Complain about a product or service

RCI

RCI's Web site says the company has over 3,700 affiliated resorts located in 100 countries, with over three million subscribing members living in more than 200 countries. Its "RCI Community" is an exchange network of three million timeshare owners worldwide who participate in RCI's traditional week-for-week and points-based timeshare exchange networks.

kathryn of Edgemont, AR February 24, 2010

I bought a timeshare from nantucket bay or so I thought. I spent all day saying no but to no avail. I signed all the papers and was told that no matter where I went in the world no matter how many times I went , it would never cost me more than 249.00 on the extra vacation getaway, I have yet to get to take a vacation anywhere for any amount. I was told that I didnt really own a condo in the lake of the ozark condos that they only put it on paper so they could enter me into their system for the rci points membership program.

I called the finance co for Nantucket Bay and they said yes I do own. Rci wont let me reserve a condo anywhere in the at all there is nothing avaliable none of the time. the vacation guides are the most hateful and rude bunch I have ever dealt with. One Lady told me I would never get anything and she is right. what they have done is stole from me along with thousands of others and there is not one thing we can do to recoupe our money.I gave 6500.00 for that time share plue three years membership fees and three years maintance fees for the condo and now i find out there is no such condo in ozark mo.

Maria of North Easton, MA February 18, 2010

I called RCI to confirm information I was given by my resort on exchanging my timeshare for certificates that can only be exchange with RCI.

I started with a young lady that said she had been working with RCI for about 3 months. I said maybe I need to speak to someone who has been there longer. She said she would help me with my questions. So I said here are my questions 1. What is a certificate worth with RCI. She said one week exchange (Which is what I thought) 2. If I exchange 3 certificates can I get a large unit exchange such as sleeps 6 or 1 or 2 bedroom. She check with her manager and said that I could do that. 3.Do I pay an exchange fee for one week or am I to pay 3 X that because of the 3 certificates. She check with management and said that one week exchange fee of 194.00 would be all I would pay. Past experience with RCI told me to question and want to speak with a specialist on certificates so that I won't get a different result when I decide to change to certificates to save myself the 1,140. a year maintence fee.

So a supervisior came on the phone I asked about the exchange fee of 194.00 which she agreed was the only fee. Then I asked her about using 3 certificates to get a better exchange and she said absolotely not. They would only take one certificate per week and it would give me a studio or motel room size unit that is what Mexican properties certificates trade for. If a larger unit is available they would give it to me. So that you understand I have been trying to get an exchange for 2 years with no matches to what I want. florida on either coast. Cape Cod for anytime in the summer of 09-nothing not even a phone call.

What they are doing is selling points to people who do not even have a property and given them the exchanges, which leaves someone like me out in the cold. I tried to sell my timeshare back to the Mexico property owners, but I cannot get past one person to the right people to get a reasonable anwer. They do not want the property back they want to rent out my unit and still recieve my 1,140. a year. Or give me certificates to go away. My problem is I'm still stuck with RCI. I have to pay them a membersip fee plus exchange fees ontop on my maintence fee. I need some help her. That is my complient that RCI does not deliver what has been promised and neither does the Mexico property deliver either. I need help any suggestions.

Glenn of Cedar Rapids, IA February 13, 2010

I booked air line tickets and car rental (budget) through RCI travel. We have a condo in Maui and RCI administers exchange etc. Our flight was cancelled due to weather (feb 13th). United airlines got us another flight the next day but I needed to change the car rental pick-up time (I had already paid for all of this on credit card).

I called budget and they said they couldn't modify the reservation because it was booked by a third part (RCI). I am going to make a long story short - I had to talk to seven (7) different people (with 3 call-backs by me) in order to get to the right department to help. I was on hold much of the time and their automated menu had no choice for my situation. I finally had to pretend that I wanted to book NEW travel arrangements and that person finally transferred me to the correct department.

Hitting 0 does you no good at RCI - Pleading with a human when you finally get one does no good, getting upset does no good. The humans are automatons just like their phone system. Not knowing if I would have a car available or not. Not knowing if I would have to eat a week of car rental dollars or not.

Reda of Marietta, GA February 9, 2010

For five years now, everytime we bank a week, or two or even three sometimes we can never use them because theycan not find a plae for us in ANY of the places we want to go to. At times, I would list dozens of resorts in each of seven cities in Southern USA and they claim they do not have availability in ANY. In about 70 resorts, they cannot find any unit!

According to them, you have to book months in advance. I am trying to book eight minths in advance and still does not work! Who having a family with kids can plan vacations more than 8 months in advance. I have never felt robbed and disappointed as I was with RCI. Never use them again. They cheat you, take you annual registration, and give you NOTHING in return. Nevertheless, they let your weeks expire. You do not use them, you loose them!

Susanne of Hemet, CA January 31, 2010

I have deposited my two weeks of time shares with RCI for the past 3 years. I do not have words to describe the frustration I have experienced in trying to exchange my weeks for the weeks I wanted to use for my vacation. Even though I am paid up for two more years with RCI, I will not deposit my weeks with them again. It is very expensive to have them "book" a resort for me (nearly 200.00 to book a week). I still have three weeks on deposit and will lose them if I don't use them within the time limit.

I have wasted so much time (usually late at night or in the wee hours of the morning) searching and searching for an exchange. It is not worth it. In the future, I will use a different exchange company. Some exchange companies do not even charge a fee to join and very low fees for booking your choice of resorts.

I have not actually lost money, but I have become very frustrated over never finding what I am looking for a weeks time share exchange. I have settled for a place or a week that was not what I was looking for. I have lost all confidence in RCI. After reading some of the other complaints I feel more than justified in discontinuing doing business with RCI once I have used my remaining 3 weeks now on deposit.

mary of Duluth, MN January 20, 2010

I own a timeshare condo in Puerto Vallarta Mexico at the Buganvilias Resort. I have been a member of RCI since buying the timeshare in 1999. Although I pay my maintenance dues and RCI membership dues, I have never been able to obtain an exchange for an RCI resort of my choice. Unfortunately, you must deposit your timeshare week with RCI prior to even obtaining ANY information regarding availability at other resorts.

So after I deposited my week with RCI, they informed me that my desired destination is not available. Nor was my second or third choice! Then they "banked" my deposited week and fail to inform me when the deadline to use it was about to expire. So when I called them to actually use the week that I had already paid for, they told me I was two weeks too late.

I recently discovered that there was a class action lawsuit against RCI that was settled in November of 2009, but although I was an RCI member, I received no information whatsoever regarding this lawsuit until I found it on the internet.

bobby of martinsville, IN January 14, 2010

we were cheated out of our exchange week because they said they couldnt find a vac.in the place where we wanted to go

Jeffery of Tucson, AZ January 13, 2010

RCI is basically nothing more than a Third party central reservation system. Is the service they provide really worth 179 per reservation made?

Break down the exchange fee and for a weekly exchange RCI is charging 25.57 per night for processing a reservation for members. That's a pretty steep fee for making a reservation. The members provide the weeks so RCI does not own the inventory. All they do is manage the exchange of member deposited weeks. My yearly Maintenance fee is 716 for my resort. RCI exchange fee costs amount to a additional 25% of that maintenance fee. What is RCI doing for me that is worth that much money? If you have to cancel your reservation/exchange fee after 24 hours you lose the fee you paid and must pay another 179 to make a new reservation.

Wow! That's really a great reservation service were getting from RCI. On top of this outrageously high exchange fee and cancellation penalty members must also pay a yearly membership fee of about 80 per year just to belong to RCI. We pay and Pay and pay again so RCI can turn around and rent the weeks we deposited out to non-members for less than we paid in yearly maintenance fees for our weeks. Their should be no doubt in anyones mind that RCI is exploiting members and the weeks they deposit. We have the power to stop giving RCI our weeks and our money. As soon as my deposited weeks are used RCI will not receive another penny of my money or any of my weeks.

Robert of Rosedale , MD January 10, 2010

The way that the resorts sales people explain things is boarder line deceptive. They stated over and over that for only 9000 points or 249.00 you could travel to any of their resorts. They never really explained that it must be with in 45 days! I’m sure that they did state that fact once or twice- but they keep your mind on the LOW COSTS, and do not reiterate enough that the popular resorts are seldom or never available in that 45 day travel window!! They will show you places over seas that show a points value of 27,000 points- and tell you that you can go here and your cost will be only 9,000 points! What they don’t tell you is that that resort most likely will NEVER come up on the 45 day travel schedule. Bottom line, when you go to a sales pitch opportunity DO not agree right a way to ANYTHING! Be sure that you make them show you step by step on the PC how to book SEVERAL different vacations that YOU want to take- space them 6 months apart or so. Don’t forget to allow for flying and a rental car.

Kirsten of Berkeley Heights, NJ January 8, 2010

I have 3 weeks banked with RCI. I paid extra to extend one week for 6 months so I wouldn't "lose" it. I searched for a timeshare in the Costa Del Sole area of Spain for the week of 8/16/09-8/22/09 for 9 months - and constantly found only "Extra Vacations" offered at the RCI resorts. I had a continuing search going and still nothing was available.

Finally, with a week to go before my vacation (I had flights and a cruise booked) I caved and purchased an extra vacation for 700. I kept my continuing search going until a day before my flight at which point I cancelled it so it would not come through while I was traveling and I might owe for 2 facilities without even knowing it.

Upon arrival at the RCI "extra vacation" facility (an RCI member resort) I received a telephone call from the local or on-site RCI representative welcoming me and noting that I had exchanged my unit in order to stay there. I advised her that I had attempted that for many months but had been unsuccessful and had in fact purchased my week because I had been told there were no available units for exchange. She stated that there were many available units. I made an appointment to meet with her the next day and then went to the car to continue unpacking.

While I was out of the room she called again, my daughter answered and the representative canceled my appointment with her. Since I was exhausted (been up for over 20 hours) and wanted to start my vacation I decided to take it up with RCI upon my return.

My flight returned to the US 8/31/09 and due to the time difference sometime thereafter I contacted RCI and informed them of their representatives statement and offered to use one of my available units in exchage for my week and to pay the exhchange rate. The RCI representative on the phone refused. I then contacted American Express and advised them of this case and asked them to dispute the difference between the extra vacation rate (700) and the unit exchange rate (189).

RCI never responded to American Express' dispute and in fact refunded the full 700 and advised American Express that they would simply put me into collections. Since then, the one week I wanted to use to exchange for this week has expired (unused) and I cannot use the other 2 weeks I have banked because RCI Has my account flagged as owing 700. RCI is still depriving the consumer from using their timeshares and instead redirecting them to purchase extra vacations.

Please assist me in directing RCI to treat the consumer fairly and to require RCI to release the other two weeks I have banked before they too expire. So far RCI has profitted from my annual fee, the fee charged for the extension of the week that has since "expired" since I could not use it, and has my two banked weeks which for all I know may be sold to some other poor RCI memeber as an extra vacation.

Report Your Experience
If you've had a bad experience -- or a good one -- with a consumer product or service, we'd like to hear about it. All complaints are reviewed by class action attorneys and are considered for publication on our site. Knowledge is power! Help spread the word. File your consumer report now.

Follow us on Twitter.

Back to the top |