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What the heck is a RW "Early Bird"?

PerryM

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Perry,

You and I were both early supporters of Redweek and made substantial deposits into the system on the belief that we would one day secure a quality exchange.

You and I were both just rewarded for our early deposits with outstanding exchanges.

You and I have just reacted completely differently following these great exchanges. You are left with some points and now worry about risking another deposit because of things you're critical about with the Redweek system. While I've already made another deposit and put my account back above 2000 points, so that I can access another "Early Bird" when it appears.

Are you now swinging over to the nay sayers, thinking yourself lucky to get out while the gettings good?


I've been advising folks for months now to wait for the CEO of RW to show some confidence in his own company. So far the ol' "Chicken/egg" has had the CEO being the chicken and laying the egg (He got it backwards) - no confidence in his own company.

I love that guy on TV who is the CEO for LifeLock (of which I am a member) and he gives out his Social Security number for all to do with as they please.

I'd love to hear from the CEO of RW on the fantastic exchanges he has made - if he even uses his own company for travel.

I'm just glad the timeshare gods where smiling on me the other morning as my cell phone gave the alarm of an eMail from RedWeek and I hustled to the computer.
 

JMAESD84

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I've been advising folks for months now to wait for the CEO of RW to show some confidence in his own company. So far the ol' "Chicken/egg" has had the CEO being the chicken and laying the egg (He got it backwards) - no confidence in his own company.

Well, I'm still glad you got such a nice exchange, but a little surprised you view it as simply a lucky outcome instead of affirmation on your initial confidence.

I'm still confident in Redweeks system taking hold. I think they will evolve nicely as a lower cost alternative exchange system. Since I own multiple lock-off units that make for excellent deposits at quality yet not the branded resorts such as the "Marriott's or Hiltons" . Each of my "B" side deposits has been reserved shortly after becoming available.

I like the "Early Bird" feature and how it plays in to my planned use of Redweek.
 

turkel

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2 for 1????

Perry, If I read your post correctly. You gave redweek 2 weeks to get a 1 bed 1 week at the Maui Marriott. Did you consider this a fair trade? I have read your previous posts on how well Worldmark works for you getting you Marriotts easily. I am very curious to know if you think you got good value. The Maui Marriott over Pres week is very nice but was it worth 2 weeks and 2 Maintanence fees?:eek:

Turkel

This is why I will never deposit my Marriott lock-off with redweek. What they offered for my 2 bed would not get me a Hawaii Marriott. Something I find very easy to trade with at II.
 

PerryM

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I'm jumping for joy....

Perry, If I read your post correctly. You gave redweek 2 weeks to get a 1 bed 1 week at the Maui Marriott. Did you consider this a fair trade? I have read your previous posts on how well Worldmark works for you getting you Marriotts easily. I am very curious to know if you think you got good value. The Maui Marriott over Pres week is very nice but was it worth 2 weeks and 2 Maintanence fees?:eek:

Turkel

This is why I will never deposit my Marriott lock-off with redweek. What they offered for my 2 bed would not get me a Hawaii Marriott. Something I find very easy to trade with at II.


The beauty of a Point Exchange is that EVERY exchange is a winner. By definition! No one was holding something to my head to make the 2 deposits and no one forced me to take the Maui exchange. I did it because it was in my best interests to do so.

I deposited:
1) One unit that cost me $405 in MF
2) The other unit cost me $465 in MF

Total MF's cost me $870.

A 2BR Marriott Maui Ocean Club costs about $32,000 and $1,400 in MFs per year and I got 2/3 of that (1BR) or $932 in MFs.

I viewed that as a fair exchange MF wise.


If you look at costs:
1) One unit cost me $2,500 to buy resale
2) The other unit cost me $6,500 to buy resale

My total cost to buy my units is $9,000 resale.


The Marriott sells for $32,000 resale and 2/3 of that is $21,330.

I view that as a fair exchange purchase wise too.



I am a happy camper.


P.S.
Then to top it off the exchange takes place while we are in Maui at the Marriott Maui Ocean Club in a Studio exchange thru II!!!!

I see no reason why Marriott won't merge the 2 units together and for 6 days we have a 2BR Maui Ocean Club during President's Week!

Would that not be THE definition of an upgrade exchange?

P.P.S.
Of course all this is on top of the fact that I believe RW is basing their Points upon rental rates. This means that the units I deposit get RW Points equal to what they rent for (which was 100% the case) and the exchange's Points equal it's rental rate which is the case here too.

Therefore EVERY exchange is just in a Point based exchange system!
 
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JMAESD84

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The beauty of a Point Exchange is that EVERY exchange is a winner.

By comparison! I made the 3 deposits of the 'B' side from my collection of 2 BD lock-off units which came to 3565 redweek points, based on 2 - 1BD/BA sleeps 4 partial kitchens and 1 - Studio sleeps 2.

The deposits at a full 50% of the MF are:
1) One unit that cost me $380 in MF
2) The second unit cost me $380 in MF
3) The third unit cost me $231 in MF

Total MF's cost me $991 which divided by the redweeks points received 3565 is equal to $0.278 per point. I used 2952 points for the exchange so the MF cost of those points is $821

A 2BR Marriott Waiohai Beach Club costs about $60,000 and $2,400 in MFs per year and I got it all. (Note: I'm not certain of these numbers as I haven't seen much resale data on this place).

I viewed this exchange MF wise as a steal.

If you look at my total cost to buy resale my three lock-off units (not just one side) including all closing costs is $2,031 resale.

The Marriott sells for $60,000 resale.

I viewed this exchange cost wise as even more of a steal.

And I still have the larger half of each of my lock-offs for use, rent or exchange.

I'm happy.

P.S. I then deposited the 1 BD/BA sleeps 4 from the other side of the lock-off of the studio bringing my Redweek point balance back up to 2063 at a now even lower $0.194 MF cost per point, so that I'll be able too see the next high end "Early Bird".
 
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sernow

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Their "point" valuation is exactly why I didn't use RW for an exchange (not that they had anything to offer at the time anyway).

My resort isn't the best (Eagle Point), but the offer at the time from RW for a 1/1 for a week at Vail during President's week was pathetic.
My exchange would've cost me $.50 per point i relation to my MF, plus anywhere I would have wanted to go would have cost me $1/point to make up the difference. I understand that they try to offer points based on historical rent values and their offer was indeed accurate in relation to the rent. I know this because I offered it for rent and received multiple offers and rented it out in hours at the asking price (which also means that I was asking too little).

The problem is that I look at what's offered on RW and the points are out of whack for other resorts. For example, a Morritt's Tortuga (not knocking the resort, just using it for comparison) 1/1 poolside 12/8 for 1441 points? That exact week and equivalent unit can be had for $750 or less right now on myresortnetwork. A Skier's Edge 1/1 for 7/4-11 for 1,280 points? Are they joking? Did someone actually receive 1,280 points for this deposit or is there a RW "markup". I guarantee that you could rent this week anywhere for less than half that amount.

Either RW more accurately assigns point values or the program is doomed because I'd rather just take the rental cash for my unit versus subsidize RW with it and I doubt I'm the only one.

Mike
 

JMAESD84

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Trading Power

I think that you need to to be careful on what you deposit as far as trading power from the Redweek points you receive. I believe that the numbers of points quoted vary greatly, as the previous poster implied. If you are in a situation were you own many different weeks/resorts you can deposit those that you think Redweek values high and use the ones that they value low elsewhere.

The guy who's getting twice as many points as his unit will rent for is not complaining about the flaws in the valuation used in the system. These types of variances should smooth out as the system matures.

A good comparison if you are an RCI points owner who also owns non-points resorts is to compare what you will get PFD RCI versus Redweek. See which points system give you the best value for your deposit.
 

abc31

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It has been my observation that Redweek puts a high price on early deposits as well as unit size. I put in a valuation request for a 1 bedroom unit at Affinia Manhattan for Thanksgiving week a few months before checkin. They offered me something like 1,135 points. I requested valuation for a 2 bedroom unit at Vacation Village at Parkway for late september week in Orlando for 2009 and they offered me over 1,700.
 

JMAESD84

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It has been my observation that Redweek puts a high price on early deposits as well as unit size. I put in a valuation request for a 1 bedroom unit at Affinia Manhattan for Thanksgiving week a few months before checkin. They offered me something like 1,135 points. I requested valuation for a 2 bedroom unit at Vacation Village at Parkway for late september week in Orlando for 2009 and they offered me over 1,700.

If you split the lock-off at Vacation Village at Parkway and submit them separately you would probably yield over 2100 points.:whoopie:
 

abc31

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I thought of splitting them, but I wasn't sure how to go about that with redweek.
 

JMAESD84

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I thought of splitting them, but I wasn't sure how to go about that with redweek.

Just call the resort and tell them you want the lock-off split, with separate confirmations. Then submit them to Redweek one at a time for points offers.
 

JMAESD84

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A Second Marriott

P.S. I then deposited the 1 BD/BA sleeps 4 from the other side of the lock-off of the studio bringing my Redweek point balance back up to 2063 at a now even lower $0.211 MF cost per point, so that I'll be able too see the next high end "Early Bird".

So for another 1999 Redweek points, I was able to pull another Early Bird from the system. This time:

Marriott's Cypress Harbour, Orlando - 2 BD/ 2 BA - Sleeps 8
Thanksgiving Week (11/22-11/29/08)

So the maintenance fee costs of the points used comes to $422.47

Redweeks Exchange is definitely working for me.:cheer:
 
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aver

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RW

So, I'm trying to figure this out JMAESD84, what do you use for depositing into RW? What units are going to give best value or points? Would these have to be like Marriotts or how do we know what is higher value?
 

JMAESD84

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So, I'm trying to figure this out JMAESD84, what do you use for depositing into RW? What units are going to give best value or points? Would these have to be like Marriotts or how do we know what is higher value?

Definitely no Marriott's deposited by me, don't own any and wouldn't pay the money for any, not even resale.

I've deposited nice, but apparently undervalued by the resale marketplace, Gold Crown or 5 Star timeshares.

Club de Soleil, lock-ff, float 1-52, which I reserved for Labor Day week 2008 and deposited separately, studio first and then the 1 bedroom.

VV Bonaventure, lock-off, spring break weeks 13 and 16, each side is 1 BD - sleeps 4, deposited the "B" side from each.

*********************************************************

Interestingly - I offered a VVB, week 12 (Easter) "B" side, which I just acquired and got a much lower offer than for week 13 and 16. The explanation given was time between deposit and use.... so they reward early deposits.
 
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bigeyes1

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Just received a RW notification email. A Rams Horn Village week (Estes Park, CO) has been deposited. This is only available for RW Early Birds right now.

Details below:

Oct 11, 2008 - Oct 18, 2008
7 nights
2,321 pts
2 Bedroom
Sleeps 6
 

Phill12

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Just received a RW notification email. A Rams Horn Village week (Estes Park, CO) has been deposited. This is only available for RW Early Birds right now.

Details below:

Oct 11, 2008 - Oct 18, 2008
7 nights
2,321 pts
2 Bedroom
Sleeps 6


This is one of my problems with the point system!

We wanted to go there last week and looked and Redweek had a rental two bedroom for these weeks for $1000 for the seven days. Another had listed different week for $1700.00 so 2321 points higher on a dollar a point system and these rentals are offered on Redweek! :shrug:

We decided to take bonus days at our resort instead and spen 224.00 for four days.
 

b2bailey

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My first thought...what the heck is a RW?

As a new visitor to this site, I've just discovered the redweek.com
information in a few posts.

The write of this seems to have moved from a negative perception
to a 'happy camper' -- any more experiences to share from others?

Will this need to do to a different topic site?

Anyhow, I own at Marriott Newport Beach and we want to go to Maui
next September. I started to do a search request with II -- but seemed
like I'd be committing to whatever they find?

Insights?
Thank you,
B.B.
 
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