| Founded | 1974 |
|---|---|
| Founder(s) | Jon and Christel DeHaan |
| Headquarters | Parsippany, New Jersey Indianapolis, Indiana, USA |
| Number of locations | Kettering, England |
| Parent | Wyndham Worldwide |
| Website | http://www.rci.com/ |
RCI (formerly, Group RCI; formerly Resort Condominiums International) is a division of the firm Wyndham Worldwide (spin-off from Cendant).
Founded in 1974 by Jon and Christel DeHaan, it has grown to become one of the larger brokers of timeshare trades. RCI has over 4,700 affiliated resorts in over 100 countries around the world.[1] Its membership base is approximately 3.6 million members worldwide. RCI operates two main exchange programs - RCI Weeks and RCI Points.
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RCI's CEO and president is Geoffrey A. Ballotti. RCI's corporate headquarters is in Parsippany, New Jersey. Its North American membership office is in Indianapolis, Indiana, and its European membership office is in Kettering, England, with several satellite servicing offices in places such as Mexico City; Cork, Ireland; Manila, Philippines; Bangalore, India; Singapore; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; and Montevideo, Uruguay.
Currently, RCI's biggest competitors in the timeshare market are Interval International [2] and Trading Places International.[3]
In July 2007, RCI was merged with Holiday Cottages Group, another of Wyndham Worldwide's subsidiaries. The two would still retain their individual names but operate under the parent name GroupRCI until 2010, when the two companies changed the name to Wyndham Exchange and Rentals.[4]
Timeshare exchange is often confused with timeshare sales. RCI is in the business of timeshare exchanges. It does not develop or sell timeshares, although it does sell a Points Program and a Weeks Program to use in the RCI affiliate resorts network. In the Points program, members receive an allotment of points that can be applied to different factors, such as room type, resort quality, location, and time of year. In the Weeks program, members may exchange their property's shared time for another week at an equivalent or lower value property. Members may join one program or the other, but not both. Annual memberships are required.
Customers who buy a timeshare with an RCI-affiliated developer have the option to become a paid member of RCI. Such membership entitles them to exchange (swap) their timeshare with other members. RCI facilitates and fulfills the exchange. More information about the Points and Weeks programs that RCI sells can be found on the company's website. Also Wyndham Worldwide, RCI's parent company does develop and sell timeshares having several resorts around US which are listed in RCI's resort directory.
RCI has resort affiliates in over 100 countries around the world on every continent. The company recently announced a few relationships with the Huangshan Grandview Resorts Hotel in Huangshan, China.[5]
A class action lawsuit against RCI was pursued by Green Welling LLP on behalf of RCI Weeks Program members in New Jersey of 2006. The Plaintiff alleged that RCI actually rents out the most desirable and highly demanded vacation weeks from the spacebank, thus depleting the most desirable options available to Weeks Program members who seek exchanges. The lawsuit was settled in favor of the plaintiff. Benefits for RCI members would have begun on January 11, 2010 but one or more appeals of the entry of the final judgment were filed. Thus the Effective Date began July 28, 2010 when all appeals were resolved.[6]
RCI co-founder Christel DeHaan has opened five schools — known as Christel House — in Bangalore, India; Mexico City, Mexico; Cape Town, South Africa; Caracas, Venezuela; and, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. The schools are designed to provide an education to poor children around the world.[7]
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