I just received our "farewell" letter and a link to the recorded Grant Deed being signed over to the Plaza Resort Club. We have owned since 1986, but we bought it only for trading into RCI. Over the years that has worked pretty well for us, as the Plaza has always been a Gold Crown, so we traded straight across to some very nice larger units around the country. Things changed, though, when RCI was sold to Wyndham and the Plaza was now only worth between 14-18 points. When we got the letter saying they were selling the property, we saw a chance to get out from under it. I delayed doing anything until this January, and was afraid that they would not accept the timeshare back, since they were going to continue to stay open. I emailed a letter stating the different reasons why we could not continue to use the timeshare, and fairly quickly got an email response telling us that they would take it back because it was a financial hardship for us to keep it. All they required was the payment of $350. (I am a Notary Public, so I know that payment is for the title company and is a pretty standard fee in the industry). I sent the check, then waited over 3 months to hear from them, and only did because I emailed them and asked why I had not received anything. They quickly responded, and we had the Grant Deed notarized and returned ASAP.
We have 3 weeks already banked at RCI, and RCI will honor those weeks. As long as we pay for our membership in RCI, we can still take advantage of their Last Call and their Extra Vacations, even though we no longer own a timeshare. Many of those deals are WAY better than using a timeshare week, when you add up the total cost of the maintenance fee and exchange fee ($230.). I am SO relieved to be done with this timeshare!!