The myth of exclusivity

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

Priceline - Skyauction whats the difference?

Uhhh - isn't that what Priceline and Hotwire are all about??

I have, in fact, stayed at Doubletrees for $25/night when I had to stay over in town and went to Priceline to get a room for that night.

And doesn't that sound like the non-branded RCI rental outlets? Maybe this isn't so crazy after all. Perhaps its a sound business model that, by choice, owners are supporting with virtually free deposits to the middleman. Now I would think the people with control, the depositors, would want to level the playing field at least a bit more toward their side. Until they do they are playing along with the RCI game.

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

You are confusing issues. The issue here was that last minute inventory is distressed and often priced less for that reason. RCI Weeks does do that. It is called the 45 day window. It is RCI Points that has no mechanism to dispose of last minute inventory at a reduced cost. Why? I suspect it is because RCI would rather rent it.

Yes but you were using a variable exchange medium - cash. In the weeks model you can't alter the value of your deposit. In fact you don't even know what it is. And you can't directly neogotiate any trade in that system. Thats why it's called fixed.

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

Weren't the 9000 point weeks supposed to be the "last call" of Points? If not, what were they?

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

Weren't the 9000 point weeks supposed to be the "last call" of Points? If not, what were they?

Since the inventory is coming from week deposit, it is actually "last Call" of weeks, not points. As now, there is no last call of points.

Jya-Ning

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

900 point weeks aren't usually a big deal

Right now that is the case. There are far more left over weeks in the 45 day range that RCI needs to move out so they set up the 9000 (or less) points method. Some try to make that sound like some great advantage being given to points users but in fact it is the same miserable inventory that weeks users see in the free for all timeframe. There can be a few gems but most are rocks.

As the amount of points based trades continues to build RCI Points will most likely have to follow in the footsteps of nearly every other points system and have a steep discount fir anything leftover at that juncture. While it should never be a free for all there is a case to be made that by that time the value of those use dates has dropped. The difference is that in points the owners are making the decision what is valuable and what is garbage time. In weeks it is the unseen hand of the secret trade formulas that users have no say in. The market is at work in points not the smoke filled back rooms of 1930 politics. If it's left over in points its either a small amount (change), a bad use period, a less than quality resort or a really late deposit. In weeks it is very likely that no one with the proper level of trade value has requested it although plenty of lowball times would love to have it. The one for one nature and lack of user input into the mix of weeks trades doesn't make that a fair trade no matter how late in the game it may be. There is no flexibilty in one for one, secret value trades.

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

9000 point weeks are from the WEEKS system, and are crossover trades from Weeks that are availible to Points members. They are Points members access to the Weeks 45 day window. There is no equivalent for Points inventory. The 9000 point crossover trades are how Points salesmen unload the offseason Points inventory.

The 45 day window props up low value oversuppy weeks, whether from poor season or overbuilding, in both Weeks and Points. RCI opening them to Points members without an equivalent within Points for Points inventory crowds out Weeks members, especially when a Points members is allowed to take several such weeks for one weeks worth of points. Then RCI starts renting that inventory to the general public. These twin strains on the system are why Weeks members who have owned off season for years to use the 45 day window are starting to bail out, a situation that will only get worse as RCI goes on its merry way ruining the ownership/exchange model of timesharing.

I have seen references to something like ''half point value weeks'' on the t/s boards frequented by Europeans and have wondered if the European pointers have access to discounted last minute points inventory.

Weren't the 9000 point weeks supposed to be the "last call" of Points? If not, what were they?

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

Why rentals were never a factor in exclusivity

There has always been a rental market in timesharing. On the OBX, Outer Banks Resort Rentals was established as a brokerage by Marvin and Judy Beard to handle rentals and resales not long after timesharing first appeared on the OBX, and there are similar local timeshare brokerages elsewhere.

For those interested in going a lot of places, however, the exchange system was really the only game in town, as the rental market was very fragmented. OBRR was great for summer rentals on the OBX but they could not get you a rental anywhere else. Independent internet rental outlets like Redweek and My Resort Network did not really change that due to their relatively low volume, although they did have a wider geographical reach.

In the DeHahn model, one had to own timeshare to participate in the exchange system, and the exchange system was the only game in town to get a wide variety of resorts in a wide variety of locations. That was the basis of exclusivity.

The Cendant model at RCI, however, includes wide ranging rentals to non-members, so it is no longer necessary to own to get access to a wide range of the exchange company's inventory. This is what is undermining the ownership/exchange model of timesharing.

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

These weeks define mud time - again

You are confusing issues. The issue here was that last minute inventory is distressed and often priced less for that reason. RCI Weeks does do that. It is called the 45 day window. It is RCI Points that has no mechanism to dispose of last minute inventory at a reduced cost. Why? I suspect it is because RCI would rather rent it.

The issue is the truly dog nature of weeks from highly seasonal resorts. Once you are past the 8-14 weeks of prime use time the rest are virtually worthless. So much so that I have heard of a resort on the east coast that is offering "two for one" time to anyone willing to buy one of those weeks. The buyer would literally get two of these low value weeks for the price of one both at purchase AND in annual fees! The theory being that getting one reliable payment out of those two weeks beats getting nothing for two weeks as it stands. Of course that means the red week owners are paying more, on average, than the blue time people but its better than paying off two unpaid annual fees for two unwanted weeks. The management stated that "unlike areas like Orlando where there is year round demand, these times are almost impossible to market". Seems to verify what I have said all along that the availability alone doesn't make or break the "value" of a week. A week with a 60% low period demand - or even 30%, a level never seen in Orlando - blows away one with less than 15% - an all too common number in seasonal areas. The simple fact that there are more physical units doesn't change those usage percentages.

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

Orlando does have yearround demand. It is just that in many months, the huge amount of supply overwhelms demand and leaves a big oversupply problem. Remember the resort areas where Bootleg used to frequently tell us there was nearly always availibility - Massanutten, Williamsburg, Branson, and Orlando, and that the two resorts with the most oversupply in the entire RCI system were both Gold Crowns in Orlando. Madge also once described Orlando as a place with ''a plentiful excess of supply''.

The key is to look at BOTH supply and demand.

The Availibility tables in the European version of the RCI Directory shows that South Africa has a much better supply/demand curve than Orlando. Based on that, most SA owners trading into Orlando are probably trading down.

While if you go far enough north, your 8-14 week scenario may have some truth, it is not true for southern coastal resorts, where I would wager than resorts have a better yearround occupancy rate than Orlando.

And I would suspect that most blue weeks in France and Italy have a better supply / demand curve than most red weeks in Orlando.

The issue is the truly dog nature of weeks from highly seasonal resorts. Once you are past the 8-14 weeks of prime use time the rest are virtually worthless. So much so that I have heard of a resort on the east coast that is offering "two for one" time to anyone willing to buy one of those weeks. The buyer would literally get two of these low value weeks for the price of one both at purchase AND in annual fees! The theory being that getting one reliable payment out of those two weeks beats getting nothing for two weeks as it stands. Of course that means the red week owners are paying more, on average, than the blue time people but its better than paying off two unpaid annual fees for two unwanted weeks. The management stated that "unlike areas like Orlando where there is year round demand, these times are almost impossible to market". Seems to verify what I have said all along that the availability alone doesn't make or break the "value" of a week. A week with a 60% low period demand - or even 30%, a level never seen in Orlando - blows away one with less than 15% - an all too common number in seasonal areas. The simple fact that there are more physical units doesn't change those usage percentages.

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

RCI - source of the exclusivity theory

From the complaint in ''Murrillo vs Resort Condominiums International'' in federal District Court in New Jersey:

''As RCI tells it, each member can deposit his or her timeshare with RCI - thereby making it availible for other members of the program - and can then withdraw a timeshare [that] another member has deposited. A key selling point is that only members of the program can access the deposited timeshares. This concept of a one-for-one exchange exclusively among RCI members is RCI's bedrock marketing principle. Unfortunately, RCI creates this image of its program through a uniform fraudulent, deceptive and unconscionable marketing scheme.

''In practice, the RCI members are not the only persons with access to the timeshares. While RCI members deposit their timeshares into the system, RCI does not make all these timeshares availible for exchange. Instead, RCI skims a large percentage of the timeshares from the system, including many prime timeshares, and rents these out to the general public for profit...

''Through these and other business practices, RCI converts many of the prime timeshare deposits into cash, leaving much less desirable timeshares in the system for member exchanges''