On February 4, 2024, RCI celebrated its 50th anniversary. We join in congratulating our valuable partner.
The story of RCI's successful journey can be read HERE
We would like to share the history of relations and successful cooperation between RCI and our company Help Line International.
When RCI opened its office in Moscow in 1996, they encountered confused timeshare buyers who were demanding refunds for their timeshare purchases from RCI, thinking that they had purchased from RCI and not from the marketing companies.
In 1996, gave our valuable assistance to the newly opened Moscow office of RCI and since then we have been working together for many years.
We took over the hard task of explaining to the timeshare buyers or owners that the exchange company had nothing to do with their money at the stage of purchasing timeshare, since it receives an application for registration in the exchange system and a very small amount at the very last stage, when it is already registered new club membership and issued a certificate of ownership to the new member.
We were explaining the confused timeshare buyers the procedure of purchasing timeshare, but also we offered to help them track their money and get them the ownership documents directly from the Resort Developer if the marketing company disappeared. For this purpose, we developed special programs where the costs of obtaining documents for members after their financial losses were minimal and affordable.
We negotiated special terms with RCI for timeshare buyers who were harmed by the lack of legislation and lost some or even all of their money buying a timeshare with the indecent marketing companies.
Together with RCI, we worked together to restore the good name of timeshare in Eastern Europe.
Thus, in 1997–1999. We have registered more than 200 members with RCI under special conditions. Many of them continue to vacation and travel with RCI today. In total we have registered over 600 new members with RCI, most of whom would not have become members without our help as they lost money on their original contract which was not completed.
Another important service we have provided to RCI is the assistance of our travel managers to RCI members with their travel arrangements.
Someone had to help the Russian members prepare, apply and obtain tourist visas, which were quite difficult to obtain at first.
Another difficulty was buying inexpensive charter tickets, since travel agencies refused to sell them outside of the package, without accommodation, which is absolutely not necessary for those wishing to live in a timeshare resort.
If it had not been for the services of our travel department in the early years of timeshare in Russia and before RCI was able to organize its own travel department, we believe hundreds of families would have given up their membership.
At that time, RCI gave us status as their official Help Line and recommended us to its members if they had questions about timeshares not related to RCI:
- disagreements with the Club Management Company,
- issues related to maintenance bills,
- reinstatement of club membership,
- re-registration and assignment of rights,
- legal advice or
- consultations on use.
One of the most fruitful was a project called “We want you to come back.” The essence of the project was to help renew RCI membership to those families who were expelled from the Club for late payment of the membership fee and where the Club refused reinstatement.
We negotiated special terms with several Resort Founders and transferred such families to new Clubs on favorable terms while maintaining or improving their membership levels.
RCI has written to such members to ensure that they do not hesitate to call our Resort Helpline hotline for further details. In many cases, members benefited not only from the improved quality of their new property, but also from a price that was often less than if they had been able to reinstate their membership by paying off all debts.
Since 1996, we have organized hundreds of exchanges and extra week trips for RCI members who, for whatever reason, were unable to arrange their holiday using RCI (mainly because they were initially ill or not explained how the system worked. These families were planning to cancel their membership, but with the help of our travel managers, they were able to go on vacation, learned how to use the system, and many continue to enjoy their vacation through the club system for many years.
And now we remain close partners. We help Russian timeshare owners who are RCI members pay for their membership, exchanges, and extra weeks to continue enjoying their RCI travel.
We wish the next 50 successful years to our valued partners and excellent colleagues!
