A new sales tactic or a good deal?

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

I am not sure where to begin... We were called and offered a weekend stay to come hear about the "infinity program" (which is a way to earn $ by referring folks to TS) & get a $50 gift card for our trouble... haha-- we were looking for a weekend getaway and took them up on the offer (Williamsburg Plantation). We own at Weston in Fla,(lockout unit biannual) which is a Vacation Village resort.

Of course there was bait and switch involved. The information on the new Infinity program lasted about 5 min. Now to the other part!

We were told:
1) Eventually all resorts (at least the gold crown ones) would be switching to points. We should act now to switch our weeks membership over to points.
2) In doing switching over they would take us from a bi-annual membership to an annual membership. Which would increase our vacation. All for the low cost of $10,000.
3) When I told them that they had insulted me they found another program also changing us over to annual (55,500 pts) with a change from our resort to Parkside in Orlando.
4) We would also not have to deal with RCI anymore we would have a vacation villiage representative with special number to call.
5) They whipped out the points directory and showed us how very few resorts were left in the weeks program.
6) They also said that on any given year that we could allocate our points for the year to the weeks program
7) And that while my weeks for only valid for three years I could save my points as long as I wanted.

Sooooooooooo while we walked around Williamsburg we tried to figure out fact from fiction. Why would they want us to sell them our resort so they could sell us another one? Why would they want us to change over from weeks to points?
Anyone care to jump in and tell us what the deal here is?

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

There is no "deal" - just another scam designed by the ever-so-clever timeshare salespeople, you know, the ones with the long noses like Pinoccio.

Don't even think about getting involved in this silliness.

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

Why are they pushing RCI points?

But can you figure out what they get out of buying back one resort to sell the other?? And why are they pushing the whole RCI points thing?

The only thing we could think is that they want to Mizner over to points and can't do it with so many weeks owners?

[tonyg Goomba & Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close tonyg]

One possibility is that Williamsburg Plantation is II affiliated while the rest of the resorts trade with RCI. They get you out of II and into their points system, so they can sell points. Other than that they want to sell you something and many shark outfits will try selling something cheaper just to get something out of each client.
When I attended the spiel at Vacation Vi;;ages in the Berkshires a couple of years ago, I could not get them to tell just what they were trying to sell me. Could have been points or floating weeks- finally I just said if you don't know what you are selling don't expect me to be interested in buying. Now that was before they got Williamsburg Plantation.

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

But can you figure out what they get out of buying back one resort to sell the other?? And why are they pushing the whole RCI points thing?

The only thing we could think is that they want to Mizner over to points and can't do it with so many weeks owners?

They want money to convert you to RCI Points, correct? They started off by asking for $10,000, didn't they? There's your answer.

RCI charges the resort something like $240 to do a conversion. Anything more the resort collects goes into their own pocket.

As for why they offered you Parkway instead of Weston, I don't know. It could be they have more inventory to sell at Parkway (doesn't Parkway have a gazillion units?) or it could be just an attempt to confuse you.

I will attempt to answer your remaining questions in red below. I own three RCI Points contracts and have a lot ofexerpeince with RCI Points, by the way.

...
1) Eventually all resorts (at least the gold crown ones) would be switching to points. We should act now to switch our weeks membership over to points.
I find this highly unlikely. Even if true, you could find a different use for your week.
2) In doing switching over they would take us from a bi-annual membership to an annual membership. Which would increase our vacation. All for the low cost of $10,000.
I'd say that anything over $500 for an RCI Points conversion is a rip-off. They already sold you your week, probably for a highly inflated price. Now, they are trying to make you pay for it again.
3) When I told them that they had insulted me they found another program also changing us over to annual (55,500 pts) with a change from our resort to Parkside in Orlando.
4) We would also not have to deal with RCI anymore we would have a vacation villiage representative with special number to call.
But, will they be any better than dealing with RCI? And, once you convert to RCI Points, you will be locked into an RC membership, no matter how horrible RCI's customer service is. You will even need to get a reservation from RCI just to use your own unit.
5) They whipped out the points directory and showed us how very few resorts were left in the weeks program.
Not true. I think less than half of RCI resort are in Points. And, many of the ones that are in points put most of their units into Weeks, not Points.
6) They also said that on any given year that we could allocate our points for the year to the weeks program
Well, I'm not sure what they mean by this. You will be able to use your own week, or trade into RCI Weeks, yes, but the rules are a bit different. I find it much easier to use a plain week (not RCI Points) when I want to search in RCI Weeks.
7) And that while my weeks for only valid for three years I could save my points as long as I wanted....
Not true. You can save RCI Points for free for one year, or pay a fee to save them a second year. This is very similar to the rules in RCI Weeks, where you can extend a week for a fee.

RCI Points isn't a bad program. But, it's not worth anything like what they're charging.