Royal Holiday Club Timeshares - How the Royal Holiday Club Timeshares Work

While their corporate office is in Mexico, Royal Holiday Club has timeshares located in the US, the Caribbean and other countries as well. There are two types of timeshares that are part of the Royal Holiday Club system. There are fixed week timeshares and also a RHC points program.

Like most Mexican timeshares, due to Mexican property law, Royal Holiday Club sells their timeshare units or points as right-to-use memberships rather than as deeded. So you would not technically own part of the property, but instead would hold a contract that entitles you to use for a particular number of years. Most of the resale contracts I've seen for RHC expire sometime between 2020 and 2030, but I'm sure the dates will continue to keep rolling outwards as RHC continues to sell memberships and eventually some of those will hit the resale market.

The Royal Holiday Clubs points membership is probably the most well known among timeshare buyers as it allows you almost unheard of access to great urban locations such as New York City, San Francisco, London and Paris, due to RHC's on-going relationships with privately owned timeshare resorts and hotels. My understanding of how the Royal Holiday Club works is that they contract with other resorts to access a specific number of units for each resort and the number of units may vary due to projected vacancies.

For example, Royal Holiday Club does not own the Affinia Dumont in New York City, but they have arrangement where they are allocated a certain number of units each night. The same goes for the Allen House Club in London and Powell Place Apartments in San Francisco.

As for the fixed week Royal Holiday Club resorts, if you see an opportunity for a fixed week on the timeshare resale market, it is definitely worth grabbing if the price is right because, while the points membership might be a bit more flexible for 3 or 4 night stays, the fixed weeks are highly tradeable into the more desirable resorts. So if you generally prefer full week stays, one of the RHC fixed week resorts might be your best option.

Royal Holiday Club, whether you are buying a fixed week or a points membership, tends to be a massive bargain as a resale. One thing to keep in mind though if you are looking at a potential purpose is that you'll need to factor in a $500 membership transfer fee. This is the fee that RHC charges to transfer a membership from one person to another.

Most of the time it is the buyer who pays the transfer fee, but occasionally you will run across a seller who is willing to pay for it themselves or at least willing to negotiate to split the fee between buyer and seller. Generally though, I would say you should expect to pay the transfer fee on top of the price for the unit (or points). Still, considering that Royal Holiday Club memberships bought directly from RHC cost upwards of $20K each, picking one up on a resale for about a grand is quite the steal.