RCI - Online vs Ongoing Search
Note:
Online searching is an option available to RCI members
in the US and Canada via the RCI website. This is not currently
available to RCI members in other countries.
If RCI really does things the way they say they do, here's how
it works:
An online search on RCI's website shows you the inventory of deposited
but unrequested weeks that are available to you at the moment. To perform
such a search you must have a week deposited into the RCI spacebank to run
the search against. A deposited week is necessary to determine the amount of
trade power associated with your week - the search will then show you the
available weeks your deposited week has enough trading power to obtain. This
basically is the same as calling an RCI Vacation Guide (VG) and asking
what is currently available to you, except that the inventory seen by the VG
may be more extensive than what you can see online. The VG may see more
inventory because it includes those
resorts you don't have enough trade power to get, and those resorts that
RCI doesn't show you because their quality rating is too far above or below yours to be
considered an equitable trade.
But what if the exchange you want and are qualified for is truly NOT in current inventory? This
could be because no weeks have yet been deposited, or those that have been
deposited have already been taken. You can get on a wait list for a deposit to come in, more
commonly called an ongoing search, in which you tell RCI what resorts
and/or locations and times you want them to watch for. When a new deposit
comes in, RCI will check it against all ongoing searches.
The same minimum trade power requirements, and quality rating limits
apply as with online viewing. If there is a match, RCI says the new
deposit is offered to the ongoing search which was initiated the earliest among those with enough
trade power to qualify for the match -- if the match is declined, it is offered to
the next down the list of qualified searches, and so on. (Note that this is counter to our
long standing belief that the match would be offered to the request with the highest trade power,
not the request that was entered earliest.) This puts a real premium on making
your request as early as possible.
Since a deposit is supposed to be placed into the current inventory only if nobody with
an ongoing search takes it, many deposited weeks never show up online at
all. So your best chance of getting a particular exchange for which you qualify and that is
not currently in inventory is to have RCI do an ongoing search -- you'll be in
line AHEAD of all the people that wait for it to show up online, even those
people who may have more trading power than you do, provided your deposit
has the minimum trade power needed to snag that trade.
Many people feel that doing your own search online is a lot more FUN than
waiting for RCI to call with a match on an ongoing search. Plus, you can find resorts available
that you may not have thought to put in an ongoing search for. And once in a
while some real "plums" come in at a time when there are no ongoing searches
waiting to snap them up and they get posted for all to see. When TUG Members
notice such availability, they will often inform their fellow TUGgers by posting
this information in the Sightings forum of the TUG BBS.
Until mid-2000,
the major drawback to an ongoing search was that, once you had committed your
week to an ongoing search, it wasn't available for further searching online. Now,
however, you can enter an ongoing search and have it working behind the scenes
for you 24 hours a day. Then, when you want to search manually, you can temporarily change your
defined ongoing search parameters online, as follows:
- After logging on to RCI, find the options listed just above your personal data
and click on View Your Travel Plans.
- Click Modify Search.
- Set up your new search parameters - regions, dates, resorts, etc.
- Click Submit (don't worry, you're not changing anything permanently yet).
- If you find something you like, take it. If not, you can continue your ongoing search
with either your original or your modified parameters via choosing one of the following two options:
- Continue searching for original location and date request
- Conduct an Ongoing Search with my Modified Search Criteria - RCI says changing your
criteria in this way does NOT change your recorded search initiation date.
It has been speculated that there is a slight possibility that the week
you were waiting for in your ongoing search might come in during the short time you search online
with different parameters, and the match could go to somebody else's
ongoing search, but we don't really know if this is the case.
RCI charges you the exchange fee in advance when you start an ongoing search;
when you confirm the exchange there is no further charge.
If you should change your mind and cancel the search, your exchange fee is
returned. Their standard way of handling this is to credit it to your account
against future use. You can get it credited back to your credit card if you
specifically request it, though.
At least that's how the whole thing works "on paper" - many folks are convinced
that a periodic phone call to RCI helps "prod" the system (perhaps the VC will
give you a week that you were not strictly qualified for), and we do hear the
occasional anectodal evidence of weeks that SHOULD have matched ongoing
searches showing up online.
So should you enter an ongoing search, or should you just search online? Only
you can decide what is "best" for YOU at any given time.
Doug Wilson, "The Makai Guy",
makaiguy@tug2.net
TUG Volunteer Coordinator
Revised 17 February 2003
