Continued II vs RCI commentary and my experiance

[jp10558]

I know I keep banging the drum about II vs RCI and my various II complaints. I don't mean to put down II, but I do want to talk up RCI for their cash rates and UI and availability. On TUG I get the feeling that RCI is second tier, yet I just don't find that and want to let others know that if you're in Wyndham or HGVC or just RCI alone, you aren't necessarily missing out massively by not having II.

Ok, so what did I spend hours doing today? I wanted to try and find out something good to do with my Gaitlingburg Town Hall 2BR deposit. I need a 2BR or bigger exchange. I was bouncing around different options and we ended up saying, you know what - let's go to Branson in late Summer / Early Fall. So I found the Marriott there and it had lots of availability, but this is just kind of a long list of every different size unit. Fine, I found dates that work in early September and scrolled to find the 2BR. Note, this took quite a while to look around all the exchange options, find ones with 2BR, and then find the dates in this longish list. Then went to book it and it just could not authorize my card. No idea why. Reloaded, went back, went forward, no can do. So I finally went to my other computer (from Windows to Linux and this one routed through Europe via VPN FWIW) and that worked immediately. OK, whatever. I always have to try several times to pay II on their site, no idea why. I really didn't want to call and risk them not getting the 2BR as there were all smaller sizes there too.

Ok, so I thought, let's add a week as it's a 18 hour drive for me. I went over to my Wyndham RCI account and Extra Vacations. Literally 5 minutes - mostly logging in to the various sites. Hit Extra Vacations, Branson location, put in 2BR filter and date filter for the week before the Marriott - Wyndam at the Meadows shows up, discounted a little, pay $724 now and $111 in fees at the resort.

So all in all, I still think the basic filters in RCI is a killer feature... which ought to be in any site of this sort FFS. The added availability in cheaper cash stays is a bonus IMO. Now IDK how great the Marriott Willow Ridge is, but I'm basically happy exchanging for a Marriott. I'm hoping it's at least reasonable value for the $1,000 MF and $239 exchange fee. What will be interesting is if I decide it's $400 better than the Wyndham location.

I also find that RCI provides more pictures and often better descriptions (if they're accurate) than II looking at probably 15 different resorts in II today. I ended up needing multiple websites to search for even what an Interval resort was. And why don't either site make the address more visible?

I also hate that so much of the II website is javascript loaders so you cannot middle click to open it in a new tab to see all the dates, or details about the resort while keeping the search up. RCI on the other hand makes it easy to open several search results in multiple tabs so you can quickly winnow dates and such down if you didn't do a tight filter in the initial search.

Anyway, this did short circuit my "OGS" strategy, I guess I'm probably waiting a 4ish months to see if my one for Hawaii matches anything from Fox Run. I guess if I find the money, I can also pre-pay another year in either of my II resorts to deposit for a search.

 

[dioxide45]

Since you were trying to trade a 2BR in II you should have easily been able to limit your search results to 2BR or larger by indicating at least five people would be staying in the unit. Since the occupancy of the 2BR you were searching with was probably as high as six or even eight, you can search for units that will accommodate six to eight. Searching with five will limit out all of the studios and should eliminate most if not all 1BR units from the results.

Just because you say there are five in the traveling party when you do the search doesn't mean you need to show up with five people. While not as intuitive, there are ways to search for larger units as long as you are offering up a larger unit. If you were trying to trade up from a studio or one 1BR, the above process doesn't work.

 

[jp10558]

Since you were trying to trade a 2BR in II you should have easily been able to limit your search results to 2BR or larger by indicating at least five people would be staying in the unit. Since the occupancy of the 2BR you were searching with was probably as high as six or even eight, you can search for units that will accommodate six to eight. Searching with five will limit out all of the studios and should eliminate most if not all 1BR units from the results.

Just because you say there are five in the traveling party when you do the search doesn't mean you need to show up with five people. While not as intuitive, there are ways to search for larger units as long as you are offering up a larger unit. If you were trying to trade up from a studio or one 1BR, the above process doesn't work.

Cool - I never would have thought of that! Given both my II traders are 2BR, sounds like I just need to set to 5 or 6 people for the searches. And this is also why I keep mentioning these things - I have posted like 2 or 3 other times in the past about II and filters and this is the first time someone suggested this "hack" for filtering on unit size. I love TUG for the learning. I can see why if you're not on TUG near constantly discussing why you'd find little value in II...