Advice on joining RCI during the pandemic

[FloriDan]

We own a week (biennial even) at Bali Hai. We’ve toyed with the idea of joining RCI and trading our week “someday” when we’re tired of going to Kauai. That’s never happened. We love Kauai and keep going back.

Obviously this year our attempts at traveling to Hawaii have been thwarted. We have an existing reservation for August, but it looks like the 14-day quarantine may get extended and we’ll get canceled again. We’re not terribly comfortable with the idea of traveling that far at this stage, but I don’t really want to have to eat the maintenance fees either.

I don’t know if RCI weeks is even a good option at this point, but I thought I’d come here and ask the experts. We’d be happy trading our week for a few days at a resort closer to home this year. Anything to get some return on the MFs.

Advice?

 

[Shankilicious]

Simply put, in my opinion, having more options is never a bad idea. Just remember there will be an exchange fee of $235+ on top of your membership fee.

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

 

[dmbrand]

We recently joined for the same reason. Our resort does not get many TPU, but we will find a way to squeeze a vacation(maybe 2) out of them. Still better than paying a maintenance fee for non use. We did get a 25% off exchange fee deal....needs to be used within 6 months of joining.

 

[JulieJulie]

I'm in the same boat. I have two weeks booked at the Pono Kai in Kauai in November. I don't know if I will feel safe travelling by then. I'm trying to decide between RCI and II. Ideally, I'd like to exchange for another resort on a different Hawaiian Island but hard to tell which company is better for that. It's definitely a good opportunity to try it out though. We had also thought about doing it years ago but have always been happy going back to Kauai each year that we never bothered. This will finally force us to do it!

 

[JulieJulie]

If it helps - when I was looking at RCI yesterday this is what they sent me for the value they give on your timeshare deposit based on how far away your dates are:

< 14 days: 45%
15 - 30 days: 60%
31 - 90 days: 80%
91 - 180 days: 90%
181 - 270 days: 95%
271+ days: 100%

 

[FloriDan]

As an update, we went ahead and joined RCI over the weekend and I engaged an agent today via chat to start the process of depositing our week. Bali Hai gets us 35 points maximum, but at this stage in the game, we were offered 22 points or the option to pay an extra $69 to restore to the full 35 points. Since we're looking to get two or three weeks stateside out of the trade, I went ahead and paid to restore to the full points.

Now the challenge is picking the RCI resort we want to stay at within driving distance that's available in the timeframe we have off from work. At the end of the day, we may not make out like bandits on the deal, but considering the state of the world at this point, we're just happy to have options beyond staying a week at the house.

On a related note, when Wydham canceled our August reservation, they noted the board has approved extending reservations into 2021 for even-week owners. While tempting, in the end we decided to skip our trip to Kauai until our next regular even year, 2022. Maybe we can finally get out early enough in the year to do some whale watching next time!

 

[sfwilshire]

As an update, we went ahead and joined RCI over the weekend and I engaged an agent today via chat to start the process of depositing our week. Bali Hai gets us 35 points maximum, but at this stage in the game, we were offered 22 points or the option to pay an extra $69 to restore to the full 35 points. Since we're looking to get two or three weeks stateside out of the trade, I went ahead and paid to restore to the full points.

Now the challenge is picking the RCI resort we want to stay at within driving distance that's available in the timeframe we have off from work. At the end of the day, we may not make out like bandits on the deal, but considering the state of the world at this point, we're just happy to have options beyond staying a week at the house.

Getting two to three weeks stateside out of the trade would have to be relatively last minute reservations, which might be difficult if you don't have pretty flexible schedules. Hope it works out for you. It's a tough year, for sure.

Sheila