Treating the new superconducting oxides as intercalation compounds, especially, as analogues to graphite intercalation compounds (GIC), clarifies the understanding of a number of their properties; in this description, the ratio of the number of cuprate layers per intercalant unit is equivalent to the stage number in GIC’s. In particular, the role of charge transfer (presumably, electron transfer from oxygen in the [Formula: see text] sheets to an acceptor site located in the intercalant) in optimizing Tc can be well discussed in these terms, leading to the prediction that the curve of Tc versus n, the number of [Formula: see text] layers, must have a maximum at a specific value of n.