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Is it just me [RCI - drop of about 5,000 units ]

itisme

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I think you are seeing the result of the big RCI Sale

The availability you saw before would have counted the inventory that was made available for $229 in the recent big RCI sale. Looks like RCI was able to push around 5K off-season units with the latest promotion.
 

MichaelColey

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Goofyhobbie: Unless I'm misunderstanding, it sounds like RCI is counting a unit that is available for either exchange or Extra Vacation TWICE.

We may also be seeing some uncertainty due to the upcoming changes. How many people do you think are delaying deposits and/or exchanging right now? Either one of those things would shrink inventory, and many here have said they're doing one or both.
 

Goofyhobbie

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Michael,

Although you may be on to something when you guessed that RCI is counting what is available for Exchange or Extra Vacations twice; my review does not suggest that possibility as the likely answer to the missing units.

It is true that the Woodstone at Massanutten (#5711) by showing 350 Units and then showing 175 Available Units would seem to support your theory; but that is not the case with other SEARCHES.

For Example: Try a SEARCH using for the date range of December 3 thru March 27 and the Extra Vacations, Exchanges, and Last Call option for Grandview @ Las Vegas (#6923). When I tried it at 7:30 PM today the initial page showed 1 Resort with 149 Available Units. But, when I clicked on the green AVAILABLE UNITS button only 81 (1-BR and 2-BR Units) were showing as available.

Of the 81 Units, one was available for EXCHANGE Only; 24 Units were available for an Exchange Fee or the $229 Sale Price; twelve Units were available for a RENTAL FEE ranging from $404.99 to $602.99 with NO EXCHANGE OPTION and the remaining 45 Units were available to to me for either an EXCHANGE or a Rental Fee ranging from $287.99 to $530.99.

I had to ask myself what happened to the 68 Units that were not available as an option when I drilled down to AVAILABLE UNITS?

To re-check, I did a Search for # 6923 using the EXCHANGE ONLY option for the same date range and the result came up: 69 Units Available for Exchange.

Using the EXTRA VACATIONS option I again searched for # 6923 using the same date range and the result came up: 80 Units available through Extra Vacations.

For me the initial SEARCH using the all inclusive Extra Vacations, Exchanges, and Last Call option does not appear to be the result of double counting.

Michael you also pointed out that:

We may also be seeing some uncertainty due to the upcoming changes. How many people do you think are delaying deposits and/or exchanging right now? Either one of those things would shrink inventory, and many here have said they're doing one or both.

While, I agree that their is a small percentage of folks who are witholding deposits because of the pending "enhancements," we have to keep in mind that the overwhelming majority of RCI Members are not TUG members and probably have never heard about TUG so they are probably also not aware that RCI "enhancements" are in the works.

A delay in deposits is more likely to be due to the economic uncertainity we all are experiencing just prior to the onslaught of pending annual maintenance fees. That same economic uncertainity is probaly also effecting the attitude of others who are waiting before making a committment to an exchange.

It is definitely something else going on that is causing a higher number of Units to show as available on one screen and fewer available Units showing up upon a drill down. It obviously does not happen with each and every resort in the system; but it may be happening to enough to account for the missing 5,000 or more units.
 
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Mel

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For Example: Try a SEARCH using for the date range of December 3 thru March 27 and the Extra Vacations, Exchanges, and Last Call option for Grandview @ Las Vegas (#6923). When I tried it at 7:30 PM today the initial page showed 1 Resort with 149 Available Units. But, when I clicked on the green AVAILABLE UNITS button only 81 (1-BR and 2-BR Units) were showing as available.

Of the 81 Units, one was available for EXCHANGE Only; 24 Units were available for an Exchange Fee or the $229 Sale Price; twelve Units were available for a RENTAL FEE ranging from $404.99 to $602.99 with NO EXCHANGE OPTION and the remaining 45 Units were available to to me for either an EXCHANGE or a Rental Fee ranging from $287.99 to $530.99.

I had to ask myself what happened to the 68 Units that were not available as an option when I drilled down to AVAILABLE UNITS?

To re-check, I did a Search for # 6923 using the EXCHANGE ONLY option for the same date range and the result came up: 69 Units Available for Exchange.

Using the EXTRA VACATIONS option I again searched for # 6923 using the same date range and the result came up: 80 Units available through Extra Vacations.

For me the initial SEARCH using the all inclusive Extra Vacations, Exchanges, and Last Call option does not appear to be the result of double counting.
Your example suggests that it is in fact double counting, if you allow for one unit being taken between the time you did the intial search, and when you broke things down.

Total units in intial search: 149
Total only exchange: 1
Total only Rental: 12
Total units available as both: (24+45) = 69

Total actual units available = 82
(they add up to 82, I don't know where the 81 came from)

This should give 70 units available as an exchange (you got 69, so maybe on was taken in the interim).

This should also give 81 available as rental (again, you got 80 which doesn't quite match)

Add those 69 and 80 that you got, and they add up to 149! That's that's the number you started with, which suggests that they are in fact double counting.

As for the idea that the rentals are causing these drops in numbers, keep in mind that the availability we see isn't the actual number of units available, but only unit types. If there are 100 2BR units available on a particular check in day at one particular resort, they show us as 1 unit in these counts. We don't see actual unit counts. When a "unit" disappears from our count, it means no more are currently available, but confirming a unit will not always reduce "availability" since they might have other similar weeks on deposit.
 

Joan-OH

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In the last 3 weeks, I've gone from being able to see 106K to 93K. Every day it is less & less. It is my only visible deposit, so I hate to use it cause it's the only thing I can search with. However, it won't be long before it won't exchange for anything.

Joan-OH
 

tedk

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I have had 2 replies from MD Europe on the disappearance of thousands of units he says they come and go, so they must have gone to some of the millions of members we have. On the point of the exchange councillor telling me she can see units available to me that i cannot see on-line, he says that cannot be true. So either i am telling lies or the councillor is, so i'm giving up on that and waiting to see where my weeks come out in this new roll-out.
Ted
 

Conan

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I'm down about 4,000 on each of my Grade A and Grade B+ deposits.

One benign possibility comes to mind: September having just ended, the two-year window has moved from Sep 2010-Sep 2012 to Oct 2010-Oct 2012. September being the shoulder month after the July-August busy season, maybe September 2010 had lots of deposited weeks that nobody claimed?
 

jjmanthei05

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These numbers tell me a few things:

1 - there were a lot more deposits than exchanges - are people not getting the exchanges they want, or are people puting travel off because they can't afford the airfare and other components of a vacation?

2 - Incoming inventory before 60 days out is split pretty evenly among the 3 trade power categories, but exchanges are predominantly higher trade power. Does this signify that most people are trading up?

Inventory coming from other than member deposits is significant at 30%, and was used to satisfy 19% of exchanges. Can we afford to have RCI segregate that inventory from member inventory? If they do, will we all have to wait 3-4 years before we can hope to exchange into the newest resorts?

BTW, I have not seen a significant drop in the availability for my weeks, maybe a drop of about 1,000 over the course of the last week, mostly from what is available this month. Maybe they're holding newer deposits for the change over?

I wonder how much of this is Wyndham deposits? Wyndham sales try and push RCI as a way of extending your points for 2 years. So at the end of a use year you may have left over points that you put into RCI just because you would lose them but may end up never using them. Either because you didn't find something you wanted or you had enough internal Wyndham points you used that and didn't have any more vacation time. With 550,000 owners if even a small fraction of those owner deposit multiple small deposits to use up as many points as they can then the disparity could be coming from there. Also I wonder if the Wyndham deposits(or other system controlled point deposits) themselves count as the "other" since I can't book a week and deposit it, Wyndham does it for me based on how many points I tell them to use.

Jason
 

bnoble

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As I understand it, Wyndham does monthly bulk banks, typically about eight months prior to use, not last minute. These are independent of the generic-point deposits that owners put in. Periodically, Wyndham adjusts its deposit rate up or down if it is banking more or less than the members deposit as generics. So, the relative amounts are allowed to float a little bit, are probably averaged over longer runs than just a month or two, and generic use-dates may not necessarily be tied to the backing "real week" use-dates.
 

Goofyhobbie

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Melinda,

You are far more knowledgable about how RCI does what it does than I am and for that reason I concede to your expert opinion on most things having to do with how RCI does what it does concerning exchanges.

I, like you, have always suspected that RCI does, at times, show just one
2-BR Unit for a particular start date while having more identical inventory to fill the slot for other Members if I were to reserve a specific Unit that was available to me when I saw it on-line.

However, I am not yet convinced that what I have observed is in fact an illusion attributable to double counting.

When I suggested that you or another TUG MEMBER do a SEARCH using a "Tiger Trader" with the goal of seeing availability between December 3 and March 27 at a resort such as Grandview @ Las Vegas, NV (Resort # 6923) I expected that whoever did such a search using the Extra Vacations, Exchanges, and Last Call option would see MORE UNITS than I could see where the only option was an EXCHANGE!

For me the initial number of units came up as 149; but when I hit the AVAILABLE UNITS button the RCI site identified (at the time) a total of 81 Units with some being 2-BR and some being 1-BR but all Units displayed had a start date between December 3 and March 27.

To me there is a considerable difference between 149 and 81. Whether the actual missing units were 68 or 69 because of a delay is not the issue.

What I will say AGAIN is that the count broke down as follows:

Only one unit was available for an EXCHANGE FEE and NOT AVAILABLE for Rent at any PRICE.

Someone with a "TIGER TRADER" may have been able to see more than ONE UNIT available for an EXCHANGE FEE ONLY! But, just one UNIT was all that was available to me.

Having said that, it was clear to me that RCI EXTRA VACATIONS was willing to RENT 24 Units for $229.00 while RCI WEEKS was willing to Exchange the Exact same units for the Exchange Fee if I wanted the UNIT in Exchange for my trader.

Yes, EXTRA VACATIONS also offered 12 Units for RENT while RCI WEEKS did not offer me the opportunity to make an EXCHANGE for those same Units.

And, yes RCI offered 45 other specific UNITS through their Rental Program ($287.99 to $530.99) while they offered the same exact UNITS to me for an EXCHANGE.

But, the bottom line was RCI through Extra Vacations or Exchange was only displaying a total of 81 UNITS Available where I could act on one of the avaialbe Units.

My point then and now is that RCI showed 149 Units available on one page and just 81 Units on the subsequent page. The net missing units should have been previously noted as 68 Units.

There is a reason for the discrepancy; but I do not believe it is due to double counting.
 

Mel

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I just ran several searches using the Extra Vacations, Exchanges, and Last Call option and noticed exactly what you're experience. I did not run the same search as you, so I did not note any availability you are not seeing, but I did notice what I believe to be the reason for the discrepancy between the number of units available on one screen, and a different number showing on the next:

Take as an example what I have onscreen right now in another window

I ran a quick search for any resorts in the US during July of 2011, and came up with more than 400 resorts with unit available. I looked at the first 2 pages, each with 10 resorts, and saw 7 had units available as both rentals and exchanges. I looked specifically at 3 of them, because the number of units available was an odd number, so if RCI is double counting, something would have to show up as only available as one or the other.

Sure enough:

1) Attitash Mountain Village, 15 units appear to be available on listing of resorts
When I look at the detailed availability I find:
11 exchange only
2 both
These add up to 15, but in total 13 units available for exchange and 2 available for rent, for a total of 15


2) Bon Temps Village 11 units appear to be available on listing of resorts
When I look at the detailed availability I find:
1 only rent 575.99
6 exchange only
2 both
These add up to 9, but again, total exchanges of 8 plus total rentals of 3 equals the 11 shown on the resort listing.

So I have just now looked at October 2010, because there should be last call availability.

Alhambra shows 27 units available on the resort listing.
The detailed listing shows only 3 units!
all are available for exchange
all are available for rental from $234-$284, so they all count as last call inventory. Each unit is being counted 3 times!

I look at November 2010, because some of those weeks should not be available as last call:

Resort listing shows 30 units available
Drilldown show 11 (which would suggest 33 total available on the resort listing)
Because it only shows 30, I suspect we have 11 exchanges, 11 rentals, and only 8 available as last call. 3 units have a check-in date of november 27, which would be more than 45 days away, and accounts for them not being last call units.

Thus my conclusion is that when searching in this manner, RCI may count the same "unit" (or unit type) up to 3 times when showing the listing of resorts available, though the actual unit count appears an drill-down to the resort level:

Once if the resort is available as an exchange
Once if it is available as a rental
Once if it is available as Last Call

And yes, this seems kind of silly, because if it is a last call unit, it is also obviously a rental unit.

This still doesn't answer the original question of why units seem to be disappearing, but it does solve one mystery of how the online exchange system operates.

My bet on the missing weeks is the behavior of RCI members. This is October, and while some weeks are being taken out of the system, I suspect not as many are being replaced by member deposits. October is not a timeframe when I expect large numbers of deposits. We also may be seeing a change in the way it manages deposits from other sources. When a resort that bulkbanks their excess inventory, in the past we have seen that inventory dumped into the system in blocks, which has resulted in a temporary imbalance between supply and demand. Perhaps they noticed this as they prepare for the new system, and are making a correction.

If I ran their system, I would hold those weeks in a separate pool until such time as a member requested to use one as a deposit. That way those weeks would trickle into the system and create less of an impact.

Unfortunately there are any number of reasons availability may have dropped, and unless RCI decides to share the reason with us, we can only speculate.
 
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RCI has change the availability for 2012. Since August, I have been doing searches for May, June, July, August and September 2012 for the Mid Atlantic region. Up until recently, I was able to have matches in the 10-30 available exchanges per month.

Since the "change" all I can see is 1 exchange in May 2012. Nothing for the other months. For the four weeks of searching prior to the "change" only a handful disappeared from the first search and to the last search up until the "change" and this time frame was 5 or 6 weeks.

So I don't buy some of the explanations I here from other users on here.

Lets hope they have a computer bug and it gets corrected soon. If not, than it may be time to leave RCI and join Plantinum or other exchange company.
 

tedk

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As i said in one of my earlier posts the MD of RCI Europe said there is nothing wrong with our system, all the weeks you are missing have been taken by our members. So there you have it, i find it hard to believe, but prove it. As the previous post says what i am not seeing is from Summer 2012, i could see a lot of summer UK weeks and most have gone. Must have been a lot of members booking all of a sudden.
Ted
 
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MichaelColey

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We may also be seeing some uncertainty due to the upcoming changes. How many people do you think are delaying deposits and/or exchanging right now? Either one of those things would shrink inventory, and many here have said they're doing one or both.
I've seen most of my deposits gradually drop another 3-5k over the past week or two. I really think it's people worried about the changes and either putting off deposits or exchanging to clear out their accounts before the change.
 

Carolinian

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Well, if they were unloading prime season inventory almost two years out in their supersale, then someone got a bargain! While it likely did go for rental, it is unlikely that they did that at supersale prices.

Just more of what you can expect from the new new RCI in November!



RCI has change the availability for 2012. Since August, I have been doing searches for May, June, July, August and September 2012 for the Mid Atlantic region. Up until recently, I was able to have matches in the 10-30 available exchanges per month.

Since the "change" all I can see is 1 exchange in May 2012. Nothing for the other months. For the four weeks of searching prior to the "change" only a handful disappeared from the first search and to the last search up until the "change" and this time frame was 5 or 6 weeks.

So I don't buy some of the explanations I here from other users on here.

Lets hope they have a computer bug and it gets corrected soon. If not, than it may be time to leave RCI and join Plantinum or other exchange company.
 

Carolinian

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While I am sure that this is some of it, and I am one who falls in that catagory myself, RCI has kept their changes hidden from most members to spring it on them after it is too late, so I doubt that accounts for anywhere near the full number of weeks that have disappeared.


I've seen most of my deposits gradually drop another 3-5k over the past week or two. I really think it's people worried about the changes and either putting off deposits or exchanging to clear out their accounts before the change.
 
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