RCI Global Points System

[rascal2006]

We recently found out that we had the opportunity to switch our credits with WorldMark to the global points system with RCI and pay thousands of dollars less in yearly maintenance fees. The problem is we feel like it may just be another sales pitch because of course, to get the kind of value we have now with our WM credits....number of weeks we can get thru WM versus what we woudl get with RCI....we have to pay $13k more to RCI. Has anyone gone through this transfer and is it a good deal? Obviously the thought of paying thousands of dollars less in maintenance fees a year would be great, but is it really true and a good deal. We just don't know how points with RCI compares to credits with WM. Thanks!

 

[presley]

Welcome to Tug! Glad you found us. If you have this pitch at a Worldmark property, you are being sold a newer, more expensive version of what you already have called Travelshare. You basically pay more for some more options. Generally, people find this to be a bad value and that the good value of owning Worldmark is to use to stay at Worldmark or to trade for a stay somewhere else without buying into Travelshare.

Never heard of "RCI Global Points" and you may have ended up at a pitch for a vacation club where they would combine your ownership with lots of other people's timeshares and then you book everything through them. It's usually a very bad choice because of the high buy in cost and then what is actually available for you may not be what you want.

Right now, as a Worldmark owner, you can exchange for a week in RCI whenever you want to. If you want to exchange in RCI's points program (costs bit more than the regular version), you would have to upgrade your Worldmark by purchasing more through Wyndham. The costs are usually pretty bad in the long run to do that.

If you just want access to RCI points timeshares, you can pick up an RCI points affiliated property for $1 on resale. You'll have an extra yearly fee for owning that and then fees to use RCI for trading. When will it add up to the $13K you are considering paying right now? You'll have to do the long term math on that.

 

[LannyPC]

We recently found out that we had the opportunity to switch our credits with WorldMark to the global points system with RCI and pay thousands of dollars less in yearly maintenance fees.

Just out of curiosity, how did you find out about this opportunity? Was it a sales presentation at the resort (sometimes called an "Owners' Update"), or were you invited to some restaurant where the sales people rounded up a bunch of timeshare owners and gave the typical sales pitch?

 

[rascal2006]

Just out of curiosity, how did you find out about this opportunity? Was it a sales presentation at the resort (sometimes called an "Owners' Update"), or were you invited to some restaurant where the sales people rounded up a bunch of timeshare owners and gave the typical sales pitch?

It was at a restaurant. My husband received a call from them. Apparently they had in their system that we attended their "big event" about a year and a half ago and converted to this RCI Global Points system and so this was just supposed to be an "owner update". They appeared very surprised that we were not already RCI Global Points members. Then the sales pitch began. The biggest selling point was that we could do away with the monthly maintenance fees we pay now thru WorldMark to just a $650 annual fee for these RCI Global points. They claimed the opportunity to do this had long passed, but they were going to try and see if they could "reopen" our case so they could offer us what we would have been offered had we attended the meeting in Aug 2015 which we never attended. Don't even recall getting invited to this event, but we had alot of things personally going on in 2015 so we very well could have missed the invite. Anyway, the way they presented it was that this is now a one-time opportunity to "hopefully" take advantage of this missed oppportunity because the contract they had to do these conversions had closed. It was definintely very high pressure sales. The company doing this owner update thing was The Shores; they say they are contracted by RCI to go around and have these owner updates to help people use their points better and of course see if they want to update to more points, etc. Do you know anything about these RCI Global Points and/or anyone who took advantage of this conversion opportunity and whether or not they saw it as a good deal or not?

 

[breezez]

I think your being scammed. I would keep WM, and just exchange when you have to....

If you want RCI Points just pick up a cheap contract $.01 per point or less is a good deal

 

[theo]

The company doing this owner update thing was The Shores; they say they are contracted by RCI to go around and have these owner updates to help people use their points better and of course see if they want to update to more points, etc.

Never heard of RCI "Global" Points. AFAIK, there is but one "flavor" of RCI Points. I also do not believe for one moment that RCI "contracts" with anyone for any such purposes. Why would they? Doing so would not materially benefit RCI in any imaginable way. Moreover, RCI does not actually offer points for direct purchase; any such acquisition would instead be via the purchase of a resort-associated deed somewhere (with associated maintenance fee obligations).

I don't know much of anything about WM, but the restaurant pitch you've described just simply doesn't add up at all; it has a faint but foul aroma.
I wouldn't pursue this a step further. The only "opportunity" that you'll be "missing" is an "opportunity" to be scammed.

 

[theo]

deleted inadvertent duplicate post

 

[rascal2006]

Thank you everyone for your comments. Thankfully we did walk away that night without signing anything, with the plan to call them the next day to see about maybe doing the deal after my husband talked to his CPA and attorney.....once we started getting responses to inquiries and doing some research online in other forums.....we decided not to bother to call them back figuring it was some sort of scam! Geezzz and you wonder why people are so darn skeptical of sales people....regardless of industry! You never know what is true or not!

 

[LannyPC]

It was at a restaurant....

Okay, then I understand. We hear of these sales pitches a lot here on TUG. The companies somehow get phone numbers and addresses of TS owners and invite them to restaurants for sales pitches. Keep in mind that these companies that offer these are likely not affiliated with the resort, TS company, or exchange company. That's just a line they use to try to sound legit and gain your confidence. They are totally separate companies trying to sell you something else that you don't really need for thousands of dollars.