Trading Power Formula

Hi Everyone,

In your experience, what are the most important criteria in a TS with regard to trading power? Is it Week, # of bedrooms, Lock-off unit, GC/SC ratings? Resort location?

I gather not all 'red' weeks are created equal...

Thanks for helping this newbie figure out a strategy

within II or RCI? It appears to me that the two forumals would be different based on what I've read here.

I'm better versed with RCI but I would be interested in hearing the differences between the two as well!

For whatever it's worth

To me, trading power is pretty much dependent the number of people who deposit their weeks at a given resort, versus the number of people who want to exchange into that resort.
To illustrate: If 50 people deposit week number 51 (Christmas) at the Wonderful Beach Resort, and 150 people want to stay Christmas week at Wonderful Beach Resort, it should/would have great trading power. If only 25 people want to stay Christmas week at Wonderful Beach resort (due to resort quality, or typical weather patterns, people not usually taking Christmas week off....) it shouldn't/wouldn't trade as well.
So, I guess I would say that week/location would be neck-in-neck, followed by # bedrooms, GC/5*. Lock-off doesn't really enter into it for me.

As far as getting a specific formula-good luck with that!!! (If you get one, you have to share it with the rest of us! )
JMHO.

II places higher emphasis on resort quality than II does.

Summer and holiday weeks in general trade well.

All things being equal, larger units of course will trade better than smaller unit. Lock off plays no part in trade power.

It surely does seem to be supply and demand. My Week 22 in Gatlinburg at one time traded better than it does now. The only thing I can attribute it to is that many more timeshare units have been built since I first purchased my week.

Exactly right. If you buy in an area that has more and more resorts going up you will have less trading power as the years go on. There are many other factors that are related to the specific resort as well but over building certainly will have a major effect on it all.

Size, season, and quality also play a key role.

At least with RCI, it appears that incidentals can affect your trading power. The trading power of your deposit is established when you deposit the resort. Suppose then, that you deposit right after maintenance fees are due and many others are depositing at the same time. Because of the temporary spike in supply, your trading power will go down. The same too if you deposit right after the developer bulk spacebanks a bunch of units.

How do you know when these events occur? You don't.

The above is why I prefer the "frozen" published values of a point system. The values can be based upon the historic record, not momentary fluxuations. Even you disagree with those evaluations, they are public, there for you to see. No guesswork.

Timeseller said:

Exactly right. If you buy in an area that has more and more resorts going up you will have less trading power as the years go on. There are many other factors that are related to the specific resort as well but over building certainly will have a major effect on it all.

Size, season, and quality also play a key role.

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Timeseller: Depends, look at Sanibel or Captiva. Can't seem to get enough units to satisfy even in off season.

Definitley great places to buy for trading power. I heard a new Marriott project has been held up by Marco Island review board. Do you know the status?

The following are all of the components that make up trading power in the RCI system:

1) Supply, demand, and usage of the week at the resort
2) Supply, demand, and usage for all weeks in the resort's region
3) Comment card ratings for the resort
4) Size and configuration of the unit
5) Seasonal designation of the week
6) How far in advance you deposit your week with RCI

Within the RCI system, number 1 is by far the most important.

The first 5 define the the trading power required to exchange into a specific unit at a specific resort during a specific time period, and the trading power of your deposit is defined by all 6.

II probably uses a similar system, with number 1 given lesser importance and number 3 given greater importance.

Several posters have mentioned quality ratings as part of trading power in II. In my experience, II Quality Ratings do not impact on trading power, except insofar as they influence others to request a highly-rated resort (supply and demand again). A high quality rating will restrict possible exchanges to other highly-rated resorts. Since there are fewer highly-rated resorts in both II and RCI than there are mediocre and low-rated resorts, the result is that highly-rated resorts pull fewer exchange choices than others, but they can pull "better" resorts.
Example: Celebrity Orlando, my lowest-rated resort will usually pull the most choices of my three II affiliated resorts. The Ridge Tahoe, Presidents' Week, almost always pulls fewer than either Celebrity Orlando or Worldmark, but sometimes it can see a very-highly-rated resort that the other two cannot.

Marco: No, but I saw the prices on those Marriott units and they were in the $50K-$100K - higher than Hawaii.

In my experience, unit size and quality have a much bigger impact with II trades. One of my tiger traders in RCI is pathetic in II. It's a very high demand area and resort, but the resort rating is very low. People still want to stay there because it's a summer week on the Southern California coast. It trades well in RCI because demand is so high and poorly in II because even though demand is high, it is a low quality resort.

Good traders in II would be 2 bedroom decent quality coastal summer weeks and many others - but that's my only experience.

II like size more than view.

My Riviera Beach resort is point based. A 1 bd ocean view cost me the same points as a 2 bd no view unit. But II values the 2 bd much more than the 1 bd unit. Because of this I reserve a 2bd when I want to trade and a 1 bd when we want to use it. ( who wants to go to the beach and look at a steep hill?)

Bill4728 said:

II like size more than view.

My Riviera Beach resort is point based. A 1 bd ocean view cost me the same points as a 2 bd no view unit. But II values the 2 bd much more than the 1 bd unit. Because of this I reserve a 2bd when I want to trade and a 1 bd when we want to use it. ( who wants to go to the beach and look at a steep hill?)

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Unit view has no impact on trading power at all. All the same size units during the same week at any given resort have the same trading power regardless of the view. This is because the resort retains control over unit assignment regardless of what type view is deposited.

gmarine said:

Unit view has no impact on trading power at all. All the same size units during the same week at any given resort have the same trading power regardless of the view. This is because the resort retains control over unit assignment regardless of what type view is deposited.

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Yes that true.

But interestingly, SFX said that at Riviera Shores since all 1 bd are ocean view and all 2 bds are no view that they (SFX) would perfer 1 bd deposits and give you greater trading power to them.