rci points for airline tickets

[jjking42 Member Find all posts View Profile Close jjking42]

how does rci points work for airline tickets.

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

It is part of RCI's partner program. You call RCI and tell them what you want and if available RCI will book it for you. There is a $49 transaction fee per ticket plus the points necessary for the trip. RCI publishes a list of point ranges for various trips. It can cost anywhere from 40,000 points to 100,000 or so for a ticket.

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

40,000 to 100,000 for one ticket? What would that represent in per point pricing? Is the average pt. price range around .08 per pt?

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

It is part of RCI's partner program. You call RCI and tell them what you want and if available RCI will book it for you. There is a $49 transaction fee per ticket plus the points necessary for the trip. RCI publishes a list of point ranges for various trips. It can cost anywhere from 40,000 points to 100,000 or so for a ticket.

Tim - there is a $49.00 ROUND TRIP transaction fee for each transaction - not $49.00 per ticket. The points charge per ticket in USA48 is either 35000 points are 45000 points depending on departure and destination.

I will check this out on Monday with my affliliate representative to verify what I am reporting. I know this was true on September 1st. but RCI, according to their 15 page single spaced "Terms and Conditions" does not have to tell us about any changes that they make.

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

Yes, it is $49 per ROUND TRIP ticket. When I think of a "ticket" I think of a round trip ticket. So, to get a "ticket" you pay RCI $49 and "pay" a good amount of points. I believe you are correct that it is 35 to 45,000 points for a trip in the continental US. However, if you want to go to Hawaii, the Caribbean or Europe, you will pay much more in points. What this really cost someone depends on what your maintenance fees are for the amount of points you need to use for the ticket. Also, I guess if your points are expiring soon, then it may make sense to get a ticket just to get some value for your points. I think most people agree that the price per point to get a "free" round trip ticket through RCI is generally not worth it.

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

I think most people agree that the price per point to get a "free" round trip ticket through RCI is generally not worth it.

This may be true flying in the US, but for flying from Canada, using RCI points is cost effective. Our flights are quite a bit more than desintations originating out of the US.

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

Yes, it is $49 per ROUND TRIP ticket. When I think of a "ticket" I think of a round trip ticket. So, to get a "ticket" you pay RCI $49 and "pay" a good amount of points. I believe you are correct that it is 35 to 45,000 points for a trip in the continental US. However, if you want to go to Hawaii, the Caribbean or Europe, you will pay much more in points. What this really cost someone depends on what your maintenance fees are for the amount of points you need to use for the ticket. Also, I guess if your points are expiring soon, then it may make sense to get a ticket just to get some value for your points. I think most people agree that the price per point to get a "free" round trip ticket through RCI is generally not worth it.
EXACTLY!
However,
In July I had to make a trip from KC to Palm Springs - one week notice. Airfare was about $480.00. I paid $49.00 plus 45000 points (which I buy at $.008/point MF)- total cost $409.00. I got the flight I needed with great times. UNITED through RCI POINTS

This may be true flying in the US, but for flying from Canada, using RCI points is cost effective. Our flights are quite a bit more than desintations originating out of the US. ANOTHER GREAT THREAD!

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

Yes, it is $49 per ROUND TRIP ticket. When I think of a "ticket" I think of a round trip ticket. So, to get a "ticket" you pay RCI $49 and "pay" a good amount of points. I believe you are correct that it is 35 to 45,000 points for a trip in the continental US. However, if you want to go to Hawaii, the Caribbean or Europe, you will pay much more in points. What this really cost someone depends on what your maintenance fees are for the amount of points you need to use for the ticket. Also, I guess if your points are expiring soon, then it may make sense to get a ticket just to get some value for your points. I think most people agree that the price per point to get a "free" round trip ticket through RCI is generally not worth it.

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.

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

Shopgirl, given that you are going to Disneyworld, here are two other considerations for you. First, you may be able to get a great deal on airfare to Orlando. I am able to fly Southwest (and some others) from Chicago Midway and only pay around $225 to $250 per round trip ticket. Given that price, it doesn't make sense to use frequent flyer miles or RCI points. Second, you can use your RCI points to buy Disney tickets to get into the parks (Park Hopper passes). And, I understand that the transaction fee is NOT per pass but for all passes that you buy at the same time. You should weigh the benefits of using RCI points for passes vs. airline tickets.

We are going to DisneyWorld next year and I may use RCI points for some passes (if I have enough points!). Lately, I seem to be using lots of points to book a big trip for next summer.

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

Yes, it is $49 per ROUND TRIP ticket. When I think of a "ticket" I think of a round trip ticket. So, to get a "ticket" you pay RCI $49 and "pay" a good amount of points. I believe you are correct that it is 35 to 45,000 points for a trip in the continental US. However, if you want to go to Hawaii, the Caribbean or Europe, you will pay much more in points. What this really cost someone depends on what your maintenance fees are for the amount of points you need to use for the ticket. Also, I guess if your points are expiring soon, then it may make sense to get a ticket just to get some value for your points. I think most people agree that the price per point to get a "free" round trip ticket through RCI is generally not worth it.

How long do points last? When you say they expire?

Also, shouldn't one count the original cost plus mf's...if someone bought directly into a pts resort, either resale or from a developer they have paid anywhere from say $1500 to ****$$....plus maintenance? Or their conversion fees if they converted a weeks resort at a price?


And I definitely can see if one is stuck for a last minute trip, flight costs can be high, although in some markets I have noticed surprisingly low fares even within a ten day window.

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

Katiemack, RCI points expire after two years. In other words, if you got points in January of 2006, those points are available to you through Jan 08. After the first year, RCI will allow you to "save" them into the second year for free so that you can use them in a two year window.

With respect to how to evaluate the cost for each RCI point, most of us do not consider the initial purchase price of the timeshare or any conversion cost. We only look to how much does it cost us each year to get our points -- which is the maintenance fee amount. So, when you see on this site (or TUG) people talking about having a cost below 1 penny per point they are taking the MF cost and dividing by the number of points. For example, let's assume you pay $400 in MFs and get 50,000 RCI points -- that would yield .008 per point (less than 1 penny per point -- $400/50000), which is pretty good, but not fantansic. Unfortunately, lots of us are around that area. The goal, of course, is to get the price per point as low as possible and then using RCI partners for Disney tickets or airline tickets becomes acceptable (unless of course your points are about to expire then using them with RCI partners may be the only option to get value out of the points).

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

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.

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

I used our RCI points to go to Hawaii this last time. The airfare was 70,000 points per ticket. I had my Aussie points and deposited one additional week to get us to Hawaii:

2) 45,500 PFD for $440 + conversion fees of $26 X 2= a little shy of 1 cent per point.
91,800 points were only .0076 each = $697

So airfaire cost us $697+$482 + $=49 each (I think) for transaction fees=$1,277 total for our two airfares to Hawaii. The best price I could find for the tickets was the exact same airline, US Airways, for $779 each. All prices are with taxes. I was thrilled because we were a little cash poor at the time we went to Hawaii. It is our slow season for our little chimney cleaning business, so we felt our airfare was free because we had to pay our timeshare maintenance fees.

Did I save a whole lot by using points? Not really, but when you consider that we have always used those weeks as weeks and have not been able to use them for more than one week and can now use each of our weeks for many weeks, we are better off buying airfare with our points than paying for it them.

We use our FF miles with Frontier for airfares to Hawaii, or I buy tickets if I cannot get the dates we need. I never pay more than $210 for airfare to Orlando from Denver.

Another thing I always consider is our plethora of weeks right now that we cannot use. We currently own 14 weeks. In the past, we have allowed some of our weeks to expire or have just given them away to ungrateful family members.

Funny you should mention Disneyworld passes. We did verify, at the end of our last stay, that our RCI passes will upgrade to annual passes for just another $100 or so each, so almost free Disney passes for us. All Disney vacations from now on are going to be 7,500 point units. We are not going to get anything other than the cheap points weeks because we travel at Disney slow times. Hopefully the program will remain the same so that we can benefit this way for a while, at least four years, then I feel that we have been well served.

I think I will order our Disney passes tomorrow morning, first thing. I can get four right now with our weeks I want to deposit into points for 2007. I should stock up on those, they never expire and Disney will take them for trade forever and ever. Next year, another four of them.

[brucecz Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close brucecz]

Below are some of airfares paid for with RCI Points.
Please note these do not include all of the RCI transactions or other exchange companies transactions done during the timeframes shown below.

Of course it does not show the about 20-30 Bluegreen weeks we have rented out each year and did not bank for RCI Points.

The only I changed was the confirmation numbers and deleted our account numbers.

I am to lazy to total up the number of RCI points that are shown below.

Bruce

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Vacation Plans

ON HOLD
CONFIRMED
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VACATION HISTORY

You have no weeks on hold.

Below are your RCI Points confirmed reservations
Note: Please note an RCI Points Partner reservation currently displays in the same format as a resort reservation and is being provided for verification purposes only. If you need documentation for an RCI Points Partner reservation, please CALL RCI Points at 877-968-7476 and select the appropriate option.

RCI Points ® Vacations Confirmed

Resort Name
Transaction Date
Travel Dates
Confirmation Number
RCI Points Value

The Cliffs at Peace Canyon
02/15/2006
10/21/2006 - 10/28/2006
189
53500

RCI Points ® Vacations Confirmed

Property Name
Transaction Date
Travel Dates
Confirmation Number
RCI Points Value

Airline Certificate
08/08/2006
10/21/2006 - 10/22/2006
176
35000

RCI Points ® Vacations Confirmed

Property Name
Transaction Date
Travel Dates
Confirmation Number
RCI Points Value

Airline Certificate
08/08/2006
10/21/2006 - 10/22/2006
45 1
35000

RCI Points ® Vacations Confirmed

Resort Name
Transaction Date
Travel Dates
Confirmation Number
RCI Points Value

The Cliffs at Peace Canyon
08/20/2006
10/21/2006 - 10/24/2006
259
23540

RCI Points ® Vacations Confirmed

Property Name
Transaction Date
Travel Dates
Confirmation Number
RCI Points Value

Airline Certificate
02/26/2006
12/09/2006 - 12/10/2006
830
35000

RCI Points ® Vacations Confirmed

Property Name
Transaction Date
Travel Dates
Confirmation Number
RCI Points Value

Airline Certificate
02/26/2006
12/09/2006 - 12/10/2006
830
35000

RCI Points ® Vacations Confirmed

Resort Name
Transaction Date
Travel Dates
Confirmation Number
RCI Points Value

Club Optima at Treasure Island Waterpark Resort
05/21/2006
12/30/2006 - 01/02/2007
231
18260

RCI Points ® Vacations Confirmed

Property Name
Transaction Date
Travel Dates
Confirmation Number
RCI Points Value

Airline Certificate
10/04/2006
01/19/2007 - 01/20/2007
632
35000

RCI Points ® Vacations Confirmed

Property Name
Transaction Date
Travel Dates
Confirmation Number
RCI Points Value

Airline Certificate
10/04/2006
01/19/2007 - 01/20/2007
633
35000

RCI Points ® Vacations Confirmed

Property Name
Transaction Date
Travel Dates
Confirmation Number
RCI Points Value

Airline Certificate
08/07/2006
02/10/2007 - 02/11/2007
955
65000

RCI Points ® Vacations Confirmed

Property Name
Transaction Date
Travel Dates
Confirmation Number
RCI Points Value

Airline Certificate
08/07/2006
02/10/2007 - 02/11/2007
955
65000

RCI Points ® Vacations Confirmed

Resort Name
Transaction Date
Travel Dates
Confirmation Number
RCI Points Value

RCI WEEKS-MIDWEST &
11/25/2005
02/24/2007 - 03/03/2007
369
31500

RCI Points ® Vacations Confirmed

Resort Name
Transaction Date
Travel Dates
Confirmation Number
RCI Points Value

Club Optima at Treasure Island Waterpark Resort
10/01/2006
05/18/2007 - 05/20/2007
824
13400


RCI Points ® Vacations Confirmed

Resort Name
Transaction Date
Travel Dates
Confirmation Number
RCI Points Value

The Cliffs at Peace Canyon
10/01/2006
10/20/2007 - 10/27/2007
825
53500


Below are your past RCI Points reservations


RCI Points ® Vacations History

Resort Name
Transaction Date
Travel Dates
Confirmation Number
RCI Points Value

Airline Certificate
05/14/2004
12/25/2004 - 12/26/2004
508
35000

Airline Certificate
05/14/2004
12/25/2004 - 12/26/2004
715
35000

RCI WEEKS-MIDWEST &
09/09/2004
02/26/2005 - 03/05/2005
631
11500

Airline Certificate
07/02/2004
03/28/2005 - 03/29/2005
354
45000

Airline Certificate
07/28/2004
03/28/2005 - 03/29/2005
140
45000

Club Optima at Treasure Island Waterpark Resort
01/12/2005
09/09/2005 - 09/12/2005
424
19020

Airline Certificate
03/11/2005
12/25/2005 - 12/26/2005
117
35000

Airline Certificate
03/11/2005
12/25/2005 - 12/26/2005
914
35000

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

Airline Certificate
02/23/2006
03/17/2006 - 03/18/2006
114
65000

Airline Certificate
06/02/2005
04/15/2006 - 04/16/2006
175
35000

Fairfield Nashville
02/19/2006
08/13/2006 - 08/17/2006
401



Below are your RCI Points cancelled reservations


RCI Points ® Vacations Cancelled

Resort Name
Transaction Date
Travel Dates
Confirmation Number
RCI Points Value

Tierra Verde Yacht & Tennis Resort
09/14/2004
12/25/2004 - 12/31/2004
682
23600

Club Optima at Treasure Island Waterpark Resort
01/12/2005
09/08/2005 - 09/11/2005
181
19980

Rayburn Country Club Resort
01/03/2005
12/02/2005 - 12/09/2005
224
11500

RCI WEEKS-FLORIDA
03/08/2005
01/07/2006 - 01/14/2006
484
26000

Fairfield Las Vegas at Grand Desert
02/11/2006
05/11/2006 - 05/15/2006
795
32320

Fairfield Las Vegas at Grand Desert
02/11/2006
05/11/2006 - 05/15/2006
160
32320

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

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!