RCI Points - What happened to the 7500 exchanges

[Joan-OH]

Obviously there has been some additional changes since they changed it from 45 to 30 days out last year. It used to be I could search on Point or Weeks from the points account. Now there is just one search function. I search January and there are 7 resorts and only 1 has the discounted points. I used to be able to see some great last minute weeks exchanges.

What am I doing wrong?

Joan-OH

 

[chriskre]

What am I doing wrong?

Joan-OH

Nothing Joan.
With the advent of the TPU system those 7500 exchanges are drying up because the TPU's are being discounted and are being reserved by weeks owners last minute. There isn't as many "raiding of the weeks" as in the past, cause the weeks owners are booking those weeks. :annoyed:

I still see some but I live in Florida where we have tons of TS's. Not sure if that's the case where you live though.

 

[Joan-OH]

Hmmm. That's too bad. I search for my sister on her points account since she has a vision handicap.

I used to get some pretty decent stuff in Florida but right now, for January, I am only showing 7 resorts and only one is discounted. I thought they were all discounted in the system at 30 days or less.

I used to search her points account on the weeks section and they were all this way. The points section was a separate search where you would search date range and how many days and those were not discounted.

Now there only appears to be one way to search and it looks like they are all weeks, but only 1 of the 7 is discounted. Did they combine the points and weeks search on a RCI points account?

Joan

 

[rickandcindy23]

RCI Points resorts within six weeks were never discount. Only weeks was discounted.

We no longer get inventory at night, like we once did. I could go online at 11:00 PM and see lots of great stuff, but no more.

So inventory loads all day long, no telling when, and there is a lot of competition for those exchanges now. It's getting tough to get something for 9K points or less, as you know.

 

[chriskre]

Another possibility is that there are some older resorts that are now selling RCI points as a way to reinvent themselves. I saw that a resort that I've been exchanging into for years that was a weeks resort in Ft. Myers has suddenly turned into an RCI points resort and thus there goes the bargains. It seems that VRI has converted some of their units to points when they take over management and sales.

All it takes is one sales weasel to mess up the whole 7500-9000 deal for that resort cause once a sale is in points everyone is up a creek so that might account for some of the losses as well.

On the positive side, I can now do short stays at resorts that previously it wasn't possible, so it's a give and take.

 

[janej]

I think RCI changed their 7,500 to 9,000 policy sometime last summer. It used to apply to all weeks exchange within 45 days of check in, not any more. The new timeline seems to be 30 days or less, and discount does not apply to all weeks exchanges. I made one exchange last summer and got the 7,500 point deal by calling. Initially, I was told it was a computer system problem, later they changed the story to not every week will be discounted. I found discounts are very rare after that.

 

[Carolinian]

Hmmm! Sounds like they found a rental source for those weeks, so too bad timeshare owners / RCI members!