# Owners in Orlando & Kissimmee Beware



## JamminJoe (Mar 30, 2009)

RCI Points cancelled my reservation without notifying me, I looked at my confirmed reservation and it was gone and the points returned to my account. Apparently DVC does not allow owners in these areas to trade in. An RCI supervisor explained they did not notify people in hopes of getting DVC to allow the first "violators" in but they will not budge. Luckily I did not purchase airfare but I think this just stinks. I left a message for the supervisor with my displeasure and inquired as to if they could take my week in Las Vegas (not points) and try to use that - no word yet. If you have made an exchange with an Orlando or Kissimmee unit beware.


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## littlestar (Mar 30, 2009)

That's strange. I thought that was just a II rule. 

I thought I saw where some HGVC Orlando owners had traded into DVC. I wonder how they did it - did they book another Hilton with their points and do it that way?


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## Lisa P (Mar 30, 2009)

It says this in the special info section right below the list of available units in each DVC page.  I thought it was odd but to me, it's certainly preferable to a 1-in-4 rule!  Maybe this is just the preference of DVC sales and they had it put into their contract with RCI.  There should be no problem in exchanging a Las Vegas week into DVC, as long as the week has the trade power needed.  They are not trying to keep people out who may own a ton of timeshares all over, and one happens to be in Orlando/Kissimmee.  They are trying to keep people out, from buying a cheap local property and trading it into DVC down the road.  If someone wants to stay regularly onsite, DVC wants them to buy their product.

Deb, HGVC handles all the points trades for their owners through a corporate account so they should be able to readily bypass a regional restriction, since the corporate account contributes deposits from all over.


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## littlestar (Mar 30, 2009)

Lisa P said:


> Deb, HGVC handles all the points trades for their owners through a corporate account so they should be able to readily bypass a regional restriction, since the corporate account contributes deposits from all over.



Ah, ha. I see. Thanks.


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## JamminJoe (Mar 30, 2009)

RCI is going to work with me on my Vegas trade, they offered either Old Key West or Animal Kingdom, any feedback between these choices would be appreciated. I will review the TUG reviews in the meantime.


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## littlestar (Mar 30, 2009)

JamminJoe said:


> RCI is going to work with me on my Vegas trade, they offered either Old Key West or Animal Kingdom, any feedback between these choices would be appreciated. I will review the TUG reviews in the meantime.



Great! If you can get the same size unit at Animal Kingdom, I'd go for it - it's newer.


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## Lisa P (Mar 30, 2009)

Joe, that's great!

Villas at Animal Kingdom = African theme, amazing massive lobby, high end restaurants, overlooks to view large animals in a dry savanna setting, fairly remote location from the other 3 Disney parks, excellent for animal-lovers, people wanting a getaway resort-focused vacation and families with smaller children.

Old Key West = tropical "old Florida" theme and landscaping, larger rooms, golf course or woods views, good walking and biking paths, boat ride to Downtown Disney and one restaurant onsite, pretty quick ride to Epcot or HS, excellent for golfers, water-lovers, people wanting to hit the parks pretty hard and families with teens or larger groups.

Both have really nice pools, romantic lighting in the evenings, buses to all the parks, etc.  Just depends on what you'd prefer.     Have fun!


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## JamminJoe (Mar 30, 2009)

Thanks, I took the Old Key West as  it had the exact dates I was looking for so it worked perfect. Thanks for the speedy replies, all is goo again. RCI is doing a great job trying to accomodate me, we'll see tommorrow if all goes well, take care.


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## timeos2 (Mar 30, 2009)

*OKW is closest to a real timeshare and is a great place to visit once*



JamminJoe said:


> Thanks, I took the Old Key West as  it had the exact dates I was looking for so it worked perfect. Thanks for the speedy replies, all is goo again. RCI is doing a great job trying to accomodate me, we'll see tommorrow if all goes well, take care.



You should be very happy at OKW as that is the only DVC timeshare that has units as big as expected (about the same size as average timeshares in the area), well equipped and the dates are right.  RCI, as I knew from their previous handling of DVC and other timeshares, is a professional operation that does a much better job than II.  It was a really bad move that DVC made to force members into the II operation. All II does is set up all types of priorities, limits and extra charges (charges that RCI used to prohibit but unfortunately have embraced since those better days in the late 90's) to lure in developers, while making their paying membership second class users at best.  All the recent messages regarding RCI/DVC show how much II used to play games with DVC inventory and it was a great day when DVC finally came back to RCI. Enjoy your visit as it's great to try a DVC resort at least once so you know if you feel it necessary to the Disney experience for your family.


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## JamminJoe (Mar 31, 2009)

*Thank you RCI*

Was able to get my unit at Old Key West although my original reservation was at Boardwalk Villas. RCI was very responsive and were able to book it under my weeks account but charged off 35,000 Points from my RCI Points account  (discounted for the inconvenience). I know RCI gets a lot of criticism but they should be praised for a job well done here.


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## pedro47 (Mar 31, 2009)

Any exchange into Old Key West is an outstanding exchange.  You are on Disney property enough said.  Now price your exchange into Disney Old Key West as a non timeshare travler.   Surprise!!   Look at the money you and your family have saved..


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## lawgs (Apr 2, 2009)

JamminJoe said:


> Was able to get my unit at Old Key West although my original reservation was at Boardwalk Villas. RCI was very responsive and were able to book it under my weeks account but charged off 35,000 Points from my RCI Points account  (discounted for the inconvenience). I know RCI gets a lot of criticism but they should be praised for a job well done here.



so in essence you were able to use POINTS from florida to get this reservation???

if so you are still getting this DVC exchange even though there is a DVC block ....????  some more smoke and mirrors by RCI 

the first thing we did was ask if there were any restrictions as to where points were HELD   ( Holiday Inn Vacation Club alias Global Access for instance ....the RCI connection is not a corporate account ).....they said any points resort within a 30 mile radius of DVC could not "book"

but HGVC said there were no such restrictions ( we have HGVC Seaworld points ) ....as Lisa stated ....we are connected to RCI via a corporate account and thus the points to not have a "designation" as being Orlando points...wonder how long before DVC digs in and realizes that people are getting around the regional block by using HGVC points out of Orlando


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## JamminJoe (Apr 3, 2009)

RCI actually listed the exchange under my weeks account (Grandview, Las Vegas) but rather than me having to pay the maintenance fee and lose the week they offered to charge my Ponts account (Vacation Village at Parkway, Kissemee) 35,000 RCI Points for the inconvenience of losing my Boardwalk Villa reservation. Not sure how this all works out but they were able to circumvent the restriction this way, I also mentioned that HGVC is able to get around the Disney restriction and he confirmed that.


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