Unification

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

Please post your experiences with UNIFYING RHC accounts.
The advantage of unified accounts is that the bigger the contract the lower the MF/point.

My experience from a couple few years ago was that I was able to unify seven contracts for a flat fee of $500. The 'new' contract's expiration was the same date as the expiration of the oldest contract, meaning the one with the earliest expiration. So you lose years.

My experience from this year was that they charged $500 for each separate unification, maeaning that to unify seven contracts would cost $3000.

There are reports over there of being able to do it at no cost; with RHC's reputation, and my experience, I do find that hard to believe but I don't doubt their veracity.

[Jya-Ning Silver Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close Jya-Ning]

bought 1 contract at the end of last year (Oct), get 1st account set up around Nov/Dec. The other at beginning of this year. Both are free of closing and resort transfer fee. So I have asked the 2nd one seller to transfer me to the 1st account and unified two contracts together. It is PCC, and close by timeshare closing. The transfer paper has wrong name than my 1st contract, so I got another account. Since I did not paid the resort transfer fee, so I did not force the issue. If the ad ask me to pay the resort transfer fee, I may ask them to waive it and let me do the transfer myself before I enter the bid, and will try to see if I can only pay $500 and have 2 contracts combined into my name. Then started at March start try to put 2 accounts together, sometimes I got VC told me I can not do that and it does not matter. Sometimes I got VC told me that they will fax me the form and never get it.

I have asked Spence to help, and get an eMail contact, and when I send it, the reply was they will have the customer service send me the form, but then never send me that.

Finally, at May or June, I got some VC told me that the ownership is different in both account, and then fixed my account to have both DW and my name on the 2nd one as shown on the 1st one, and another VC send me a form in the email. So I fill in, pay $500.

Then because some personal issue, I no longer tracking it. When I back at the end of Aug, there is a letter from RHC that they have unified my 2 accounts. So I now have 30,000 points, and should be good enough for me until I retired.

To avoid possible trouble, I did not use the point from my 1st contract (10,000 point), 2nd contract's point was starting at 2008 on eBay's ad anyway. After combine, my new account become 6,000 for 2007 instead of 10,000 point. Fortuately, I was planning to roll them into next year use 20% roll over rule when I start to unify them (plan to use 100% roll over only after I have all 30,000 points if needed). Totally I think I made about 10 calls to find and fix the problem and then another 2 calls to have the account transfered.

Now, let me hope that the next time when I look at my account, there is only one 30,000 point account there.

I think after reading HOC's messages and Other RHC owner's unified (Joe, Blondie, bigrick ...) process on tug, kind of give me the correct expectation for the whole process.

Jya-Ning

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

Another way to unify -or- Why I bought my first developer purchase after 10yrs of TS

I wish we were getting more feedback on this thread.

It has been a common element of anyone's unification story here or there, that when you combine accounts the new expiration date is the shorter of the contracts.

For those with lots of points and/or lots of contracts there is another alternative.

RHC Operation Rules only show contracts up to 200,000 points but bigger ones are possible and the MF/pt continues to decline.

When you 'upgrade' which means buying more points from the developer, not only will they combine all your contracts BUT the new contract will be for 30years from that date.

My most recent experience with RHC in Cancun...
They thought I only had one contract for 100K+ this was the contract that held the reservation I was staying on. Your personal rep wants to give you a welcome gift, when you get there they want 30min of your time. They are glorified tour guides and can't/won't answer all of your pointed questions but they have to get through their spiel before the salesperson is introduced. So finally I get to the sales person who wants to upgrade me.

RHC now has an annuity product. When you buy from them they guarantee return of your original investment at the end of the 30years. Sounds attractive, but it's really not. How much buying power will $25K have in 30yrs?

I asked the saleswoman, if I were an RCI exchanger and not an RHC owner, what would you be trying to sell me? 30Kpts for $25K. $2.5K (10&#37 of this purchase price goes to a 3rd party for the annuity which means the annuity pays ~8%. In their dickering they may later offer for $22.5K without the annuity, the profit to them is exactly the same.

They offered me the annuity on all my points based on their records of original purchase price ($120,000). They wanted $12K. They had no idea of what % the annuity paid. I didn't have a business calculator but showed the salesman the rule of thumb on doubling your money every 10yrs @7% and every 7yrs @10%.

They wanted me to buy 20,000 pts as an upgrade. I said I only want 7,500. I said that's not the only contract I have, they said, oh really. I gave them the other member number, they couldn't 'find' it. I said, look it up under my name or phone number.

I went to lunch, an hour later the saleswoman was still pouring over my paperwork. I said I didn't want their annuity, I said I could make more than they were giving anywhere, buy an annuity from anyone. They seemed to think that I couldn't get an annuity just anywhere, but weren't concerned because every cent they were charging me went to a third party with no profit to RHC and no commission to the sales agent.

Well, they found my other contract and would combine them and upgrade me, just buy 20,000 points. I then showed the saleswoman why I wanted exactly 7,500, no more, no less, no deal unless I got what I wanted. I then threw in that I wouldn't argue with their $995 closing costs (ha, ha). She finally understood why 7,500 was a magic figure and went back to the manager returning in 60sec with the affirmative answer.

So my contracts had only ~19 years left on them. Start doing the math! Buy 7,500 points from them and have hundreds of thousands of points extended for 11 years!

[abc31 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close abc31]

I'm sorry. I'm having trouble understanding this. Why was 7,500 your magic number? And what did you pay for the 7,500 points?

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

I'm sorry. I'm having trouble understanding this. Why was 7,500 your magic number? And what did you pay for the 7,500 points?

7,500 was my magic number because it took me to the top, but not over, another 'level' of their MF tiers (see the Operating Rules). It's also what I guessed may be a number that they might accept if I had a definite reason for it.

But this brings up another item that no one on the sales floor or in their small contracts office could understand about my decision to buy.

I had already paid for 2008 MFs on my separate contracts in order to make 2008 reservations. I asked their contracts person about all the extra MFs I had already paid. They said that I owed more MFs as I had more points, I said I owed less. That's right, I got more points and I owed them less MFs. Took a little while but they finally understood.

What it cost me is proprietary.

[abc31 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close abc31]

Gotcha!

[Jya-Ning Silver Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close Jya-Ning]

After return the MF difference, they probably paid all your purchase price back.

Jya-Ning

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

7,500 was my magic number because it took me to the top, but not over, another 'level' of their MF tiers (see the Operating Rules). It's also what I guessed may be a number that they might accept if I had a definite reason for it.

But this brings up another item that no one on the sales floor or in their small contracts office could understand about my decision to buy.

I had already paid for 2008 MFs on my separate contracts in order to make 2008 reservations. I asked their contracts person about all the extra MFs I had already paid. They said that I owed more MFs as I had more points, I said I owed less. That's right, I got more points and I owed them less MFs. Took a little while but they finally understood.

So you had more than one contract already plus you bought another 7500 points. When you combined all (3 or more) into one new contract the MFs on the new total was less than the sum of the 3 (or more) separate contracts. Correct?

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

I wish we were getting more feedback on this thread.

Sorry I would have responded sooner but I was travelling! Oh the drawbacks of wanting information from travellers.


My last unification was in June of this year. It was pretty easy on my part. RHC's part is always mind-boggling slow!

I always transfer the new contract into my name first. The $500 transfer fee is always collected by RHC at this point.

Once that's done, then I ask RHC for the unify form. They send this via email. Their form is very simple and I could create it, but if their rep creates it then all the info they want is there. Creating and receiving the email is very quick.

I always have my signature notarized. The times I haven't, RHC takes months to tell me they need notarized signatures. Now I remove that delay by just notarizing every form with them.

Then I fax it back. I immediately verify with the rep who sent me the form that they received my fax. I will refax until they confirm receipt.

So far is all of the 'pretty easy on my part' part I said at the top.

Now begins the RHC mind-boggling slow part. This is the time period when my wife questions why we even bought with them at all. I call each week to be told 'two more weeks at least.' Eventually they got the unify done.

But that wasn't the end of it because now it showed the total points but all the online info (except for the email address) was for a previous owner! Of course, this previous owner's info was not on the unify contract so who knows what they really use to do unifies. Their record keeping and processing is unbeliveable.

Again, it took way too many weeks to get this corrected. More unhappy wife time!

I have never been charged a unification fee. RHC always checks and confirms that the transfer fee has been paid.

Using the points this year has been much more fun. Finally something with RHC that wasn't painful (yet).

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

So you had more than one contract already plus you bought another 7500 points. When you combined all (3 or more) into one new contract the MFs on the new total was less than the sum of the 3 (or more) separate contracts. Correct?

Yes.

[SamH Member Find all posts View Profile Close SamH]

I just merged four accounts. It was an interesting process and is not yet finished.

First, it took many calls before I got a RHC rep to email me the unification form. Most reps would hang up when they heard me say unification. Some said they would email me the form but they never did. When I found someone responsive, he indicated that only two contracts could be merged at a time at a cost of $500. He emailed the form to me. When I returned the form, he said that, per his supervisor, additional contracts could be merged at a cost of $350 each. Merging four contracts cost me $1,200, which we will recoup in less than 2 years of maintenance fee savings. The rep emailed a revised set of forms to me. We completed the form and had it notarized before returning it.

It took about one month for the unification to occur. It took another two weeks before I could access the account on line. My account indicates that my remaining 2008 points are about -53,000. I tried to make a reservation to see if it was really -53,000 points. It was and the reservation had I made it would have cost me around $4,000 (5 cents per point including paying for 53,000 points). I am now trying to correct the 2008 points amount.

Sam

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

I bought 3 accounts and paid a transfer fee of $500 for each. I was told that it would cost me $1000 to unify all three. I just did two for a fee of $500 and will do the third one later.

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

I bought 3 accounts and paid a transfer fee of $500 for each. I was told that it would cost me $1000 to unify all three. I just did two for a fee of $500 and will do the third one later.

Those charges are consistent with what we've seen recently, thanks for your input.

I just merged four accounts. It was an interesting process and is not yet finished.

First, it took many calls before I got a RHC rep to email me the unification form. Most reps would hang up when they heard me say unification. Some said they would email me the form but they never did. When I found someone responsive, he indicated that only two contracts could be merged at a time at a cost of $500. He emailed the form to me. When I returned the form, he said that, per his supervisor, additional contracts could be merged at a cost of $350 each. Merging four contracts cost me $1,200, which we will recoup in less than 2 years of maintenance fee savings. The rep emailed a revised set of forms to me. We completed the form and had it notarized before returning it.

It took about one month for the unification to occur. It took another two weeks before I could access the account on line. My account indicates that my remaining 2008 points are about -53,000. I tried to make a reservation to see if it was really -53,000 points. It was and the reservation had I made it would have cost me around $4,000 (5 cents per point including paying for 53,000 points). I am now trying to correct the 2008 points amount.

Sam

Great deal!! Hope you get your points straightened out, it's not always easy keeping up with their lousy book keeping. They gave me an extra 400,000 or so points on my last unification. I let it ride and made reservations, six months later they caught up with me.

[cwd100 Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close cwd100]

Why my love for RHC is strong. Just kidding.

Let me just say that we have had fun on our RHC trips (3). Let me also add that I've been trying to unify 3 contracts since the last week of December' 08.
Let me say now that there are nice folks at RHC, but I swear I've never had worse customer service. Lets start with the reasons I'm nuts about these folks.

1. Calls to RHC sometime take upto an hour just to really talk with someone.
(on hold untill hung up upon, transfered to nobody, giving my member number upto 5 times, including address, email, phone number, etc., put on hold again...hung up on....lets go through it again. ( I wasted 2 hours once just to talk with the correct person...who later quit anyway).

2. Once I've connected with someone and we have their name and ext. #,
then I go through the whole process (hung up on, passed around, then I'm told they are at lunch, sick, or too busy to talk now). Nobody except the person I'm dealing with, can help me. Have to wait for them to be at the office, not sick, not quit, not busy.

3. Call backs or emails. Never...and I mean NEVER has anyone called me back after saying they would, emailed me back after saying they would (until the 4th or 5th time of me bitching at least) This drives me crazy! I keep my word, why can't they EVER??

4. I've sent a Unification form in 4 times now to 4 different people since 12/27/08. I just recently added a new rep, and she is helping me after she re-wrote the Unification contract again (#4). I'm waiting for her to quit or get sick, as they all seem to do. I pray that she stays alive!

5. I've been trying to unify before the years dues, due Jan. 15th '09. They told me I had to pay $350 for each contact ($1050), +$1000 unification fee.
I got them to not charge for all three contracts, if I paid the unified costs for 15,000 credits ($485) and the unification fee of $1000, which I did, and the worker never submitted it, and then quit. I'm so surprised! The next rep tried to charge me again (they have my money! and the collection guys are now calling my home....this is nuts!)

6. After writing a complaint letter to every customer service contact and directly to RHC to 4 different email address to ask for help....I recieved none, no emails, no calls, nothing! This company has not solved any of their customer service problems.

After working this hard just to take one vacation.....I need a vacation from RHC!

So I think the unification may take place, but I know that I rolled each contracts points to 2009, and I know that this will never make it to my unified contract....I'll bet on it. I asked for an email to confirm that my contracts points were rolled over....guess what, the rep said no, you don't need me to. I know I'm screwed. I think after we take this vacation (if that ever happens) we will put the points on ebay for $1 and hope someone buys it. This company doesn't get it. I think that once you have your set points and have them all in one contract, everything is fine. Dealing with them on anything other than booking a vacation, is just a waste of my time.

Perhaps I'll send this rant to RHC so no one can give me a reply.

CWD

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

CWD,

I had some of the same experiences as you on my last unification. Started the process last fall and got it completed about a month ago. It was so frustrating having employees constantly quitting and having to start all over again. Had to pay a lot more for their special assessment because I had to pay two instead of one. I was told that it was a good deal because now I have two free weeks at an all inclusive instead of one, both of which are useless to me. Thankfully, I did not have to pay a late fee for this year's MF. Did have to go back and forth with them on the $$$ because they kept double chanrging me for things. Worked out fine in the end.

Pranas