What are bulk deposits?

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

I keep seeing references to bulk deposits? What are these and why are they important to know about. Thanks.

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

A bulk deposit is a large banking of spacebanked weeks by a resort. The banking typically spans a larger period of time. What this does is temporarily skew trade power needed to exchange for a week at that resort because the supply now exceeds demand. As such, your spacebanked week could "pull" a week that it would not normally.

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

Where does this space bank inventory come from? Is this developer foreclosures?

[philsfan Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close philsfan]

Multiple units that show up in the exchange pool at the same time for the same resort. If you know when the bulks happen you have a good idea of when you need to start your search to snag a unit. For example, a chain in Hawaii used to deposit a months' worh of units about 11.5 months from check-in, they may still do it but I haven't checked lately. So if you wanted a June, 2010 week at one of their resorts, you should have your search in by the first of June 2009. If it gets to be July, 2009 and you didn't get a match, it could be a trade power problem and it could be time to move on and look for something different.

[lawren2 Malibu Beach Barbie & A Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close lawren2]

Where does this space bank inventory come from? Is this developer foreclosures?

Usually developer owned weeks. Think unsold units. Many are thrown in, we are sure, to get fresh meat for the presentations/sales opportunities. Most of the common bulk spacebanks will also have a 1-in-x rule. Meaning you can only exchange in every 3,4 or 5 years to make it even more enticing for the unknowing. Examples are the Grand Mayan Resorts, Orange Lake ( now Holiday Inn) resorts, Morritts in Grand Cayman and HGVCs.

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

Most of the common bulk spacebanks will also have a 1-in-x rule. Meaning you can only exchange in every 3,4 or 5 years to make it even more enticing for the unknowing. Examples are the Grand Mayan Resorts, Orange Lake ( now Holiday Inn) resorts, Morritts in Grand Cayman and HGVCs.

Does this mean that if you trade into one HGVC like for example Eagle's nest which I have my eye on I cannot trade into any HGVC for 5 years? I've seen on RCI where there is a limit on exchanges at Vacation Village in Weston that I think is about 5 times a year but I thought this was to keep people from re-selling the weeks not to make the inventory more attractive but I see your point if it's true. Just another tactic to dupe people. I'm glad I buy re-sale.

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

Usually developer owned weeks. Think unsold units. Many are thrown in, we are sure, to get fresh meat for the presentations/sales opportunities. Most of the common bulk spacebanks will also have a 1-in-x rule. Meaning you can only exchange in every 3,4 or 5 years to make it even more enticing for the unknowing. Examples are the Grand Mayan Resorts, Orange Lake ( now Holiday Inn) resorts, Morritts in Grand Cayman and HGVCs.

But sometimes it is not developer owned weeks.

There are resorts that do not allow owners to select a week to be deposited with the affiliated exchange company. Instead the resort estimates the number of exchange requests its owners are likely to make, and periodically makes bulk deposits of weeks with the exchange company using the resorts account with the exchange company. When an owner than decides to make an exchange with that exchange company, the resort arranges for one of the weeks in the resorts exchange company account to be transferred into the owners exchange company account.

There are advantages and disadvantages to this approach. For people who are savvy traders this is not a good arrangement, as a savvy trader will want the highest demand weeks to be in their account. With the arrangement I describe that owner will have no control over which particular week ends up in their account.

On the other hand, this type of arrangement has significant benefits for owners who plan to stay at the resort and only trade infrequently. Usually a resort that operates in this way will deposit few, if any, weeks during the peak demand periods. This maximizes the opportunities for owners to receive reservation requests during peak periods.

This system also works well when an owner has a change of plans and decides to use their week for exchange instead of staying at the resort. Under a conventional arrangement, if that owner changes their mind 90 days before check-in they will end up with a week in their account that has reduced trading power because of the short lead time to check in. Under the resort bulk arrangement, they will receive a resort deposited week that was placed in the pool one year before checkin, giving them a week with more trade power.

[lawren2 Malibu Beach Barbie & A Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close lawren2]

Does this mean that if you trade into one HGVC like for example Eagle's nest which I have my eye on I cannot trade into any HGVC for 5 years? I've seen on RCI where there is a limit on exchanges at Vacation Village in Weston that I think is about 5 times a year but I thought this was to keep people from re-selling the weeks not to make the inventory more attractive but I see your point if it's true. Just another tactic to dupe people. I'm glad I buy re-sale.

Hilton is not as onerous as other resort groups. You can't retrade into a specific location more than once in 4 years. I stayed at S Beach 3 years ago and can't trade into S Beach until next year but I can stay in any other HGVC property during that timeframe.

More restrictive properties are the GPR cadre in SCal that have a 1-in-4 and you can't stay at ANY of their properties for 4 years. Probably upwards of 10 resorts. Grand Mayans just went to 1-in 5. Can't stay in any of those resorts for 5 years. Manhattan Club in NYC is 1-in-4.

Of course there are ways around these restrictions

and that is where the group knowledge here comes into play.

[lawren2 Malibu Beach Barbie & A Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close lawren2]

But sometimes it is not developer owned weeks.

There are resorts that do not allow owners to select a week to be deposited with the affiliated exchange company. Instead the resort estimates the number of exchange requests its owners are likely to make, and periodically makes bulk deposits of weeks with the exchange company using the resorts account with the exchange company. When an owner than decides to make an exchange with that exchange company, the resort arranges for one of the weeks in the resorts exchange company account to be transferred into the owners exchange company account.

There are advantages and disadvantages to this approach. For people who are savvy traders this is not a good arrangement, as a savvy trader will want the highest demand weeks to be in their account. With the arrangement I describe that owner will have no control over which particular week ends up in their account.

On the other hand, this type of arrangement has significant benefits for owners who plan to stay at the resort and only trade infrequently. Usually a resort that operates in this way will deposit few, if any, weeks during the peak demand periods. This maximizes the opportunities for owners to receive reservation requests during peak periods.

This system also works well when an owner has a change of plans and decides to use their week for exchange instead of staying at the resort. Under a conventional arrangement, if that owner changes their mind 90 days before check-in they will end up with a week in their account that has reduced trading power because of the short lead time to check in. Under the resort bulk arrangement, they will receive a resort deposited week that was placed in the pool one year before checkin, giving them a week with more trade power.

A very good point from the owner/depositer stand point. My sister owned at VDP and they went from a choose your week to be deposited to we assign you a banked week. One year she got a week 52 which was stellar but that happens rarely in this scenario.

I can only say Thank Goodness she was an II member and not an RCI member.

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

Hilton is not as onerous as other resort groups. You can't retrade into a specific location more than once in 4 years. I stayed at S Beach 3 years ago and can't trade into S Beach until next year but I can stay in any other HGVC property during that timeframe.

More restrictive properties are the GPR cadre in SCal that have a 1-in-4 and you can't stay at ANY of their properties for 4 years. Probably upwards of 10 resorts. Grand Mayans just went to 1-in 5. Can't stay in any of those resorts for 5 years. Manhattan Club in NYC is 1-in-4.

Of course there are ways around these restrictions

and that is where the group knowledge here comes into play.

Okay don't leave me in suspense, Please tell me the secret knowledge that I'm obviously missing.

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

Most of the common bulk spacebanks will also have a 1-in-x rule. Meaning you can only exchange in every 3,4 or 5 years to make it even more enticing for the unknowing. Examples are the Grand Mayan Resorts...

I believe it's any Mayan week, not necessarily a Grand Mayan. That means if you stay at a Sea Garden, you can't stay at any Mayan Palace or Grand Mayan for 5 years. They also said it was any kind of stay (even an extra vacation).

These restrictions only apply to RCI; you can also trade into Mayan resorts through SFX (this may be part of the group knowledge to which Lawren referred).

sc
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[chriskre Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close chriskre]

I think I need to hang around these boards more often. I'm learning so much today. THanks.

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

A very good point from the owner/depositer stand point. My sister owned at VDP and they went from a choose your week to be deposited to we assign you a banked week. One year she got a week 52 which was stellar but that happens rarely in this scenario.

I can only say Thank Goodness she was an II member and not an RCI member.

I've had two situations when this type of arrangement worked well for us. The first was when we had a change of plans about three months before check-in at Po'ipu. The week we wound up with was a Week 6 (2nd week in February), which is about as high demand as you can get in Hawai'i outside of Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Fourth of July, and Presidents Week.

The other time was when our Bali Hai Villas week didn't close until late October. In the time remaining we couldn't make a reservation that worked for us; our only option was to take a resort bulk bank week. I don't remember what week we got assigned, but if the resort hadn't been a bulk banker we wouldn't have had anything for that year. Ultimately we used that deposited week to trade back into a two-bedroom unit at Ka 'Eo Kai the next summer. And since we then had no need for our Bali Hai unit that summer we deposited with SFX, which we turned into a Mayan Palace in Puerto Vallarta during Presidents Week.