1. Travel window. It looks like you can do ongoing searches. If I use 2021 points, what would be the travel window? For RCI Weeks, it is one year prior to our home week and 2 years afterwards.
Travel window is pretty much the same as with weeks. You can borrow from next year's points to use this year. If you don't use all the points this year, you can save them to use next year, then you can extend them to use one more year (two if you are a platinum member). Here's what RCI says about saving and extending in their help library:
What is Saving Points?
Saving Points refers to carrying over Points from the Use Year in which they were allocated into your next Use Year.
Points are saved automatically at the end of the Use Year in which they were allocated, and
there is no fee providing that you have used at least some of those Points in that Use Year. If you have not used any Points in the allocated Use Year, a $36USD fee will be charged.
Points that have been saved must be used in the following Use Year, or can be Extended for an additional Use Year for a small fee.
What is extending Points?
Extending Points refers to carrying over Saved Points into a third Use Year. To extend your Points into a third year, you must do so prior to their expiration. A fee applies to extending Points, which varies depending upon the number of Points you wish to extend.
RCI Platinum members receive an additional 4th Use Year when they extend their unused Points. So, while extended Points expire at the end of a 3rd Use Year for standard RCI members, RCI Platinum members will enjoy a 4th Use Year with no additional fee.
2. Can you combine points from different years? I see 61000 points available, but regularly see the trades I would like show up higher than that. Can you combine different years' points together like you can combine TPU?
You actually don't have to "combine" points as the term is used in RCI weeks - points are points and you can use however many you have available for a reservation without paying to combine the different buckets of that year's points, saved points, extended points and borrowed points.
Thank you for all the help!
You're quite welcome!
There are a few other things about points that are different than weeks, but I won't go through them all. One of the most common things you'll hear is that there are more resorts available in points than there are in weeks. That's true to a certain extent (e.g., The Crane, in Barbados, is a resort that only shows up in points), but there are also some resorts that show up on the weeks side but not the points side (e.g., Solaz, in Los Cabos). The points side is supposed to have access to all of the weeks side inventory, but I've seen a few on searches on the weeks side that didn't show up on the points side. Not sure if I would have been able to book by calling or chatting with a representative so I can't speak to whether or not they could have booked for me using points.
