RCI Fees Going Up AGAIN!

[rickandcindy23]

We used to exchange into the Hiltons in Orlando regularly. I wouldn't mind the RCI exchange fee, if the resorts didn't charge for parking. It's the two fees added together that make it unworthy of the exchange.

We are staying at Marriott's Cypress Harbour for about $1,200 with exchange fee and trading power, Marriott-Marriott. Hilton would be a lot more. Exchange fee through II: $164 + upgrade fee of $59+ one bedroom at Willow Ridge.

My MF's for my summer week in Frisco + exchange fee of $289 + Hilton fees of $175 adds up to about $1,450.

RCI is actually requiring more trading power for an off-season one bedroom at Hilton SeaWorld or Tuscany than I get for a prime summer week in Frisco. I get 22 points for my weeks, a SeaWorld one bedroom in mid-January is 23 points.

The combine fees I pay are getting old as well. Used to be cheap, and I would combine a bunch of weeks. Now it's quite a bit more. Before TPU's I would get one-to-one exchanges into Disney resorts with my Frisco summer weeks and my Foxrun summer weeks. At the end, before Disney went back to II, it was 45-59 points to get a Disney week. That was two summer weeks for me to get the same thing I got before.

I have been exchanging for a long time, 40 years of exchanging. I am pretty good at it, especially since I could do exchanges online myself, but as someone said above, the "buy where you want to go" is still always a good idea. We do that. We own five weeks that we use every year without fail.

I have been selling Grand Palms and never stayed there personally. I have sold almost all of them and just have a few EOY left. I have visited the resort and saw inside the units we own. I wouldn't have purchased without seeing the units. I rent them now, until we get them sold. We owned a bunch at one time because they traded into Disney and Hiltons so cheaply. It's not like RCI has always been this expensive to use. It was my favorite exchange company at one time.

Too bad we don't travel last-minute. Rick is not a spur of the moment kind of person. He has a construction project going most of the time and doesn't want to stop in the middle of it.

If I could find some Hiltons for 4-8 points, I would exchange in and write some negative reviews on the extra fees. But who can afford airfare last-minute on weekends. That would eat up some of the savings right there.

Still a bargain to trade into Kings'Land and Kohala Suites on the Big Island, but we don't go that often. If we went every year, we could whittle down our trading power to nearly nothing within a few years. Now the exchange power just keeps building and building. I just deposited a bunch of resale points into RCI from Wyndham. I have never had to do that in the past. I don't know what I can get that will be worthy of the expensive RCI fees. It will be a challenge, but I will use them. I entered a bunch of ongoing searches yesterday.

 

[sponger76]

It appears to me these increases will eventually bite RCI & II in the butt. It will push timeshare owners to do what we have been saying for a while: "Buy where you want to go."

Except for the fact that a lot of people want to go to a lot of different places, but they don't want to own and pay annual MFS at each one of those places and visit all of them each and every year. Hence the existence of exchange companies to begin with.

 

[Timeshare Von]

A one week exchange is going from $289 to $299. A minor increase to a fee that was already too high. My impression of what RCI is doing is moving to a bit more of dynamic pricing. A high exchange fee for booking something you really want. But having to have major discount deals all the time to keep the inventory moving. [While I say this in general, I got a $30 discount on my HHI July 20225 vacation I booked this past week.]

I have vented the criticisms I have of RCI (and to a lesser degree II) on TUG a lot in the last few years. It is what it is unless something makes the duopoly more competitive. I am not holding by breath for things to suddenly get better, but I am also not expecting it to get much worse.

While yes, seemingly minor this is becoming an annual event from RCI around this time of the year. I was looking forward to keeping my Wyndham points account so as to have access to their Last Call Vacations, but I got sticker shock at how high those are now.

All I can say is that I’m glad I renewed our membership already. I have until next October to determine whether we’re staying in or not.

I'll be making a similar decision regarding doing an exit from Wyndham ownership after our stay over the holidays.

 

[Timeshare Von]

We used to exchange into the Hiltons in Orlando regularly. I wouldn't mind the RCI exchange fee, if the resorts didn't charge for parking. It's the two fees added together that make it unworthy of the exchange.

We are staying at Marriott's Cypress Harbour for about $1,200 with exchange fee and trading power, Marriott-Marriott. Hilton would be a lot more. Exchange fee through II: $164 + upgrade fee of $59+ one bedroom at Willow Ridge.

My MF's for my summer week in Frisco + exchange fee of $289 + Hilton fees of $175 adds up to about $1,450.

RCI is actually requiring more trading power for an off-season one bedroom at Hilton SeaWorld or Tuscany than I get for a prime summer week in Frisco. I get 22 points for my weeks, a SeaWorld one bedroom in mid-January is 23 points.

The combine fees I pay are getting old as well. Used to be cheap, and I would combine a bunch of weeks. Now it's quite a bit more. Before TPU's I would get one-to-one exchanges into Disney resorts with my Frisco summer weeks and my Foxrun summer weeks. At the end, before Disney went back to II, it was 45-59 points to get a Disney week. That was two summer weeks for me to get the same thing I got before.

I have been exchanging for a long time, 40 years of exchanging. I am pretty good at it, especially since I could do exchanges online myself, but as someone said above, the "buy where you want to go" is still always a good idea. We do that. We own five weeks that we use every year without fail.

I have been selling Grand Palms and never stayed there personally. I have sold almost all of them and just have a few EOY left. I have visited the resort and saw inside the units we own. I wouldn't have purchased without seeing the units. I rent them now, until we get them sold. We owned a bunch at one time because they traded into Disney and Hiltons so cheaply. It's not like RCI has always been this expensive to use. It was my favorite exchange company at one time.

Too bad we don't travel last-minute. Rick is not a spur of the moment kind of person. He has a construction project going most of the time and doesn't want to stop in the middle of it.

If I could find some Hiltons for 4-8 points, I would exchange in and write some negative reviews on the extra fees. But who can afford airfare last-minute on weekends. That would eat up some of the savings right there.

Still a bargain to trade into Kings'Land and Kohala Suites on the Big Island, but we don't go that often. If we went every year, we could whittle down our trading power to nearly nothing within a few years. Now the exchange power just keeps building and building. I just deposited a bunch of resale points into RCI from Wyndham. I have never had to do that in the past. I don't know what I can get that will be worthy of the expensive RCI fees. It will be a challenge, but I will use them. I entered a bunch of ongoing searches yesterday.

Cindy we're very similar given our longevity in this timeshare world! I had grown my portfolio of ownership (roughly 2001-2010) . . . but then started to dial back as our travel interests have evolved. The fact that we've gone from owning 5 total weeks of ownership, which often traded as 6-8 weeks of vacations, to now just owning a small Wyndham points contract that is barely worth a single week (and in the off-season mostly) speaks to how little I value timeshare ownership today.

The added expense of trading really hit home over the past 18 months, especially as I edge closer to retirement and not having as many places to go for work & play. Having recently discovered what my sister had about 15 years ago when she simply "gave me" her 77k point contract with Wyndham because of the better vacation value of cruising . . . I can see wanting to dump this last timeshare and use that money for at least one cruise a year instead of doing places like Nashville or Myrtle Beach in the winter. I am still struggling with whether or not Last Call vacations through RCI @ $350-$400 is a good value . . . on top of having to maintain the RCI membership through Wyndham.

 

[rapmarks]

My 55 tpus expire this month, my membership expires in May. I have to decide whether to extend those tpus until May. My last trade was October 2021. Been a member since 1991.

 

[rickandcindy23]

At one time, I had about 1,000 TPU's between both of our RCI weeks' accounts. Before I converted our Grand Palms weeks to RCI Points (after a 40% trading power drop), I was getting 101 TPU's for a single week, locked off into two sides of the lockoff. The weeks still get about 56-60 TPU's, but the points seemed more worthy of the MF's and no combine fees with RCI Points.

I really need to use PIC in Wyndham, but I cannot use all of those points, either.

 

[Timeshare Von]

My 55 tpus expire this month, my membership expires in May. I have to decide whether to extend those tpus until May. My last trade was October 2021. Been a member since 1991.

It would be sad to lose them, but I also understand the added cost of extending. We struggled a bit getting all of our TPUs booked this year . . . hence the sorta spur of the moment decision to go to Texas in August. LOL

 

[rapmarks]

It would be sad to lose them, but I also understand the added cost of extending. We struggled a bit getting all of our TPUs booked this year . . . hence the sorta spur of the moment decision to go to Texas in August. LOL

Fixed my typo. I don’t deposit any more. I don’t look forward to going on a vacation alone. I spend most of my time seeing doctors, four surgeries in one year.

 

[rickandcindy23]

My 55 tpus expire this month, my membership expires in May. I have to decide whether to extend those tpus until May. My last trade was October 2021. Been a member since 1991.

You might be able to get into Door County, The Rushes, for those TPU's. I know you love that one, but winter wouldn't be fun in Door County. I have OGS for The Rushes for next fall and fall of 2025. Rick and I never did get a week for this year, however. May is fast approaching. I don't envy your decision.

 

[rapmarks]

I own the week at little Sweden. Wouldn’t mind anoth week at the rushes

 

[jp10558]

I don't like the RCI exchange fee going up so much, but I see huge value from the extra vacations. I really like the 2BR suites at the now 3 timeshares I've gone to this year. And the prices work out to be at worst close to one room at a Hampton inn in various cities I've been in recently. Usually the pricing on extra vacations beats renting prices I've seen on redweek or VRBO. I think a lot of people either got frankly amazing deals, like 90% off or something, or just haven't priced out a mid range hotel room lately. Granted, I still have to do hotels in cities like Burlington, Dublin and London, but where I can do a timeshare I am always amazed at the low price so far.

I don't know about Cruises, they always look very expensive and I think they're a petri dish for illness, and were well before COVID. I don't want that sickness thanks.

But I can't see why it's not like $5 an exchange - look at Uber which does similar things.

 

[pedro47]

Every three to four RCI fees and exhange fees goes up.

 

[escanoe]

I don't like the RCI exchange fee going up so much, but I see huge value from the extra vacations. I really like the 2BR suites at the now 3 timeshares I've gone to this year. And the prices work out to be at worst close to one room at a Hampton inn in various cities I've been in recently.

For those that travel this way (wish I could more), my view is the increasing exchange fees have been improving the "last call" and "extra" inventory available at discount pricing. My complaints with RCI are on the exchanging side. I don't believe they have upped their annual dues in years ... they sure haven't been going up like the exchange fee.

 

[escanoe]

To some extent, I wonder if these ever increasing exchange fees are just a show to make you appreciate the discounted bargains. As I mentioned above, I got a $30 discount on a summer 2024 HHI booking I made on my RCI Points account.

Now I have a hit for the week of July 4th on HHI using RCI on my HGVC account. I am getting a $58 reduced exchange fee using it. I have no idea what for and haven't anything about the promotion.

I wish they would just give you better pricing all the time and stop all the hoopla!

 

[rickandcindy23]

I have two weeks' accounts, one that we have had for nearly 40 years, and the second one we have had since we bought Wyndham (used for our PIC weeks). Both of these weeks' accounts have the same issue, and I am sure others are experiencing it as well. When I enter a search for a resort that has no availability, I get blinking dots on the screen and it freezes, so I have to go back out and start over. I have to log in all over again. It's been happening for a long time, probably two years now.

My point is that the fees go up, but the money isn't going into any kind of improvements to the website, that's for sure.

 

[escanoe]

As challenging as it is with the weeks account — it is much more user friendly than the points account. You can no longer see how many days are available at a resort from a specific check in date without doing multiple searches and changing the number of days you are searching for every time. It is like playing the old “you sunk my battleship” game.

And when you sort inventory or start by browsing, it doesn’t let you select a check in date range to screen the results. There is a recent TUG thread here on what a FAIL the most recent update has been.

 

[rickandcindy23]

As challenging as it is with the weeks account — it is much more user friendly than the points account. You can no longer see how many days are available at a resort from a specific check in date without doing multiple searches and changing the number of days you are searching for every time. It is like playing the old “you sunk my battleship” game.

And when you sort inventory or start by browsing, it doesn’t let you select a check in date range to screen the results. There is a recent TUG thread here on what a FAIL the most recent update has been.

I also have an RCI points account. Why do we have to go to Region>USA>then narrow down by area to do a search in RCI Points? It's time consuming.

Remember The Jetson's episode where Jane's fingers get tied up in knots from pushing buttons? So appropriate to today's computer age.

 

[rapmarks]

You might be able to get into Door County, The Rushes, for those TPU's. I know you love that one, but winter wouldn't be fun in Door County. I have OGS for The Rushes for next fall and fall of 2025. Rick and I never did get a week for this year, however. May is fast approaching. I don't envy your decision.

I am in Florida until may and it will be filled with dr appointments. I have to get chemo and radiation. When I look up in RCI, only the higher price trades are available, basically in hotels

 

[easyrider]

Years ago, here at Tug, I read that the best strategy was to buy where you want to go. We narrowed it down with multi-destination memberships in Worldmark, Vacation Internationale and UVCI which gives us many destinations we like without exchanging.

I will only use II and RCI for extra vacations for the most part. I did cancel an exchange to the Grand Luxe in Nuevo Vallarta for next Feb that was through RCI. So there are some great exchange opportunities in RCI, imo.

Bill

 

[easyrider]

I am in Florida until may and it will be filled with dr appointments. I have to get chemo and radiation. When I look up in RCI, only the higher price trades are available, basically in hotels

I hope things go well with the appointments.

We have used the Worldmark Camlin in Seattle many times for family members using Children's Hospital or for appointments involving any treatment. Often times we use the Matrriott Courtyard. The strategy was and might still be is to get a Marriott Bonvoy Amex card with hotel benefits. You can do the same with Hilton and probably others.

Bill

 

[Great3]

Effective 12/1/23

It just keeps getting worse and worse!

Thanks for posting. I was going to do one last combine on Dec. 1st, 2023 to keep my TPU's from expiring at end of Dec, but maybe I will just do it this month to save a little bit on the fees.

I got rid of all my RCI traders in early last year, so down to the last 90 TPU's I still need to use up before this one last combine to use up by Nov/Dec. 2025.

I was originally thinking of getting Lifetime in Hawaii since reading all your posting about it, Timeshare Von, but these escalating RCI fees is giving me pause. I can see myself actually using the Lifetime in Hawaii weeks some years, and some years depositing into RCI (which seem to still get high TPUs for a Studio with reasonable MF dues when choosing the right week to deposit).

However, I am not so sure I want to be dealing with RCI in the future, but also know I don't want to go to Lifetime in Hawaii every single year. It seems like you got rid of this timeshare now also?

Great3

ETA: Guess my eyes were playing tricks on me, it seems at least the combine fees are staying the same. But it started at $99 and is now $249 over not too long a timespan.

 

[Timeshare Von]

Thanks for posting. <<SNIPPED>> I was originally thinking of getting Lifetime in Hawaii since reading all your posting about it, Timeshare Von, but these escalating RCI fees is giving me pause. I can see myself actually using the Lifetime in Hawaii weeks some years, and some years depositing into RCI (which seem to still get high TPUs for a Studio with reasonable MF dues when choosing the right week to deposit).

However, I am not so sure I want to be dealing with RCI in the future, but also know I don't want to go to Lifetime in Hawaii every single year. It seems like you got rid of this timeshare now also?

Your rationale is exactly why earlier this year I did deed back my Lifetime in Hawaii to the POA/HOA when I couldn't find a home for it here on TUG. I do love that resort and its value . . . but I just don't see us using timeshares for travel as much in our retirement PLUS the escalating fees, etc. We bought it resale around 2001 (for around $2,000 and MF's were under $300!) and got a lot of great mileage out of it . . . renting it out, trading in RCI and the 4 RV Alaskan Adventure barters . . . plus we (or family) stayed there several times as well. One other nice feature is their "extra weeks" program at both LTIH and their sister resort in Solala Beach, CA . . . where you could get an additional "bonus week" from the POA/HOA for the price of the year's MF. I did that twice for trips to SCal.

It's still a great timeshare with good value . . . but you owners need to be smart about how to use it.

 

[Timeshare Von]

For those that travel this way (wish I could more), my view is the increasing exchange fees have been improving the "last call" and "extra" inventory available at discount pricing. My complaints with RCI are on the exchanging side. I don't believe they have upped their annual dues in years ... they sure haven't been going up like the exchange fee.

Back when I first bought my timeshare and joined RCI (early/mid 80's) if RCI didn't use your spacebank deposit for another person's exchange by a couple of weeks (or a month?) of the date of your deposit, you actually got it back to use yourself (and still got to keep your trade!). We did that twice but only stayed for a long weekend since we lived in NoVA and the resort was in the Poconos . . . so easy enough to take advantage of that bonus. Once RCI realized they could rent out that inventory, that perk went away.

 

[Fredflintstone]

Plus ever increasing resort fees that approach $70/day. I am now actively downgrading resort reviews when there is a substantial resort fee involved. Everyone should do this.

This creates incentive to just use what I own in mini systems like HGVC and Vistana/Abound which do not incur such fees.

Boy, as I hear the nightmares continue where “owners” are getting hit with higher MFs, higher Exchange fees, resort fees and higher costs all around, I am sure glad I bailed out of ”ownership“ 6 years back. Saying that, I personally see all these piggyback fees slowly destroying the timeshare system altogether. It’s so sad to see great people getting hosed by all these fleece agents.

Something has to change within the entire industry. Ownership is slowly becoming a terrible choice when at one point it was amazing. It’s getting more and more advantageous to just rent and let competition force all the players to stay honest. Why sign a contract where you are at the mercy (or lack of) of all these players in the industry who see “ownership” as nothing more than milk cows ripe for milking?

 

[CalGalTraveler]

@Fredflintstone My comments pertained to RCI exchanges. Our mini-systems (HGVC and Vistana mandatory) are still a great value vs. renting because rentals have increased faster than Maint fees. Like any real estate, it's location, location and season. We would not be able to afford these vacations in Hawaii for our family if we didn't have timeshares.

With that said, I agree with you that the industry must manage maintenance fees and ensure value vs. renting or there will be massive exodus.