RCI Nonavailability

[DZ]

I have a May week in Kilconquhar which I used to exchange for a week at Xmas in UK when kids were younger. I have just tried to exchange for Xmas 2012 (having given up on 2011) and no availability. I am fed up with RCI. It seems that either you can  only exchange for years ahead or for the most bleak dates in the calendar.

So I want to sell my timeshare. Can you advise reputable companies to sell through?

[Carolinian]

You might also want to consider using one of these companies to exchange:

http://www.timesharetalk.co.uk/index.php?topic=14879.msg45447

[Willself]

Absolutely!! DaE..must rank highly! others as mentioned..in the above article..

[Simoncc]

Hello,

I've used both Aberfoyle Holidays and Travel & Leisure to buy or sell timeshares in the past and have had no problems with either. I believe that Aberfoyle in particular does a lot of business with Kilconquhar weeks.

I'd certainly suggest that you give DAE a go as an alternative to RCI but in my (limited!) experience you will have little or no chance of booking a Christmas week in the UK without paying to become a Gold member. Even then your request may not be met. 

[ajmace]

Youy cannot really expect a Christmas week exchange in any system.  I doubt whether DAE is any better than RCI.
I can agree that RCI availability is much better two years ahead.

[Carolinian]

Youy cannot really expect a Christmas week exchange in any system.  I doubt whether DAE is any better than RCI.
I can agree that RCI availability is much better two years ahead.

Actually, DAE has indeed had some European Christas weeks availible recently.  I have posted those availibilities on the Exchange Opportunites board at another timeshare website.  They also had Christmas in Jamaica.  I have not looked at those specific weeks to know if they are still availible today, but they were not long ago.

[Morpheus]

Well not believing in theorising when facts speak louder ---

I just checked and found a fair number of UK and other European Christmas 2011 weeks available on DaE.

[DZ]

thanks for all the input. Actually up till 3 years ago, I had no problem exchanging for Xmas weeks in Scotland. I think Kilconquhar is a gold resort? And what is DaE?

[Morpheus]

thanks for all the input. Actually up till 3 years ago, I had no problem exchanging for Xmas weeks in Scotland. I think Kilconquhar is a gold resort? And what is DaE?

DaE = Dial an Exchange. This is the exchange company we have moved to using as we leave RCI.

[Carolinian]

For information on DAE and other alternatives to RCI:

http://www.timesharetalk.co.uk/index.php?topic=14879.msg45447

[Simoncc]

Well not believing in theorising when facts speak louder ---

I just checked and found a fair number of UK and other European Christmas 2011 weeks available on DaE.

I can currently only see 3 potential UK exchanges with DAE that cover the 2011 Christmas week - a studio unit in Rhyl and 2 units at Loch Rannoch.

Through RCI Points I see availability at 6 resorts in Scotland, 3 in Wales and 6 in England (excluding narrowboats).

Through RCI weeks I see units at 9 different UK resorts - again excluding narrowboats.

[Morpheus]

And of course with DaE you can see the weeks already exchanged - there are a few confirmed exchanges across the UK for that week.

Nobody is arguing that RCI has not a larger group of owners using it to exchange - the debate was about someone having (and I quote) "little or no chance of booking a Christmas week in the UK without paying to become a Gold member" with DaE.

All I was doing was pointing out that this statement was wrong.


UPDATE - I have just spotted that there are two weeks for Christmas 2012 available with DaE as well, as well as a couple already exchanged.


The reality is the systems are similar but different. RCI is

o  far larger but
o  expensive (and getting more so) and
o  very opaque.

DaE is none of these things.

[Simoncc]

Morpheus,

I'll accept that you were right to correct my assertion that DAE would have no availability over Christmas -the fact that there is at least something immediately available confirms that it's not as high demand as other school holidays!

I will stand by my view that your options will be very limited if you don't decide to become a Gold member - I doubt many of the Gold Crown resort Christmas weeks already exchanged made it to the general availability list. 

I am all for encouraging competition in the timeshare exchange market but at the moment RCI still has the upper hand - particularly for people tied to school holidays. Thanks to Carolinian's recent post listing the alternative exchange companies I will also look at UKRE which is an organisation that I had forgotten about when considering my options for this year.

[56johnmc]

I have recently renewed my gold membership for DAE for three years, it cost me £80 (normally it's £35 per year). You need to be a gold member if you are going to get a specific week such as a school holiday as gold members get priority. I am always after a week in Scotland for the Autumn halfterm holiday, DAE have delivered every year since 2006 but you have to make a request upto a year ahead to stand the best chance of getting what you want.

They have also provided weeks in the UK in the Summer and Spring school holidays.

I wasn't sure about their exchanges into the USA but they have recently provided us with two weeks in Florida end of July / beginning of August but our exchange request dated back to Summer last year - it's our first request for an overseas exchange.

So you need to be a gold member and you need to plan well ahead.

John

[timesharetraveller]

I agree that the Gold Membership at DaE is worth the few extra quid. 

We used RCI exclusively until their availibilities started drying up once they started renting weeks taken in for exchange to the general public instead of using them for exchange.  We have still been getting decent trades from RCI but we have to work at it a lot more than was previously the norm.  We started looking around, found DaE, and like them.  They are easier to deal with and less expensive.  We continue to use both, as some weeks we fancy we can only find with DaE, some only with RCI, and some with either.  If we can get an exchange with either, we prefer to deal with DaE.

One new factor at RCI that we definitely do not like is their new points version of Weeks.  If we had wanted points, we would have bought points.  Now, if you deal with RCI, you have no choice.  We own the number of weeks that we want to take week long holidays each year.  With a week for week system, we get out the number of weeks we put in, but with a points type system, that might not happen.   Points are cumbersome and aggravating, and the change at RCI may eventually run us completely over to DaE.  Their week for week system is far more user friendly.

We like to go different places, so we need to have an exchange company we can depend on.  RCI is changing too much, and it is impossible to anticipate what they might do next and how that might impact our holidays.  We did recently buy a week at a resort we have traded into several times and like, so it will be our first experience in owning a week primarily to use at the resort. Now, we will have to sell one of our  weeks we have used for exchanging.  The changes at RCI were one of the factors in making that decision, but the fact that we found a very good price also factored in.