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[Q=gingers20] Buyer beware... not all Starwood resorts transfer the Star Options on a re-sale within the Starwood System. It goes according to the by-laws of the resort association. I don't know about Vistana but Vistana Villages does not currently have this in their by-laws. I own at 2 Starwood resorts, Vistana Villages and Desert Oasis (both purchased through resale). The Villages came with Star Options the Oasis property did not. I was deeply disapoointed since I had planned on using the Oasis property to boost my trading power. If you buy at the Oasis you only get the float time you purchased at that resort. And you have no way of knowing that unless you are an owner and have access to the by-laws. And you cannot buy Star Option from the resort. I tried and was turned down. But if you have Star Options it is a great thing. You can trade to any resort within the Starwood system and not pay an exchange fee. I love it! Every resort has there own Star Option value. It goes by the time of year and type of unit you own. Vistana Villages is expanding and has two more phases to complete. The have also added 3 bedroom lock-offs into the mix now. Also Starwood resorts no longer deal with RCI. I was informed that there contract with them ended 12/06. They went with II hoping their resort owners would have better trading power then they did with RCI. I have never dealt with II so I don't know much about them. If anyone has can you tell me what kind of trading power have you received with them?[/Q] I was told two different stories on two different days when I called Owner Services regarding RCI & II. One person said they had not renewed their contract with RCI. When I called again the very next day I was told they still dealt with both companies. I'm easily confused as it is already... We traded our Fountains II unit in '05 for Cascades to be able to access the points system. Our Cascades contract lists II as our exchange company. I messed up and didn't convert our week for points before the deadline this year. Since we're not able to use this year's week, we can only rent it or bank w/ II. If we wanted to rejoin RCI (at our additional expense)we could still bank it w/ RCI, or pay $99 to II to bank it, according to the rep... We've never used II before, but had problems finding available weeks w/ RCI in the past. The lady in owner services (who told me they honor both exchange companies) said that most owners she spoke to still preferred to use RCI... Of course I've owned Fords and Chevys, and that yielded similar results... ;-]