Spending down a Boatload of TS Inventory

[StaceyJ]

Hello TUGers,
We haven't been using our timeshares over the past several years, but we've been banking for awhile now.
We are platinum RCI members which allows us to bank up to 4 years.

RCI Weeks: We currently have 127 TPUs bundled. All these TPUs expire in July, but we can extend at a cost. A large bundle makes it very hard to search as you can only search with separate banked weeks...and we just have a grouped TPU amount. An RCI Guide recommended keeping our active RCI Weeks search open, do other searches on the RCI Points side and if something pops up that we want with RCI Points, see if RCI Week TPUs can be used first. This of couse would cause us to cancel our Weeks search, and after booking with TPUs, start back up the original search (but now we are back at the bottom of the requesting list).

RCI Points: We have 270,500 points available to use with 45,000 points expiring in July without possibility of extension. The rest of the points can be extended at a cost.

I guess this is a good problem to have, but it's going to be a challenge to use them up without paying for some amount of extensions.
I'm retired and have some flexibility. We were able to take three TS vacations last year, but we need to take 6-10 to get close to using up our inventory.

Any ideas on how we can use the inventory....find availabilty off season?...go on a bunch of last call vacations? ...book something and then try to rent on a site (TUG or other)?

Thanks for any advice. I'm sure there are lots of tips out there in the forum posts and I will start to look and see what I can find to help us.

 

[wmgjr]

Hello TUGers,
We haven't been using our timeshares over the past several years, but we've been banking for awhile now.
We are platinum RCI members which allows us to bank up to 4 years.

RCI Weeks: We currently have 127 TPUs bundled. All these TPUs expire in July, but we can extend at a cost. A large bundle makes it very hard to search as you can only search with separate banked weeks...and we just have a grouped TPU amount. An RCI Guide recommended keeping our active RCI Weeks search open, do other searches on the RCI Points side and if something pops up that we want with RCI Points, see if RCI Week TPUs can be used first. This of couse would cause us to cancel our Weeks search, and after booking with TPUs, start back up the original search (but now we are back at the bottom of the requesting list).

RCI Points: We have 270,500 points available to use with 45,000 points expiring in July without possibility of extension. The rest of the points can be extended at a cost.

I guess this is a good problem to have, but it's going to be a challenge to use them up without paying for some amount of extensions.
I'm retired and have some flexibility. We were able to take three TS vacations last year, but we need to take 6-10 to get close to using up our inventory.

Any ideas on how we can use the inventory....find availabilty off season?...go on a bunch of last call vacations? ...book something and then try to rent on a site (TUG or other)?

Thanks for any advice. I'm sure there are lots of tips out there in the forum posts and I will start to look and see what I can find to help us.

post something to exchange on tug2.com so you can get the sweepstake membership thing?...

 

[bnoble]

find availabilty off season?...go on a bunch of last call vacations?

My first suggestion: stop thinking about value. You don’t need to stretch your assets! Instead, splurge. Go to NYC, or Hawaii, or something else that requires significant trade power/a large pool of points.

 

[bnoble]

book something and then try to rent on a site (TUG or other)?

Unfortunately, this is something you can’t do. You’re not allowed to rent exchanges.

 

[SmithOp]

Monitor the Sightings board, lots of nice HGVC bulk deposits lately.

 

[HudsHut]

Hi @StaceyJ
I agree with @SmithOp . My suggestion is to use those TPU on the beautiful Hiltons in Waikiki and on the Big Island. Maybe back to back for a 2 week or longer trip? This is a rare opportunity. The Hiltons in Hawaii are some of the nicest resorts RCI has, and therefore, get snapped up very quickly and do not appear again until the next bulk deposit, which could be quite a few months away.
Remember, you get "nothing" for extending. The goal is to use them up and pay as little as possible in additional fees to RCI for extending.

---
I see in your profile you live in Virginia, so going to Hawaii requires significant travel time. If Hawaii is not on your radar, then perhaps aim for the best resorts in the Caribbean or Cancun?

 

[WaikikiFirst]

book something and then try to rent

seems the obvious one to me, not that I'm ahuge fan of dealing with the lousy opaque nature of RCI. but is it allowed? if not "rent" to a friend somehow? allowed?
renting out a booking makes it simply a financial transaction. otherwise you're talking about organizing your life around this

large bundle makes it very hard to search as you can only search with separate banked weeks...and we just have a grouped TPU amount.

Blows me away how awful the user I/F on RCI, though I do think much of it is on purpose

 

[StaceyJ]

Blows me away how awful the user I/F on RCI, though I do think much of it is on purpose

No kidding! You get used to using airbnb or any other hotel booking site and then try to use the RCI website...to find limited availability and hard to use, i.e. not user friendly. If its not on purpose, it definitely discourages using the value you have banked with them.

 

[bnoble]

Of course it is not on purpose. They don't get paid if you don't make exchanges.

 

[WaikikiFirst]

is not on purpose. They don't get paid if you don't make exchanges

Missing fundamental biz strategy & the baserock KPIs. They don't do anything if you don't DEPOSIT weeks, and once you deposit, you will exchange, won't you?
The lousy user I/F makes it extremely hard to know much til you have DEPOSITed. Deposits are what count. That is where the Network Effect resides. They need inventory.
How many weeks that you DEPOSITed into RCi did you never exchange?

 

[StaceyJ]

How many weeks that you DEPOSITed into RCi did you never exchange?

The business model reminds me of companies selling gift cards. They know that gift cards will be lost or forgotten or expire before being used. The company gets value up front and may not have to exchange for value on the back end if the buyer doesn't redeem. Isn't that like RCI if you let a deposit expire? Sadly, I'm sure it happens a lot, perhaps not with TUG members!

 

[bnoble]

I don't let weeks expire, and I don't find it all that hard to find suitable exchanges. I can't speak for anyone else.

But deposits are not like gift cards. Someone has to *use it* for RCI to get paid--and the only way to use it is to exchange or find it as an EV, and both use the same user interface.

 

[beejaybee]

Spent 20 of my 40 hanging TPUs expiring at the end of June on Holiday Inn V.C. in Georgia for a mid-May week. Unsettling reviews about bugs but that t/s is close to Helen and not far from DS near Birmingham and DD near Charleston. Looking to find another t/s to use the leftovers, perhaps on either side of the week there.