I was recently asked by RCI Points to pay what I was told was a discounted rate for Points for one year. This amounted to about £400 for about 56, 000 points. This amount is similar to what I used to pay as a Maintenance charge for ownership that had entitled me to the same number of points.

Later I came to find the only booking I could make with RCI was for a week in a very nice looking Irish Cottage. If I booked this cottage direct it would cost about £600 for a week. If I use my points to book the Cottage week RCI say I must 'spend' about 180, 000 points. The rate is apparently 300 points are 'worth' £1.

However to purchase points the rate is approximately 140 points per pound. So the 'exchange rate' seems to be about half and the cottage week will actually cost me £1, 300 plus the RCI booking fees etc. If I had never been a member of RCI and the cottage would only cost £600.

With the large number of rental properties available now it is very hard to see how RCI Points can survive or be worth subscribing to unless you are a property owner and find it works for you. So I feel that this situation of points cash value should be publicized as a fraud and that RCI should change their system so that they are giving far better value for money.

Otherwise it is hard to see why anyone should continue to subscribe unless they are able to use the system to make exchanges between properties they own and nearly equivalent properties elsewhere. To use RCI Points as a sort of bank to purchase weeks in apartments seems to be a either a fraud or at best an expensive way to do what could be done cheaper by just going on the internet and making a direct booking.