Hello! I am Cheryl and one half of a couple who travels. In today’s post, I write about what to do now that you have decided to join the Unlimited Vacation Club. For the record, my husband and I are Unlimited Vacation Club members only and we do not profit or benefit from UVC in any way. The views expressed and opinions expressed here are my own and based on our experiences using the program.
You are now back home and while on vacation you joined the Unlimited Vacation Club and you are freaking out just a little bit. What did we get ourselves into? Is it a scam? I can’t believe we spent that kind of money. I read all this bad stuff on the Internet.
Pause and take a breath. The first thing you need to do is to read your contract. If you are great at screen reading, you have a gift. If you are like me, I suggest you print out the entire thing and put it in a binder. This is how our binder looks. Our contract is 46 pages long so I will break this down to respect your time.
I suggest you go page by page and read it - slowly. I recommend using a highlighter or other page marking method to flag items that are important and that you will need to reference again later until you become a pro at navigating your membership.
The document has several sections and I will go through them one by one as they appear in our contract.
First is the Welcome letter page. The items to note on this page are the email and website for the club. There are times when you will need to email items to them. Examples are beneficiary changes, address changes, name changes, divorce (let’s hope not), and price-matching information. Our daughter got married a year ago and we needed to change her last name because she is one of our beneficiaries. I had to email them a copy of her marriage license. The website is where you will log in to view your contract information and to book things like resort stays, ground transportation, maybe flights, etc… It takes about 2-3 weeks for your UVC account to be activated. They will schedule a welcome call with you to get you started.
You should also have an RCI Weeks Enrollment Application. RCI is a significant topic and will be covered in another post. But, also on this first page is your member number. You will need that often so make a note of it. They will ask you for it if you call them or if you send them an email you need to include it with your correspondence. RCI is an add-on membership that you get for free for some time you negotiated with your contract, and then there is an annual fee.
The next page is the UVC Lifestyles Collection. This is often confused with your main UVC membership but it is an add-on membership that you get for free for a period of time you negotiated with your contract. You will get calls about this part of the membership as well, but just remember that this is separate from your main UVC membership. This is another topic for its own post.
The next page is an important one - the Unlimited Vacation Club Acknowledgement of Benefits and Services. You will want to spend some time reading and re-reading this page. This is where UVC spells out exactly what benefits are in your contract. You should see:
1 - your membership level
2 - what you paid
3 - the term or length of your membership
4 - internal exchange system. This talks about booking at the resorts and the 25% discount. With this system, you have to pay for your reservation in full when booking. There are no installments. This is where a good travel credit card comes in and will be covered in another post.
5 - reservations - the minimum and maximum nights you can book
6 - rates for infants and children
7 - referral program also known as the Unlimited Sharing program. More on this below.
8 - annual renewal fee - yes, you have to pay a fee each year to stay an active member
9 - external exchange system - this one can be a little complicated to understand. It is essentially how you use your contract to move part of your Unlimited Nights over to use with RCI. This is a significant learning curve for most members and will be covered in full in a separate post.
10 - RCI Exchange Supplier - this is the add-on that I mentioned earlier. You get this for free for a period of time you negotiated in your contract. To keep it going, you must pay an annual fee to keep your account active. The important thing to note here is the number of Trading Power Units. Flag that for later.
11 - ULifestyles collection - the add-on that I mentioned above. You get this for free for a period of time you negotiated in your contract. To keep it going, you will have to pay a fee to keep your account active. They offer hotels, car rental, and some shopping.
12 - you cannot use your membership to make money by selling your reservations for profit
13 - no discounts on airfare unless you book through the UVC member site - more on this another time.
Skipping down to item 20 - Confidentiality - this is a big one. You are not allowed to disclose the particulars of your contract with other people or members. This means you cannot tell others what benefits you received or the price of your contract. If you get caught doing this, they can revoke or nullify your membership.
After this part, there is some legalize and eventually you get to Exhibit A - Operating Rules. Look for Seasons, Major Holidays, and Festive Weekends. This is generic language but you need to be aware of them when booking at a resort.
Seasons - they call out high, medium, and low. If you are paying to book a vacation during high season, you can expect that the cost will be higher than if you book in low season.
Major Holidays & Festival Weekends come into play with price or if you are hoping to book a vacation using your premiere nights or VIP weeks. All members are prohibited from using premiere nights and VIP weeks during these holidays and weekends. They list them by date each year on the UVC members’ website. You are able to book a paid reservation, but they are usually expensive. This is something that is usually not discussed during the sales pitch.
The next section after this is the booking process. You can call to make your reservation or make it online at the UVC members' site. The main item to look at in this section is the cancellation policy. Certain rates are non-refundable so be sure to read all the details before booking.
Next is Exhibit B - Unlimited Vacation Club Program Suppliers and Discounts. Here you will find the types of rooms you will be able to book based on your membership level. Section A - Acceptable Rate. This is important and you will want to flag these next sections. This talks about the 25% discount and the list of Authorized Tour Operators. This is the list of sites that UVC will accept for a price match. This is a large topic that will be covered in detail in another post, but I will provide an example here:
You have a reservation for a room at a resort and paid $3000. If you find the EXACT SAME ROOM ON THE EXACT SAME DATES for less on another site, you can do a price match to get the lower price. So, to continue with our example -
Your current reservation price is $3,000
You see it on Expedia.com for $3,500.
Get out your calculator and enter 3500x.75 = 2,625.
Since $2,625 is less than $3,000, you are eligible for a price match where you can get $375 back on your reservation by taking a screenshot of the details page on the Expedia site. B: Price match and C: Roll Back explain how to go about getting that 25% back. Two important criteria - you cannot be logged into the matching site (Expedia in our example) and the screenshot must be taken on a computer - not a phone or tablet. Another post will go in-depth on price matching and rollbacks in detail. You can do this multiple times until the date of your reservation.
D: covers discounts you get when you are on your vacation at the resort. You will get 25% off spa service and at most of the gift shops - always ask when at a resort. The spa will have specials and you will not get 25% off of the special price, just full prices. Most of the gift shops on site accept the 25% member discount and some do not. You are better off charging it to your room and getting the 25% discount when you checkout. You may also be eligible for a one-level room upgrade if available. Don’t count on it - just be happy if it happens.
The next section to look for is the Premiere Certificate - this is where you will see the number of premiere nights you negotiated in your contract. It is very important that you keep track of how many you have and when they expire. If the expiration date is not written in your contract, you can call member services to get that information. DON’T LET THESE EXPIRE - you paid for them. This section also documents what is considered to be the 2:1 resorts. This means you need to use twice as many premiere nights or VIP weeks to book a reservation at them. Depending on when people sign up, their list of 1:1 resorts could differ. All resorts that are 1:1 when you first join will remain 1:1 resorts as long as you are an active member, even if the list changes.
The next page should be your VIP Weeks Certificate. Again, you will see the amount and how long they are valid. These expire too so you need to keep track of them or you can call UVC member services to find out. Rules for using these are the same as for the Premiere Nights.
Depending on your level, you may or may not have Guest Certificates. That is the next section. This page explains how you can have friends or family travel under your membership when you do not travel with them. If you travel with friends and family and they book under your membership, they have all of the same privileges that you do. People utilizing your Guest Certificates should as well. I have heard recently that it depends on the resort. If you have these, they renew every year.
Depending on your level you may have a Legacy Renewal page. This is about how you can extend your membership an additional term. This is not available at all levels. If the renewal is after you and your co-owner pass away, your listed beneficiaries can renew your membership for themselves for the same term you purchased. So if you purchased 15 years, they can renew for an additional 15 years.
Another program offered is the Unlimited Sharing & Reward Nights Program. We have used this several times in the past with friends. You are going on a vacation and you have friends who what to go with you. You call UVC and ask them for the Unlimited Sharing price for the stay. Hopefully, it is the same price you are paying or lower. Sometimes they make it higher which is very discouraging. If you book your friends under Unlimited Sharing, they are required to attend a membership meeting during their stay. For that, you will receive 1 reward night - that is, a free night to use within 2 years - it does have an expiration date. If your friends decide to join UVC, you get 4 reward nights rather than just 1. Since we joined, we have had 2 sets of friends join UVC - giving us 8 reward nights and two others who just attended the meeting resulting in a total of 10 reward/free nights. The key is that your friends have to have booked under Unlimited Sharing before going to the resort - if they go to a meeting or join without booking under Unlimited Sharing, you get nothing. If they fail to go to the meeting, I believe there is a charge they will have to pay at checkout.
As a member, you also receive 15% off Amstar transportation and excursions. You can access this on the UVC member site. You can book in advance or once you are at the resort. You are not required to use this service.
The final pages in our contract are an Explanation of RCI Weeks Subscribing Membership. Learning the RCI weeks process is complicated and very different from UVC vacation bookings. There is a Facebook group dedicated to this process that I highly suggest run by Donna Barsalou called UVC Members using RCI. She has videos and cheat sheets that are a great help. My husband and I really like the RCI portion of our membership and have used it often. This is a week-long reservation at an RCI condo-type resort in their inventory. You can also use it for all-inclusive vacations, but the price is usually high. The higher your membership level, the more TPUs or trading power units you have to open up access to resorts. This benefit will be covered in a future post since it is such a large topic.
There are several Facebook groups devoted to these topics individually. The general groups will usually point you in the direction of the specialized groups. There is one for World of Hyatt, RCI, Registry Collection, and ULifestyles. Some will require you to send in a photo of your membership card for verification for joining.
I hope you have found value in the content of this post. Please leave your comments below - I would love to hear from you!!
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