Now how do I make my exchange??

I own at El Moro in Mazatlan...week 27. Bought it 1992 (20 year) and have exchanged every year through RCI. Called RCI today and they tell me they can't do it anymore....I need to call the resort in Mexico to make my request!

Has anyone else had this happen? Does it work? It sure seems that RCI should find some way to do this for the customer once I give them the go ahead...shouldn't that be part of their service. I don't want to go to Mazatlan in July, 2009 but this sure is making it near impossible to do exchanges through RCI!

Any help please...Paul

paull152 Re: >> I own at El Moro in Mazatlan...week 27. Bought it 1992 (20 year) and have exchanged every year through RCI. Called RCI today and they tell me they can't do it anymore....I need to call the resort in Mexico to make my request!<< ================================================

I don't know a thing about your particular resort, but based upon what you have described and the bit of info provided, it would certainly APPEAR that perhaps your resort is simply no longer affiliated with RCI. That "affiliation" is a mutual, contractual (...but finite --- NOT indefinite or lifetime) arrangement. Once the contractual afffiliation between RCI and a resort is no longer valid (BOTH parties have to agreee to a continued affiliation), RCI would simply then have no authority or abillity to take a week from the (formerly affiliated) resort as a deposit or exchange from anyone or at any time. As much as I dislike RCI, you can't really blame RCI alone for such a situation. You should certainly contact the resort directly to find out if / how or why the RCI affiliation has been terminated, if that is, in fact, the case here. It happens, for a variety of reasons (often due to a significant and unacceptable physical deterioration of the facility itself).

Thanks, Ken

The RCI rep told me that I can still use them for the exchange but that the El Moro now wants all deposits done directly with them. You very well may be right....they may not be working directly with RCI any more. I agree, I don't actually blame RCI...it's the resort that has me ticked off. I don't think anyone who has ever sat through a timeshare presentation in Mexico, and then made a purchase, ever thought they'd be calling Mexico to bank weeks. I guess that's my next step...I e-mailed them and asked them for instructions. The El Cid (El Moro) website hasn't been much help.

thanks again

paull152 states in part: >>The RCI rep told me that I can still use them for the exchange but that the El Moro now wants all deposits done directly with them. You very well may be right....they may not be working directly with RCI any more.<< ================================================

The above RCI rep assertion is truly puzzling to me, since the whole exchange concept and program with RCI necesssarily involves (by its very definition) RCI "taking in" a deposit and then (in concept, anyhow) making available to the RCI member a comparable week in "exchange". How this would (or possibly could) work with RCI not actually getting the deposit from the owner in the first place certainly makes me wonder how /if they could actually offer an "exchange" in return. It's a bit baffling to me, and I'll be most interested to hear what you learn and experience with this unusual predicament. Then again, it could also simply be an inaccurate representation by the RCI rep. To say that inaccurate statements by RCI reps occur on a regular and routine basis would certainly be a substantial understatement...

I may not have been clear....what the RCI rep said was that I now have to request my deposit directly with my resort. Apparently El Moro has told RCI that they will handle their own banking of weeks. RCI says that once I call Mexico and request a week be banked, that it will still be done through RCI. Then, supposedly, I'll have a week banked and begin the exchange process as usual...he just couldn't process my request to bank my week....that's now my job. I'll bet my RCI fees don't go down even though I'm now personally doing what they used to do for me. Even if this was initiated by the El Moro, RCI should still figure a way to do the job for me....hell, I don't care if they phone down there and pretend they're me! Just let me deposit my week. I'll keep updating if I ever get a reply from RCI or the El Moro...still waiting.

This simply does not sound right to me. If you own the fixed week of usage, then it's yours to use, rent out or bank as you may choose or see fit. It's not the resorts' affair. Try as I might, I just cannot fathom how the resort could have (or claim to have) any right to do anything whatsoever with a week whose usage is owned by someone else. If it's not an ill informed RCI rep making inaccurate statements on this matter, then it certainly sounds more like improper resort shenanigans than a matter having much (if anything at all) to do with RCI. I guess we'll have to await your further input and explanation --- if you manage to obtain same...

Then again, the "law" in Mexico (...such as it is...) may be considerably more "flexible" and "open to subjective interpretation of the day" than it would be here in the USA.

paull152 wrote:

I may not have been clear....what the RCI rep said was that I now have to request my deposit directly with my resort. Apparently El Moro has told RCI that they will handle their own banking of weeks. RCI says that once I call Mexico and request a week be banked, that it will still be done through RCI. Then, supposedly, I'll have a week banked and begin the exchange process as usual.

I might be way off base on your resort but have heard of some resorts pulling this over the last few years.

This does hurt the owner and your exchanging power too!

The resorts that pull this seem to have highly wanted weeks like summer beach or winter skiiing months. Other months slower like the old blue weeks or swing seasons.

What has happened was you have Labor Day Week or other Holiday that resort is booked up and the resort gets nothing by you renting or exchanging it. This way you book through your resort and have top week but the resort keeps that week to rent out for profit or (if honest gives it to another owner that wants to use it) gives Rci a off week like a Blue week or what ever Rci calls them now days.

Think of it as Holiday/Summer/Winter Weeks are full and off season weeks you have a third or half full. Now they can maybe fill up those weeks through Rci and not be half empty. A full resort makes more money than a half empty week.

Now even though you thought you were making a strong deposit now turns into one of the weakest deposits and you find you can not get resorts you wanted.Of coarse dealing with Rci its hard to know what goes on with exchanges!

One reason that some (honest) resorts give is true though and that is you have owners asking for top weeks and can not get them because some owners grabbed the weeks with plans on renting. They take these weeks while owners who really want to stay that week can not get in.

Other is they are grabbing best weeks for strong exchange and again many owners that just want to stay in their own resort can not get those weeks.

Before some one on here jumps on the owners can do anything they want because they own and this is true,this is just away to make it fair for all owners.

If you own at a honest resort then many owners might have complained of never getting holiday weeks or summer/winter weeks and resort trying to take care of owners who really do want to use the week themselves and not make money. The resort might have just been running a check on how many owners staying during these weeks and found they have very few while having complaints from other owners of not being able to get these weeks.

We have owners meeting every Tue so every week owners can see updates in the planning or share complaints and I can tell you the Ridge takes these meeting very serious and not only listens and answers but follows up!

I know our resort in Lake Tahoe does have the right to change a unit if you rented it and give to another owner. Our Naegle summer units have three buildings and resort can make a change to any of the three buildings if at anytime they wanted to.

Because we own two units we pick our week 24 months out while single unit owners pick 23 months out so we get most of our choices every year and have used them for our family. There are other owners that would love to get our July Fourth week and building we chose. If the week was exchanged or rented the resort could switch the unit and give a owner our unit if they had tried to get it before.

They will change the unit once in a while if a owner had asked for say building 12 high floor. We have three buildings and 12 seems to be best view so they have made this move and renter might be in building 10 or 11 which is still very nice.

In the case of our Ridge Tahoe they do try and take care of their owners and this is why many like ourselves own more than one week or building.

PHILL12

I agree with Ken, if your week is a fixed week 27, I don't understand why you would have to bank it with your resort in order to exchange. This doesn't make sense .... I've never heard of this situation before.

This was one of the points I was making and I have heard of resorts pulling this!

The resort takes Paul's week 27 and if it is a good week they then rent it or give it to another owner.

The resort then gives Rci a slow week as the deposit probably along with many more slow weeks.

If the deposit still handled by Rci then week 27 would be week Rci would get and resort gets nothing but another body in the unit. By resort handling the deposits they can play their games and maybe make a profit off this owner's week and many other owner weeks.

This may also be why members ask why a resort shows up with many weeks available in a short time span.

PHILL12

phill12 wrote:

This was one of the points I was making and I have heard of resorts pulling this!

The resort takes Paul's week 27 and if it is a good week they then rent it or give it to another owner.

The resort then gives Rci a slow week as the deposit probably along with many more slow weeks.

If the deposit still handled by Rci then week 27 would be week Rci would get and resort gets nothing but another body in the unit. By resort handling the deposits they can play their games and maybe make a profit off this owner's week and many other owner weeks.

This may also be why members ask why a resort shows up with many weeks available in a short time span.

PHILL12

As I've thought more about this situation, I'll speculate that the resort MIGHT well be able to mandate a seemingly unfair "deposit" procedure like this by virtue of the fact that, for Paul and others, it's NOT really a deeded fixed week OWNERSHIP which they have, but a Mexican 20 year right to use (RTU) access contract instead. In essence, this is a "finite, date specific membership" --- NOT a "deeded, permanent ownership". That very important distinction might very well give the Mexican resort lots more latitude to impose and dictate its own deposit policies and procedures, albeit potentially unfair for exchange value equality. THEY (i.e., the resort) are really the actual OWNERS of the weeks. The RTU contract holders are not "owners", but are instead "contractual members" who are provided with an annual week of access (i.e., right to use) for a clearly defined and finite time period. That likley makes a HUGE difference in just what the resort can and cannot do with weeks which, in essence, they OWN. Speculation on my part, but I'd still certainly be willing to bet...

Thanks for all the input. I have received an e-mail from RCI making it clear that this policy is coming from the resort and there is nothing they can do. They did send me an e-mail address that is supposedly how I contact El Moro for the deposit. I wrote them just a while ago, so nothing yet. I also received an e-mail from El Moro themselves with an e-mail link (different) to the man they say handles this....I've also e-mailed him, but no response yet. Going to be interesting, isn't it?