# RCI - Something Big Is Taking Shape



## travelhacker (Aug 11, 2020)

These are always underwhelming....Any guesses? This is from the RCI landing page:


 Shape


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## pharmacistking (Aug 11, 2020)

The interface has changed? ;-)


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## tschwa2 (Aug 11, 2020)

I think it is all just more of their garbage hotel rentals (and cruise, car rental air, etc) which aren't any better than anywhere else.


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## DannyTS (Aug 11, 2020)

They are cutting permanently all fees by 50%. If it is not that I have no idea but since I have been seduced and betrayed before, I will keep my expectation very, very low


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## Synergy (Aug 11, 2020)

tschwa2 said:


> I think it is all just more of their garbage hotel rentals (and cruise, car rental air, etc) which aren't any better than anywhere else.



I would be incredibly excited to see a new true points partnership become available again - even if the exchange rate is as shabby as it used to be. What I expect, though, is new 'better' ways to use 2000 points to get the same 'deal' you can get from any other third party consolidator.


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## travelhacker (Aug 11, 2020)

Synergy said:


> I would be incredibly excited to see a new true points partnership become available again - even if the exchange rate is as shabby as it used to be. What I expect, though, is new 'better' ways to use 2000 points to get the same 'deal' you can get from any other third party consolidator.


I'm curious -- since I didin't have a points account while the "old" program was in effect, how much did they value points if you were to venture a guess?


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## DannyTS (Aug 11, 2020)

RCI put some videos on Youtube about this.


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## Synergy (Aug 11, 2020)

travelhacker said:


> I'm curious -- since I didin't have a points account while the "old" program was in effect, how much did they value points if you were to venture a guess?



Points Partners worked out to about .8c a point, if I recall correctly.  Not a great value, but not nearly as completely worthless as the current program.  I was hopeful they'd replace the old program with something valuable - 2:1 transfers to airline miles, maybe? - but instead they just eliminated the option and loaded an affiliate booking window onto their site.  In retrospect for the financial health of their operation, pulling that option prevented a major cash bleed during Covid.  Other miles/points providers had to limit members' ability to cash in on (even at abysmal exchange rates) gift cards.


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## Synergy (Aug 11, 2020)

Ah, thanks for finding those, Danny.  Sure looks to me like they're just doubling down on using their membership base to generate affiliate/commission payments.  Too bad.


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## DannyTS (Aug 11, 2020)

Synergy said:


> Ah, thanks for finding those, Danny.  Sure looks to me like they're just doubling down on using their membership base to generate affiliate/commission payments.  Too bad.


yes, the "best price guaranteed" probably gives it all away.


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## mayamart (Aug 11, 2020)

I was about to renew our RCI membership (we are Platinum) that is due to lapse in 2 weeks, as we have not once used RCI and have three wks and 30 TPUs just sitting in our account. I wonder if I should wait until Aug 17 to decide...


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## CPNY (Aug 11, 2020)

Interesting, looking forward to it. Now is a good time as any to negotiate with travel companies for partnerships


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## sfwilshire (Aug 12, 2020)

My response was "oh crap" when I saw this. Never good news.

Sheila


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## travelhacker (Aug 12, 2020)

CPNY said:


> Interesting, looking forward to it. Now is a good time as any to negotiate with travel companies for partnerships


You are correct - but also very optimistic. I am expecting a glorfied 3rd party travel site (like the Chase travel portal, or some of those other crummy ones they offer for work "discounts".


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## escanoe (Aug 12, 2020)

I have noticed some updates to their mobile site in the last couple of days. This page comes up if you hit menu icon. It has some useful information and seems not to help with navigation (maybe I am not used to it yet.)


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## HudsHut (Aug 14, 2020)

@mayamart : where do you wish to travel? Are the 30 TPUs already combined (or do you have 3 deposits of 11 , 10, 9? 
When do they expire? 
30 is a mid-range number. It is valid for many areas, and great when RCI puts weeks "on sale", but not enough for other areas.


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## bendadin (Aug 14, 2020)

I don't recall ever seeing the ability to book hotels with points and cash. Not really a fan of the new website layout but I was so familiar with the old one that I just probably don't like change.

My first thought though was that if they are touting the Eiffel Tower on their big change page, they had better have lined up some better access to European cities because what they had wasn't cutting it.


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## mayamart (Aug 14, 2020)

HudsHut said:


> @mayamart : where do you wish to travel? Are the 30 TPUs already combined (or do you have 3 deposits of 11 , 10, 9?
> When do they expire?
> 30 is a mid-range number. It is valid for many areas, and great when RCI puts weeks "on sale", but not enough for other areas.


@HudsHut, we're not 100% sure. We travel a lot and *most* places we want to go, are not in RCI areas. However, we've been seeing some great deals of 30 TPUs or less for the Big Island and several nice resorts along the Mexican Riviera (where our home resort  is). 

We'll likely renew and use the TPUs for Hawaii Big Island when the virus dies down next year. 

Also, we had three deposits of 10, then combined into 30.


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## TUGBrian (Aug 15, 2020)

perhaps this?









						Wyndham Destinations, RCI, and other elements are evolving / rebranding
					

Wyndham Destinations, RCI, and other elements are evolving  https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/wyndham-destinations-introduces-new-panorama-brand-to-drive-growth-of-its-vacation-membership-and-travel-technology-businesses-301099697.html  It appears RCI and other exchanges under WYND are...




					tugbbs.com


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## pedro47 (Aug 15, 2020)

Will these new features starts on January 1, 2021?


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## Eric B (Aug 15, 2020)

According to their announcement on Twitter it will be Monday.


__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1292883543509676037


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## fox4mel (Aug 15, 2020)

travelhacker said:


> These are always underwhelming....Any guesses? This is from the RCI landing page:
> View attachment 24837 Shape



Higher prices are coming!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## MLR (Aug 15, 2020)

Would love to be able to search without having to deposit first. If I found something I liked, THEN, I would possibly deposit. But as it is, I just look at what's available last minute. Haven't even found anything there lately that appeals. For one thing, the time is too short. I think it should be at least 8 -12 weeks out. I renewed last year. Not sure I will renew again. Use Trading Places Maui last time and notice they a few decent trades around the USA. Nothing like RCI, but they were sure nice to work with. :0) I will wait and see what is up with RCI and then decide whether or not to renew next year. We will probably get the happy surprise of getting LESS and a HIGHER price :0)


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## BigRedOne (Aug 15, 2020)

tschwa2 said:


> I think it is all just more of their garbage hotel rentals (and cruise, car rental air, etc) which aren't any better than anywhere else.


Yeah, I was always able (for exampel) book a cruise cheaper directly than using a deposit.  The extra perks totally aren't worth it!


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## escanoe (Aug 17, 2020)

DING DING DING 

Winner, winner, blue crab dinner.



tschwa2 said:


> I think it is all just more of their garbage hotel rentals (and cruise, car rental air, etc) which aren't any better than anywhere else.


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## Luanne (Aug 17, 2020)

MLR said:


> Would love to be able to search without having to deposit first. If I found something I liked, THEN, I would possibly deposit. But as it is, I just look at what's available last minute. Haven't even found anything there lately that appeals. For one thing, the time is too short. I think it should be at least 8 -12 weeks out. I renewed last year. Not sure I will renew again. Use Trading Places Maui last time and notice they a few decent trades around the USA. Nothing like RCI, but they were sure nice to work with. :0) I will wait and see what is up with RCI and then decide whether or not to renew next year. We will probably get the happy surprise of getting LESS and a HIGHER price :0)


I would like to be able to search without having to PAY first.

I use Trading Places Maui all the time since we own at Maui Hill.  Just love them.


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## travelhacker (Aug 17, 2020)

Luanne said:


> I would like to be able to search without having to PAY first.
> 
> I use Trading Places Maui all the time since we own at Maui Hill.  Just love them.


I don't want to de-rail the conversation much, but have you had good luck with OGS and Trading places? I am tempted to set up a search for my parents timeshare that uses trading places.


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## Luanne (Aug 17, 2020)

travelhacker said:


> I don't want to de-rail the conversation much, but have you had good luck with OGS and Trading places? I am tempted to set up a search for my parents timeshare that uses trading places.


I only use Trading Places Maui to trade back into the resort we own (Maui Hill).  Since we own a fixed week and want to travel there at other times, that is who we use.  Since we are very specific about the resort and date frame we want (which is high season) we have to be patient.  Just about every year we have been able to get at least one week using Trading Places Maui.  What I like about them is you do not pay until they find you a resort.  I'm not sure if you have to deposit first to search.  We always do, and by depositing early I get a bonus week to use.  We haven't been able to use them, but I have given them to a friend.  No guest certificate, my friend has even been able to use her credit card to book.  As I said, I love working with Trading Places Maui.  We already have a week in March 2022 for Maui Hill.


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## pedro47 (Aug 17, 2020)

What was the big announcement for today ?


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## Luanne (Aug 17, 2020)

pedro47 said:


> What was the big announcement for today ?


I got the email from RCI but didn't take a look at what the big deal is.


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## Eric B (Aug 17, 2020)

pedro47 said:


> What was the big announcement for today ?



Free beer tomorrow....


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## moonstone (Aug 17, 2020)

pedro47 said:


> What was the big announcement for today ?



They changed the look of their website and added the ability to book hotels, cars and airfare from the site.  Doesn't look like any good deals IMHO, unfortunately.


~Diane


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## TheHolleys87 (Aug 18, 2020)

I spent a short time on the new site yesterday. So far the only thing I like is that I can enter a specific time frame rather than just a single month in the initial search box on the home page. I don’t like having to navigate all the way to the bottom of my account details page to check any of my saved (favorite) searches and having to scroll back down again to check a different one. I don’t plan to book hotels or flights via RCI, so I haven’t looked at any of that.


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## CPNY (Aug 18, 2020)

It’s worse, I log in, make a search of Orlando for the whole year and 0 results, I go back to the home page and I have to log back in. Oh RCI! They should have advertised, “Nothing big is coming”

Nevermind, now I can’t log in. Lol


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## dioxide45 (Aug 18, 2020)

They posted this to their YouTube channel a couple days ago;


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## CPNY (Aug 18, 2020)

Anyone else getting this when trying to sign in?


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## Eric B (Aug 18, 2020)

I'm logged in now, but hadn't posted anything disparaging about RCI recently.  Maybe that's it....


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## TheHolleys87 (Aug 18, 2020)

CPNY said:


> Anyone else getting this when trying to sign in?
> 
> View attachment 25065


Not when signing in yesterday (haven’t tried yet today) but when clicking on some resorts in my search results.


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## Eric B (Aug 18, 2020)

Crud, now that I posted that, this showed up:

An unexpected system error has occured.

We apologize for the inconvenience. Please try again later.​


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## ski_sierra (Aug 18, 2020)

I thought maybe they will bring the website to 21st century but judging by the all caps menu, they are still stuck in the pen & paper mindset.

All caps was a way to force people to write legible words instead of chicken scratch. There is no need for that on a website.


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## travelhacker (Aug 18, 2020)

ski_sierra said:


> I thought maybe they will bring the website to 21st century but judging by the all caps menu, they are still stuck in the pen & paper mindset.
> 
> All caps was a way to force people to write legible words instead of chicken scratch. There is no need for that on a website.
> 
> ...


I am not a fan of their new logo -- it looks like someone messed up the CSS when I first saw it....turns out it's actually an image and is their logo:


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## buzglyd (Aug 18, 2020)

Kind of underwhelming to say the least.


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## geist1223 (Aug 18, 2020)

ski_sierra said:


> I thought maybe they will bring the website to 21st century but judging by the all caps menu, they are still stuck in the pen & paper mindset.
> 
> All caps was a way to force people to write legible words instead of chicken scratch. There is no need for that on a website.
> 
> ...


Why are they or what are they yelling about?


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## bryjake (Aug 18, 2020)

Yet another lesson in listening and valuing the customer...

What the customer wants:
Transparency
Flexibility
and most importantly value

What they delivered:
Smoke and mirrors
Another group think exercise "If we bundle a bunch of stuff together, the customer will want this and is willing to pay extra for this"  
However, the customer is willing to pay for VALUE
See "What the customer wants"

Bundling, clumping, and hype for something Tripadvisor gives away for free

Conclusion:
Customer is NOT valued

*Confession* Not surprised


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## PamMo (Aug 18, 2020)

Well, they are dribbling out some savings...with some strict limitations.

*Exchange Vacations Only $199USD*
Save on your next trip with a discounted Exchange Fee of $199USD.*
Book by 8/28/20 to enjoy travel through 11/1/20. 

*Last-Minute Getaway Savings!
Receive up to $50USD off Last Call℠ vacations*.
Book by 8/28/20 and check-in within the next 45 days. 

*Save On Select Extra Vacations℠ Getaways!
Receive 15% off Select Extra Vacations℠ getaways.*
Book by 8/31/20 and check-in by 12/13/20.


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## ski_sierra (Aug 18, 2020)

I actually don't know what the new change is other than the website. Yes, searching is slightly easier. The OGS interface is the same with some different visual elements. But no additional functionality. What am I missing?


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## escanoe (Aug 18, 2020)

TheHolleys87 said:


> I don’t like having to navigate all the way to the bottom of my account details page to check any of my saved (favorite) searches and having to scroll back down again to check a different one. I don’t plan to book hotels or flights via RCI, so I haven’t looked at any of that.



Looks like that is how it works for RCI Weeks. In RCI Points, there is the same link there has always been on the home page to go to your favorites. On the RCI Points favorites page I have favorite searches and favorite resorts, but I have never figured out what is supposed to be in the favorite "pages" column.


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## CPNY (Aug 19, 2020)

I still get 0 results when I search an exchange. I put in a location and year date range and nada. It shows as if I’m not signed it, so I go to sign in again and get an error. This has been all day. Anyone else?


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## Fredflintstone (Aug 19, 2020)

CPNY said:


> It’s worse, I log in, make a search of Orlando for the whole year and 0 results, I go back to the home page and I have to log back in. Oh RCI! They should have advertised, “Nothing big is coming”
> 
> Nevermind, now I can’t log in. Lol



Try logging into the “renew my membership” pay with credit card page. I bet that one is working beautifully 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## dgalati (Aug 19, 2020)

Fredflintstone said:


> Try logging into the “renew my membership” pay with credit card page. I bet that one is working beautifully
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


Instant payments are always successful and without a glitch or error code! Can you Imagine if the payment of maintenance fees automatically stopped on a failed new website update?


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## CPNY (Aug 19, 2020)

Fredflintstone said:


> Try logging into the “renew my membership” pay with credit card page. I bet that one is working beautifully
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


Can’t do anything. The new site is not working for me. It’s terrible


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## travelhacker (Aug 19, 2020)

CPNY said:


> Can’t do anything. The new site is not working for me. It’s terrible


I haven't had any issues. Have you tried opening up a new incognito window? I've noticed that it seems to cache some things that have caused issues in the past for me.


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## CPNY (Aug 19, 2020)

travelhacker said:


> I haven't had any issues. Have you tried opening up a new incognito window? I've noticed that it seems to cache some things that have caused issues in the past for me.


I’ll try that. It’s frustrating now that my sis in law wants to go to Disney next week haha


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## CPNY (Aug 19, 2020)

It’s official RCI IS GARBAGE. I always knew the resorts were second rate but geez. The customer service, the IT, it’s all nonsensical. Apparently I never had an RCI account. You can’t make this stuff up with these people. PS don’t bother calling customer service. Am I the only one who lost their online account with the new nothing big is coming to RCI?


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## CPNY (Aug 19, 2020)

travelhacker said:


> I haven't had any issues. Have you tried opening up a new incognito window? I've noticed that it seems to cache some things that have caused issues in the past for me.


Didn’t work. Called into RCI and was told I never registered an account lol. So much for paying for platinum. What a joke


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## tschwa2 (Aug 19, 2020)

CPNY said:


> It’s official RCI IS GARBAGE. I always knew the resorts were second rate but geez. The customer service, the IT, it’s all nonsensical. Apparently I never had an RCI account. You can’t make this stuff up with these people. PS don’t bother calling customer service. Am I the only one who lost their online account with the new nothing big is coming to RCI?


try online chat.  I find them a little more competent vs the phone agents.


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## dioxide45 (Aug 19, 2020)

tschwa2 said:


> try online chat.  I find them a little more competent vs the phone agents.


He can't get online to chat...


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## CPNY (Aug 19, 2020)

Just tried a username recovery and the error I received was “subscriber ID is not present is ODS”


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## tschwa2 (Aug 19, 2020)

dioxide45 said:


> He can't get online to chat...


You don't have to be logged in to chat.  You can go to the contact us tab and then scroll down to chat.

it isn't a tab it is a link at the bottom.


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## CPNY (Aug 19, 2020)

tschwa2 said:


> You don't have to be logged in to chat.  You can go to the contact us tab and then scroll down to chat.
> 
> it isn't a tab it is a link at the bottom.


Got in for now, they had to reset everything. What a disaster, hopefully I don’t have this again.


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## dioxide45 (Aug 19, 2020)

I was able to login to DW's aunt's account without issue. The whole thing doesn't look easy to navigate for exchange purposes. I had to really hunt to find where her deposit credits were.


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## Eric B (Aug 19, 2020)

IT for Wyndham Destinations, which owns RCI, uses agile development and puts out a garbage minimally useable product that all customers have to beta test for them.  Wyndham owners have been going through similar issues with the new and improved interface there.


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## dioxide45 (Aug 19, 2020)

Eric B said:


> IT for Wyndham Destinations, which owns RCI, uses agile development and puts out a garbage minimally useable product that all customers have to beta test for them.  Wyndham owners have been going through similar issues with the new and improved interface there.


Nothing wrong with Agile development, but they should be testing the stuff before putting it out to the masses.


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## Eric B (Aug 19, 2020)

IMHO, it is possible to do it well; I’m not impressed with this one, though.  We were fortunate in the Wyndham community to have some IT-experienced folks giving them feedback and recommendations on how to fix things when they did it there.  I’m not sure how that will work for the RCI side of the business.  They don’t have a lot of 2022 availability in the system right now, so it’s not inconveniencing me too much; I just hope they get their act together before the masses really start being able to travel.


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## dominidude (Aug 27, 2020)

Thank you ladies and gentleman. Any FOMO has been completely extinguished.


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