don't have the luxury of
planning or just being an opportunistic traveler and taking the good last minute deals as they come up.

I think with the slight improvement in the economy, people are getting the courage to travel again.
I know I've noticed more people visiting Orlando this year over last. Probably true in Vegas too.

You may still want to get rid of your grandview unit and replace it with something that will work better for you.
You might want to consider Hilton points. They have 4 resorts in Vegas and with one biennial ownership you
can book all the open season you want or need without having to purchase more points.
With that Elara monster coming on board the HGVC family, there will be plenty of room in the Vegas inns.

As for why there are rooms available but just not for you, well that has alot to do with the economics of a developer
controlled resort. Grandview and RCI have some deals that we owners are not privy to. Sometimes the units they
deposit to the exchange companies are developer owned weeks that do not have to be made available to an owner
just because they are vacant. Their goal is to maximize their profits one way or another. If they don't sell those units,
or the current owners are in foreclosure and not paying their MF's, then the resort can decide how they want to fill those
units, if even at all.

I look at it this way. I live in a condo. I might go on vacation and my condo unit sits empty. My condo board does not have the
right to rent out my unit just because I am not home. If I gave them permission to rent it then they could but I'm never
going to do that so even though my home is vacant it's not available for someone who wants to use it who already owns here.

Just because you own one week at Grandview does not mean you have the right to stay in any unit, any time of the year in Grandview.
The sales people may have told you that but they were lying. Now there is usually alot of inventory available cheaply in Grandview
because there are alot of unsold weeks that the developer controls and they want to get people into the resort so they have a shot
at selling them an overpriced week with lots of promises.

I see quite a few weeks being deposited to Platinum Interchange along with RCI.
Daily management resorts has some sort of agreement with Platinum Interchange because all of their resorts are bulk
banked into PI. You can join platinum for free and just use them for rentals if you didn't want to exchange.
Since it's free you have nothing to lose by snooping around their site.
www.platinuminterchange.com

[Carolinian Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Carolinian]

I was about to suggest looking at the independent exchange companies, but Criskre has beaten me to it and found one that would fit your needs, Platinum Interchange.

Others to consider are:

SFX www.sfx-resorts.com
DAE www.daelive.com
HTSE www.htse.net
TPI www.tradingplaces.com

The independents are a lot more user friendly than RCI, and most of them do not have annual fees. Many have a request first system, too.

As to why resorts with vacant units do not deposit them to RCI if a member has not done it, the answer is simple. I served for quite a few years on a timeshare HOA board. Our resort did at one point sometimes deposit weeks belonging to the HOA to RCI, and I know at least one other resort in our area did so. The banked weeks in our HOA RCI account were then used as premiums to help sell deep off season weeks the association owned. The other resort that bulk banked HOA owned weeks with RCI used them for the same purpose. Then maybe ten or twelve years ago RCI changed the way they handled HOA bulkbanks, and only gave credits if someone actually exchanged into the week. Previously it had been like a member deposit and was a credit regardless. I do not know of any resort in our area that has bulkbanked HOA weeks with RCI since that change was made as it was too much hassle waiting to see when someone would exchange in, and you could not use them as premiums until that happened. DAE continued to give regular exchange credits to HOA's, so my resort shifted to doing the same with them instead of using RCI for that purpose.

Then there are developer weeks for resorts still in developer sales. It used to be that the developers would often bulkbank these to RCI to get new prospects to try to sell their resort inventory to. When RCI went big into rentals, many developers put their developer inventory there instead, so that dried it up to some degree on the exchange side. Some developers have since done rentals of developer inventory directly.

As to the economics of letting a week sit vacant, from resort operations standpoint, that is more positive to a resort's own finances than putting someone in it when the resort gets nothing back. If the resort gets cash as in a rental, then that is better than letting it sit vacant, or if they get a deposit credit they can use, that can be preferable if the resort has a marketing plan to use that credit. When a developer in sales is involved, then having a warm body there as a sales target can also have value.

One other point is that you own at a developer controlled timeshare, something I would never do. I want a board working for the members, not the developer, and that is what you get at a sold-out member controlled resort.

[robk Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close robk]

Chriskre and Carolinian

Sounds like some good advice and bunch more information to check out. I guess the main thing is to get a good handle on how all these companies operate and therfore be able to make wise decisions based on experience. I could have booked the week of Dec 22 a few months ago but I got greedy and tried to use my 45 day bonus weeks. As you said. If you really want it book ahead. So I have already booked the Gold Coast and if nothing at the Grandview comes up in the next week or so I will just cancel my paid search and ask for the money they took from me back. (hope I have no hassles trying to get the search exchange fee back. I always find it funny that a business will charge your credit card immeadiatly but it always takes them 5 days to a few weeks to credit back your credit card account)
I will use my home week for a Deadwood, SD week vacation. Went there last spring and really enjoyed ourselves.
Really need to be retired to make full use of the whole timeshare business. Still have 6 to 10 years to go.

[chriskre Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close chriskre]

I guess the main thing is to get a good handle on how all these companies operate and therfore be able to make wise decisions based on experience. I could have booked the week of Dec 22 a few months ago but I got greedy and tried to use my 45 day bonus weeks. As you said. If you really want it book ahead.

Well next time don't be so greedy.

Hang around here a little more and you will learn all you need to know to go on some great vacations.
I'm not gonna say that you won't get frustrated with exchanging but at least you'll be a little more confident in what you need to do to go where you want to go. Once you reach a certain number of posts here, you will be able to participate in a little inside help on the goodies so keep posting. You're almost there.

[robk Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close robk]

Sorry I haven't been back for a while. Busy at work and personal family in-law stuff has been keeping me busy. We got all our stuff booked.
Dec 15th to 22 Grandview Las vegas
Dec 22 to 29 Gold coast Las Vegas
Dec 29 and 30 at South Point Las Vegas

I cancelled my ongoing search for the grandview for my second week. Wonder how long it will take me to get a refund on my deposit fee they made me pay to search for that second week at the Grandview. Taking off this Saturday, can't wait.
Had to phone RCI twice today since I deposited my home week and my 2 bonus weeks this morning but one of my bonus weeks didn't show up, so I phoned again and got it posted to my account.
Strange how they charge you as soon as you book but they said it might take a month to get a refund of my exchange fee for my search. If I purchase something with my credit card in a store and return it my credit card account gets credited on the spot. The RCI rep blamed the refund delay on the credit card companies. Almost had to choke back the laughter on that one. Like Visa can't figure out how to credit an account.
I wanted to thank everyone again for the education I have gotten so far. I will be reviewing it all after we get back from holidays and I'm sure I will have more questions.
I will try to be more of regular on the forum next year.

[swilshire Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close swilshire]

Looks like I finally got screwed by the Weeks/Points system. Can't see why points would be available for the time period but weeks are not. I would think if the Grandview gives time to RCI it wouldn't matter to them if it was weeks or points. Our friends who are coming back from Vegas this weekend are on points. Maybe we can talk them into using their points booking for us.

GrayFal said "Is Grandview a Points resort? You know I never get this right."
The Grandview is both.

We haven't succumbed to the WEEKS hard sell (we only have had the time share about 3 years) yet but this is the first time we have been screwed by the Points/Weeks scenario. We figured the Weeks system would keep working for us since we only go to the Grandview and don't really go to any other vacation spots where points use would be more important.
I am really cheesed that the switch to points system is $5000 basically for a clerical entry in RCI's system.(even if they throw another unit in for that price like they were going to do at our last "Owner Update". Just more Maintenance fees to pay for another unit we don't have time to use)

While RCI has many flaws and it allows the resorts to do things that aren't good for owners, we can't blame RCI entirely for this. RCI charges a very low fee to convert to points. It has been a few years, but when I converted my Sheraton Vistana weeks (they don't tack on anything to the RCI fees), it was something like $295. The rest of the $5000 you mention goes to your resort.

As for whether the deposits go to Weeks or Points, that depends totally on which owners deposit them. There are some advantages to people exchanging in (some would call it Points owners raiding the Weeks side), but that has no impact on the original location of the deposits.

Some resorts do deposit weeks that are under their control above and beyond owner weeks, but where they choose to deposit them would be under their control, not RCI's. It seems that the resort has elected to keep any non-owner weeks and rent them.

Sheila

[SallyHoover Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close SallyHoover]

While RCI has many flaws and it allows the resorts to do things that aren't good for owners, we can't blame RCI entirely for this. RCI charges a very low fee to convert to points. It has been a few years, but when I converted my Sheraton Vistana weeks (they don't tack on anything to the RCI fees), it was something like $295. The rest of the $5000 you mention goes to your resort.

As for whether the deposits go to Weeks or Points, that depends totally on which owners deposit them. There are some advantages to people exchanging in (some would call it Points owners raiding the Weeks side), but that has no impact on the original location of the deposits.

Some resorts do deposit weeks that are under their control above and beyond owner weeks, but where they choose to deposit them would be under their control, not RCI's. It seems that the resort has elected to keep any non-owner weeks and rent them.

Sheila

Resorts that charge probably anything over $500 to convert bring in a 3rd party marketer to sell the points. Because just like buying a timeshare at developer prices almost no one would do it without the high pressure/hard sell and "gift" enticement. The 3rd party marketer employs ex-timeshare sales folk to sell the conversion and like developer paid TS salespeople, together the marketing company and the salesperson takes about 50% of the upgrade fee, RCI takes their $199-299, and the HOA keeps the rest. If a resort is still in active sales they can use their own sales people and the developer probably keeps even a higher percentage of the conversion fee. The HOA sets the price but the marketing company (or developer) usually charges $1000 minimum. RCI does market the points concept to resorts as a way to up sell to current owners.

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

Strange how they charge you as soon as you book but they said it might take a month to get a refund of my exchange fee for my search. If I purchase something with my credit card in a store and return it my credit card account gets credited on the spot. The RCI rep blamed the refund delay on the credit card companies. Almost had to choke back the laughter on that one. Like Visa can't figure out how to credit an account.

Many things being talked about today have been talked about as long as Internet timeshare forums have been around. RCI's refund time is one of them.

That is a shortcoming I took up with them. It is much better than it used to be, although I can't remember the last time I needed a refund. The best policy is to avoid giving them money when you don't need to.

I did have a period of complicated finances two or three years ago, and they really screwed it up. But, then, so does one of my resorts.

In the day, they answered the delay question the way I believe it probably really is, that those taking in money cannot also be giving money back, as that would create an opportunity for employees they don't want them to have. So, refunds are handled by another department, with an unreasonable amount of delay.