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If anyone wants to read my thread under "Ask RCI" called "How does RCI Work." and reply here I would appreciate it. I know if it gets replied to under Ask RCI it moves it back to the top and Madge never get to answer it.
If you know the answer, please reply here. Thanks.
Basically, if you own a timeshare week at a resort that's affiliated with RCI, you can pay to join RCI as an individual member & then keep paying yearly renewal fees to remain a member.
Then, if you choose, you can "bank" or "deposit" (2 words meaning the same thing) your timeshare week with RCI. After that, you can exchange your banked week for somebody else's timeshare week that's also on deposit with RCI.
The idea is that instead of going to your own timeshare resort year in & year out, for variety you can go to other timeshare resorts in different locations that are roughly on a par with yours in size & value & seasonal demand & quality.
RCI does not charge money when you deposit a timeshare week that you own into their inventory of available timeshare weeks, but they do charge a little something ($149, I think) when they make you an exchange reservation for a week in somebody else's timeshare condo.
Besides setting up members' timeshare exchange reservations, RCI also makes timeshare resort reservations available at bargain rates via their Last Call program, & offers "extra vacations" at non-discounted rates (i.e., roughly equal to the maintenance fee at the resort you go to).
That's it in a nutshell, to the best of my knowledge, based on what I've learned at timeshare sales presentations & through my own individual RCI membership since 2003. So far I've done 3 RCI week-for-week timeshare exchanges, all into Florida resorts, 2003 & 2004 & 2005.
You can find out lots more about RCI at their web site.
Have fun.
-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.
Basically, if you own a timeshare week at a resort that's affiliated with RCI, you can pay to join RCI as an individual member & then keep paying yearly renewal fees to remain a member.
Then, if you choose, you can "bank" or "deposit" (2 words meaning the same thing) your timeshare week with RCI. After that, you can exchange your banked week for somebody else's timeshare week that's also on deposit with RCI.
The idea is that instead of going to your own timeshare resort year in & year out, for variety you can go to other timeshare resorts in different locations that are roughly on a par with yours in size & value & seasonal demand & quality.
RCI does not charge money when you deposit a timeshare week that you own into their inventory of available timeshare weeks, but they do charge a little something ($149, I think) when they make you an exchange reservation for a week in somebody else's timeshare condo.
Besides setting up members' timeshare exchange reservations, RCI also makes timeshare resort reservations available at bargain rates via their Last Call program, & offers "extra vacations" at non-discounted rates (i.e., roughly equal to the maintenance fee at the resort you go to).
That's it in a nutshell, to the best of my knowledge, based on what I've learned at timeshare sales presentations & through my own individual RCI membership since 2003. So far I've done 3 RCI week-for-week timeshare exchanges, all into Florida resorts, 2003 & 2004 & 2005.
You can find out lots more about RCI at their web site.
Have fun.
-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.
I apologize. My post was poorly worded. I am somewhat informed the basic's but I was referring to the message to Madge I submitted on "Ask RCI" about how EXTRA VACATIONS, LAST CALL, and WEEKS RESERVATIONS WORKS. I had sent a question to Madge because LC and EV didn't seem right. You might take a look at my question to her. Thanks, sorry for the confusion.
Full Disclosure: I am not "Madge" -- never have been, never will be.
Still & all, I think maybe I have a handle on how come weeks that don't show up as available for exchange sometimes still show up as available for rent or for Extra Vacations.
It has to do with weeks that are or are not roughly equivalant to yours in size & value & seasonal demand & quality, etc.
If something on a par with your banked week that you select for exchange is available, then it should show up when you do an on-line search for a potential exchange.
Possibly loads of other weeks could be in the inventory when you search, just nothing that matches up as worth swapping with yours. If those weeks don't match up with anybody else's, either, RCI still has to do something with'm, so they list'm in the Extra Vacations category or put'm up for rent to -- [ shudder ] -- non-timeshare-owning outsiders!
They could also offer'm to RCI Points members on straight-up points-based exchanges, or if the reservation is made later than 45 days to go before check-in, they could make'm available on Instant Exchange -- for only 9,000 points, or maybe for even fewer points than that. Those particular practices are known as Raiding The Weeks Inventory, a sore point with some of my favorite TUG-BBS contributors.
Even so, it boils down to waste not & want not.
Straight week-for-week exchanges are supposed to be based on like for like. Apparently in the old days RCI would exchange unlike for like rather than let banked weeks go unused, & when the savvy traders caught on to that they soon learned how to exchange their so-so weeks for top weeks.
After RCI caught on to what the savvy traders were up to, RCI went to a somewhat tighter application of "like for like" & found other ways to keep those "unlike" weeks from going to waste.
However that may be, I know from my own experience that some "unlike for like" exchanges still happen. That is, last year, for my standard-grade 2BR banked week, I got a straight week-for-week exchange into a top-rated Gold Crown 3BR timeshare condo -- & I'm not particularly savvy in all this; I just looked on-line & then called up & that's what I got. Maybe my standard-grade fixed week is super-prime-time & the top-rated 3BR week I got was off-season or something, I don't know.
Meanwhile, I just go with the flow & enjoy home-resort timesharing as well as an occasional RCI week-for-week trade & (one time, so far) a points-based Instant Exchange raid of the weeks inventory, not to mention a couple of Last Calls.
For us -- The Chief Of Staff & me -- the good old days are now.
-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.
To comply with the OP's request (that responses by posted here) and the spirit of the Ask RCI forum (that those questions are for Madge), I am moving your post here (see above).
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