Weeks Purists Theory: does this ring true?

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

I haven't yet been disappointed, so I'm a happy Bluegreenian.

Happy Bluegreenian

This is the type of response I hoped for.

AH! the little grasshoppers are learning...

Great thread...gave me a headache...but thanks BB!

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

Another design problem with points

Opening all of the points inventory at one time, and not really getting much if any new inventory in after that (new members or cancellations) creates a problem much like ff miles. You have to be there when the window opens or the inventory is gone for the most popular destinations. Indeed one disgusted RCI Points owner at Timesharetalk posted that he was bailing out of RCI Points because he had repeatedly encountered that very problem. At least with deposits being made all of the time in a Weeks-based system, you have a better shot at an exchange over a broader period.

Of course, they paper over this problem to a point as long as they can loot the Weeks system in crossover exchanges. Points members are going to snag the bargain basement Weeks inventory first, leaving Points inventory in the system longer than if there were no Weeks system to loot. If they ever kill Weeks, this safety valve goes away and the problem becomes come significant.

Then you come to a major design problem with using points with ff miles, which is something many of us like to do. The ff window opens at 11 months out. For popular times and routes, like Hawaii, summer Europe, high season Caribbean, etc. if you don't get your award ticket immediately, you probably won't get it at all. With a weeks system, you can already have your exchange locked when when you get your award ticket confirmed becuase of the greater time flexibility in a weeks-based system. In RCI Points, you cannot do this. You have to confirm your ff ticket before you know ifyou will have a timeshare reservation or not, and possibly have to cancel if nothing is there. Alternatively if you wait for the timeshare reservation to get the air ticket, then you very often will find the air tickets not availible. Going to an area with less timeshare that is highly in demand makes this a more serious problem than going to heavily built areas where there is always likely to be something availible. It would not be a problem if you always went to the Costa del Sol or the Canary Islands, but would be a problem if you wanted to go to Venice, London, the Channel Islands, or Viena in high season.

If the DAE system were but a theoretical model, I would probably be joining those saying it could not work. The problem for that position, is that it IS proven to work, and to continue to work in places where DAE becomes a major player in the exchange market like Australia and New Zealand. As they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Mighty fine pudding, DAE!

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

Opening all of the points inventory at one time, and not really getting much if any new inventory in after that (new members or cancellations) creates a problem much like ff miles. You have to be there when the window opens or the inventory is gone for the most popular destinations. Indeed one disgusted RCI Points owner at Timesharetalk posted that he was bailing out of RCI Points because he had repeatedly encountered that very problem. At least with deposits being made all of the time in a Weeks-based system, you have a better shot at an exchange over a broader period.

It's funny that you take a clear weakness in a system and attempt to position it as a strength. Most reasonably informed people would argue that a first come, first served open availability reservation system is preferable to a random deposit program over a 2 year period where you get it if you are lucky or you keep searching until you do. In general, people prefer predictability over randomness. They tolerate randomness when the reward is worth it. The trade up feature of weeks helps plug the gap. Don't believe me? Ask some of those who almost religiously search on a daily basis for Disney Vacation Club inventory a simple question. Would be doing your daily search if you could only trade a comparable unit? They KNOW they are trading up and so they do the daily search to capture the benefit of the trade up. They are arbitraging the system.

Timesharing requires patience. Many people don't have patience. A key indicator of this is how long will they actively wait to get what they want. If you have a very low patience factor, you want to book a reservation the minute you look for it. You don't want to wait a month or 6 months to book that vacation. The waiting period is key, not how far in the future they must try. So, point systems appeal to people with low patience since they know that they can look 12 or 13 months ahead of time and be reasonably assured of getting what they want. A weeks system can't do that.

The problem with frequent flyer programs and many resorts within RCI Points is there is not enough inventory at those resorts you describe. So, they stock out too fast. This is an inventory problem, not a system problem. RCI Points should publish it's inventory levels at all resorts. That would go a long way to minimizing expectation problems.

You see the same behavior in Bluegreen resorts that aren't managed or developed by Bluegreen. A good example of this is Surfrider Beach Club in Sanibel Island, Florida. It is a resort with a point table. But, there are only 35 intervals committed to the Bluegreen Vacation Club. Needless to say, those units would stock out immdiately and it always appears unavailable. This is discouraging to Bluegreen owners who want to go there.

This situation would turn around completely if Bluegreen took over the resort and committed more inventory to the system. The problem doesn't exist
for hotel conversions because the entire inventory is committed to system. Take Daytona Seabreeze as an example. Since Bluegreen bought out the hotel and converted it completely to points, availability is high. This year, people could reserve the highly coveted Daytona 500 race weeks in the open reservation period. You didn't even have to be a Gold or Silver preferred member and you could still get it. Ask the CEO of DAE if you could commit that week to his customers? He can't. His honest answer would be, well, if a foolist Bluegreen owner would deposit his race week instead of the January studio unit at Big Cedar, you would have a chance at it. But, at DAE, you get the same value in return for either unit. So, the probability is extremely low. It happens, mind you, just don't expect it.

Whether you want to admit it or not, weeks systems have the same problem. The trouble is that nobody knows the inventory level and so they don't know if their ongoing search will be fulfilled. Hope runs eternal. They are clueless about the probability of them getting the exchange they want. They never know if someone will deposit the week they want. It could be 1%, it could be 50%. This is vacationing by roulette wheel. This limitation in and of itself will prevent the masses from moving to timesharing. But, that's okay for the weeks purist because that means less competition for that coveted trade up.

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

BB

One thing that I noticed you haven't talked much about in your analysis, is the differences in the timeshares. For instance, when I purchase a timeshare, I consider the quality of the unit, as well as customer service. Also, I consider a timeshare that is connected to a hotel offering other amenities to be a huge asset.

The location of the timeshares will also have much to do with my choice of purchase. If I want to vacation mostly on the east coast, I might choose one company over another based just on thier locations.

When I purchased my Marriotts, the main reason was not the system they used. It was becasue I liked the quality of the product, and their locations.

The system is secondary to me personally. There is no perfect system. The most important thing is that I get the amenities I am looking for. After all, what is the point of owning a timeshare that is not offering the particular perks that interest you. I would have purchased my Marriott timeshares regardless of their system.

I guess what I am saying is that for some people, the lure of purcasing a timeshare is not the system at all. They buy the location, and the unit, and the company. They then learn how best to use what their system is offering.

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

If the DAE system were but a theoretical model, I would probably be joining those saying it could not work. The problem for that position, is that it IS proven to work, and to continue to work in places where DAE becomes a major player in the exchange market like Australia and New Zealand. As they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Mighty fine pudding, DAE!

All pyramid schemes work in the beginning and at small scale. The problem is that as the system scales, it breaks down and collapses.

I am not saying that DAE is a pyramid scheme, nor am I predicting its imminent collapse. In fact, I really like DAE. They have the best customer service in the timesharing industry. And, they are very true to their weeks purist business model. If you are a weeks purist, this is one of the alternatives for you. Mind you, I am NOT against the weeks purist model. I like it and its simplicity. What I am saying is that DAE has an unstable system that will collapse at scale unless they implement trading power formulas. Then they will experience the same pressures that face RCI and II in operating a weeks exchange company. At some point in time, probably when they owners change, they will be tempted by the same sirens call of profit maximization that all corporations face in the lifecycle of the business.

As an aside, Boardgirl convinced me that I need to try it. And, your sightings postings have encouraged me as well. I am sure that I will like it because I intend to deposit a couple of Big Cedar Studio White weeks which will cost me $52 is maintenance fees each. Yes, you read that correctly, $52 in maintenance fees. Even Brucecz's maintenance fees for a Christmas Mountain Village unit is higher. In his best year, he got 17 weeks out of a cottage UDI. His maintenance fee per week would be (693+17*48)/17 = $88.76 today if he were able to book 17 units which is no longer possible. And, many of those weeks would be 45-day bookings that cannot be deposited into DAE. If I exchange for anything, I would be trading up. I am thinking about printing off all availability, putting it on a dart board, throwing a dart at the board and exchanging for the unit I hit. Then, I will assess the rental market value for both weeks and post the trade up value I received and donate the week to charity or as a prize on this board.

DAE works as long as it stays small, stays out of the radar screen of the timesharing arbitrageurs and serves primarily the apathetic majority who will on occasion deposit that Daytona 500 race week.

Here is an example of how DAE's business model could get crushed. What if Carolinian did a great job at getting 10,000 smart TS4M and TUG members to join and deposit units into DAE? Let's say that those 10,000 owners are the smartest weeks exchangers in the industry and they only deposit cheap SA weeks, cheap BG weeks, cheap WorldMark weeks, etc. And, they all put in requests for 3 years for all of the top and highest demanded locations. This would cause a huge problem for DAE as their inventory sell off list grow and since exchanges are truly first in gets highest priority, then everyone who deposits after them will be blocked from the best trades and left with the dog weeks deposited by those members.

This is an extreme situation and would never happen over night. But, it does and will happen over time as more educated owners join DAE. They should spend lots of time trying to acquire the apathetic majority and staying away from the smart TS4M and Tuggers. Ignorance is bliss in a weeks purist system. It works best when people don't know what they are doing.

When DAE implements a trading power formula, you will now know why.

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

BB

One thing that I noticed you haven't talked much about in your analysis, is the differences in the timeshares. For instance, when I purchase a timeshare, I consider the quality of the unit, as well as customer service. Also, I consider a timeshare that is connected to a hotel offering other amenities to be a huge asset.

The location of the timeshares will also have much to do with my choice of purchase. If I want to vacation mostly on the east coast, I might choose one company over another based just on thier locations.

When I purchased my Marriotts, the main reason was not the system they used. It was becasue I liked the quality of the product, and their locations.

The system is secondary to me personally. There is no perfect system. The most important thing is that I get the amenities I am looking for. After all, what is the point of owning a timeshare that is not offering the particular perks that interest you. I would have purchased my Marriott timeshares regardless of their system.

I guess what I am saying is that for some people, the lure of purcasing a timeshare is not the system at all. They buy the location, and the unit, and the company. They then learn how best to use what their system is offering.

Very good question. In this thread, I have been debating primarily the various systems of trading and exchanging for timeshares. This topic covers weeks systems, point systems and renting. Each has its specific pros and cons and the smart timesharer should construct a portfolio of ownerships that best meets their specific vacationing needs.

Your question about the specific resort and quality of the physical product relates to another subject that I feel pretty strongly about and that is the concept of branded resort groups and their role in the future of timesharing. We need to start another thread on that topic. Let me think about it and I'll post something provocative so that it gets posts and page views. As you have noted, you cannot competely separate the system aspects of the timeshare when buying it for it is an integral part of the product.

I absolutely agree that the quality of the physical product is an extremely important attribute in the decision making process for a buyer. It is certainly in the top 5 criteria. The criteria for choice in this area tends to be more subjective and taste oriented. You should pick it purely because you like it more than others. It's like chocolate vs. vanilla. You like one or the other simply because you do.

Marriott is a great timesharing product as are all of the Hotel branded timeshares I have evaluated and experienced. Those timeshares take on the attributes of the specific hotel brands and command a large premium relative to their underlying real estate value.

My overall recommendation in this area is to buy these high quality branded timeshares to use or rent. Buy it if you like it and you'll use it. If you want to exchange, there are better options.

Moreover, the key features and attributes of various systems should be considered by the developers of those branded timesharing companies to improve their product and make them more valuable to their customers. As an example, I have provided specific recommendations for how the Marrriott Vacation Club could be improved from it's already great state. And that is with or without implementing a true point system.

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

On the OBX about 70% of owners bought to use rather than exchange.

The big driver in their decision is LOCATION.

As to branded resorts, this does not appear to make a big difference. When they try to sell a club rather than a location, this may in fact hurt.

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

The problem with your analysis is that DAE does have scale in a significant market - Australia / New Zealand, and their system continues to work. Indeed if you want to trade into Australia or New Zealand, you will probably find the best availibility with DAE, followed by Interchange (which uses the same formula as DAE), followed by RCI, and with II bringing up the rear.

All pyramid schemes work in the beginning and at small scale. The problem is that as the system scales, it breaks down and collapses.

I am not saying that DAE is a pyramid scheme, nor am I predicting its imminent collapse. In fact, I really like DAE. They have the best customer service in the timesharing industry. And, they are very true to their weeks purist business model. If you are a weeks purist, this is one of the alternatives for you. Mind you, I am NOT against the weeks purist model. I like it and its simplicity. What I am saying is that DAE has an unstable system that will collapse at scale unless they implement trading power formulas. Then they will experience the same pressures that face RCI and II in operating a weeks exchange company. At some point in time, probably when they owners change, they will be tempted by the same sirens call of profit maximization that all corporations face in the lifecycle of the business.

As an aside, Boardgirl convinced me that I need to try it. And, your sightings postings have encouraged me as well. I am sure that I will like it because I intend to deposit a couple of Big Cedar Studio White weeks which will cost me $52 is maintenance fees each. Yes, you read that correctly, $52 in maintenance fees. Even Brucecz's maintenance fees for a Christmas Mountain Village unit is higher. In his best year, he got 17 weeks out of a cottage UDI. His maintenance fee per week would be (693+17*48)/17 = $88.76 today if he were able to book 17 units which is no longer possible. And, many of those weeks would be 45-day bookings that cannot be deposited into DAE. If I exchange for anything, I would be trading up. I am thinking about printing off all availability, putting it on a dart board, throwing a dart at the board and exchanging for the unit I hit. Then, I will assess the rental market value for both weeks and post the trade up value I received and donate the week to charity or as a prize on this board.

DAE works as long as it stays small, stays out of the radar screen of the timesharing arbitrageurs and serves primarily the apathetic majority who will on occasion deposit that Daytona 500 race week.

Here is an example of how DAE's business model could get crushed. What if Carolinian did a great job at getting 10,000 smart TS4M and TUG members to join and deposit units into DAE? Let's say that those 10,000 owners are the smartest weeks exchangers in the industry and they only deposit cheap SA weeks, cheap BG weeks, cheap WorldMark weeks, etc. And, they all put in requests for 3 years for all of the top and highest demanded locations. This would cause a huge problem for DAE as their inventory sell off list grow and since exchanges are truly first in gets highest priority, then everyone who deposits after them will be blocked from the best trades and left with the dog weeks deposited by those members.

This is an extreme situation and would never happen over night. But, it does and will happen over time as more educated owners join DAE. They should spend lots of time trying to acquire the apathetic majority and staying away from the smart TS4M and Tuggers. Ignorance is bliss in a weeks purist system. It works best when people don't know what they are doing.

When DAE implements a trading power formula, you will now know why.

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

Exactly!

The average American employee gets two weeks or less a year of vacation time. Not everyone wants to spend an entire week at the same place when they only get one or two weeks per year.

Also, there are those that may have more than one or two weeks of vacation that would rather split their time into long weekends, nightly stays and/or shorter trips. That's why points are so seductive to many people and they will continue to be the driving force in timesharing in the future.

There was a survey reported in The TImeshareBeat a year or so ago that the average timeshare owner took around 6 weeks of vacation.

I do some long weekends, including sometimes 5 day weekends to Europe, and would not thing of using timeshare on that type of trip. Hotel rooms are so much easier for short trips. The points people also have to pay extra fees for this type of use that makes it less appealing.

I also recall a travel industry study a few years ago dealing with longweekend trips that found that they were often 1) much closer to home than longer vacations, and 2) planned much closer to the time of the trip than longer vacations. Both of these factors would make timeshare less useful for that type of trip, even sith split weeks.

To me the timeflexibility of getting exchanges before the window opens for ff tickets is light years more important than this (to me) rather trivial feature.

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

On the OBX about 70% of owners bought to use rather than exchange.

The big driver in their decision is LOCATION.

As to branded resorts, this does not appear to make a big difference. When they try to sell a club rather than a location, this may in fact hurt.

As long as anecdotes are considered proof:

at the (formerly Embassy) resort in Po`ipu, 40% of owners every year trade. It's safe to say that almost eveyone who bought there bought because of location, followed by brand name. In fact, among owners there is some current consternation about the loss of the brand name, because loss of the brand is likely to hurt both rental and sales price.

So while we agree on location and are pretty close on use vs exchanging, I guess my anecdote cancels offsets your anecdote as to the value of branding.

Personally, I think that instead of making blanket statements about use and brandking, we should just simply recognize that particulars are more significant than generalities.

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

Actually, people who buy in a timeshare presentation buy primarily for 3 reasons. 2 emotional and 1 semi-logical to justify the emotional reasons.

I got this right out of the sales manual for a timeshare developer. So, I know it to be fact.

The two most important reasons that people buy timeshares from the developer are to spend more time with family and to have fun. The semi-logical reason for buying is the (false) concept of "anyway dollars."

Anyway dollars is the money that people will spend on hotel rooms every year when they vacation.

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

The model only works with limited takers

Here is an example of how DAE's business model could get crushed. What if Carolinian did a great job at getting 10,000 smart TS4M and TUG members to join and deposit units into DAE? Let's say that those 10,000 owners are the smartest weeks exchangers in the industry and they only deposit cheap SA weeks, cheap BG weeks, cheap WorldMark weeks, etc. And, they all put in requests for 3 years for all of the top and highest demanded locations. This would cause a huge problem for DAE as their inventory sell off list grow and since exchanges are truly first in gets highest priority, then everyone who deposits after them will be blocked from the best trades and left with the dog weeks deposited by those members.

This is an extreme situation and would never happen over night. But, it does and will happen over time as more educated owners join DAE. They should spend lots of time trying to acquire the apathetic majority and staying away from the smart TS4M and Tuggers. Ignorance is bliss in a weeks purist system. It works best when people don't know what they are doing.

When DAE implements a trading power formula, you will now know why.

Exactly. "Success" on the scale of even the also-ran II sees, forget the volume RCI enjoys, would bring the DAE model to it's knees just as it has at II/RCI. There simply isn't a big enough market for all the dog weeks that make up 80% of all deposits. Some don't want to recognize the fact that those need to have a marketable outlet - rentals or combining two or more weeks for a single, better exchange as well as breaks on the annual fees to make then viable long term. If not the expectations of the depositors won't be met long term and they will bail on the resorts. The very result blamed on rentals & points at RCI but the cause effect is backwards. The weaknesses of week for week trades on such a large scale - not the levels back in the days of 25,000 members- lead to the disappointment and bail outs, not rentals & points although they are a couple of answers to the overload of poor inventory. The need to improve the value through trade ups cannot be sustained by any large system willing to take them in forever. RCI & II found it out - if anyone else manages to grow to that size they will discover that unpleasant reality as well. If you really like the DAE model you had better hope they don't manage to grow very large either.

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

And points can do more

Exactly!

The average American employee gets two weeks or less a year of vacation time. Not everyone wants to spend an entire week at the same place when they only get one or two weeks per year.

Also, there are those that may have more than one or two weeks of vacation that would rather split their time into long weekends, nightly stays and/or shorter trips. That's why points are so seductive to many people and they will continue to be the driving force in timesharing in the future.

By their design they can take a dog week worth say, 20,000 RCI points and make a 3 day weekend at a better resort, better time frame available to that owner. Yes they have "used up" their week for a long weekend but they can get that time off relatively easily and feel they got value for their annual fee. The option in weeks? Take a week at some off-period that is an equal trade. Which do you think would have more appeal? In every case it involves getting what is seen as a fair value back for your fees and ownership each use year. The more flexible the system the more likely that is to happen on a regular basis.

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

There was a survey reported in The TImeshareBeat a year or so ago that the average timeshare owner took around 6 weeks of vacation.

I do some long weekends, including sometimes 5 day weekends to Europe, and would not thing of using timeshare on that type of trip. Hotel rooms are so much easier for short trips. The points people also have to pay extra fees for this type of use that makes it less appealing.

I also recall a travel industry study a few years ago dealing with longweekend trips that found that they were often 1) much closer to home than longer vacations, and 2) planned much closer to the time of the trip than longer vacations. Both of these factors would make timeshare less useful for that type of trip, even sith split weeks.

To me the timeflexibility of getting exchanges before the window opens for ff tickets is light years more important than this (to me) rather trivial feature.

Your experience seems to be at odds with the majority of travelers I know. Nothing wrong with it just not the norm.

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

You can't argue with success, and the DAE (and Interchange) model in Australia is succesful. It will just take more exposure to bring it to the same level here.

Even in overbuilt areas, I don't know of resorts where 80% of the weeks are dogs. The Christel deHahn model of the exchange system worked just fine and made her a lot of money without points or rentals before Cendant came along.

The bailout problem started AFTER the advent of points and rentals, and exists from some specific problems they created like the competition from cheap rentals against off season ownership, and the draining of the 45-day pool, which was an anchor of exchange value for off season weeks, to use for rentals and for multiple weeks for one week given for points members. Your generalies do not address these specific causes of the bailout problem.

When the big excess of supply is in the overbuilt areas, you are barking up the wrong tree in talking about off season inventory elsewhere. The two resorts with the biggest oversupply problem in RCI, according to a post by Bootleg, who is in a position to know, are both Gold Crowns in Orlando, one of which is in the Points system (and from the numbers, grossly overpointed).

Most people aren't going to put two m/f's together by combining deep offseason weeks in points to get one week back. I have been to some points presentations, and while they may mention that possibility in passing, the points salemen don't dwell on it because they know that dog won't hunt. They push off season weeks based on the 9000 point trades into the Weeks 45-day window. That's how they sell the off season Points inventory. When RCI finishes killing the Weeks 45-day window, they will not have a viable mechanism to sell off season points weeks anymore. RCI's machinations may welll end up hurting their darling Points system more than Weeks.

RCI and II ''on their knees''???? Where do you come up with that??? Yes, RCI is obviously seeing some people abandon them since they got on the points and rentals kick, but they are hardly ''on their knees'' and II's numbers have been steadily upward without the falloffs at RCI.

Like others, you are ignoring that DAE IS a big player in Australia, and their model is PROVEN to work as a big player, too! And they aren't the only one that uses it. Interchange does, too.

Exactly. "Success" on the scale of even the also-ran II sees, forget the volume RCI enjoys, would bring the DAE model to it's knees just as it has at II/RCI. There simply isn't a big enough market for all the dog weeks that make up 80% of all deposits. Some don't want to recognize the fact that those need to have a marketable outlet - rentals or combining two or more weeks for a single, better exchange as well as breaks on the annual fees to make then viable long term. If not the expectations of the depositors won't be met long term and they will bail on the resorts. The very result blamed on rentals & points at RCI but the cause effect is backwards. The weaknesses of week for week trades on such a large scale - not the levels back in the days of 25,000 members- lead to the disappointment and bail outs, not rentals & points although they are a couple of answers to the overload of poor inventory. The need to improve the value through trade ups cannot be sustained by any large system willing to take them in forever. RCI & II found it out - if anyone else manages to grow to that size they will discover that unpleasant reality as well. If you really like the DAE model you had better hope they don't manage to grow very large either.