RCI Weeks (Points Lite) Plusses and Minuses

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

Most things in life have there plusses and minuses and the new ''Points Lite'' from RCI is no exception.

Here is my assessment of the positive and negative aspects:

Positives

1. Known trading power - most seem to like this, whether from curiosity or belief that it will be a real benefit (but see #7 below)
2. Change back - whether they will use it or not, the fact that this is there is regarded by most as a plus.
3. combining weeks - while it might not be cost effective in many situations, the possibility to do this seems to be regarded by most as a plus (but see #6 below)
4. gained trading power - for some the changes in trading power accompanying this change boosted their trading power (but see #1 below)
5. ability to use combining weeks for 2 year extension of a week about to expire.

Negatives

1. lost trading power - many had their trading power whacked in this change
2. loss of flexibility of trading within a range or band and moving to the rigidity of an exact number system - a nominal ''trade up'' may now require a member to commit another week to the system to geta few extra points lite, losing the flexibility to use that second week in another fashion such as using it at the resort, renting it, or depositing with another exchange company.
3. loss of dynamic system of valuing deposits and moving to a calcified grid system instead, and a grid that too often gives the same value to very dissimilar weeks and is thus neither accurate nor fair.
4. increased fees - a nominal trade up, even 1 point lite, will requrie not only committing a second week but also paying an extra $99 combination fee.
5. further degradation of the 45 day window for blue to pink week owners and the threat this poses to the stability of our HOA's if these people bail out.
6. If too many people combine weeks to trade up, it may make like for like trades less availible for prime week owners and cause them to leave the system.
7. Hidden mechanism for setting trading power gives method for manipulation of numbers to aid some developers or regions. Published numbers give incentive for such manipulation.
8. For floating systems, the demand will be overwhelming for those weeks with the highest numbers from exchangers and may cause friction between exchangers and own to use members. The fact that those numbers are now known will ramp up demand for those weeks.
9. The incentive to deposit more than 9 months out is gone, meaning that there will likely be many fewer deposits earlier than that. This will hurt those who have to commit to vacation times earlier and to those who use frequent flyer miles for travel who usually need to lock in those tickets 11 months in advance.

Everyone's assessment will be different, and may be based largely on whether Positive #4 or negative #1 applies to them personally, but to me the negatives outweight the positives of Points Lite. (For full disclosure on valuation changes, I came out just fine on my OBX week, held my own with my SA weeks,if I can get the right floating weeks assigned, that is!, but saw my UK summer weeks whacked. On the latter, that just solidifies my decision to give them always to SFX and DAE in the future. My OBX week will continue to be put up for rent if I will not be back in the states that time of year). I do think that there are bigger issues on the trading system, particulary the impact on HOA's, but then that comes from years of serving on an HOA board, an experience that many of you have not had.

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

Add 6 more positives

1. Can get credit back, so if you deposit 1 good week, you can enjoy 2 or 3 decent vacations.
2. Now, can determine yourselve if it worth to take certain trade, and has way to get it. Before, your only choice is to wait till 45 days if RCI does not move them to rental pool before that. Now, you can determine if you are willing to spend 2 of your deposit to get one week.
3. Now, the owner can see what is the trading power of maitain gold crown vs silver crown, vs no rate, they will no longer into maintainence consideration as mysterial, and HOA will not need to just pump money and waste them to get 1 grade up.
4. When buying resale, it will allow people know immediately what they are looking at now (does not mean it will hold there)
5. When plan a vacation, at least people will get a better idea what they are looking, instead of just deposit and depends on RCI to adjust the band as a favor to you.
6. for floating owner, if they can select the week to deposit, now they know their options.

It makes the exchange more open, and reduce the class issue (higher deposit can not find like to like exchange)

A side benefit
Now that RCI's trading power is open, it become their interesting to reflect it correctly, instead of just push unexchangeable ones to rental pool.

We have not yet see a big bulk space bank, so there is no telling if during that period, the trading power will be the same or not. Also, we have not yet how RCI handles clubs like VRI.

As to lossing tading power, it already done in May.

As to #9, I believe it is the resort special deal with RCI. How many owner actually deposit that way and pay their MF 2 years out.

Jya-Ning

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

As to your disadvantage, a lot let us wait and see.

RCI is very different than redweek. RCI has agreement with a few resorts. Like Wyndham, Worldmark, I know of, and possible VRI, some Mexico resort chain that will deposit certain amount to RCI, and can wait till end of year to balance the book. And they are done by management company and the developers anyway. Redweek basically depends on owner to make deposit.

If you only has owner, than yes, it could happen that after x years, smart people figure out they should not deposit them early.

The fact is, after 30/40 years of timeshare, a lot of people will figure out that rent a preminum unit out is more benefit for themselves instead of just drop it and do exchanges. So to expect there will be enough owner deposit it will be hard to materialize anyway. Not to mention it is small portion to begin with.

At least, with an open system, RCI can now adjust the trading power based on real world of exchange, not just based on assumption. If an units do require 4 other units to be competible to start with, but really, most of the exchange does not willing to do it, it will either goes to rental (which based on the rental price, may or may not get filled), or RCI has to reduce the trading power. In fact, I believe RCI will do that anyway. They have enough units to balance a lot out.

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

#1 Covered in positives above as combining weeks.
#2 Covered above in combining weeks. The best way to determine if something is worth the trade IMHO is if it is in the location and has the features you want, not RCI's numbers
#3 Award status does seem to be part of their numbers calculation now, something it likely was not before, which is a bad thing as award status is nothing but a minor driver of demand and would already be accounted for in supply / demand factors, so it is thus being unfairly double counted by being used as a seperate factor, too. But you are right that now this does put HOA's in a position to determine whether the benefit of seeking award status will benefit members enough to justify the extra cost.
#4 already covered above in knowing the trading power
#5 RCI did not adjust bands. The bands were what they were and if you went above your band you did not get the trade. As far as knowing what you get in looking for trades, IMHO those who use numbers as a crutch instead of looking at the location and features of a resort for what will satisfy them, they may in fact lead people astray as much as helping them make a good decision.
#6 Agreed initially. But once most floating week owners figure this out, there is going to be a huge traffic jam at those resorts for those weeks, which will be a real headache for the resorts. Since those are likely to also be the most desired weeks for own to use members, too, this may get sticky. It may lead to even more floating week resorts reserved those weeks for own to use members. Otherwise everyone is going to be elbowing each other to get those weeks. I own at one such resort, and there are good numbers for seven weeks, four of which were sold as fixed weeks. That leaves three weeks for all the floating weeks owners to fight over.
#7 combining weeks is likely to make this worse, not better. The best bet for prime week owners is now SFX, which from now on will be getting at least one of my summer UK weeks.

As to RCI's interest in reflecting trading power correctly, they will never have that interest as long as they are engaging in the huge conflict of interest of renting to the general public.

Yes trading power was lost in the May shuffle, but if you have been following the threads (like JLB's situation here or the SA boards OY) you would be aware that it was whacked again this time as well for many.

As to bulk banks, RCI now has a grid pattern for deposits, so adjustment in values of deposits are likely to be rare and bulkbanking driving them down likely to be something that will just be a memory. It is apparent however that RCI is adjusting the prices they are charging for inventory, which may be different than what they are ''paying'' for the very same week at the very same time. The fact that several people have reported this OY is further evidence that the value given for deposits is likely to remain frozen. Because RCI gives them value on bulk deposits, they now have every incentive to try to hold that value up.

Add 6 more positives

1. Can get credit back, so if you deposit 1 good week, you can enjoy 2 or 3 decent vacations.
2. Now, can determine yourselve if it worth to take certain trade, and has way to get it. Before, your only choice is to wait till 45 days if RCI does not move them to rental pool before that. Now, you can determine if you are willing to spend 2 of your deposit to get one week.
3. Now, the owner can see what is the trading power of maitain gold crown vs silver crown, vs no rate, they will no longer into maintainence consideration as mysterial, and HOA will not need to just pump money and waste them to get 1 grade up.
4. When buying resale, it will allow people know immediately what they are looking at now (does not mean it will hold there)
5. When plan a vacation, at least people will get a better idea what they are looking, instead of just deposit and depends on RCI to adjust the band as a favor to you.
6. for floating owner, if they can select the week to deposit, now they know their options.

It makes the exchange more open, and reduce the class issue (higher deposit can not find like to like exchange)

A side benefit
Now that RCI's trading power is open, it become their interesting to reflect it correctly, instead of just push unexchangeable ones to rental pool.

We have not yet see a big bulk space bank, so there is no telling if during that period, the trading power will be the same or not. Also, we have not yet how RCI handles clubs like VRI.

As to lossing tading power, it already done in May.

As to #9, I believe it is the resort special deal with RCI. How many owner actually deposit that way and pay their MF 2 years out.

Jya-Ning

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

I list 6, you have the number up to 7, so it is unknow where is the extra one.

As to combine week, you list pro#3 and con #6 both are only 1 sentence in your first post, and only talk about combine up. So you claim you have talk about #1, #2. Maybe in your other posts, but since you open a new thread, and intend to sum all up, you may need to sum the in more detail. For someone that is into this open up process, one sentence maybe too much, you probably can sum it as just not 1 to 1 trade, and show the trading power. That is the sum of all the good and bad part. And that is the sum of all the change. And as you said in your pro, both are at this moment be look as favorable.

RCI has loss its # of exchange since so long, I believe it is at least over 4 years. And we have report that the exchanger loss its premiun weeks over to rental site over maybe at least 3 years.

I believe the rumor of open this trading power is at beginning of this year, so we can probably claim that RCI does this because of the class action. And blame the 5/30 trading power loss as part due to they plan to open it up to everyone. But years before that, we know the South African get trading power reduced in one night. And for few years, I have notice the change of the trading power when a space bank occurs. Some of the trade that use to be able to make gradually gone in some of the situations. But even if you can make certain trade within the fisrt short period of the time, you will not get the same trade after a while. So it is fluid, and never a constant, just don't know how frequently it adjust. I play with their trade planner, and notice a lot of area does not have trading power range. What does it actual mean?

If RCI can not get more people to exchange through its exchanges because it does not be able to allow people find enough to trade for that they believe it is reasonable (either trade up or down), than it will continue loss its business to SFX, DAE, Trading Place ... regadless what change they made. And they have realtively simple model than RCI's.

I can agree with you that if RCI's trading power rating just a fix number, and is set when they make a deal with the big developer/HOA, than it will have very good chance to continue loss its business. And it will be very ugly there. And if the people continue see their trading power degrade but does not willing to take it, or does not be able to find any reason to support it, it will loss its business.

At this moment, this is what I can think.

The change itself is to remove 1x1 and open their criteria of trade. You may think they overvalue certain area or resort or undervalue your resort and week, that valuation maybe there before this change, and with or without this change, there is no say that will not be there.

From RCI points of view, at least from the new many to many trade, they get extra income from it if it works.

If they can really reflect a value of the week? Probably not. Will it create the rating make people happy? Very unlikely. Will they be able to get more deposit/exchanges because of this change? I don't think deposit side will be affect that much. And with exchanger now be able to make their own judgement, I would think it will increase the number of exchanges.

Jya-Ning

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

Another negative, detected OY

Negatives

11. The home resort preference for trading back in to your own resort has been degraded. It no longer applies to existing inventory but only to such new deposits that come in after you put in an ongoing search for your own home resort. CORRECTION: Someone OY has now posted that RCI has told him that there are no longer internal preference ''trades up''. Even with an ongoing search, you still have to have the exact number or more in trading power. So for those who used the internal preference trade up feature (personally, I never did, but it may be a big issue for some folks), that is now gone.

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

Where is #10?

Add 1 more negative. Seems like the trading point given at the time one made to deposit is different than the required trading power one actually need to get the same week at the same resort.

Jya-Ning

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

Where is #10?

Add 1 more negative. Seems like the trading point given at the time one made to deposit is different than the required trading power one actually need to get the same week at the same resort.

Jya-Ning

Agreed!

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

Negatives

11. Priority for ongoing searches is no longer based on who has the oldest search. Now it is whose deposit that is doing the searching has the highest number of points lite. Only if they are equal does how old the search is matter.

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

Where is #10?

Add 1 more negative. Seems like the trading point given at the time one made to deposit is different than the required trading power one actually need to get the same week at the same resort.

Jya-Ning

From a post OY, there is another sinister twist to this. Apparently there is a pattern that weeks with higher points lite numbers tend to take less points to trade back into while those with lower points lite numbers tend to take more. Thus those on the bottom end get systematically shortchanged, while those on the top end get extra gravy. It also means, it will be difficult for those on the bottom end to get an even trade, while those on the top end will alwasy be able to trade up on get change back that they don't deserve if they trade even. It is designed in unfairness. Also it appears that certain resort areas tend to stick out like a sore thumb in systematically getting more points awarded for deposits than it takes to trade back in, and Orlando is at the top of the heap on this aspect of designed in unfairness.

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

Negatives
6. If too many people combine weeks to trade up, it may make like for like trades less availible for prime week owners and cause them to leave the system.

It's possible that as many (or more) people with prime, higher TP prime weeks - who maybe did other things w/these weeks in the past - will now deposit to RCI, because they can get 2 or 3 weeks back in "shoulder" season, at equally desirable resorts, just a few days or weeks earlier or later in the calendar.

That's what I'll be looking for myself, sometimes.

So maybe this is a positive, or at least a neutral that will balance out, rather than a negative.

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

Negatives

11. Priority for ongoing searches is no longer based on who has the oldest search. Now it is whose deposit that is doing the searching has the highest number of points lite. Only if they are equal does how old the search is matter.

How do you know this? Are you sure it's still not somewhat random, in that anyone and everyone who has the requisite number of TP credits is in the running, and it will go to the first request their database hits?

(This was previously true I believe, their claim that date of deposit or date search began was hugely significant notwithstanding.)

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

How do you know this? Are you sure it's still not somewhat random, in that anyone and everyone who has the requisite number of TP credits is in the running, and it will go to the first request their database hits?

(This was previously true I believe, their claim that date of deposit or date search began was hugely significant notwithstanding.)

This was one of the things that came out in one of the threads OY. And of course, like many things at RCI, how it works in practice may not be the same as how it works on paper.

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

It's possible that as many (or more) people with prime, higher TP prime weeks - who maybe did other things w/these weeks in the past - will now deposit to RCI, because they can get 2 or 3 weeks back in "shoulder" season, at equally desirable resorts, just a few days or weeks earlier or later in the calendar.

That's what I'll be looking for myself, sometimes.

So maybe this is a positive, or at least a neutral that will balance out, rather than a negative.

You will note the words ''if'' and ''may'' in this item in my post. Yes, only time will tell how this will end up working. I had a discussion on this with someone from one of the other exchange companies whose opinion on the liklihood of how this would play out was the same as mine.

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

Negatives

12. One size fits all on later deposits. Under the previous ''Real Weeks'' system, some areas with particularly high demand and low supply were not whacked very much or even whacked at all for rather late deposits. There have been posts that this pattern prevailed in certain parts of Hawaii and coastal California, for instance, and it made sense from a supply / demand perspective. RCI did not need nearly so much time to find a home for such deposits. Unfortunately, none of my resorts were in such areas, but it was a good policy for those who did benefit from it. Now, it is one size fits all, with the same rigid calendar whacking everybody at the same rate. An off season deposit in an overbuilt area has exactly the same schedule as an ultra high demand, ultra low supply area. Such is the rigidity common to a points system. The flexibility that previously existed to fit particular situations to market conditions is gone.