RCI / LeisureLink

For those who might be interested in some news from the "Adding Insult to Injury" Department:

Group RCI has just publicly announced (10/15/07) a new "partnership" with LeisureLink (while a class action suit against RCI is still in progress). RCI has actually purchased some part of LeisureLink (that part was actually completed a few weeks ago).

So what exactly does this development likely mean?

--- Rentals, rather than exchanges, are now very clearly and very openly a priority for RCI (RCI started solely as an exchange company, with no rentals). The primary purpose of this new relationship is solely to RENT OUT timeshare weeks.

--- These RCI rentals will become available *online* to the general public (it may well be that no RCI membership will even be required). Moreover, major online travel avenues such as Expedia, etc. will greatly facilitate and expand both the advertising and the booking of these RCI rentals.

--- Exchanging timeshare weeks through RCI, which has already clearly become increasingly difficult in recent years for quality exchanges, will become even still more difficult. Rentals are obviously MUCH more profitable than mere exchange fees collected from depositing RCI members making exchanges.

Whether these several recent RCI "partnership" developments (also including RCI buying SnapTravel) signal that RCI is actually seeking to get out of the "exchange company" business entirely remains to be seen. I don't personally claim to know. I also don't know what impact (if any) the results of the pending class action case against RCI will have.

There have been numerous news releases in the public media on this subject matter in the last day or so. If you are interested enough to seek out those articles for all of the pertinent details (and, of course, the "RCI spin" on this matter), a little Google effort on your part should find the entire text of various news releases.

Just when I thought RCI couldn't get much worse. :-(