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RCI

RCI's Web site says the company has over 3,700 affiliated resorts located in 100 countries, with over three million subscribing members living in more than 200 countries. Its "RCI Community" is an exchange network of three million timeshare owners worldwide who participate in RCI's traditional week-for-week and points-based timeshare exchange networks.

Reda of Marietta, GA February 9, 2010

For five years now, everytime we bank a week, or two or even three sometimes we can never use them because theycan not find a plae for us in ANY of the places we want to go to. At times, I would list dozens of resorts in each of seven cities in Southern USA and they claim they do not have availability in ANY. In about 70 resorts, they cannot find any unit!

According to them, you have to book months in advance. I am trying to book eight minths in advance and still does not work! Who having a family with kids can plan vacations more than 8 months in advance. I have never felt robbed and disappointed as I was with RCI. Never use them again. They cheat you, take you annual registration, and give you NOTHING in return. Nevertheless, they let your weeks expire. You do not use them, you loose them!

Susanne of Hemet, CA January 31, 2010

I have deposited my two weeks of time shares with RCI for the past 3 years. I do not have words to describe the frustration I have experienced in trying to exchange my weeks for the weeks I wanted to use for my vacation. Even though I am paid up for two more years with RCI, I will not deposit my weeks with them again. It is very expensive to have them "book" a resort for me (nearly 200.00 to book a week). I still have three weeks on deposit and will lose them if I don't use them within the time limit.

I have wasted so much time (usually late at night or in the wee hours of the morning) searching and searching for an exchange. It is not worth it. In the future, I will use a different exchange company. Some exchange companies do not even charge a fee to join and very low fees for booking your choice of resorts.

I have not actually lost money, but I have become very frustrated over never finding what I am looking for a weeks time share exchange. I have settled for a place or a week that was not what I was looking for. I have lost all confidence in RCI. After reading some of the other complaints I feel more than justified in discontinuing doing business with RCI once I have used my remaining 3 weeks now on deposit.

mary of Duluth, MN January 20, 2010

I own a timeshare condo in Puerto Vallarta Mexico at the Buganvilias Resort. I have been a member of RCI since buying the timeshare in 1999. Although I pay my maintenance dues and RCI membership dues, I have never been able to obtain an exchange for an RCI resort of my choice. Unfortunately, you must deposit your timeshare week with RCI prior to even obtaining ANY information regarding availability at other resorts.

So after I deposited my week with RCI, they informed me that my desired destination is not available. Nor was my second or third choice! Then they "banked" my deposited week and fail to inform me when the deadline to use it was about to expire. So when I called them to actually use the week that I had already paid for, they told me I was two weeks too late.

I recently discovered that there was a class action lawsuit against RCI that was settled in November of 2009, but although I was an RCI member, I received no information whatsoever regarding this lawsuit until I found it on the internet.

bobby of martinsville, IN January 14, 2010

we were cheated out of our exchange week because they said they couldnt find a vac.in the place where we wanted to go

Jeffery of Tucson, AZ January 13, 2010

RCI is basically nothing more than a Third party central reservation system. Is the service they provide really worth 179 per reservation made?

Break down the exchange fee and for a weekly exchange RCI is charging 25.57 per night for processing a reservation for members. That's a pretty steep fee for making a reservation. The members provide the weeks so RCI does not own the inventory. All they do is manage the exchange of member deposited weeks. My yearly Maintenance fee is 716 for my resort. RCI exchange fee costs amount to a additional 25% of that maintenance fee. What is RCI doing for me that is worth that much money? If you have to cancel your reservation/exchange fee after 24 hours you lose the fee you paid and must pay another 179 to make a new reservation.

Wow! That's really a great reservation service were getting from RCI. On top of this outrageously high exchange fee and cancellation penalty members must also pay a yearly membership fee of about 80 per year just to belong to RCI. We pay and Pay and pay again so RCI can turn around and rent the weeks we deposited out to non-members for less than we paid in yearly maintenance fees for our weeks. Their should be no doubt in anyones mind that RCI is exploiting members and the weeks they deposit. We have the power to stop giving RCI our weeks and our money. As soon as my deposited weeks are used RCI will not receive another penny of my money or any of my weeks.

Robert of Rosedale , MD January 10, 2010

The way that the resorts sales people explain things is boarder line deceptive. They stated over and over that for only 9000 points or 249.00 you could travel to any of their resorts. They never really explained that it must be with in 45 days! I’m sure that they did state that fact once or twice- but they keep your mind on the LOW COSTS, and do not reiterate enough that the popular resorts are seldom or never available in that 45 day travel window!! They will show you places over seas that show a points value of 27,000 points- and tell you that you can go here and your cost will be only 9,000 points! What they don’t tell you is that that resort most likely will NEVER come up on the 45 day travel schedule. Bottom line, when you go to a sales pitch opportunity DO not agree right a way to ANYTHING! Be sure that you make them show you step by step on the PC how to book SEVERAL different vacations that YOU want to take- space them 6 months apart or so. Don’t forget to allow for flying and a rental car.

Kirsten of Berkeley Heights, NJ January 8, 2010

I have 3 weeks banked with RCI. I paid extra to extend one week for 6 months so I wouldn't "lose" it. I searched for a timeshare in the Costa Del Sole area of Spain for the week of 8/16/09-8/22/09 for 9 months - and constantly found only "Extra Vacations" offered at the RCI resorts. I had a continuing search going and still nothing was available.

Finally, with a week to go before my vacation (I had flights and a cruise booked) I caved and purchased an extra vacation for 700. I kept my continuing search going until a day before my flight at which point I cancelled it so it would not come through while I was traveling and I might owe for 2 facilities without even knowing it.

Upon arrival at the RCI "extra vacation" facility (an RCI member resort) I received a telephone call from the local or on-site RCI representative welcoming me and noting that I had exchanged my unit in order to stay there. I advised her that I had attempted that for many months but had been unsuccessful and had in fact purchased my week because I had been told there were no available units for exchange. She stated that there were many available units. I made an appointment to meet with her the next day and then went to the car to continue unpacking.

While I was out of the room she called again, my daughter answered and the representative canceled my appointment with her. Since I was exhausted (been up for over 20 hours) and wanted to start my vacation I decided to take it up with RCI upon my return.

My flight returned to the US 8/31/09 and due to the time difference sometime thereafter I contacted RCI and informed them of their representatives statement and offered to use one of my available units in exchage for my week and to pay the exhchange rate. The RCI representative on the phone refused. I then contacted American Express and advised them of this case and asked them to dispute the difference between the extra vacation rate (700) and the unit exchange rate (189).

RCI never responded to American Express' dispute and in fact refunded the full 700 and advised American Express that they would simply put me into collections. Since then, the one week I wanted to use to exchange for this week has expired (unused) and I cannot use the other 2 weeks I have banked because RCI Has my account flagged as owing 700. RCI is still depriving the consumer from using their timeshares and instead redirecting them to purchase extra vacations.

Please assist me in directing RCI to treat the consumer fairly and to require RCI to release the other two weeks I have banked before they too expire. So far RCI has profitted from my annual fee, the fee charged for the extension of the week that has since "expired" since I could not use it, and has my two banked weeks which for all I know may be sold to some other poor RCI memeber as an extra vacation.

Ted of Camarillo, CA January 4, 2010

My wife and I accepted an invitation to attend an RCI presentation in Woodland Hills in exchange for a Hawaii trip and a couple of nights in Las Vegas. The first thing we noticed was the loud, thumping rock music from the speakers overhead. I wondered if that was part of their scheme: make the music so loud you can't think. I was right.

When I asked our salesperson to turn the music down, she said that her manager would shoot her if she asked him to do that. So we asked the manager ourselves. He said we could move to another table that wasn't right under the speakers, but the new table was right under ANOTHER speaker. We were embarrassed when some manager stopped everyone to announce that someone had purchased some RCI points and that they were going to Hawaii.

Our salesperson stood up and applauded, as did all the other sales people. WHAT A JOKE. It was like Amway convention. I felt sorry for the poor couple. They obviously were made numb by the loud music and duped by the sales staff. When we told our salesperson that our 90 minutes were up, she kept talking! We asked to see her supervisor, and told him the same thing. He went through his spiel, so we said that we are finished. Just give us our Hawaiian trip.

By the time we walked out of that hell hole, we had been there more than two hours! I have become SO mistrustful of RCI that I am afraid to use our Hawaii and Las Vegas tickets for fear that some RCI salesperson is going to appear out of nowehere and start harassing us again! I will NEVER go to another timeshare presentation! I felt physically beat up. My head ached and my stomach burned from acid reflux.

Sabrina of mARKHAM, ON December 30, 2009

We agreed to do the 90 mins tour/ presentation on the Georgian Manor Resort in Collingwood. We thought the 2 nights 3 days mini getaway would be worthwhile. Anyway, DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME.....AND DON'T BUY INTO THEIR SALES PITCH AND PRESSURE TO BUY. It's unbelieveable that these people have the balls to ask you for 26,000 for points! Who would ever think that this was valid and a good idea? We didn't give them any money and warning others out there not to put yourself in any debt. ASk them many questions, and you'll see the sales people have no idea what to say.....they only know what to say from their presentation.

They brought 3!!! different sales people to pressure us! The 2nd person, just grabbed the papers off the desk and walked away when we said we're not interested for the million time....she was a !@%%! the last person claimed that he worked for the developer and not in sales. But for some reason he spoke the same language as the other two! I get so upset to hear what these people have knownly done to naive, gulable, innocent people out there. I hope one day it too happens to them. Don't go to Georgian Manor Resort, it's crappy....we ended up leaving right after the sales pitch, the hotel sucked really badly too. MOre importantly, if you agreed to the free stay to attend the thing, be aware and say no right away....and keep in mind they will hit you harder each time.

Brian of Foley, AL December 15, 2009

We purchased 5.8 million points and now we are told we are limited by how many we can use. We bought to be able to use the points for flights and now we can only use 60,000 a year. We have not been back to our home resort, Blue Bay, since we bought. It is cheaper to go thru Expedia. This is a total rip off. It is a 25 year contract and we will never be able to use all of our points in 25 years because they are limited. All the resorts we have exchanged for thru RCI have been dumps. We even had to relocate one time. The whole thing is a disgrace!!!

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