On the Road Again!

I was looking on the Resort Condominiums International ( RCI.Com ) site to see if there was anything we could drive to and that was pet friendly.   I have owned a timeshare in Tenerife since 1994.  It was very cheap at the time. Of course annual maintenance goes up every year so not using it hurts!  Across Europe there were a few places but as we plan to travel in October that really ruled out Finland and Sweden, although maybe one day we can take Molly the Moho over that way. Purely as I don't know much about the weather there. There were a number of others in Austria and Hungary. One of the Hungarian places I have been before with my ex-partner. We went on our motorcycles and stayed near Heviz and Lake Balaton.  I ruled out Austria as the size of the dog was restricted to 10kg!  Reggie is around 17.5kg. It's another place I have visited quite often especially when I lived in Brno and was only 75 miles or so from Vienna. So that left three p...

RCI sent a questionnaire about our stay and I gave them most of the answers. Then they suggested I write a review.  If only their webpage would let me post!!! Here it is though. The marvel of copy and paste...... Not a great start. Couldn't get keys from the key-box as it wouldn't open. Reception is closed all weekend. So we called the emergency number and a lad arrived on his bicycle. He tried and couldn't open it. Called his dad who arrived by car. He tried and then went and got some molegrips. Banged it to open it. Went into apartment. Live cockroaches in bedroom and bathroom. Killed them and disposed of them and already dead corpses outside! Toilet flush missing the button on top of cistern. It worked but often needed help to stop water running constantly. Reported to Reception on Monday when checked in. Also reported the 'roach problem. Men fixed cistern. Could also do with cleaning into the corners of the tiled rooms. That's all of them BTW! The bathroom was...

So back in March I cancelled the hotels I had booked with booking.com. 👍 RCI gave a credit for the exchange fee to use later and our points back. 👍 Still waiting for the airfare from Travel-Up. 👎 I also logged into Cartrawler and cancelled the car hire and emailed the excess insurance. Both replied on March 16th - refund in ten days. My MasterCard statement dated April 13th came today. I guess March 16th to April 13th is less than 10 days!! 👎 More bloody emails... Update 19/04/2020 Gatwick Parking.  One email sent on the 18th. Today email from them and then from PayPal to say that they have repaid the money.  👍👍 Cartrawler replied to say that they are sorry and that thir 10 day refund has gone longer and that they are experiencing unprecedented calls for refunds and therefore it is taking longer.  We'll see.

We have a timeshare week to use by the end of 2020! When we went to Florida at Easter we used up the 2018/2019 "banked weeks" with RCI. Every year we have another week to use. Until I retire there is no chance of us being able to go to there to the resort where  I "own" a week in Tenerife. I know it's not as exotic as Florida or the Caribbean but for an Easter break it will do us fine. I am still looking on the RCI website for a resort to book but as flights were relatively cheap I have booked British Airways return to Alicante. I used TravelUp as we have used them before and they have always been efficient and cheaper than most oters, si I guess they trim their commission. I had looked at Malaga but for a two and a half hour flight it was around half the price of a nine hour flight to Miami! A fare of £350 each to Malaga is simply a joke. I chose to go on the Friday and so we'll need a hotel.  As we don't arrive until about 8pm local time and then get t...

So. The question of how to use the 36 RCI points I have banked was coming down to two periods of time. From UK to the US it is really not good value to spend 9 hours plus flying for one week away. So it needs to be when there are two weeks or more to fit into. Easter and Summer holidays. Surprisingly July/August was best for the timeshare exchanges in the more westerly states; Arizona etc. But from reading Roger Naylor's articles for Arizona magazines it's monsoon time. After last year in Florida following the hurricanes, no thanks!!!  But airfares to Phoenix or Last Vegas are for the rich only. So my attention was shifted to Easter. Schools break up on April 5th and return the day after Easter Monday. And since our management dictated our holidays could only be in school holidays I booked that fortnight off ages ago. Now the problem was looking for flights. We went into the Thomas Cook agency in Hythe. Got some ideas. Then used Skyscanner.  London Heathrow to Miami, on April...

Being stuck with school holidays, and being told by our manager to be "more creative" when looking for somewhere to go doesn't really help. All the other "creative" types are also looking and on top of that, airlines and resorts are adept at pricing their flights and accommodation at a premium to catch the people with kids.... and us silly bastards that work in the Education field. So I am currently looking for places to go where the airfare won't be too terrible and the timeshare "points" will get us a couple of weeks away. Europe apart from Hungary and Finland is way too expensive.  Airfares are about 35-50% of the US fares and for around 25-30% the distance at most. As for RCI. the weekly points costs in Europe is way too high. All the places we have stayed at in the Florida or Arizona have been way less than the shittiest place in Spain. Once again it is a weigh-up job.  Higher airfare to the US but cheaper when you get there, unless that nice ...

Looking at 2016. The chance to go to Norway fell through and so we have booked another trip to the US for earlier in the year, The way the timeshare "trading value" works means that after booking the US week, it leaves (hopefully) enough in the bank for another week. So I am looking at Spain later in the year , 2016. We like the Malaga area. It's where we have been before in October. It's warm, sunny and it's easy to chill. Let's see what RCI can offer. At the moment there a very few resorts showing their availability for October 2016. I will keep checking back over the next few weeks and months.