RCI Exchanges - where is the legendary Hilton trading power?

[SallyMagoo]

I have been doing some test trades into RCI with my HGVC points that were a deposit into RCI from a year or two ago. They expire in 2009, so I have a dilemma as to how to use the points. I am pretty disappointed; I was looking for availability for some holiday weeks, such as Thanksgiving and Christmas 2009, and there is not much available. These are the remaining weeks in 2009 that we might be able to get time off work. Most of the time the searches show good units in weeks surrounding the holiday weeks but not the holiday weeks themselves; occasionally, a studio might be available in the holiday week.

I have also searched for a less popular late October week, and am not finding exchanges that are all that fantastic with the Hilton points.

I've been mostly searching in Mexico (Cabo or Cancun), California, Arizona, or Hawaii.

Has anyone else noticed this? Is it pretty normal for RCI exhanges during the holidays. I have been reading a thread that indicates RCI has downgraded trading quite a bit recently across the board. I'm pretty much a believer that RCI skims the best units off for their rentals.

Sally

 

[alwysonvac]

Trading Power is different than Availability

Here's what another TUG member stated in a different thread regarding RCI

HGVC Trades great in RCI IF and that is a big IF there is availability in RCI. HGVC can't made units available if they are not there to begin with.

HGVC window with points is 9 months at most. However RCIs window is 18 to 12 months in advance. Different windows. You need to adjust your timeframe when thinking about bookings via RCI.

I find RCI works best for long planning 2 yrs to 1 yr out, or last minute, next 30 to 60 days. HGVC is better from 9 to 3 months out. Different windows for trading.

 

[pianodinosaur]

Holiday weeks are almost never available via RCI. I have had a good experience with RCI trades when planning 1 1/2 to 2 years in advance. However, I am learning that some locations are more difficult than others. Some areas are more built up with timeshares than others. For example, Aruba and Sint Maarten are more built up than Barbados so a trade into Aruba or Sint Maarten is easier to obtain.

If you with to plan a Holiday trip, you may consider using HHonors points and booking about a year in advance. This way, you can book Lake Tahoe in ski season without difficulty.

 

[natarajanv]

I would recommend doing "on-going" search by paying $164.00, as most of the holiday weeks are snatched that way. I got a Spring break week with DVC HH using ongoing search.

 

[robertr55]

I would agree with setting up an "on-going" search - we've been searching for SoCal beaches and Lake Tahoe (both places we can drive, so if nothing shows up we haven't lost any airfare ) each year for the last decade or so, and it seems like something always pops up last minute (more so for SoCal than Tahoe).

However, this might not work well if nothing appears and you lose your points...since we do our searches both real-time online, and "on-going", when nothing pops up, I've called RCI directly, and often one of their reps has managed to get us a nice unit that did not appear to be available online. This seems to work particularly well when your on-going search has less than 3-4 weeks left (I think they're worried if they don't get you something, you'll ask for the $164 back, and they'd rather find you something than give up their money )

 

[Iowa Rod]

Just got Disney Saratoga Springs

I just got a 2 bedroom at Saratoga Springs March 14-21st. I dont think I can do much better than that for 4800 points.
Rod

 

[bosco0633]

that is the canadian spring break, so expect it to be really busy. That is an incredible deal good job. I would love to get a deal like that, but I am out of points... I should purchase my second unit in the next few weeks, then I will try something like that.

 

[dougp26364]

I have been doing some test trades into RCI with my HGVC points that were a deposit into RCI from a year or two ago. They expire in 2009, so I have a dilemma as to how to use the points. I am pretty disappointed; I was looking for availability for some holiday weeks, such as Thanksgiving and Christmas 2009, and there is not much available. These are the remaining weeks in 2009 that we might be able to get time off work. Most of the time the searches show good units in weeks surrounding the holiday weeks but not the holiday weeks themselves; occasionally, a studio might be available in the holiday week.

I have also searched for a less popular late October week, and am not finding exchanges that are all that fantastic with the Hilton points.

I've been mostly searching in Mexico (Cabo or Cancun), California, Arizona, or Hawaii.

Has anyone else noticed this? Is it pretty normal for RCI exhanges during the holidays. I have been reading a thread that indicates RCI has downgraded trading quite a bit recently across the board. I'm pretty much a believer that RCI skims the best units off for their rentals.

Sally

Only twice have I ever requested an exchange through RCI using our HGVC points and, both times were extremely disappointing. I have given up on RCI as an exchange medium and will never again consider depositing my points with them.

The two exchanges I requested were for September in Branson, MO. Both times after labor day weekend. This is after the holiday and generally before the leaves change. It is most definately shoulder season and has always been an very easy exchange using anything I have through Interval International. When trying to use the legendary exchange power of HGVC points, both times I was offered a selection of ONE resort. Not very impressive if you ask me. Using a silver season Marriott studio week I can kick up a dozen different resorts and pull two bedroom units during the same time frame. Using DRI points (similar to HGVC's exchange system) I can see nearly every timeshare available in Branson and almost every type of unit they have going through Interval. Yet RCI with all those high quality resorts offered me a selection of one? Sorry but you can keep RCI.

All I can say it RCI IMO stinks. Hilton should have better exchange power than what RCI was showing me. Since you've alreayd deposited you points with RCI about the best you can do is keep on searching or put in an ongoing request and hope for the best. But to answer your question, I haven't seen any great trading power with Hilton through RCI.

 

[pianodinosaur]

We will be going to Lake Tahoe on an RCI exchange in October 2009. We will be staying at the Red Wolf Lakeside Lodge. We have been to Steamboat Springs twice on RCI exchanges. The first was in the winter to the Worldmark and the second was in the summer to The Steamboat Grand. We have also been to the Wyndham Fairfield Long Warf Resort in Newport RI, and Casa del Mar in Aruba.

We started a search for Barbados for the 1st quarter of 2010 as of last August. The points were deposited into RCI at the end of 2009. We have yet to hear from RCI. If we do not hear by December, we will look into alternative sites or dates as the points expire at the end of 2010. In retrospect, my choice of 1st quarter complicated the issue because RCI will not release the units until the owners have paid the MFs.

 

[JonathanIT]

I have been doing some test trades into RCI with my HGVC points that were a deposit into RCI from a year or two ago. They expire in 2009, so I have a dilemma as to how to use the points. I am pretty disappointed; I was looking for availability for some holiday weeks, such as Thanksgiving and Christmas 2009, and there is not much available. These are the remaining weeks in 2009 that we might be able to get time off work. Most of the time the searches show good units in weeks surrounding the holiday weeks but not the holiday weeks themselves; occasionally, a studio might be available in the holiday week.

If you want holiday weeks for Nov.-Dec. 2009, I don't see how you can expect a wide array of choices in July of 2009. Since the beginning of the timeshare industry, "plan ahead" has always been the credo AFAIK. Even before I owned or knew anything about TSharing, I knew one of the big "drawbacks" is that vacations have to be planned so far in advance... especially if you want holiday weeks. I find if hard to believe that you really expected to get much to choose from only 5-6 months out.

I dont think it has anything to do with "trading power" (as your thread title suggests), just simple supply and demand. If it were a trading power issue, that would mean that there is availability that might show in exchange for some other property, which I don't think is the case. There's just nothing left, period.

That is why searches can be done two years in advance on RCI.

 

[SallyMagoo]

I do know that timesharing requires a long planning phase, and that it's difficult to expect much availability for holidays in a 6-8 month window.
It's really been so long I have attempted to trade with RCI that I was just attempting to ask other HGVC members if they found this type of problem with holidays as normal. I did have some expectation that HGVC points would trade a little better than what I had previously deposited into RCI. Also, I am finding that the availability during the last week of October 2009, a very off season week, is not that great either.

Unfortunately HGVC/RCI are not giving members the opportunity to trade two years out with HGVC points. I understand that searches with HGVC points are limited to 10 months out, so HGVC members are at quite a disadvantage in getting good trades to begin with.

From personal experience with trading in RCI and from reading many posts of TUG members, I feel there is no doubt that RCI is not a true exchange company. Several years ago, I used our 1 bedroom Santa Fe unit for RCI exchanges for 2 years. The difference between the two years was amazing; the first year, it was a strong trader; the next year, it was very weak. It is apparent there was a major downgrade in trading power, just as other members were reporting the same thing. The unit wouldn't even pull a comparable unit at the same resort. The preponderance of the evidence is that RCI is skimming the best units and time periods for its rentals.

 

[SallyMagoo]

I also wanted to mention that my reason for searching for units within such a short window was because circumstances had changed in our life such that the best time to take off this year was around the holidays; I have much less vacation time in a new job. I also did not realize I had some HGVC points deposited expiring in 2009; I had thought they expired in 2010; the new online access showed me this. So I am in somewhat of a panic to use these points, for which we paid a substantial amount of maintenance fees.

 

[chester1122]

Just a question. I have a week expiring this year as well, but I can't see it in RCI. Is there a trick to finding it?

 

[alwysonvac]

Unfortunately HGVC/RCI are not giving members the opportunity to trade two years out with HGVC points. I understand that searches with HGVC points are limited to 10 months out, so HGVC members are at quite a disadvantage in getting good trades to begin with.

This is not true. See this post - http://www.tugbbs.com/forums/showpost.php?p=746186&postcount=19

 

[pianodinosaur]

I start my RCI searches with HGVC about 1 1/2 to 2 years in advance.

 

[SallyMagoo]

Thanks Alysonvac! I'm glad you pointed out that you can trade two years out in RCI with HGVC points. I guess I didn't read the rules thoroughly enough and didn't realize the 10 month limit only applies to nightly stays.

Regarding the RCI points that I thought were expiring in 2009, it seems that I am not the fail-to-plan timesharer that JonathanIT makes me out to be! I had thought my RCI points which were 2008 HGVC points deposited into RCI expired in 2010, but when I logged into the site, RCI showed the points as expiring in 2009. This sent me into a panic, but something in the back of my head told me it wasn't right. A call to a nice HGVC counselor named Libby cleared this up. Libby confirmed that my 2008 points do indeed have a two-year trade period in RCI. I am going to post about how RCI has a glitch in their on-line system in another post.

Sally