• The TUGBBS forums are completely free and open to the public and exist as the absolute best place for owners to get help and advice about their timeshares for more than 30 years!

    Join Tens of Thousands of other Owners just like you here to get any and all Timeshare questions answered 24 hours a day!
  • TUG started 30 years ago in October 1993 as a group of regular Timeshare owners just like you!

    Read about our 30th anniversary: Happy 30th Birthday TUG!
  • TUG has a YouTube Channel to produce weekly short informative videos on popular Timeshare topics!

    Free memberships for every 50 subscribers!

    Visit TUG on Youtube!
  • TUG has now saved timeshare owners more than $21,000,000 dollars just by finding us in time to rescind a new Timeshare purchase! A truly incredible milestone!

    Read more here: TUG saves owners more than $21 Million dollars
  • Sign up to get the TUG Newsletter for free!

    60,000+ subscribing owners! A weekly recap of the best Timeshare resort reviews and the most popular topics discussed by owners!
  • Our official "end my sales presentation early" T-shirts are available again! Also come with the option for a free membership extension with purchase to offset the cost!

    All T-shirt options here!
  • A few of the most common links here on the forums for newbies and guests!

RCI Savings Dollars

iwanttoflyaway

TUG Member
Joined
Feb 20, 2018
Messages
91
Reaction score
36
Points
78
Actually, they look like they're still there. Just a bit hard to find.

I mean savings dollars more generally, it appears they're being retired. The email and some google says all dollars will expire by December 31st, though my dollars still say they're expiring next August. I do get my restaurant.com certs monthly, but haven't found any other user for them yet.
 

rapmarks

TUG Review Crew: Elite
TUG Member
Joined
Jun 6, 2005
Messages
9,628
Reaction score
4,764
Points
649
What can you do with saving dollars? Is it just a discount or can you get something tangible?
 

iwanttoflyaway

TUG Member
Joined
Feb 20, 2018
Messages
91
Reaction score
36
Points
78
They're very close to worthless, according to most everyone. You can use 25 of them every month for a restaurant.com certificate, which can be bought several time a year for $2 each. A few posts up I described the only valuable use I've ever found for similar credits, which was for one-way car rentals. I haven't had any need for one-way car rentals since buying the timeshare, so I don't know for sure these were able to be used that way. Regardless, you can buy similar 'dollars' for 3c apiece, which imo is maybe still an overestimate of their value. I won't be sorry to see them retire, there is some small possibility that they'll replace it with a slightly more valuable perk.
 

Eric B

TUG Member
Joined
Jun 10, 2017
Messages
5,862
Reaction score
5,440
Points
499
Resorts Owned
Vacation Village, Wyndham, WorldMark, Vistana, Vidanta, Flora Farms, HGVC Max, and some independents
RCI Travel is run by ICE, which also runs the SFX travel store for SFX, the Vida Lifestyle for Vidanta, and a similar travel store for Pueblo Bonito. I'm sure there are others as well. The model they use is to provide some form of credit like the savings dollars with RCI that can be used for credit towards purchases of cruises typically, some other travel expenses, some shopping, wine, etc. In general, the net prices wind up being comparable to what it would cost through other travel aggregators or discount shopping sites. There are some fairly decent deals in each of the different set ups; with RCI the restaurant.com certificates are the best use IMHO because they don't require you to pay any additional money to get them, though there are minimum purchase requirements at the restaurants ultimately when you use them. They typically have a price match guarantee based upon the net price after the savings dollars or other credits are applied, which you could take as an indicator of what value they place on the savings dollars (closer to 0 than $.03).

That being said, it's not a bad thing because it gives you another option to look at for pricing hotels if you need one, rental cars, flights, etc. I just never lose any sleep if my savings dollars or other credit currency with ICE expire. I also don't look at them as a great influencer for where I spend my travel dollars because I recognize their actual value.
 

bbodb1

TUG Review Crew: Expert
TUG Member
Joined
Apr 9, 2016
Messages
4,305
Reaction score
3,824
Points
348
Location
High radiation belt of the Northern Hemisphere
Resorts Owned
RCI Weeks: LaCosta Beach Club, RCI Points: Oakmont Resort, Vacation Village at Parkway. Wyndham: CWA and La Belle Maison, and WorldMark.
What are oxymorons?

Potpourri for $1,000 please Alex.
 

tschwa2

TUG Review Crew: Veteran
TUG Member
Joined
Dec 19, 2008
Messages
16,002
Reaction score
4,676
Points
748
Location
Maryland
Resorts Owned
A few in S and VA, a single resort in NC, MD, PA, and UT, plus Jamaica and the Bahamas
I was going to do a combine today and saw that savings dollars are being discontinued and you could continue to earn them through 12/7 and use them until the end of this year. I hope they are being replaced by something better. I think I might wait to combine until next week to see what is going on.
 

VanX

TUG Review Crew: Veteran
TUG Member
Joined
Apr 30, 2017
Messages
181
Reaction score
159
Points
153
Location
Vancouver BC Canada
Resorts Owned
Blue Bay Getaway
I was going to do a combine today and saw that savings dollars are being discontinued and you could continue to earn them through 12/7 and use them until the end of this year. I hope they are being replaced by something better. I think I might wait to combine until next week to see what is going on.

Smart move. I combined last week as well as joined and added Platinum while moving 8 weeks in for 80 TPUs.

I now have $1189 in RCI saving dollars and would prefer to have it all in whatever the next program may be vs the one ending in December. Very little value for me in any of those dollars in terms of discounts.

Oh well I never knew about these saving dollars going in to this so it’s no great loss in them sunsetting the program soon for me.

So far I do prefer my points RCI program and it’s use with travel partners vs RCI weeks but now that we have both we will see if we decide to keep them both or just stick with RCI points.

upload_2019-12-1_21-0-20.jpeg
 
Top