"trade test" for BG/RCI interface

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

I haven't yet needed to use the "exchange BG points for an RCI week" option, but I thought I'd check and see how it compares on a few searches. I'm hoping to find the nooks and crannies where it's a better deal than other ways of obtaining RCI reservations. I am setting up a family get together for July 2011, so I figured I'd poke around the system a bit while doing so. Here's what I found. "Direct BG" and "RCI/BG" are denominated in BG points; "RCI Weeks" refers to the stated trading power to exchange given by the new RCI system, and "RCI Points" is the number of RCI Points needed.

#1: 1 BR, Pono Kai, 30 July-6 Aug 2011
Direct BG: 10k
RCI/BG: 13k (plus exchange fee)
RCI Weeks: 25 (trading power)
RCI Points: N/A (see Note 1 below)

#2: 2BR (sleeps 6) CMV, 1-8 Jul 2011
Direct BG: 9k or 10k (Cottage/Cabin/Villa/Timbers, or Townhome)
RCI/BG: 16k
RCI Weeks: 23 TP (See Note 2 below)
RCI Points: 36,500

#3: 2 BR Foxrun townhomes, various in July
Direct BG: 7k
RCI/BG: 11k
RCI Weeks: 18-19 TP
RCI Points: N/A (see Note 1 below)

#4: 2BR Summit at Massanutten, various in July
RCI/BG: 11k
RCI Weeks: 16-19 TP
RCI Points: 60.5k

#5: 2 BR Alii Kai, 36 various weeks
RCI/BG: 22k
RCI Weeks: 23-37 TP
RCI Points: 80,500 (only shows 24 weeks available)

#6: 2BR Shorecrest, 24 July
Direct BG: 13-15k
RCI/BG: N/A (See note 2 below)
RCI Weeks: 34 TP
RCI Points: N/A (See note 1 below)

#7: 2BR (sleeps 6) Shenandoah Crossings, 9 July
Direct BG: 9k, 10k, 13k, 15k (cabin, townhome, yurt, VIP yurt)
RCI/BG: 11k
RCI Weeks: 16 TP
RCI Points: 40k

To calibrate things, a 2BR CMV UDI cottage white week deposited into RCI gets a trading power rating of 13-18, depending on which white week. A CMV UDI red week is rated at a TP of 33 on deposit (why the RCI site shows a TP of 23, I don't know; that may reflect an existing deposit rating before they went to the new system). RCI loves them some Myrtle Beach.

Note 1: Some weeks that showed up using a plain RCI weeks search (not through BG/RCI) did not show up in RCI points.

Note 2: I noticed something interesting when looking at CMV. The BG search of RCI showed 1 week; going through my regular RCI Weeks account showed 7 weeks available. So the BG search of RCI may not show everything that's there. For example, a Timbers unit in RCI did not show up through BG, nor did a Shorecrest 1.

Conclusion #1: Book through BG if at all possible, rather than exchanging through RCI for BG resorts. There's substantial overhead in the system. Not surprising.

Conclusion #2: For certain high demand areas, the BG/RCI way may be useful (e.g., Hawaii at high times; probably other high demand/luxury locations), but in most cases that I saw, this was not the case. I agree with Jim, et al., that this may be good for BG ownership as a whole, but not for the power users.

Conclusion #3: RCI's interface doesn't show all available inventory to either BG/RCI search or RCI points search of weeks. (For you RCI Points aficionados, this is not an example of not seeing weeks at an RCI points resort; these missing weeks are at CMV, and I've seen similar missing weeks in the past at some non-RCI-points Hawaii resorts. When I've called RCI, they've agreed that I should be seeing them, and that they're not showing up in searches, but it's never been fixed.) I suspect that the BG/RCI site maps onto the RCI Points search of Weeks inventory, because it most closely matches that.

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

Thank you so much for searching and posting this info.
For people with high TPU deposits, BG is "cheap" in RCI.
There are definitely some worth the cost and the 'new' format is very easy to use but there are also many negatives.

And it seems RCI loves Myrtle Beach as much as SoCal and even better then Cape Cod, who knew!

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

Thanks!

I love the concrete detail you provide. Thanks for doing this!

Explain the Myrtle Beach comment to me, please. Is the TP for the Shorecrest week high for non-BG resorts? (Obviously it is the highest for the things you compared but I don't have a good feel for how the TP shook out across the board).

Anita

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

I love the concrete detail you provide. Thanks for doing this!

Explain the Myrtle Beach comment to me, please. Is the TP for the Shorecrest week high for non-BG resorts? (Obviously it is the highest for the things you compared but I don't have a good feel for how the TP shook out across the board).

Anita

RCI is giving owners/depositers of Myrtle Beach summer ownerships - say week 24-32 - a VERY high amount of TPUs for those deposits.
You can use the deposit calculater to check the numbers.

And summer beach weeks - Cape Cod, HHI, Myrtle Beach, SoCal have very high # TPUs to trade into.

We always knew it took a "very good trader" to get into summer beach weeks but with the new transparent RCI, we can actually see the numbers.

edit - Yes, non-BGVC weeks in MB are also getting HIGH numbers of TPUs to deposit and cost high numbers to get into.

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

RCI is giving owners/depositers of Myrtle Beach summer ownerships - say week 24-32 - a VERY high amount of TPUs for those deposits.

This has traditionally been the case (as an owner of a number of MB weeks). I have traditionally done very last minute deposits of summer MB and had very minimal impact on TP (could still see Manhattan Club). The new system has diminished that but still provides very good TPUs relative to the MF cost.

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

Conclusions #1 and #2 are mostly consistent with observations from the other mini-system portals, as well, and I suspect Wyndham's performance will be similar when its portal drops next week. Some HGVC weeks get modest discounts going through HGVC's RCI portal vs. internal bookings (as I understand it), but mostly there is friction.

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

And it seems RCI loves Myrtle Beach as much as SoCal and even better then Cape Cod, who knew!

Yup. I deposited a 2 BR Harbour Lights back at the end of November, just before RCI stopped accepting deposits of weeks reserved with BG points. It had enough trading power to reserve a 1BR on the Cape for my sister-in-law, plus leave me 23 TP in change. Too bad we can't do that any longer!

Good fortune for those who own fixed/floating MB weeks. This also rejuvenates the value of the CMV UDIs.

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

Explain the Myrtle Beach comment to me, please. Is the TP for the Shorecrest week high for non-BG resorts? (Obviously it is the highest for the things you compared but I don't have a good feel for how the TP shook out across the board).

Just what Pat said, that Myrtle Beach has high TPU. And it's not just for summer weeks; the spring weeks there are reasonably high value (comparatively) too.

As to what percentage of overall weeks a given TPU value can see, here are some data points from RCI.com tonight, based on what I have on deposit:

Total deposits in system: 146,320

TP 6: 20,731 = 14%
TP 17: 113,161 = 77%
TP 21: 132,446 = 90%
TP 22: 135,524 = 93%
TP 23: 138,083 = 94%

So, you can see that the curve flattens out by the time we get into the low 20's. Less than 6% of all RCI deposits (as of this sample) have a higher TP than 23 (remember the max value is 60). There are a TON of timeshares out there that get TP < 17.

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

Yup. I deposited a 2 BR Harbour Lights back at the end of November, just before RCI stopped accepting deposits of weeks reserved with BG points. It had enough trading power to reserve a 1BR on the Cape for my sister-in-law, plus leave me 23 TP in change. Too bad we can't do that any longer!

Good fortune for those who own fixed/floating MB weeks. This also rejuvenates the value of the CMV UDIs.

Or those whose deeded BGVC weeks are in Myrtle Beach

When I first started my research into the club, there were just a few people who stated having a good deeded week that you were entitled to reserve and use at 12 months was important for popular locations during popular times. Most everyone else said a point was a point.

Now it IS important where and what week you are deeded as that is the only week that RCI will accept as a "week" deposit (outside of fixed/float/UDI ownerships)

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

I was one of those &quot;points are points&quot; people (:

I've just looked through my Bluegreen purchase file and realized that several of my purchases are partial weeks. I never thought twice about owning partial weeks but it certainly is a consideration I'd make today.

If I'd paid much attention to underlying weeks, though, it would have been to ensure usage and I'd have gone for 2 bedroom summer cabins at Big Cedar.

I do have one red season (fall) cabin at Big Cedar but for 13,000 points I'd only get 21 TPUs.

My two Big Cedar studio high red weeks, which I would NEVER have bought to use myself, would each get me 16 TPUs. Given their relatively low underlying MF cost, that could be a viable option for me.

Anita

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

Now it IS important where and what week you are deeded as that is the only week that RCI will accept as a "week" deposit (outside of fixed/float/UDI ownerships)

In fact, when I was purchasing, I asked for points deeded at LAI and HL. I got LAI, but not HL; I was told that I didn't want to own at HL because weeks were readily available to reserve for deposit (in fact, *all* of my deeds are at LAI). As we now know, this was true, but isn't any longer. It seems to balance out; the summer week I own at LAI isn't worth as much as the same week at HL, but the May and Christmas weeks are worth more...not that I ever plan to deposit them into RCI.

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

I've just looked through my Bluegreen purchase file and realized that several of my purchases are partial weeks. I never thought twice about owning partial weeks but it certainly is a consideration I'd make today.

If I'd paid much attention to underlying weeks, though, it would have been to ensure usage and I'd have gone for 2 bedroom summer cabins at Big Cedar.

I do have one red season (fall) cabin at Big Cedar but for 13,000 points I'd only get 21 TPUs.

My two Big Cedar studio high red weeks, which I would NEVER have bought to use myself, would each get me 16 TPUs. Given their relatively low underlying MF cost, that could be a viable option for me.

Anita

That does look good - and as programs evolve things that didn't matter now do - who knew!

In fact, when I was purchasing, I asked for points deeded at LAI and HL. I got LAI, but not HL; I was told that I didn't want to own at HL because weeks were readily available to reserve for deposit (in fact, *all* of my deeds are at LAI). As we now know, this was true, but isn't any longer. It seems to balance out; the summer week I own at LAI isn't worth as much as the same week at HL, but the May and Christmas weeks are worth more...not that I ever plan to deposit them into RCI.

Is that because these are the weeks that "fuel" your UDI weeks?

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

Is that because these are the weeks that "fuel" your UDI weeks?

Well, I have plenty of UDI fodder for RCI, so I wouldn't want to spend the points 12 months in advance to reserve my deeded week to give to RCI. Also, the most any of my LAI weeks are worth is about 35 TPU, which isn't a good enough ratio for me to spend the points.

I'd rather use my BG points for other purposes, e.g. making reservations for family getaways where I need a bunch of rooms; that only works well in RCI if I travel to places with lots of exchange availability.