RCI points from which year?

Hi, I have a points acct. I currently have leftover 2009 points, 2010 points and 2011 points. I had spoken with a rep the other day and asked how they decided which point year to take from. He said that they always take from the oldest points. Well, when I made a reservation later that day, the points were taken from my 2011 year even though I have more than enough points in both the 2009 and 2010 years. Can anyone here enlighten me? Or, am I better off calling them and seeing what is going on. I always make reservations online.

Thank you.

HD

Need more infromation.

We need more information to help you.

1. What are the beginning and ending dates of your use-year?
2. How many points are in each of your use-years (ie. 2009, 2010, 2011)?
3. What is the check-in date of your exchange?
4. How many points was the exchange?
5. What is the origin of your points? Were they all originally from your account were they transferred from another account?
6. Where did you get your information that the transaction used 2011 points? Did a RCI VC tell you or did you get it from you account screen on the web?
7. Have do used any points in your current use-year prior to this transaction?

Thank you for responding. I will do my best. All of my information comes from the "My Account" section of the website.

1. Use year: 5/1/10-4/30/11
2. 2009: 254K
2010: 182K
2011: 341K
3. July 2, 2011
4. 76.5K
5. I have never had a separate account. Although I recently left The Registry Collection so they (RCI) had to make some changes to the type of account I have.
6. All of my info is from the website. The original allocation is 417K (please note, I am rounding the numbers).
7. I made a reservation for April 2011 at the 10 month mark, that transaction was taken from the 2010 use year.

I had tried hard and thought I had used all of the 2009 points, so the 254 may be a phantom of some sort. I was just surprised that this latest transaction came out of the 2011 points since I had enough in the 2010 use year to cover the reservation.

Thank you again for your help.

HD

I think when you make reservations on the phone (I don't unless there is a problem) they try to take the oldest years points first. Online it seems they need to take points from the use year that is the same as the date of the reservation. Sometimes it asks if I want to save my points forward to use older points first, sometimes it doesn't (or if it does I skipped over the screen without reading it and it won't let you use the back button during the transaction). On your account page it does show points from previous use year and mentions that it is not a running balance-so I think it might include phantom points. Your reservation for April 2011 is in your 2010 use year so it could use 2010 points. Your July 2011 reservation falls in your 2011 use year so it drew from those points. If you want to use 2010 points you can probably call up and have them adjust so that it uses 2010 points. If you don't use all your 2010 points they will automatically be saved into 2011.

RCI makes it rather complicated, so its always best to keep track of it yourself and ask for a detailed accounting at least once a year.

Thank you so much for the explanation. I will keep better records from now on. I should know better.... I will call and see if I can get the points moved.

Again, thank you.

Your online accounting for the RCI is not always correct.

According to your information you are in your 2010 use-year and the 76,500 point transaction on 7/2/2011 is in your 2011 use-year. It is always the check-in date that determines the use-year transaction. It does not matter if you made it in your 2010 use-year, it does not count as a 2010 transaction. So, I still don’t have an answer to question #7. This is important because points will not be automatically saved to the next year unless there was a point’s transaction in that year. If your online account showed 254,000 saved points then they were saved.

Here are some things to help you understand points accounting:
First the “Points Save from 2009 Use Year*” are not a running balance but the initial number of points saved at the beginning of your current use-year. So, I don’t know if you have any 2009 points left in your account. Normally you can subtract you yearly allocation of points from your “Current Use Year” and if it is greater that 0 that is the number of 2009 points (assuming you did not pay to extend your 2008 points).

“Current Use Year” and your “2011 Use Year Balance” are running balances but are not always correct. The “Current Use Year” balance normally includes your current use-year points, previous use-year points and two year previous use-year points (This is a paid option to extend the points another year). The future use-year balance in your case “2011 Use Year Balance” normally has just the future year “2010” however I have seen the current use-year points transferred into this balance which creates a lot of confusion.

RCI specifies the order for which use-year points and types are used for transactions. “Saved RCI Points shall be used first, followed by current RCI Points, rented RCI Points, transferred RCI Points that have been saved, transferred current RCI Points, and transferred rented RCI Points.” However, it will not use the older points for future transactions if those points will have expired.

So, the only way that your 2011 points should have been used would be if you did not have any transactions in your 2010 use-year, because points are not automatically saved unless there is a transaction in that use-year. If you had any transaction with a check-in date within your 2010 use-year your 2010 points balance will be automatically saved at the beginning of your 2011 use-year and any 2011 transactions should use your older points first. If this did not happen you need to contact RCI and have them correct it. Most of the time when RCI makes mistakes in the use-year accounting they eventually correct it.

I would strongly recommend you keep a detailed accounting of all your points accounting in a worksheet. You can call RCI and ask for a detailed accounting of your account.