Unit availability on your banked unit

[RCI member Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close RCI member]

This is very frustrating for me. How about you? You bank your unit and do a search for your preferred destination, at a preferred time frame, only to find nothing available. But wait! There are units available, if you take the extra vacations and pay cash.
I scrolled down through the forum feed, although I admit, I didn't scroll past the first page, and I didn't see any other complaints about this. I have a prime week, and should be able to get something. Is anyone else having this problem, and is there any resolution?

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

This is very frustrating for me. How about you? You bank your unit and do a search for your preferred destination, at a preferred time frame, only to find nothing available. But wait! There are units available, if you take the extra vacations and pay cash.
I scrolled down through the forum feed, although I admit, I didn't scroll past the first page, and I didn't see any other complaints about this. I have a prime week, and should be able to get something. Is anyone else having this problem, and is there any resolution?

Wow! That would be a complaint we had 20 years ago.

To take the "company" side of it, in the Old days you could only trade for units that had been deposited by others members, so you might not be able to get into a resort with almost all empty units for the week.

It's much more convoluted now, but RCI can do whatever they want with a deposit after whatever the required time is, which was an outcome of the Class-action suit to stop them from doing what they were doing, only to legitimize what they were doing.

In short, they do not have to offer deposits as exchanges.

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

Wow! That would be a complaint we had 20 years ago.

What I mean is that is why you don't see folks here ragging about exchange company inequities much. The folks here are veteran timeshare owners, love them, and have grown accustom to their shortcomings and unfair policies.

They have alternatives and have made them work (for themselves).
- - - - - -
What are you searching for?

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

Posted 10 years ago:

"All that said, I also know that weeks deposited into the Spacebank, by owners thinking they will be going to other owners, do not. They get rented instead. Heck, Madge has said that. It is a big deal, but it is no secret.

I've seen stuff, lots of stuff, appear in my daily searches at 14-days out, stuff I hadn't seen in the two years I had been looking, so what's a person to think?"

http://www.timeshareforums.com/forum...ht=classaction

[Glitter Brunello Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Glitter Brunello]

This is very frustrating for me. How about you? You bank your unit and do a search for your preferred destination, at a preferred time frame, only to find nothing available. But wait! There are units available, if you take the extra vacations and pay cash.
I scrolled down through the forum feed, although I admit, I didn't scroll past the first page, and I didn't see any other complaints about this. I have a prime week, and should be able to get something. Is anyone else having this problem, and is there any resolution?

Hello, and welcome to TS4Ms! Despite these issues having been discussed here before, most of us are aware that there are new people encountering this problem all the time and how frustrating it can be. We are here to help. The best advice for a week you've already deposited is to place an ongoing search, with as many possible destinations and timeframes as you would be willing to accept. As far in advance as possible gives you the best chances. Some of us place requests at least a year out or more if we know what we'll want. Holiday weeks are much harder to come by, but there were quite a few nice Xmas/New Year's destinations posted for 2016 and even 2017 recently. Hang around, ask questions, and you'll figure out how to play the game - what's realistic and what's not. Where is it you are trying to go and when?

[lawren2 Malibu Beach Barbie & A Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close lawren2]

How many "points" were you assigned for your deposit? How far in advance did you deposit it?

What area/time frame/unit size are you looking for?

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

Yeah, that's what I meant when I said, "What are you searching for?" in Post 3, so I could lend a hand.

But, I see it's in good(er) hands now.

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

When we actively traded, I always deposited and started searching two years in advance. We always traded into SW FL in January, so my searches for that started while we were there.

I searched every day for many years, and documented the searches. Peak availability, back when there was availability in SW FL in January, was always 15-22 months before check-in date.

Using the same link as before, in Post 15 I showed 5 years of searching and how availability varied:

http://www.timeshareforums.com/forum...ht=classaction

And, like you pointed out in your OP, if you wanna go to SW FL in January now, you'll be renting from them (Lehigh excluded from my discussions).

[jackio Gold Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close jackio]

Welcome to Timeshare Forums. When you become a contributing member to the site, by actively posting (30 post minimum), donating to the site for its upkeep, or posting a review, you will be eligible to access our exchange opportunity forums. Veteran "searchers" post desirable exchange opportunities there, often early in the morning. I do not like to search in RCI or II, but I have grabbed some very good exchanges by taking advantage of the opportunities posted by the generous members here.

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

This is very frustrating for me. How about you? You bank your unit and do a search for your preferred destination, at a preferred time frame, only to find nothing available. But wait! There are units available, if you take the extra vacations and pay cash.
I scrolled down through the forum feed, although I admit, I didn't scroll past the first page, and I didn't see any other complaints about this. I have a prime week, and should be able to get something. Is anyone else having this problem, and is there any resolution?

For many locations, starting an Ongoing Search 12-18 months in advance will get you what you want. Doesn't work for everything though.
Yes it is a common complaint. Not much to do about it. Their playground their rules. That said with diligent search and some persistence RCI comes through for me more than the other exchange companies.

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

For many locations, starting an Ongoing Search 12-18 months in advance will get you what you want. Doesn't work for everything though.
Yes it is a common complaint. Not much to do about it. Their playground their rules. That said with diligent search and some persistence RCI comes through for me more than the other exchange companies.

When we actively traded, that was our experience, too, only I started 24 months out, as previously stated.

Being a Weeks member, things changed when they went to faux points.

But, conversion to faux points was not the only problem. Prior to the classaction lawsuit, no one was able to see everything available in the Spacebank, so we compared notes with each other with trading power tests. A couple of our weeks were able to see everything the best weeks could see (I acquired then because of a Trading Power test in 1999), so I assumed we had as close to full disclosure as was possible. Now (full disclosure) everyone can see everything in the Spacebank (supposedly) . . . and stuff we used to trade for just isn't ever available any more. I am talking about stuff that is a tough trade to begin with.

So, the problem is 2-fold: We don't have enough faux points assigned to our weeks to get what we used to get, and it's not available any more if we did.

Funny, we have a houseguest right now, and she and DW are talking about going to Nashville for a week. DW just said, "You'll have to get us a week at 'Fairfield' Nashville." That used to be an annual Girls' Week. Of course, my answer was, "I can't any more."

After more than 25-plus years with RCI I have concluded that problems like we are discussing here are not widespread, likely limited to those who really pay attention and care about what they own. If they were widespread, RCI would have collapsed as an exchange company long ago.

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

It's much more convoluted now, but RCI can do whatever they want with a deposit after whatever the required time is, which was an outcome of the Class-action suit to stop them from doing what they were doing, only to legitimize what they were doing.

Just to correct this so that it is not misleading, and if I'm wrong someone can correct this correction so that it is not misleading, but if I'm not mistaken, the Settlement Agreement entered into in November, 2008, which required RCI to make member deposits available exclusively for exchange the first 31 days after deposit, and to require RCI to not do more rentals than exchanges, only applied to the next two years. So, that requirement expired in November, 2010, which is about the time I lost interest in exchanging.

I do not know that there are any legal requirements now.

But, if you watch PGA golf tournaments on TV, you may have noticed that Wyndham boasts of being the #1 vacation rental company in the world, with no mention of timeshare or exchanges.

IMHO, the primary benefit of RCI membership for many nowadays is rentals, primarily Last Calls and discounted Extra Vacations, which are frequent, because there are no deposit requirements and no limits. It's hard to beat deals like this:

Vacation Village at Parkway (#4940) »
Kissimmee, FL 34747, USA
Check-In Date Range
01-Apr-2016 - 10-Apr-2016
11 check-in nights available
Price USD 279.00

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

is there any resolution?

The first thing to do, as others have mentioned, is to place an ongoing search. When new inventory is deposited to the RCI space bank, it is first matched against ongoing searches before it shows up online. In other words, when you look online for inventory, you are only seeing the "leftovers" that no one else was actively searching for. And, if you are looking for a very popular destination at a peak travel time, it is possible that there are more searches than there will ever be units deposited, so you'll never see it if you just check by hand.

The second thing is to answer these questions:

How many "points" were you assigned for your deposit? What area/time frame/unit size are you looking for?

RCI awards between 1 and 60 points for each week deposited, and each exchange also requires between 1 and 60 points. The more "valuable" RCI thinks a week is, the more points it awards for deposit/requires for exchange. If the exchange you want costs less than the deposit you have, you get the "change" back to use for something else. But, if the exchange you want costs more, you won't be able to confirm it without combining two (or more) deposits together. If you are depositing off-season time at a less popular destination, you might need to combine several weeks to get a prime week in a popular destination in return. And, at that point you might decide it is better to just rent it and use your deposit for something else.

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

The current fee for combining deposits is $119 if you don't have an ungraded RCI subscription . . . just did that this week. When you combine deposits, it also extends the time you can use it to 24 months from date of combining, which is why I did.

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

We had an RCI vacation councilor, Bootleg, who posted here, and he acknowledged that RCI diverted exchange deposits to its rental inventory. RCI got sued over that practice, but the plaintiffs lawyers in the class action settled for a slap on the wrist for RCI and a big fee payout for themselves. I used RCI for many years, but am no longer a member. I do my exchanges through independent exchange companies like SFX, DAE, and UKRE which do NOT divert exchange deposits to rentals and are more honest. You have other options out there other than RCI. Explore them.