Lets look at an actual exchange weeks vs points

[Carolinian]

Most color codes are outdated. There are blue weeks where resorts are usually full, and those weeks have more value than deep offseason weeks.

There are also pink offseason weeks in overbuilt areas that have a massive oversupply, so there can be ''red'' weeks with less value than some blue weeks.

There are quite a few blue weeks in France, for instance, that have stronger demand vs. supply ratios than many ''red'' weeks in overbuilt Orlando, based on exchange availibility.

In a market based system, a blue week will be worth exactly what its worth....next to nothing.

 

[Carolinian]

blue to red trade up in RCI Points

Here's one example of a trade up that is availible every day in RCI Points:

Sandcatle Village II in inland New Bern, NC, 2BR blue week 12 (March) = 44,000 points

BIS Ocean Pines, oceanfront on the OBX, 2BR red week 33 (August) = 42,500 points

that is a substantial upgrade in location as well as season, and you even have ''change'' left over!

They are both Points resorts, so you do not have to even use the unfair generic crossover grids to do it!

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

Here's one example of a trade up that is availible every day in RCI Points:

Sandcatle Village II in inland New Bern, NC, 2BR blue week 12 (March) = 44,000 points

BIS Ocean Pines, oceanfront on the OBX, 2BR red week 33 (August) = 42,500 points

that is a substantial upgrade in location as well as season, and you even have ''change'' left over!

They are both Points resorts, so you do not have to even use the unfair generic crossover grids to do it!

Doesn't that help solve the problem of blue week "owner abandonment" by making those weeks more valuable?

 

["Roger"]

...
The whole rigid Points system is designed to create an artifical ''excess'' for RCI to rent out.

Take a look at posts 8, 12, and 13. The Weeks system is what would allow for skimming and renting.

(Walt -- If you are paying attention. How did Points help disguise the fact that Embassy Maui units were being rented?)

 

[BocaBum99]

Here's one example of a trade up that is availible every day in RCI Points:

Sandcatle Village II in inland New Bern, NC, 2BR blue week 12 (March) = 44,000 points

BIS Ocean Pines, oceanfront on the OBX, 2BR red week 33 (August) = 42,500 points

that is a substantial upgrade in location as well as season, and you even have ''change'' left over!

They are both Points resorts, so you do not have to even use the unfair generic crossover grids to do it!

So what? For every example you come up with that isn't fair, there are 100's that are fair or way more so than in weeks. The same is true for other things outside of timesharing. For every 100 people you find that believes the world is spherical, you can find 1 that believes it's flat.

You bring the outlier case and generalize it to the whole system. That's wrong.

 

[Carolinian]

For the RCI Weeks system or any exchange system to maintain its integrity, the entity running it must not have its hand in the system's pocket. Once RCI got on the rental kick it suddenly had a very serious conflict of interest.
The deHaan model of the Weeks system was great, but Cendant has certainly prostituted it since they took over through the rentals.

The key to integrity is whether anyone has an incentive to cook the books.
Rentals by exchange companies to the general public create a huge such incentive.

The Points program produces an ''excess'' automatically by its rigid numbers and the fact that they cannot adjust for changes in supply and demand. RCI has to cook the books to make Weeks produce an excess in better weeks, as there is always going to be more demand than supply. The rentals do create an incentive to do so. If the exchange company is not renting weeks out, there is no incentive to skim. That is why rentals are a bigger threat to the system than the unfair interface between Weeks and Points.

This is EXACTLY what my wife said after our first timeshare trade. In points, you have to get back one for one. Weeks allows a company to manipulate people to, on average, trade down. (I say, on average, because you need to throw in some up trades for appearance.) When the average trade is a trade down, the company can skim off the top and rent the best inventory.

This has created one of the biggest ironies on TUG. A whole crew of people, entirely suspicious of RCI, have been defending the very system that would allow RCI to accomplish what they accuse them of doing.

 

["Roger"]

...
The key to integrity is whether anyone has an incentive to cook the books.
Rentals by exchange companies to the general public create a huge such incentive...

So now you have established that RCI (and II for that matter) have the incentive (make more profit by renting). What posts 8, 12. and 13 speak to is opportunity. It is Weeks that provides the opportunity.

By the way, I just put 70,000 worth of points into the system before looking at this board. You know what. I'll bet I get 70,000 points out. I do not have that assurance in Weeks. I like having published numbers, control of my own destiny, etc. Yes, I can see why Weeks owners are restless. Any economic class will tell you that if you have secret pricing, it will create suspicion and distrust. Weeks is a text book example.

 

[Carolinian]

RCI's twin policies of points and rentals are enough of a threat to the system, that I am riding my RCI membership until it expixes with decreased deposits and relying more on independents.

RCI can milk either system. With Points, the rigid numbers will automatically give them a harvest of ''excess''. In Weeks they have to manipulate the system. The exchange deposits automatically placed in the rental pool as reported by RCI employees show that things are not on the up and up.

When it comes to the integrity problems at RCI, both systems are vulnerable.
If the rigid numbers do not produce enough rental inventory, they can always just take it right out of the system, even cancel confirmed exchanges, to get it.

As long as an exchange company has a major operation going to rent to the general public, it has a massive conflict of interest and its integrity is in serious question.

Do I ''hate'' RCI as Perry M recently charged? No. I am very disappointed in the direction RCI is moving. I would like nothing better than to have the good old pre-Cendant RCI back. One can always keep his fingers crossed that they will rethink the Cendant split up, spin RCI off as a stand alone company and hire Christel deHaan to come in as a consultant to help put things right!

So now you have established that RCI (and II for that matter) have the incentive (make more profit by renting). What posts 8, 12. and 13 speak to is opportunity. It is Weeks that provides the opportunity.

By the way, I just put 70,000 worth of points into the system before looking at this board. You know what. I'll bet I get 70,000 points out. I do not have that assurance in Weeks. I like having published numbers, control of my own destiny, etc. Yes, I can see why Weeks owners are restless. Any economic class will tell you that if you have secret pricing, it will create suspicion and distrust. Weeks is a text book example.

 

[Carolinian]

You greatly exagerate the number that are fair. RCI Points is a cesspool of corrupt numbers.

Some are systematic, like giving overbuilt areas numbers that are unjustified given the oversupply in those areas or pandering to developers in sales.
Prime weeks and locations on just about any of the crossover girds are another big area where there is a systematic problem.

So what? For every example you come up with that isn't fair, there are 100's that are fair or way more so than in weeks. The same is true for other things outside of timesharing. For every 100 people you find that believes the world is spherical, you can find 1 that believes it's flat.

You bring the outlier case and generalize it to the whole system. That's wrong.

 

[BocaBum99]

For the RCI Weeks system or any exchange system to maintain its integrity, the entity running it must not have its hand in the system's pocket.

It is far easier to manipulate a secret system than it is to manipulate an open system. So, using your logic, RCI weeks is the more susceptible to corruption than RCI Points. If you don't trust the company running the exchange, then it doesn't matter what system they run, you shouldn't belong.

 

[Carolinian]

A week 12 in eastern North Carolina is not the deep offseason. On the OBX resorts are typically full for spring break then. The threat of owner bailout is really in deep offseason. In New Bern, deep offseason at this resort is 20,500 points.

Doesn't that help solve the problem of blue week "owner abandonment" by making those weeks more valuable?

 

[Carolinian]

When they flat take exchange deposits out of the system and move them to rentals, as has been reported by RCI employees, there is absolutely no difference between the systems on ease of manipulation! Points people have a false sense of security in that regard.

It is far easier to manipulate a secret system than it is to manipulate an open system. So, using your logic, RCI weeks is the more susceptible to corruption than RCI Points. If you don't trust the company running the exchange, then it doesn't matter what system they run, you shouldn't belong.

 

[huestous]

If you don't trust the company running the exchange, then it doesn't matter what system they run, you shouldn't belong.

Exactly.

Why spend so much time and effort barking at the moon?

The utility of a users group is the sharing of strategies to exploit the flaws in a given system. Not the continual rehashing of "I hate them because".

 

[boyblue]

Overpointed generic weeks are good for weeks members.

Caro,
An overpointed week on the generic grid actually helps weeks members because when points members ignore a week (it's not worth the points), weeks members get to pick up the week using your beloved weeks mojo.

 

[Carolinian]

The overpointed weeks are the pink weeks, with less demand. The UNDERpointed weeks are the prime weeks. Thats the way overaveraging works, undervaluing the least demanded inventory and overvaluing the most desired.

So you are saying that Weeks members should be happy that we have more
pink weeks availible while the Posts people plunder the prime weeks for a song? Nonsense!

Caro,
An overpointed week on the generic grid actually helps weeks members because when points members ignore a week (it's not worth the points), weeks members get to pick up the week using your beloved weeks mojo.

 

[Carolinian]

I tend to look at the big picture, not use tunnelvision on just my own situation. What RCI is up to will ultimately have far reaching impact. Just using a different exchange company on an individual basis accomplishes nothing. It is spitting in the ocean. Many of our resorts are in danger of owner bailouts, which are already starting to happen, from RCI's policies which leads to higher m/f's for owners and in the worst case, the resort going belly up. Individually using a different exchange company doesn't solve that problem.

That's why I have suggested that one of the best responses is to be proactive. Make certain that your home resorts know what is going on. Encourage them to publicize the indepedent exchange companies to help build real competition in the industry. There is no effective competition for exchange business in a resort that is affiliated with only one of the big companies and members are not told about their ability to use independents.

I know that some of the Points people like the ability of their system to rip off the Weeks system, and think we Weeks people should just sit back and take the fraud that is being perpetrated on our system by the way the interface between the two systems has been designed. I certainly do not intend to be silent.

Also, this situation does not deal with ''a system'' but on the contrary with two owned by a single entity, and I don't like my system being ''exploited'' unfairly by the other system. RCI is systematically cheating its Weeks members, and that word needs to get out to Weeks members.

Exactly.

Why spend so much time and effort barking at the moon?

The utility of a users group is the sharing of strategies to exploit the flaws in a given system. Not the continual rehashing of "I hate them because".

 

[boyblue]

The overpointed weeks are the pink weeks, with less demand. The UNDERpointed weeks are the prime weeks. Thats the way overaveraging works, undervaluing the least demanded inventory and overvaluing the most desired.

So you are saying that Weeks members should be happy that we have more
pink weeks availible while the Posts people plunder the prime weeks for a song? Nonsense!

Before we move on to underpointing let me get this straight, You don't have a problem with overpointing? Your beef is with underpointing the good stuff?

 

[Carolinian]

No, I am saying that the crossover grids are a fraud on Weeks and crossovers should be halted at least until an honest system is devised.

If you are a Points member, you are a Points member whether or not you have a seperate Weeks account. You are using aspects of Points to do the crossovers or PFD. THose are NOT aspects of Weeks. When you do that you are clearly wearing your Points hat.

The overaveraging that is the mechanism of this fraud allows a Points person to trade up even more than either system would by itself. By treating all weeks in the same region of the same award status, season, and size the same, it gives equal value to all. The t/s salesman's spiel about all red weeks being the same magically becomes true.

For example, a Points members can deposit a pale pink week 15 on the OBX from a Weeks resort in PFD and then use the same unfair generic points grid to take out a July 4th week 27 from the same resort of same size. Outside of an extremely rare situation in the Weeks 45 day window, no member of either Weeks or Points would come close to doing that in their own system.

And its not just seasons where this overaveraging allows this to happen. One could use PFD to deposit a very low demand area, like Carriage Manor at Lake Royale (on a smallish manmake lake with a history of water quality problems in the red clay fields of Franklin County in the center of North Carolina) and take out a high demand area, like Isle of Palms Resort and Beach Club or another Charleston area resort.

They could even do both, deposit a pink week at a low demand location and using the same overaveraged grids, take out a prime week at a high demand location.

The generic grids were a major fraud on the Weeks system when they just applied to taking out Weeks inventory by Points members. PFD severely compounds this problem. They need major reform and should be completely junked until that reform happens.

RCI had a chance to fix this problem when they recalculated those girds in the last year, but just rejiggered some of the numbers without addressing the more fundamental problem of overaveraging. Curiously, for the European girds, they have increased the number of categories a year or two ago instead of lumping all red weeks together. While they probably need even more categories in Europe to approach fairness, this is the direction they could have moved in the US but refused to. I made that proactive suggestion while the grids were still under review.

Using that logic, does that mean that since I am a Weeks member who also happens to be a Points member that it is okay for me to raid Weeks with my Points? You are speaking in semantics. The result is the same. People are being allowed to use weeks that are currently in the Weeks systems to raid points.

 

[Carolinian]

Before we move on to underpointing let me get this straight, You don't have a problem with overpointing? Your beef is with underpointing the good stuff?

What I have a problem with is the unfair generic points grids that incorrectly value weeks through overaveraging.

The fix I have suggested for some time is to increase the number of categories seasonally and geographically, like they do now with the grids for Europe. It would help to add even more categories than the number on the European grids. This would fix both the overpointing and underpointing problem that results from overaveraging. Of course, there would still be the question of whether the numbers were in the same range of Points resorts, but they do seem to be doing better on that part of the equation.

If they can do this for the European grids, there is no good reason they could not have done it for the grids in this hemisphere. What is RCI's agenda in failing to do so?

My answer to you was showing the fallacy of the argument that Weeks members should be happy with the grids because the lesser weeks were overvalued. I did not discuss the whole issue in the response, only that info necessary to refute your point.

 

[BocaBum99]

What I have a problem with is the unfair generic points grids that incorrectly value weeks through overaveraging.

The fix I have suggested for some time is to increase the number of categories seasonally and geographically, like they do now with the grids for Europe. It would help to add even more categories than the number on the European grids. This would fix both the overpointing and underpointing problem that results from overaveraging. Of course, there would still be the question of whether the numbers were in the same range of Points resorts, but they do seem to be doing better on that part of the equation.

If they can do this for the European grids, there is no good reason they could not have done it for the grids in this hemisphere. What is RCI's agenda in failing to do so?

My answer to you was showing the fallacy of the argument that Weeks members should be happy with the grids because the lesser weeks were overvalued. I did not discuss the whole issue in the response, only that info necessary to refute your point.

I must acknowledge that Carolinian has provided recommended fixes to points. That's good. Every system needs it.

I will provide a counterpoint to his argument, though. That is that all pricing is a challenge. It is a trade off between simplicity and optimizing profit. Simplicity is appealing to buyers because it's easier for them to understand it. Profit optimization is all about setting a price at EXACTLY the crossover point between supply and demand. That is what a stock market does. But, as we all know, a stock market has wild gyrations in pricing.

There is no perfect pricing model. The goal of every business person is to get pricing as close to right as possible and accept the loopholes that it creates. That's the way it works EVERYWHERE from your corner grocery store to your friendly neighborhood hardware store to Walmart.

 

[AwayWeGo]

At Least The Hat Fits.

When you do that you are clearly wearing your Points hat.

Fortunately my Points hat fits nicely on my pointed head.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.

 

[boyblue]

Carolinian,
I agree there should be adjustments and with RCI points and other points systems those errors are in the open for all to see. All we're trying to say is that weeks trading does not allow this.

If we could look at the RCI weeks tables you would probably see that the same erroneous assumptions are being made. After all it's the same guys making the assumptions.

 

[BocaBum99]

Carolinian,
I agree there should be adjustments and with RCI points and other points systems those errors are in the open for all to see. All we're trying to say is that weeks trading does not allow this.

If we could look at the RCI weeks tables you would probably see that the same erroneous assumptions are being made. After all it's the same guys making the assumptions.

That is soooooo true. Where do you think the RCI Point guys get the numbers they use to assign the point values? They certainly don't get them from Interval International. LOL.

 

[boyblue]

That is soooooo true. Where do you think the RCI Point guys get the numbers they use to assign the point values? They certainly don't get them from Interval International. LOL.

....After a harty laugh.

It at least gives us a indication of the way RCI as an organization thinks.

As a matter of fact Carolinian I have no doubt that you could put together a better grid (as a matter of fact I'm sure of it) but all I am saying to you (only because you have said you refuse to use it) is, it really ain't bad to the point where it is not usable.