RCI responds, Anti-bark armed

So yesterday afternoon I priced out airline tickets on the RCI partner site and was surprised to see they were within a couple bucks of what I found elsewhere.  After confirming with Ali she was ok with the accommodations I figured I would book the flight.  At least I would be getting SOME use for my points.  Sure the $240 discount would be immediately cut by 20% by MORE RCI fees, a ridiculous $50 fee to book two tickets ONLINE.   But at least it would save me a couple hundred bucks in the end.

So I went through the entire process of entering our names, personal info, seat preferences, payment info, etc, TWICE.  Each time after I hit the last , BOOK IT, button I would be returned to the flight selection screen with an error.

I had to laugh out loud in disbelief that I was AGAIN dealing with yet another RCI fail.

I unwillingly dialed their phone number to report the problem.  After describing the issue the woman put me on hold and came back a couple minutes later saying they weren’t aware of any problems so I should just try again later.  Gee thanks.

This was a perfect example of a missed opportunity for customer service.  A company that actually gave a shit about it’s customers would have said “Wow, I am sorry for that problem Mr Duffey.  I’ll make the reservation for you on the phone and only charge you the online fee for booking the flight instead of the bullshit $100 it would normally cost over the phone.”  Just imagine what a difference that would have made.  Too bad RCI doesn’t think outside the box.

I had to chuckle yesterday when a few hours after my blog post hit the airwaves I was contacted via email by a RCI “Customer Communications Specialist”  There is nothing that screams “OUR COMPANY REALLY SUCKS” more than having dedicated staff whose primary job function is to surf the internet looking for people that their company has pissed off.

Below is the message.

Hi Shawn,

We came across your recent blog (https://blog.duf.net/?p=5030) and feel the
need to reach out to you. First and foremost, we recognize that the
experience you had online at RCI.com and over the phone was not a great
one, and I apologize for this.  From what you describe, RCI has room for
improvement and this is where we need your help.

If you could provide us additional details on what exactly happened
online when you attempted to logon and search for space that would be
extremely helpful.  You mentioned getting logged off and getting stuck
in a loop.  If you could let us know in more detail the problems you
experienced, we will most definitely check internally to see what is
being done about each specific issue.

As far as your phone interaction with us, it is true that a Vacation
Guide cannot search for available space if money is due on the account.
I am glad a supervisor was able to advise you there is currently no
availability at the Manhattan Club.  As you can probably imagine, the
demand for the Manhattan Club is high all year round and the supply is
limited.

I realize this is probably a small consolation, but I have removed the
$26 owed on your account.  Again, any additional information on the
problems you had online would be very helpful to us.  We?ll keep you in
the loop as far as what is being done to improve the web experience.
And again, we value your feedback and are here to listen to your
concerns in hopes that it will help improve the customer experience for
all members.

It was a nice enough email and I don’t doubt the rep was trying to do her job, put out fires.  It was nice to remove the $26 charge I had no intentions of ever paying I guess. I responded back to her this morning with this.

Hi RCI firefighter person, thanks for the follow up.   As far as the website loop, I was logged into the site using Firefox.  I would select the Standard Reservation option and be prompted to log in again.  I would log in again, click the link and again be returned to the log in screen.

Ironically I tried using the Points Partner website this morning to use my points towards airline tickets and again was unable to do so.  Twice I went through the entire process, entered my credit card info and submitted the order, only to be returned to the screen you see in the attached image.  To say I was frustrated would be an understatement. I called in the problem and the woman said “we don’t know of any problems with the website, try again later.” Nice.

As far as your company in general, my experience with them has been extremely negative as you read in my blog post.  A quick Google search will reveal that I am far from alone in my dislike for your company and it’s practices.

It seems like RCI just doesn’t get it.  If someone is paying their annual fee even though they haven’t used your service for a damn thing, to be told that it will cost them an extra $26 to roll points because they didn’t get to take a RCI vacation is ridiculous.  To act like it costs RCI a single penny to simply roll over points is insulting to my intelligence.  Even more ridiculous is a workflow that disallows clerks from assisting customers unless they pay this ransom.

My phone interaction yesterday unfortunately was similar to most other phone interactions I have with RCI, you wait on hold a long time to get rewarded with frustration.

In my opinion, RCI is one of the worst customer service experiences I have ever dealt with in my life.  This coming from a company whose entire existence should be based upon that same customer service.  Your fee structure needs to be reexamined.  Where exactly is the value?

In addition to costs associated with my actual timeshare I get charged a large annual fee to simply belong to RCI.  This membership fee doesn’t actually get me anything except an opportunity to pay more fees if I actually decide to use RCI for anything.  For RCI to not understand why they anger people by the thousands with this policy is laughable to me.

Thanks for removing the $26 charge although it looks like you also removed my 2011 points. ( no roll over)  Oh well, par for the course.

I am pretty sure this entry will find it’s way into their fishnet of complaints so I might be getting another love letter from them today.

Last night I only got one of the three possible projects completed.  I got the dog bark inhibitor mounted.  It took some more time than anticipated.  I wound up relocating one of the mounting posts that used to house the now defunct outdoor weather station and broken/unused flood lights.  I stuck it on the border of the orchard that faces the neighbors house.

This post was ideal because it actually is a crude shelter with a roof and side wall that will provide additional protection for the unit from the elements.  In addition to relocating the post I also had to run power from the pond area.  Part of that was burying the power cord in the grass between the pond and the orchard.  I have some concerns about the long term durability of the power supply since it is clearly designed for indoor use.

I securely mounted the device inside it’s new home, slid on it’s weather condom and hit the remote control button.  The LED indicating it was sending out sonic deterrent flashed on as it should, cool.  Ironically, the neighbors dogs just happened to not be outside when I was ready to go.

Hopefully tonight sometime I will have the opportunity to begin the “training” process.