Just because there are so many reviews stating the club is difficult to reach, I sent off an email to the club asking about wholesale airfare. I used the email address listed in the package documents. I kind of expected this may have been an exaggeration from our sales pitch so wasn't really expecting much.
It took about a week and a half for them to respond but what the guy told me was that their Air Department re-opens in April but until that time, they are quoting the lowest market value. He said that I'd need to call their service desk with exact dates to get their airfares. I'm quite interested in finding out just what kind of flight pricing they can get us.
On tripadvisor I got in touch with someone who bought the package last April. They used one of their Bahia weeks in November with another coming up in April and they are very pleased with the service they are finding from being a member of this club. They haven't used their RCI membership at all yet so they had nothing to comment regarding it. It sounds like they booked their own air as well. This person also made comment to the fact that in the beginning they had no trouble getting in touch with any club staff but now it's pretty tough. They were thinking that the uptake may have been unexpected and they aren't properly staffed right now.
I also sent an email off to RCI to ask for our membership info prior to receiving the package and in a few days they sent it to me. I spent quite a bit of time fooling around on their site now in the member section and there does seem to be some pretty interesting vacations available. In particular, I am liking their Last Chance Vacations. It appears the trade in value for our weeks are pretty good so that's reassuring. We still have another 5+ months until I can actually throw a week in though so we'll see what happens then.
Since the scoop on the timeshare scene is pretty new to us, I've also found a pretty good time share user group where I'm learning all about the ins and outs of timeshare exchanges and stuff. It's the Timeshare Users Group (www.tug2.com).
I can't believe we bought into this on our first ever trip but am so optimistic for how this will shape our vacationing future!
