Summer Bay Vegas name change?

[andex]

OK KD21770, 8 days ago you were on a shuttle bus to nowhere because the Evil Orange lake had kicked you to the curb, and you didn't know if your Vacation could be salvaged.... We all love a good "Cliffhanger" but after all that drama can we at least hear the end of the story? did everything work out? RT

:hysterical: @ Roadtriper "We all love a good "Cliffhanger" but after all that drama can we at least hear the end of the story?:" ::rofl: i too am curious of the outcome?
andex

 

[mikejt]

Question about RCI

I am an owner at Desert Club in Las Vegas. I am also currently a crown club member. With this membership going away at the end of the year, I was wondering if it is possible to join RCI without being in the Holiday Inn Club. I may still join this, I just want to know my options.

 

[andex]

I am an owner at Desert Club in Las Vegas. I am also currently a crown club member. With this membership going away at the end of the year, I was wondering if it is possible to join RCI without being in the Holiday Inn Club. I may still join this, I just want to know my options.

hey mike,
I was told you had the option of keeping membership as is. that being said i was advised that to enroll in HI down the road after the cut off date would cost alot more money?? howmuch i dont know? might cost what we are reading on other threads?
my concern is if i go to HI points would i be able to revert back to RCI points? I assume the answer will be no. which means if you want to sell down the road your TS it could possibly be worth less, since it will revert back to a staight week.

 

[hajjah]

well just in case we are not on the same page. when i log onto RCI i log on as a point user not a week user. not sure if that makes a diffrence? now once i am under points vacation tab. i can use a standard reservation and under that there used to be weeks, that spot is now blank.
I agree, for me i like to do my own research, hate working through someone else. however for me it will not be a big deal since i will log on RCI using brother in law PW then call holiday inn to be then transfered to a telemarketer so they can take my order.

I am trying to figure out why I have to call to look for vacations now? This is my point. We no longer have access to the RCI weeks side in points. I'm waiting to see what Sandy and the rest of you decide to do with your timeshares. I don't want to jump ship, but I book most of my vacations using the weeks inventory. Using the standard link brings very little, if anything at all. I am not a happy camper.

 

[andex]

I'm waiting to see what Sandy and the rest of you decide to do with your timeshares. I don't want to jump ship, but I book most of my vacations using the weeks inventory. Using the standard link brings very little, if anything at all. I am not a happy camper.

if anybody want to dump them IM i might be looking for more points.

 

[fluxmn]

I am a points owner at Desert Club and my weeks and Points Partner links on RCI no longer work. I called and talked to their IT department at RCI and they said that when they put Desert Club into the Holiday Inn group it made those links crash. They have disabled them while they work on a fix. We will not have to call Holiday Inn to make weeks reservations once it is fixed. The standard resolution with the RCI web site is if it's broke just disable it until it's fixed. They also said they would do any transactions in the meantime at the lower fees as if we did book on the web site. Make sure you get that discount if you call in.

I'm willing to stick it out and see how it goes.

 

[eschjw]

I am a points owner at Desert Club and my weeks and Points Partner links on RCI no longer work. I called and talked to their IT department at RCI and they said that when they put Desert Club into the Holiday Inn group it made those links crash. They have disabled them while they work on a fix. We will not have to call Holiday Inn to make weeks reservations once it is fixed. The standard resolution with the RCI web site is if it's broke just disable it until it's fixed. They also said they would do any transactions in the meantime at the lower fees as if we did book on the web site. Make sure you get that discount if you call in.

I'm willing to stick it out and see how it goes.

Just as I guessed in post #80.

 

[Sandy]

Points log in - can't see weeks reservation link?

Aha, the plot thickens!

About a day or two before I received my mail from SB indicating the new affiliation with Holiday Inn, I was online trying to search through weeks (logged into my points account). Just as some of you mentioned, there was no link for weeks reservation, it was a completely blank section! What a shock. I kept logging out and back in again, but it was no longer there.

I called RCI and they did not know why. They searched my account and then began to tell me about my "Orange Lake" resort. I do not nor never owned Orange Lake! When I kept telling them I did not own OL, they kept telling me that I DID.

Finally, they had an IT person call me back. He explained that there was some sort of glitch and they would fix it within a few days. The next day or so, it reappeared and all is well.

Then I got the letter in the mail regarding the affiliation with Orange Lake/Holiday Inn Club. Surely this glitch was caused by the "merging" of systems and updating of accounts.

For those of you who can no longer see your weeks reservation option, call RCI again and have them to make it "appear" for you. Hopefully this will help. Now I can again search in weeks as before.

 

[dwojo]

I am glad you got your RCI account back to normal

 

[UWSurfer]

I guess I'll have to call too as I still have the blank section where weeks was. I emailed them and this is the reply I received:


Hello,

Thank you for your e-mail.

Until the process is complete, you may have to go through the Call
Center at 877/968-7476. When everything is final, you will most likely
access RCI inventory through the Holiday Inn Website.

Kind Regards,

Jan G.
Customer Communications Specialist
RCI North America

 

[hajjah]

I just got off the phone with an RCI tech after 25 minutes of waiting for him to access my account and try to make the weeks inventory reappear. Nothing changed even after he had me sign out of Fire Fox and on to IE. I was advised to call RCI in order to search the weeks inventory. This doesn't work for me. Most of the time when I call RCI, I have to wait at least 20 minutes before a rep even answers. As for now, there is nothing we can do until the weeks access is repaired for former Summer Bay Las Vegas points owners. I don't like this one bit!

 

[IndyJoe]

Summer Bay can't be the first resort RCI has had change ownership. I would guess this happens all the time.

You would think RCI would have a process for this? Doesn't sound like this is a Orange Lake / Summer Bay problem to me.

 

[hajjah]

I must not understand the process. Yes, there are many resorts that change ownership or whatever, but I have never heard of RCI members not being able to access their search availability because of a change. The RCI IT guy could not give me an answer as to when this problem would be repaired. It is now past two weeks. Yes, I can call on the phone, but the benefit of searching on line is to be able to do so 24/7. Have you had to deal with the wait times on line? It took at least 25 minutes yesterday just holding on the phone. Am I supposed to do that each and every time I want to search for a vacation? That is so time consuming, plus I don't know where I want to go right now. I can put in a time frame to see what is available all over. I would need additional time to sit on the phone waiting for RCI to look up these destinations. I think that we should continue to bombard RCI and Orange Lake/Holiday Inn Club with complaints as was suggested by another Tugger.

Can anyone tell me the benefit of joining the Holiday Inn Club? I've looked at the brochure that was sent in the mail a few days ago. There are a small number of resorts that are a part of the club. What's the point in having that membership in addition to RCI? Being able to use points for airfare, hotel, etc. is the same as using RCI points. Am I missing something???
Thanks for your help in this matter.

 

[Kd21770]

We are at the airport and called summer bay or whatever it is now to check on our early check-in and they are saying our 3 day promotional stay reservation was cancelled yesterday by the new company. We called last week and this week to confirm everything and now we are on a shuttle bus with no idea what is going on. We called Orange Lake and someone is looking into it. We are owners at summer bay and can't believe this is happening. I really hope our vacation can be salvaged as well as our spirits. We'll make posters and picket if it comes to us being kicked to the curb.

A follow up to what I posted before. Dessert Club honored the promotion even though they did not have to. They did this because at the time we were notified by summer bay promotions department in Florida they really did not tell us the options we had to redeem our promotion. All in all summer bay promotions in Florida really dropped the ball on properly notifying us of our options in regards to redeeming the promotion. To dessert clubs credit they honored the promotion to keep us happy and took it up with summer bay on the back end. As far as I know the new company is only honoring those promotions at certain locations (not the Vegas location) , but because we were mis informed and obviously already in Vegas , they helped us out and were very helpful.

 

[Karen G]

A follow up to what I posted before.

Thanks so much for letting us know it all worked out okay. Hope you had a good time in Las Vegas.

 

[roadtriper]

A follow up to what I posted before. Dessert Club honored the promotion even though they did not have to. They did this because at the time we were notified by summer bay promotions department in Florida they really did not tell us the options we had to redeem our promotion. All in all summer bay promotions in Florida really dropped the ball on properly notifying us of our options in regards to redeeming the promotion. To dessert clubs credit they honored the promotion to keep us happy and took it up with summer bay on the back end. As far as I know the new company is only honoring those promotions at certain locations (not the Vegas location) , but because we were mis informed and obviously already in Vegas , they helped us out and were very helpful.

KD, Thanks for coming back and giving us the outcome! how were things at the resort? how is the new clubhouse/ entrance? RT

 

[andex]

A follow up to what I posted before. Dessert Club honored the promotion even though they did not have to. They did this because at the time we were notified by summer bay promotions department in Florida they really did not tell us the options we had to redeem our promotion. All in all summer bay promotions in Florida really dropped the ball on properly notifying us of our options in regards to redeeming the promotion. To dessert clubs credit they honored the promotion to keep us happy and took it up with summer bay on the back end. As far as I know the new company is only honoring those promotions at certain locations (not the Vegas location) , but because we were mis informed and obviously already in Vegas , they helped us out and were very helpful.

glad to hear it turned out ok for you.

 

[Kd21770]

Info

Hello all!

My hubby wrote that last update and I have some time to write so I figure I'd elaborate on what happened...

The clubhouse and market weren't open when we were there, they were set to open this week I believe.

When we arrived we got nowhere for the longest time with the front desk staff, they basically told us we were SOL (sh*t outta luck) and actually told us to call the 'third party that booked the new owner promotional reservation' and take it up with them, after being on hold for 25 minutes someone finally got on the line and basically told my husband that we were told by the rep that had called us the week before told us our reservation was going to be cancelled. When my husband said that was in NO way discussed the man basically called him a liar. Nothing would have even come from that call in the first place and it was pointless and a big waste if time, the front desk should have never told us to call. Then they continued to pretty much ignore our concern that we were 'stuck' and told sorry but you made the promo visit thru a third party. We finally (yes, we waited WAY too long) asked for the manager but they said only the assistant manager was there so he came out and took care of us within 20 minutes. His name was Lennis and he and my husband said he was VERY nice (I stayed in the lobby with my sister-in-law while they went into an office).

We had 'booked' a one bedroom deluxe but were told they only had one bedrooms available. Was nice but too tight for the three of us. You can't even open the fridge door the while way because the dining chairs are so close to it. And my sis in law having to walk they our bedroom to use the bathroom/shower/sink was a little bit of a pain. So we upgraded on Sunday to a 2 bedroom (had to pay $200 more, so week cost us about $600 to stay total which was supposedly just for sun-thurs, not sure if that's even a deal but at that and this point, I really don't care).

The pools (4 open) all looked great, we only went in the one outside our unit. Our 2br unit was excellent, no complaints at all, loved it. All in all, the only scary and stressful part was from when we landed at 9:30am til about 1:30pm when we finally knew we were able to stay there.

We have no idea what all the changes will be and will try to 'process' it all sometime in the future and with info from this board I'm sure!

Phew! Sorry for the novel! Holy crap! Time for bed!

 

[vyskocil]

Anybody have any idea how are points with rci will be affected?? Owner of 2/2 73600 rbi points?

I called RCI today because I no longer hve the option to see and book weeks online. I was told that all Orange Lake Resort owners are not able to see weeks. That all the reservations etc will have to go through the orange lake resorts. If you did not get a letter you can see some of what is happening by going to holidayinnclub.com/welcome

Sounds like we will have to join their membership and not RCI ?? A bit disturbing to me. After all we have been through I feel the board has dropped the ball on this one.

 

[roadtriper]

So, just curious. ??? how awful was it?

 

[observe50]

Well, I was disappointed to be honest. I have owned timeshares for decades and never been to one that the people that work there don't know much.

For example I called the resort about two weeks before going to see if the convenience store, Tiki bar and coffee shop/deli was open and I was told "yes"....... when I got there I asked and was told the convenience store was "not" open" the Tiki bar was open and the Gold Mine (I guess deli) was "not open"

It seems it was a few days before we were even told that the Tiki bar was at the other end of resort and you had to go through a building , I never went to the other end to check it out but my son-in-law did he said it was strange how you had to get to it. I looked in the window at the Gold Mine to see how it looked inside since I was told it was closed and when I looked in it was open and people were in there..felt like a fool looking in :hysterical: Some of the food was good and some was nasty a 2 liter of soda was over 5 dollars the workers were nice.

Since the convenience store was closed we asked to get on the shuttle for Von's and yep it was full ...since we got there Sunday afternoon and were being told it was to open on Tuesday and the shuttle was full for Monday we thought we will wait and get our stuff on Tuesday. Tuesday came and you guessed it closed and the shuttle was full. Finally on Thursday it opened and we went down to get what we needed only to find it isn't a convenience store it is a gift shop with a small table in the back area that had coffee canister and some muffins's to purchase and a few shelf's that had some cereal, soup,etc. There was a SMALL section for frozen stuff like dinners etc. and small containers of milk. No bread, lunch meat and so on. In all honesty it is a gift shop. :annoyed:

When I booked through RCI they called and the resort said I would have two B units together as requested when I got there different story they gave me 2 A units in Building 2 which really made me mad..no pool no nothing and the views sucked. When I asked for something else they said they had nothing I even asked about the lockout units and was told they were for owners only. I told them I am an owner just not here at Summer Bay they just ignored.

The Main pool has no hot tub area and the water wasn't all that heated the temps all week were in the 90's.

I had to laugh in the room there is a sign that says rent DVD's front desk so we went down there and they said they don't have any you have to go out of resort make a left go to the first light make another left and go down a short way there is a red machine there. :rofl: On Thursday when we went to the convenience store which isn't a convenience store there was a New DVD machine there with movies and a sign on it that said "OUT OF ORDER" :ignore:

I will say the grounds were well kept and the half of the workers in the lobby check in area were nice and the other workers in the resort were helpful and very nice.

They did change the front sign but it was confusing explaining to some cab drivers.

I believe once they get their act together it will be okay but I do not feel I got my $1,972.00 dollars worth being a timeshare owner. I will not go back there myself but the place does have potential if they get themselves organized.

 

[observe50]

One last thing, the shuttles .....one reason I also chose this place was for the shuttle schedule it went to circus-circus etc. well it seems they changed that schedule and no shuttles go there which made us having to pay for a cab 4 times going back a forth twice. We worked around the schedule but a few nights we had to cab it back from the strip because the shuttles stopped earlier then we wanted to go back.

The drivers were all very nice

 

[roadtriper]

Sorry your experience wasn't as desired. I have to agree with you on Bldg #2 1 & 2 would be my last choices for desired buildings. as I understand it... the Tiki Bar is still waiting for it's Liquor Lic. BUT it's not at the back of the resort??? at least it wasn't suppose to be there is a window 20 feet to the left of the Goldmine deli that's suppose to be the Tiki Bar, on the same upper deck of the main pool area???
the building out back is the sales/Admin bldg. there is an activity center and meeting space in there? I'll be there in a few weeks I'll have to see what they have going on back there. thanks for the trip report! Circus Circus? not high on My list, but that's probably just me! RT

 

[observe50]

I saw the area where yo are talking about for the TIKI bar...I also thought it was supposed to be there. The member of the group that walked around the resort said it was in the back there so I could very well be wrong.... let me know.

Circus Circus was for the younger ones to go to Adventure Dome and then Frightdome on opening night. I'm not thrilled with it either but the kids come first.

For me I will say the workers were very nice and they made up somewhat for some of the other stuff what I didn't/don't like is the lies and they lied many times.

As I said if they do get organized it will be a nice place but I wouldn't stay there again.

Let me know what you think of the convenience store etc. :hysterical: I say it is a gift shop.

My best

 

[Karen G]

observe50, did you do any other fun stuff while you were in Las Vegas? Hope you had a great time in spite of your disappointment with the place where you stayed.