A calendar is a somewhat necessary and useful tool that we use in varying degrees to plan almost every aspect of our lives. In the timeshare world, it is essential to consult a calendar for planning purposes—in fact, it is often the very first step in the vacation process.
We frequently meet people who complain that they can’t seem to trade into resorts that they want at the time of year that they want to vacation. In fact, this is probably one of the most common complaints of timesharers everywhere! This problem will most likely always exist, as many people want to go to the same most desirable places during the most popular seasons. Thus, certain places like Hawaii, Sanibel Island, and San Francisco are difficult trades to get, while some of the more overbuilt places like Branson and Orlando are relatively easy to book into.
Understanding and using the timeshare calendar will not solve all these problems, but it will go a long way toward easing your frustration in planning your trip. We will attempt to explain some things about the calendar, and point out some other things that you need to be aware of.
When timesharing started they needed a system to keep the weeks of the year in line with the actual days of the year. It is unclear as to how, or who, set up the first timeshare calendar, but every resort, resort system and exchange company uses a calendar showing the weeks of the year along with the current year’s dates. They usually also show the dates and weeks for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday check-in days.
Lets take a look at a calendar from the Wyndham system for the year 2012. Any calendar that you look at cautions you to check with your resort to make sure they agree with the calendar you are using. We have found some differences, so check carefully.
If we look at the chart, we can make some observations:
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The timeshare calendar shows the starting dates of weeks for the next 10 years. They are listed in three sections: weeks that are for Friday to Friday, Saturday to Saturday, and Sunday to Sunday. An extra week occurs in some years when Week 1 begins on January 1 or 2 and Week 53 begins on December 30 or 31. Check with your resort to see how they handle Week 53. If your timeshare starts on a different day of the week, then you can subtract or add the numbers of days needed to get the correct dates. Be sure to confirm the exact dates with the resort or the owner of the week.
If you own a fixed week, say Week 36, you’ll want to check the RCI calendar every year to see when that week falls. Our Week 36 at Pinestead Reef in Traverse City often begins the day before Labor Day—but not always. Sometimes we miss the holiday altogether. This can be a little tricky for planning purposes. As mentioned earlier, every few years, a Week 53 pops up on the calendar. When this occurs, folks who own Week 52 get an extra week to trade or use at their resort. They were made aware of this when they purchased, and may have paid extra for it.
Okay, so far this is all pretty uncomplicated. Now, we’ll muddy the waters. In addition to consulting the RCI calendar, you also need to be aware of the “seasons” that are assigned by RCI and those assigned by the individual resorts. These “seasons” determine the varying numbers of points needed to book the vacation (trading power), and the initial purchase price of the timeshare. RCI designates red, white and blue time, with red being the most desirable, prime time. To illustrate: let’s say you own at a ski resort in Colorado in January. RCI would designate this week as red, because it’s the most desirable season in that location.
That means that if you owned this week, you would get the maximum in trading power points. If you did not own the week, and wanted to trade in, you would need the maximum number of points to do so. If you owned a July week at this resort, it would be designated blue, because July is off-season for skiing. You would get a minimum number of trading points for this week. If you wanted to trade in, it would be much easier than snagging a red week and wouldn’t require a lot of points. But you wouldn’t be able to ski! To complicate further, many individual resorts and/or systems have created their own point and season calendars, which may be somewhat different from that of RCI.
For example, Wyndham uses the terms Prime, High, Value, etc. to designate seasons. The problem here is that every Wyndham resort designates different weeks within the categories, requiring varying amounts of points. Disney Vacation Club operates in much the same way, only their categories are Premier, Adventure, Magic, Dream, etc. Most timeshare systems have similar kinds of categories and point amounts. It might be helpful to know that if you are trading within RCI, Hawaii is Red all the time, as is Orlando.
So that, in a nutshell, is the Timeshare Calendar. If you’d like some tips on how to apply all of this to real-life vacation planning, tune in to our next post: Timeshare Calendar—How WE Plan OUR Vacations!
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