Seeking advice before I cancel RCI exchanges

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

My wife and I booked two FF Pagosa 2BR 8/8 units over a year ago for the same week starting March 3rd for a family reunion/ski trip from six scattered households. Both units are RCI exchanges from deposited FF weeks. Well, four households have had to back out in the last two months, and now we do too. We found out today that my wife has to have surgery in February and will not have recovered in time to travel. The one remaining available family member doesn't want to go alone. There is no trip insurance.

So - what do you suggest? RCI doesn't allow renting. I presume I should just cancel the two reservations, lose the exchange fees, and get two lesser weeks back that have to be used within a year. Are there any other options?

Mike

[bigfrank Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close bigfrank]

Does not sound to good. If you let them go, will you be able to use them along with your new space banked weeks that you will be getting for the following year? You may want to consider still going and just not ski. Keep in mind that you will lose trade power if you give it back.

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

Yeah, thanks, we thought about that. We asked the doc, and he said not to even travel that soon. We can ask friends to see if they are interested in taking one or both for the price of a guest certificate, a month of free house cleaning, and a home-cooked-meal-to-be-named-later. But it's only six weeks away. Might be tough - none are retired.

If we cancel, we could probably give them as presents (with guest certificates) to our grown kids to go where & when they want later.

Mike

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

Yeah,
If we cancel, we could probably give them as presents (with guest certificates) to our grown kids to go where & when they want later.

Mike

Not sure I understand that one. But, if family or friends can use why not give them to them.

Similarly for workplace friends.

Also if you have made any timeshare friends sometimes one of those appreciate a surprise too.

Best for someone to use if able but don't beat yourself up about it if it doesn't happen. Life happens.

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

Is this a generic deposit? If so, it may not loss too much trading power. So it just depended on when the generic deposit week will expired. The generic week can not be extended.

Jya-Ning

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

I had to cancel an exchange just a week or 2 before my trip, and have had a few cancelled due to natural disasters. The loss in trade power wasn't as bad as I expected, in fact I'm not sure I could tell a difference. The hardest part was the short window to use my spacebanks, since mine were always close to expiration date, but a whole year isn't so bad. I'd just cancel and not worry about the lost exchange fees, and probably you'll find a couple of exchanges that you or your kids can use later.

[thv13 Member Find all posts View Profile Close thv13]

My experience was very similar to Laurie'e post with a cancellation...and I believe will be especially true in your case if you exchange into another FF as you were doing with the Pagosa exchanges..You will lose the exchange fees but I believe will still be able to make favorable exchanges especially in to FF resorts through RCI..I certainly was able to..Tom

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

Now that I've gone back and looked at the original deposits, I'm not so worried about a loss in power or the remaining use time. One week was a visible Fairfield Myrtle Beach at SeaWatch Plantation 1BR 01/29/2006. The other was a generic FF-search-first blue studio. Hopefully we could find something similar with replacement weeks (or give them as presents to the kids, if we can't use them ourselves before they expire).

Thanks for the replies gang!

Mike

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

Being a FF owner who uses generic FF deposits that do not give online search options I always get worried about working with a VC over the phone.

I have an outstanding exchange into Mona Loa Village, with an ongoing search for a second week. A VC called and offered a match, put it on hold until I could examine the offer. I called the next morning and released the second week that had been on hold for less than 24 hours. I also confirmed that the outstanding exchage was still in place with no change to it.

I figure I should call in about a week to see what has been screwed up, the confirmed exchange or the ongoing search. Some things in life we can depend on....one of them is that if there is a way RCI will screw up an exchange.