There are many reasons for cancellations and without knowing the specific reason in each case I will not fault RCI. I will not make a blanket accusation for something for which I have no facts.
I do not feel as uneasy about taking issue with how they respond to the cancellations, how they treat their customers/members/subscribers. You cannot always control the circumstances but you can almost always control how you react to the circumstances.
So, for me it is simple. The best, most customer-friendly policy would be to make their customer whole whenever a vacation is cancelled for a reason the customer had nothing to do with. The best, most customer-friendly policy would be to refund the exchange fee and replace the week that was used to make the exchange (with full trading power). That should have been done all along at no extra expense, as a standard operating procedure.
Then they should make available an additional insurance product to recoup the other prepaid expenses. That would have a premium.
For cancellations made by the customer, the policy now in place is fine, but it could be more friendly, too.
Jenny and I ran a business for more than 20 years. Sure, not as big as Cendant, but we had competition up and down the aisle every weekend. Our customer service policy was pretty simple~~~post your policies and make them fair~~~never argue with a customer.
We made a few refunds that others never would have. We stayed in business while others came and went. We did not count the money we made first. We counted the friends we made and those we made happy with our product first.
If we got a shirt back, we made sure it was OK and resold it, or marked it down and pointed out the blem. So we were even-steven, with a little extra work. If RCI books another exchange because they give your week and exchange fee back then they, too, are even-steven, with a little extra work.
If someone was not happy, we tried to make them happy.
I'm sure you have dealt with businesses like that, businesses that you could not wait to go back to, that you went out of your way to visit. We like that business model much better that businesses you dread, ones where you cross your fingers and hope things go OK, because you fear having to deal with them if it does not.
Sure, we miss the money we used to make, but we had over 25000 customers on our mailing list, people we saw in person somewhere every year. There's a lot of folks we miss.
There aren't many successful Soup Nazi's.
