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RCI points

carmena79

TUG Member
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Location
northern nevada
Resorts Owned
Hawaiian Princess Hawaiian Sun Holidays Vacations Internationale
I'm totally confused. There are RCI points timeshares for sale but they're Florida timeshares or Grandview timeshares etc. So if I bought one would I reserve through RCI or Grandview? Where would I be looking for availability? I guess I would need to buy an RCI points membership? Would I have to pay an exchange fee to reserve my points. Would the points rollover like my timeshare week deposit did and be available for a second year? Would I be able to rent out what I can't use, as I do now? I really am not understanding RCI points timeshares. Help!
 

CPNY

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Resorts Owned
Harborside Resort at Atlantis
SVV - Key West/Bella
WKV
Regal Vista at Massanutten
I'm totally confused. There are RCI points timeshares for sale but they're Florida timeshares or Grandview timeshares etc. So if I bought one would I reserve through RCI or Grandview? Where would I be looking for availability? I guess I would need to buy an RCI points membership? Would I have to pay an exchange fee to reserve my points. Would the points rollover like my timeshare week deposit did and be available for a second year? Would I be able to rent out what I can't use, as I do now? I really am not understanding RCI points timeshares. Help!
Lots of questions there. If you buy Grandview timeshare that is a points contract then you can use your points at your home resort or you can book any other vacation in points through RCI. You’ll get an RCI points and weeks account. I own regal vista 2 bedroom which is 89K RCI points, I use the points in RCI To book other vacations.
 

Free2Roam

TUG Member
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Maryland
Resorts Owned
Club Wyndham, Quarter House, a handful of East Coast beach resorts
You cannot rent unused points (you can rent your home week)... but you can transfer unused points to other RCI Points members. Once deposited, points can be saved & extended (for a fee) if you don't use them all. They are auto-saved (no fee) if you use some but not all. If Platinum and you pay to extend, you get an extra year.

See this recent thread - https://www.tugbbs.com/forums/threads/points-v-weeks.322268

In post #18 Brian provided a link to the guide to RCI Weeks vs Points which is very helpful.
 

AwayWeGo

TUG Review Crew: Expert
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McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.
Resorts Owned
Grandview At Las Vegas

[triennial - points]
RCI is a timeshare exchange company. It does not sell timeshares.

Grandview At Las Vegas & Vacation Village At Parkway (Kissimmee FL) are examples of timeshare resorts that are affiliated with RCI where the owners can exchange their timeshare units through RCI's points system (although there are plenty of units at those resorts & at other RCI Points timeshares that exchange via RCI Weeks, or that don't exchange at all).

RCI membership -- Weeks or Points -- is optional. Owners who just want to use their own timeshare units during their own paid-for time, or rent out their units for cash, don't need membership in any timeshare exchange organization.

The confusion comes from the full-price high-pressure on-site timeshare sellers who try to enhance the desirability of what they're selling by pointing out the advantageous ways of using their product via RCI exchanges to stay at other people's timeshares in other locations. It's no surprise if people come away from all that razzle-dazzle & ballyhoo with a less than precise understanding of what's a timeshare & what's RCI.

Rather than diving right in for major money, & even before taking an economical resale timeshare plunge via eBay etc., it will be a good idea to go beyond the timeshare sellers' spiels & spend some time on the pages of TUG & TUG-BBS to bone up on the basics of timeshares & timeshare vacationing & timeshare exchanging.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​
 

rboesl

TUG Review Crew: Expert
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West Seneca, NY
Resorts Owned
Divi Village Beach & Golf Resort
Vidanta Grand Mayan
Villa del Arco Cobo
Grandview Las Vegas
Vacation Village at Bonaventure
I'm totally confused. There are RCI points timeshares for sale but they're Florida timeshares or Grandview timeshares etc. So if I bought one would I reserve through RCI or Grandview? Where would I be looking for availability? I guess I would need to buy an RCI points membership? Would I have to pay an exchange fee to reserve my points. Would the points rollover like my timeshare week deposit did and be available for a second year? Would I be able to rent out what I can't use, as I do now? I really am not understanding RCI points timeshares. Help!
I'll try to answer all your questions and I'll use Grandview to illustrate:
  1. I guess I would need to buy an RCI points membership? This is optional. I would recommend signing up with RCI if you want to go places other than Grandview during your home week.
  2. So if I bought one would I reserve through RCI or Grandview? If you decide not to sign up with RCI your points are automatically deposited in RCI every year you pay your maintenance fee. You would reserve your home week with Grandview. If you do decide to signup with RCI you would reserve your home week with RCI (there's an option for that). Either way there's no fee to do that reservation.
  3. Where would I be looking for availability? Assuming you signup with RCI you would look for availability there. The exchange would be based upon the number of points the resort you want to visit wants.
  4. Would I have to pay an exchange fee to reserve my points. If you only want to stay at Grandview during your assigned week. No. (See #2 above.) If you want to use all or some of your points to somewhere else then, yes, there will be an exchange fee.
  5. Would the points rollover like my timeshare week deposit did and be available for a second year? Yes, any points you don't use in one year roll over to the next year.
  6. Would I be able to rent out what I can't use, as I do now? Officially, RCI doesn't allow you to rent your timeshare. Points or otherwise. That being said there are many owners that do rent units they've reserved. You would need a Guest Certificate in the name of your renter. Daily Management, the company that manages Grandview and to whom you would pay your maintenance fee, also offers a rental process. There's a form available on their website you fill out and send to them. Daily Management then rents out your home week for you. They do take a commission but your take usually cover most of your maintenance fee.
Vacation Village, which Grandview is affiliated with, is quite generous with its points allotment in RCI. If your frugal enough you can usually reserve more than 1 week with a year's allotment. There are other resorts, 80 or so, affiliated with Vacation Village. Some of the more well known are at Massanutten Virginia, Williamsburg Virginia, Vacation Village at Parkway in Orlando, and Mizner Place, Vacation Village at Bonaventure, and Vacation Village at Weston all of which are very near to Fort Lauderdale.
 

moonstone

TUG Review Crew: Veteran
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Moonstone, ON
Resorts Owned
The Beach Club at St. Augustine Beach, FL (1 floating week, purchased in 1982)

77,000 RCI points (Sunrise Ridge Resort, TN)
Our RCI Points are based on a resort in TN. Our deed says we own 1 week in a 2 bedroom unit for week 27 and it is worth 77,000 RCI points. We have never stayed at the resort but if we wanted to, we would need to advise them when our points are issued in May, that we wanted to use them at our home base. If we dont let them know then the points are deposited into our RCI Points account for us to use as we like.
We have a separate RCI log in to access our Points account (we also have a weeks account) and once in the site we can search for a resort similarly to searching in the weeks side. A big advantage to using points is that we can book a 8 to 13 night stay for the same exchange fee as a 7 night stay. Now that we are retired I always look for at least a 10 night stay, preferably over 2 weekends. Those longer stays are found about 10 mos in advance and by clicking on a 7+ length of stay. Stays of less than 7 nights will almost always incur a housekeeping fee, but a longer than 7 night stay does not. There is a section to look for vacations for less than 10K points but they are usually but not always last minute (<45 days from check-in) at not so popular resorts/areas and usually just in a 1 bedroom unit. We always get 3-5 stays (7-12 days each) out of our points.


~Diane
 

Inhislove

TUG Review Crew: Veteran
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Catalina Beach Club
What is the benefit of having separate RCI weeks and points accounts?
 

AwayWeGo

TUG Review Crew: Expert
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Grandview At Las Vegas

[triennial - points]
What is the benefit of having separate RCI weeks and points accounts?
No advantage, unless you happen to have an RCI Weeks timeshare unit as well as an RCI Points timeshare unit.

If you have both kinds -- points & weeks -- & you want to do exchanges through RCI, then you need both kinds of RCI memberships, weeks plus points.

Fortunately, RCI Points members get side-by-side RCI Weeks memberships also, at no added cost.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​
 

escanoe

TUG Review Crew
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Washington, DC
Resorts Owned
HGVC: Flamingo & Anderson Ocean Club
Vacation Village: Woodstone at Massanutten and Grandview (RCI Points) & the Colonies
What is the benefit of having separate RCI weeks and points accounts?

What Alan said above. I will also add a points account is generally more flexible and gives more options than having a weeks account. However, sometimes a weeks account will give you more favorable options or a benefit like greater discounts on exchange fees if you are exchanging between vacation village affiliated resorts. The bulk of my vacation ownership is in my points account, but there can be benefits to having eggs in both baskets. If more flexibility is important, I would start with points ownership.
 

Inhislove

TUG Review Crew: Veteran
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Catalina Beach Club
We co-own a beach resort with extended family. Both siblings (but not spouses) are on the deed. I was wondering if it made sense to pay for a separate points membership for my spouse and myself if we dip into points membership as well.
 
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