rci points for airline tickets

[brucecz Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close brucecz]

Tim, we will be using up another 90,000 Points on airfare for our April 29, 2007 So Cal trip and if we do not rent out our week 11 St Croix ownership then we will to suffer and be forced to use 130,000 RCI Points for airfare if I do not give that crummy US Virgin Island week 11 to the resort to rent out.

I think we just sold one of our RCI Points ownerships and 43,000 RCI Points will have be going with it.

Its not easy being retired and having to go to all of these vacation places.

Could you find it in your heart to maybe give this poor geezer about 100,000 RCI Points each month so has enought RCI Points to get by?

But for tomarrow the good news that we had 3 white weeks roll of the books this past Saturday so we will be able to book at least 2 weeks for RCI Points. We also have two 90 dayers available and two 45 dayers available so I think we will beable to book 5 white weeks and maybe 2 blue weeks.

Unfortunately one of those 3 white weeks has to go for a rental that is already spoken for in 2007. That is causing a bit of a problem as that will make 7 rentals already booked for 2007 which cuts down the amount of weeks that I can use for points.

By the way was your renter happy with that you rented to her from our inventorty?

Tim, the reason you are crying about not having enough weeks to deposit for RCI Points is that you have rented so many of your weeks out. Heck, in a ratio comparison you do better on rentals than I do.

I think I need a few more ownerships as we have sold 10 of them this year and only bought 7 or 8 ownerships to replace them.

Bruce

I am trying real hard to "Be like Bruce." Or is it "Be like Mike." In any event, Bruce is something else and the king of using RCI points.

Katiemack, I'm not sure if you can pay a fee to extend your expiring points. I thought I read you can do that but can't find it at the moment. Heck, if RCI can make some money off of that then I am sure they will allow it for a fee. Technically, RCI prohibits the sale or renting of RCI points. That is why you don't see ebay ads for RCI points. However, RCI does allow you to transfer RCI points to another person's account -- of course, for a fee, I think $49. RCI would not know the reason you are transferring to someone else's account -- I mean if you sold the points. Yet, if they find out I guess they could suspend your account or something. I just don't know how serious RCI would be on something like this. The same goes for last minute weeks or even exchanges in that I believe RCI prohibits us from renting those out. We can, of course, pay for a guest certificate and have somebody use it, but we are not suppose to rent it out and make a profit. I guess only RCI is allowed to make a profit from us!

Speaking of transferring RCI Points, I have asked Bruce several times to transfer me some of his points as he has lots of them. I can sure use them as I am planning a complicated trip next summer involving 4 RCI points resorts. Yet, Bruce keeps telling me he doesn't have enough for his own use. Boy, look at all of those transactions that Bruce has done. If he would just stay home a bit more there would be plently of points for all of us!

[brucecz Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close brucecz]

Dear Katie, despite RCI changing a lot of things I think you can extend the life of your points by paying .2 of a cent per RCI Point that you wanted to extend.

Bruce

Tim, thanks for the reply. If your points are near expiration, can you pay a fee to extend the pts window? Once you have the points, can you sell or rent them to someone else? With points, if you find a last minute week, can you rent it out if you cannot use it? I ask because I still think for the most part using points for airlines can be less than cost effective.

[katiemack Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close katiemack]

Hey, Bruce,
Help me understand the following from your post:

Airline Certificate
06/10/2005
01/28/2006 - 01/29/2006
620
35000

Airline Certificate
06/10/2005
01/28/2006 - 01/29/2006
122
35000


Does this mean that you spent 35000 points on the airline cert....what do the dates refer to and what are 122 and 620?

Thanks for the info re expiration extension.

[Carolinian Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Carolinian]

A friend of mine got suckered into joining points by a sales rep, and a big part of the appeal was airline tickets. But airline tickets was also the reason he finally bailed out of RCI Points in disgust (and I inherited his points directory).

At the time he joined, the points numbers for summer airline tickets to Europe would be a good deal, if you could actually get those tickets. He found out that you could not, and the off season tickets at the same point numbers were NOT a good deal.

He had only been to Europe once, to London, and wanted to see more. With a change in his job situation, he finally was in a position he could find the time. Repeated calls to RCI Points found warm weather air tickets to Europe availible with RCI Points were limited to London in shoulder season on one airline. Nothing at all was availible in high season anywhere in Europe. Low season, however, seemed to be wide open. He ultimately broadened his request to anywhere in Europe except London for any date in high season, and still came up with an empty bag through RCI Points. That year was one in which there were a lot of late shoulder season airline sales at excellent prices for late shoulder season, so it obviously was not a case that the planes were full.

I suggested either grabbing an airline sale while they were still on for late shoulder season, or taking London with points and using an LCC to get to another destination from there. He was so hacked off with RCI Points, he did the former. I never did hear what if anything he used that years points for, but he got his own week back from Points each of the next two years, and then converted back to Weeks when his three year hitch with Points ended.

Since that time, I understand RCI Points has significantly raised the number of Points required for a ticket to Europe, which may have increased availibility, but makes them much less of a deal.

[shopgirl Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close shopgirl]

The key to inexpensive use of points for Disney tickets and airfares is using the 7,500 points exchanges and the leftover points for the other things. It really does work but is not guaranteed to be there forever. After all, this is RCI we are talking about. The company changes its policies semi-annually and you never know when the company will take any benefit away.

[brucecz Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close brucecz]

Katie, this morning when I called you I explained the 2 types of RCI Points extentions that you could get. I received this information when I called RCI this morning to bank some weeks

One was indeed for .2 of a cent RCI Point as I had posted about and the other is for .4 of a cent per point.

Seeing that I am such a slow poor typer I will let you post what the use differance is between the 2 costs.

Bruce

Hey, Bruce,
Help me understand the following from your post:

Airline Certificate
06/10/2005
01/28/2006 - 01/29/2006
620
35000

Airline Certificate
06/10/2005
01/28/2006 - 01/29/2006
122
35000


Does this mean that you spent 35000 points on the airline cert....what do the dates refer to and what are 122 and 620?

Thanks for the info re expiration extension.

[jjking42 Member Find all posts View Profile Close jjking42]

So I want to go to Disneyworld for two weeks and would usually use two timeshare weeks at $440 MF's + $164 exchange fee. But now my weeks resort is in PFD, so I get my weeks in the 45-day window for 7,500 each X 2 = 15,000 points. I have 45,500 points for my week in PFD, so I have a lot of points left over X 2 because I would have spent two weeks to get that one vacation. Now my airfare is quite a bit cheaper, even paying for the tickets because our points are at 1 cent per point.

Is that too confusing because I read back over it and it sounds a little disorganized. Maybe someone else can say it better/differently.

but would you be better off renting those weeks and booking last call and and paying cash for airfare ?

[shopgirl Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close shopgirl]

Jim,
I rent out our Hawaii weeks, none of which is RCI points, those are our only good rentals. Val Chatelle would likely not rent for much in the summer, but red is red and using those PFD for 7,500 point trips and Disney tickets saves a lot.

I will never use RCI points for Orlando airfares, it is just too expensive. I will get those Disney tickets with points and use those every year. What a deal.

[btcctomtb Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close btcctomtb]

Katie, the cost to extend for 1 more year is .002 cents per point IF you extend them while making a reservation. .004 cents if you just call the to extend them. I personally extend them while making a reservation, A little secret is you can make the reservation 6 months out or so and cancel it the next day. And than you can feel like you got one over on RCI. You extended your points for half price

[Carolinian Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Carolinian]

Given my freinds experience with unsuccesfully trying to get air tickets to Europe with RCI Points, I wonder if availibility has improved since they hiked up the points required. Have any of the points users obtained an air ticket to Europe during high season in the last year or so, and if so to what destinations?

[jjking42 Member Find all posts View Profile Close jjking42]

Jim,
I rent out our Hawaii weeks, none of which is RCI points, those are our only good rentals. Val Chatelle would likely not rent for much in the summer, but red is red and using those PFD for 7,500 point trips and Disney tickets saves a lot.

I will never use RCI points for Orlando airfares, it is just too expensive. I will get those Disney tickets with points and use those every year. What a deal.

what do disney tickets cost with rci points ? what kind of ticket and how many points ?

[katiemack Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close katiemack]

Bruce told me that getting a year long Park Hopper Pass is one of the best bargains using the RCI points....he explained the math, but my brain exploded.

[shopgirl Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close shopgirl]

Jim,
The tickets are only 40,000 points + a transaction fee of $49 that will cover all that you purchase. A parkhopper ticket with equal value is $403 with taxes. Is that cheap? No. But if you have points that you must use because you have picked up all of your weeks for 7,500 points each, it kinda feels like they are FREE!

I used to use all of our Val Chatelle weeks one for one, give a week, get a week. Now I get 45,500 PFD for $26.00 at $440 maintenance fees= 1 cent per point. Those 7,500 point exchanges to Disneyworld only take 1/6 of my points. I can go six weeks on one week, so now I have points to burn with my other weeks. Of course, I have to pay RCI $164 for each week, but it is still a bargain.

An analytical person could explain this better, and it really is not "free," but it is pretty close to free, when you think about it.

I have the dilemma of too many weeks. I rent out some of them and use some for PFD and use my II weeks as they are, back to the one to one exchanges, but I do get those AC's for both of my weeks (I used to not even bother to use the AC's and let most expire because we had so many weeks that we could not use them all), which is great. I also have a fall week at Val Chatelle (MF's of $416) that is a great trader for last-minute Hawaii and pulls some great stuff in Orlando. It is only worth about 20K points, so I would never use it for PFD, but it does pull those last-minute, awesome weeks.

You see, we pay the MF's anyway, so we might as well use everything we have coming to us--the AC's, the points for Disney tickets, the 7,500-9,000 points exchanges, etc. Even our airfare to Hawaii saved us a lot of money in July. I think I finally have this thing figured out. If RCI is going to rent out weeks to provide me with tickets, then good for me.

[cshelz Member Find all posts View Profile Close cshelz]

Thanks for the disney ticket info. I love to hear about smart ways to spend the points.

[pie2mats Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close pie2mats]

Howdy Everybody

well, that's a much better way to put it. nice insights regarding the matter, works well in information resource option. got my cheap airfare deal and it's a two way so i don't have to worry back especially working students like me. have a nice day everyone!