In support of fixed weeks...

[taffy19 Gold Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close taffy19]

Congratulations, timeos2! You have chosen the best system for you and others have chosen the best system for them. This is what choice is about and let there be competition too as that is the consumer's friend.

[Jya-Ning Silver Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close Jya-Ning]

I still like to know how the resort handles more demand than supply in the prime season? The point-based system must have disappointments too because people do not get their requested exchange either.

Resort can not, but developer can. It will try to build more around the area if possible. At a certain size, 10% of people change plan will create enough inventories. Sometime, a shoulder season maybe more desireable. Most of the time a season is red is because of school, does not mean it is the best time to visit that area. And the school has different time zone on the summer vacation, so it does create some buffer. That is what happen to Orlando.

With fix week, there is a big chance it will be let go unused. With point, the owner can cancel it and get back the points for other usage, so it is an incentive to do that. So the open of inventory is great.

Some of FF new resorts actually assign different points for different view. Although an oceanview may have different view and does not guarantee you will be happy, but it is one way you can guarantee to achive a fix unit. It will be very doubtful a floating week or fix week can do that once your unit is fixed.

With fix week, once the prime season is sold, or prime floating period is sold, you can try to see how easy the resort can be sold out, especially on a highly season area. With point, it is much easier to sold out since everyone get a share of the prime season, so developer has incentive to overbuild it.


Jya-Ning

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

1. To rig a system you have to freeze values. Points does that but Weeks does not. A dynamic system that constantly adjusts for everchanging supply and demand factors is NOT prone to being rigged. Of course there is a danger when the exchange company puts its own hand in the till (like for rentals), it may also put its thumb on the scales. Otherwise, there is no incentive for anyone to cheat in a non-published system. The incentive for developers is there, and in spades, in a published system.

2. In the Weeks system, the market forces of supply and demand set the price and constantly adjust them, rather than the arbitary and calcified numbers racket of RCI Points. If you think it is overvalued, it is simply because the market values it differently than the way you do.

3. If you think mini ''exposed'' the problem, maybe you have missed the problems in the points systems of Fairfield and Sunterra, which currently have class actions against them. Those class actions do NOT target the weeks based product of either group.

4. A 45-day trade is NOT an upgrade. It is equal value for a distressed week with short shelf life. A late deposit gets greatly reduced trading power, so it only makes good sense that a late exchange would also take lower trading power to confirm.

5. The relative value of weeks is not based on their being ''high end'' with high purchase price or high m/f or even a lot of bells and whistles (although the latter can help drive demand). It is based to the demand relative to supply. That is why an Italian or Israeli blue week has more relative value than many if not most Orlando red weeks.

6. Weeks values each week appropriately with small steps between weeks, while Points lumps far too different week in the same category at the same point value, grossly overpointing some and underpointing others by the process of overaveraging. Saying that a late October week 43 is equivalent to a mid-August week 33 on the week is just an absurdity. The real trade ups are those built into the Points system. There are far more trades up in Points than in Weeks.

7. The only consistent ''trades up'' that the low season weeks got was in the 45-day window, and that is actually not a trade up since it is distressed inventory.

Weeks is really a form of price fixing. Too often weeks values, unknown to the owners, are rigged to the advantage of certain owners and disadvantage of others. Owners in areas with highly seasonal use patterns tend to be overvalued, so I can see why they are such loud supporters of weeks - it simply comes down to self interest. Since over 70% of all weeks are not top value it is a large and vocal self interest group that controlled exchanges until the mini-systems came along. The minis exposed the problems and moved the best to points with RCI Points not too far behind. As occurred in the minis those who benefitted most from the old system - the poor value weeks - are now crying foul faced with equal trades rather than free upgrades at the expense of the high end owners.

[Jya-Ning Silver Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close Jya-Ning]

so developer has incentive to overbuild it.
Jya-Ning

On the other hand, it always has chance that people will always go to that place day-in day-out. And always that there is no way to build more or developer go out. If that happens, only fix week can guarantee.

Before that happen, at this moment, people buy point because it gives them flexibility, that means they will more likely plan to exchange out. It is designed to share vacation. If they really plan to use it all the time, I believe fix week or good floating week will beat point in this case. It is designed to share the cost.

Jya-Ning

[taffy19 Gold Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close taffy19]

4. A 45-day trade is NOT an upgrade. It is equal value for a distressed week with short shelf life. A late deposit gets greatly reduced trading power, so it only makes good sense that a late exchange would also take lower trading power to confirm.

5. The relative value of weeks is not based on their being ''high end'' with high purchase price or high m/f or even a lot of bells and whistles (although the latter can help drive demand). It is based to the demand relative to supply. That is why an Italian or Israeli blue week has more relative value than many if not most Orlando red weeks.

7. The only consistent ''trades up'' that the low season weeks got was in the 45-day window, and that is actually not a trade up since it is distressed inventory.

Imho, Carolinian is right here. This is what made the system fair and easy to understand in the past. Everything changed when RCI introduced the point-based system to compete with other mini-systems and to start combining exchanges with cruises and airline fares too because the parent company is in this business.

There is no way that you can keep track of what is happening now with your deposit and this may be on purpose. JMHO.

Most people do not think about it as much as some of us do here. Ignorance is bliss but some of the other don't understand why exchanging is getting so much harder today.

[BocaBum99 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close BocaBum99]

Both the weeks and point system have resorts which are given more trading power or points than they are worth. Politics didn't change any- RCI just added a points system.

Tony, there are very few things that you and I completely agree on. This is one of them.

[BocaBum99 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close BocaBum99]

1. To rig a system you have to freeze values.

Just the opposite is true. To rig a system, all you need to do is hide the values.

It is much harder to rig a system that is in the open because it draws attention and is scrutinized.

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

For a system to be rigged, you need a motive. People are not going to bother to rig something if there is no motive. There is simply no benefit to developers to rig a non-published system, so why in the world would they bother? Now when a crooked exchange company puts its own hand in the till by renting out weeks to the general public, the exchange company suddenly has its own motive to rig the system. That is one of the big reasons why exchange company rentals are such a massive evil in timesharing.

When a system has published values, on the other hand, the developer gets a big sales benefit to show prospective buyers as high a number as possible.
That gives them a huge motive to politick the exchange company for a higher number than justified. I know of developers who have done just that.

Also a system where values automatically adjust for supply and demand, like Weeks, is not something that lends itself very well to rigging. One based on arbitrary and unchanging numbers, does.

As to which system is prone to rigging, one has to look at both motive and opportunity. Opportunity exists when the methodology of establishing values is hidden, a conditioin that exists in both Weeks and Points. Motive, however, exists only in a published system where the developer can display the resulting values to prospective customers, or where the exchange company itself is skimming weeks from the system for rental.

The deHaan model had no motive at all for rigging. The corrupted Cendant model for Weeks introduces a motive for RCI to rig the system to its own benefit by putting its hand in the till through exchange company rentals. Remove this corrupting influence, and Weeks is free of the threat of rigging. Hopefully, the class action lawsuits will do that. Given the massive conflict of interest in exchange company rentals, hopefully those lawsuits will also spur the states to update their existing exchange company public disclosure laws to require extremely detailed public disclosure by exchange companies of their rental activities.

Points on the other hand offers both motive and opportunity for developers and RCI to collude on rigging values, and they are clearly doing just that. Points is a corrupt cesspool of rigged numbers.

Just the opposite is true. To rig a system, all you need to do is hide the values.

It is much harder to rig a system that is in the open because it draws attention and is scrutinized.

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

I agree with you except for one thing. RCI did not establish Points to compete with the mini-systems. The reality is that Points ran three mini-systems straight into the arms of II. Worldmark, Sunterra, and Seasons all abandoned RCI to move to II after RCI implemented Points. Seasons explained their move in a lot of detail in their newsletter with a well aimed broadside at both RCI Points and RCI's rental activities. It's too bad that special issue of their newsletter rotated off of their website so it is no longer possible to post a link to it, as it explained the thinking of mini-systems in abandoning RCI. Points hurt RCI in this regard, rather than helping.

The real reason for Points was as a cover for their massive move into rentals, as is alleged in the class action lawsuits.

Imho, Carolinian is right here. This is what made the system fair and easy to understand in the past. Everything changed when RCI introduced the point-based system to compete with other mini-systems and to start combining exchanges with cruises and airline fares too because the parent company is in this business.

There is no way that you can keep track of what is happening now with your deposit and this may be on purpose. JMHO.

Most people do not think about it as much as some of us do here. Ignorance is bliss but some of the other don't understand why exchanging is getting so much harder today.

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

I won't enter into the argument as the best system is whatever suits your vacation preferences. Personally I would never own points. I far prefer floating weeks at good resorts. We always have been able to reserve the best weeks, prime summer weeks ( usually July 4th week ) at both our Coastal California resorts for the past 15-18 years. We deposit our weeks at SFX and always get a bonus week for each one we deposit. We have been doing that for the past 9+ years. In the last couple of years we have received 2 bonus weeks for each one, or 6 weeks per year total. We have always been able to get whatever we asked for so the system works very well for us and is about as simple as it can be.

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

I agree with you John, each case is different, whatever works for you. Although not as long as you, we too own a flex week ~ July/Aug., and we wouldn't change it ~ it has worked very well for us.

Sue

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

I like the SVO program best out of all the programs that I have looked into. They seem to allow you the best of both worlds. You can keep your deeded week to use, or you can trade it in for points to exchange anywhere in the system.

The principle is a good one...the only downfall is that they don't currently have enough resorts of their own to offer for exchanges.

[timeos2 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close timeos2]

I like the SVO program best out of all the programs that I have looked into. They seem to allow you the best of both worlds. You can keep your deeded week to use, or you can trade it in for points to exchange anywhere in the system.

The principle is a good one...the only downfall is that they don't currently have enough resorts of their own to offer for exchanges.

The original Club Sunterra & RCI Points works in similar ways. You get to choose if you use your fixed/float week OR convert it to points. I agree that having the most choices (flexibility) is the best ownership. I want a deeded ownership, float in a year round area, fixed in a seasonal area and both available to be used in weeks or points at my choice. All my timeshares meet those rules, although my Fairfield does automatically go to the Fairshare Points system it is still based on a deeded ownership at a specific resort. If the Fairshare system disappeared tomorrow I would still own a float week to use at the resort.

The number of resorts in any system is a big key to the satisfaction of users. A small mini-system, no matter how appealing the process of trading your time, is usually too restrictive in choices to gain wide acceptance. The larger systems like FF and certainly RCI Points don't have those problems.