To recap ... I have a week deposited with RCI that we have not yet taken advantage of and we are continuing to pay our RCI membership, I believe I have until June of 2015 to either use this week or pay for an extension. I have no updates on RCI at this time except to say I am still enthused about being a member to this and am looking forward to using them.
So on to my booking experiences ...
WARNING: I am trying to relay all I learned as well as my experiences and this post is very long. I will summarize at the end a few key points for those who don't want to read all my ramblings.
We procrastinated, debated, hummed and hawed, changed our mind numerous times, and finally decided we were going to try and use one of our membership weeks for our vacation plans this year. I went reading through the agreements and discovered that one of the restrictions of this membership is it is limited to a Saturday to Saturday booking so given hubbie's vacation window that meant we could take one week from December 6 - December 13. From my understanding if you want to travel outside of a Saturday to Saturday booking it will result in multiple membership weeks to do so. I cannot confirm or deny whether the privilege club is willing or able to be flexible on this as we decided to just work within the Saturday to Saturday restriction.
For a destination that was another debate. Hubby seemed unwilling to want to use our membership to travel to Mexico as he sees many last minute and good deals on travelling to that country. Also, since we were already at the Jamaica resort where we purchase our membership we were leaning to travelling to the Dominican Republic. For this trip we will be taking our 9 year old along so we were looking at a more "family friendly" destination. An acquaintance of ours that lives in the Dominican recommended that probably the best family destination would be at Punta Cana. We decided we would like to try a resort in the Don Pablo Collection. Most of these are adult only so that left the Luxury Bahia Principe Esmeralda as our first choice. The membership guide recommends having a few preferred destinations and dates in mind when calling for our reservation. Our dates were pretty fixed so we decided we would try for Luxury Bahia Principe Esmeralda with a second choice of Grand Bahia Principe Punta Cana. We finally decided on all this the morning of October 13th; this was really short notice in my mind so had fingers crossed.
We called in at 2:30 pm mountain time. Their published hours of operation are Mon - Fri 8:30 - 5:30 eastern. A recording answered asking our preferred language ... there were lots. #1 for English. Then I listened to elevator music for a couple minutes. I had read how difficult it is to get a hold of anyone to book a reservation so was pleasantly surprised when I connected to a real person within minutes. I stated I wanted to make a reservation and the person I was talking to (who I will further refer to as "the rep") asked for my contract #. Tip #1 when calling in ... have your contract number handy. This poor guy was very patient while I went digging to be able to provide him with my number.
I asked for my first preference of Dec 6 - 13 at the Esmeralda. The rep did the search and said no membership week bookings were available but he can put in a request with the resort for a preferred rate room; they would respond within 24 - 48 hours of this request. I then asked for a search to be done at the Punta Cana ... none available. We searched for some more of the Dominican resorts and again ... denied. I then asked if Jamaica had an opening and again fail. He said he knew a cancellation had come in earlier that day for Jamaica so hunted down that cancellation and unfortunately it was for the Luxury Jamaica which is adults only so that was out. He explained that there are a number of rooms set aside for membership week bookings and they are offered on a first come first serve basis. By putting in a request at the resort for a preferred week, this gives the resort the option of honoring a club member preferred week if they have the inventory available. As I am trying to book a week only 7.5 weeks before travelling I totally believe this is an understandable predicament. At the end of all the searches I asked him to put in the request for a preferred week at the Esmeralda. He said he would either email me the results of the request or to call him the next day and gave me a good time to get a hold of him.
He did ask if I'd looked at the Privilege Collection airfare and if I'd be looking at booking our flights through them. I had said that I had looked and had found more appealing choices elsewhere. He congratulated me on this and didn't pressure me at all.
After this call I was a little crestfallen. Thinking some more on it this didn't totally mean we wouldn't be going on a fabulous vacation. It opened up the possibility of using our RCI week or not planning anything and just booking a last minute vacation. Lesson learned ... leaving things to the last minute is not the best idea. It's just that we spent a good deal of money on this membership and have had it for 2.5+ years and can't say if we think it's worth it or not. I was feeling pretty blue.
Fast forward to the next day and I hadn't received an email. I called back and even faster my call was answered by a different service rep. I asked to speak to my rep to follow up on a reservation. She asked for my contract # (I had it handy this time) and put me on hold for the rep. I waited maybe 5 minutes this time to be speaking to him directly. This was a peasant surprise because I was thinking if he was tied up with a call like mine from the day before I would be waiting forever ;). He pulled up my file right away and said the resort was willing to honor my request.
I had a big conversation with the rep at this point. I had so many questions as this would be our first trip using our membership. He talked with me about all of my questions very patiently and willingly. He said after a few trips I'd be an old hat and would be a pro at this.
My Q&A session with the rep:
Preferred week vs membership week ... what are the differences: My assumption going in to this question was using a preferred week we would be experiencing a standard room experience and we would not be entitled to the membership benefits a membership week gave us. He told me that as a club member we would always be entitled to the membership benefits whether we were staying with a membership week or a preferred week. Upon our arrival we would be given a VIP bracelet straight away. The only differences are related to the room and the rate. In the room with a membership week there is a surround stereo system and either a playstation or a blueray. Also, these membership rooms sounded like they were the absolute best locations (this I kind of inferred). The rate difference is $72/day vs $91/day which really is not a big deal for us and this leaves my membership week for 2013 that I haven't used yet available to be transferred to RCI which opens up even more doors with them.
For those that aren't members and are curious, here are the membership benefits:
- Early Check-in, subject to availability
- Privilege Concierge "Pre Check In" Service
- Exclusive member identification
- Welcome drink during check-in
- Access to Privilege Beach, a reserved beach area for members only *
- Privilege Lounge for the exclusive use of members *
- Complimentary Internet at the Privilege Lounge
- Complimentary long distance phone calls at the Privilege Lounge
- Premium Alcohol at Privilege Lounge and Privilege Beach
- Privilege Concierge
- Discount on Excursions (the rep said 20% discount ... probably varies)
- Reservation Priority at a la carte restaurants
- Unlimited reservations at a la carte restaurants
- Discount at nearby golf course
- Discount at Bahia Spa (the rep said 20% discount ... probably varies)
- Member-only events
- Late check-out, subject to availability
- Private airport transfer **
- Discount at Bahia lobby shop
- Access to Chauffeured Golf Carts ***
- Complimentary Safety Deposit Box
* Available at the Bahia Principe Punta Cana/Bavaro complexes, the Bahia Principe Riviera Maya complex, and the Bahia Principe Jamaica resorts - (the rep said they used to have a privilege beach for our resort but not any longer)
** Subject to exclusive member fee
*** Available at the Bahia Principe Punta Cana/Bavaro complex and the Bahia Principe Riviera Maya complex
Airport transfers: I raised a concern that when booking through a travel agency they provided your transfers to the resort so what would I need to do to get to and from the airport to the resort. He said for $80 US round trip they would send a private taxi for us and just make sure they get the details of our air transport so they know when to get this arranged. I didn't ask for other options as I think this is likely what we will do but I got the feeling that when the concierge contacts us prior to our arrival this will be finalized. At that time I may ask what other options are available.
Travel Agency Orientation: Again when booking through a travel agency there is typically the orientation the morning after arrival where all the excursion companies show what is available so I asked what will be available for us as we aren't going through a travel agency. The rep said the concierge will provide us with all the info about a week prior to our arrival and we can book them ahead of time at a discount (20% off I believe he said).
Other miscellaneous items: The rep asked if we had a preference for which floor we'd be on as the resort will try to accommodate club member requests. I specified we would prefer to not be on the ground floor but I'm thinking room preference will be more identified with the concierge contact. The room booked does have our preference for two beds rather than a single king though. I asked if we could check back sooner to the travel date to see if a membership room had become available ... since I am travelling with a 9 year old, having a playstation in the room does have it's appeal. He said we could check but seeing as December is the start of the busy travel time he doesn't think it's likely but it wouldn't hurt to try as you never know. He did add a request to my reservation that if a playstation was available during our stay we would like to have it. He also said when the concierge contacted us they will ask our a la carte preferences and we have access to all 15 a la cartes for the entire bahia resort complex group so many choices would be available.
I am out of steam now so will wind this one up. Come back for some more updates on our trip in the near future.
In Summary
Called the office during their published business hours and got through very quickly.
The reservation representative was exceedingly patient and answered all questions.
Was not able to book a membership week but did book a preferred week however we were only booking 7.5 weeks ahead of our travel date so lack of availability wasn't a surprise.
Bottom line ... cost of trip for the 3 of us (two adults, one 9 yr old) is $3714 US (works out to $1238 a piece). I need to make mention that we really get soaked on airfare as we are flying out of Regina Saskatchewan. One perk on the club's all inclusive fee pricing is the first child stays for free where generally it appears they charge 50% of the all inclusive fees for children. I did do some checking what my vacation priced out to using some of the popular vacation sites and the pricing I came up with from there came at a minimum of $5000 ... and that would not include any of our membership benefits.
