Chapter 8
Exchange Your Timeshare

You buy a time­share in Sedona, Ari­zona. You go there for three years. And then you decide that you’ve had enough of Sedona. But you’re stuck with vaca­tions in Sedona. Or are you? Indeed, not. You can trade a time­share week at one resort for a time­share week in another.

National and International Exchanges

There are two major exchange orga­ni­za­tions, Resort Con­do­mini­ums Inter­na­tion­al (RCI) and Inter­val Inter­na­tion­al (II). There are oth­er orga­ni­za­tions too, but they are small­er. It’s like­ly that your resort will belong to RCI or II. You sim­ply deposit your time­share week into the time­share bank at either orga­ni­za­tion, and now you’re eli­gi­ble to pull out (on a first-come-first-served basis) any oth­er time­share week that has been banked by anoth­er time­share own­er at anoth­er resort. This is a very effec­tive means of doing away with the lim­i­ta­tion of your time­share being in one place.

Trading Power

Your trad­ing pow­er with­in such an exchange orga­ni­za­tion is deter­mined by the desir­abil­i­ty of your resort and the desir­abil­i­ty of the time of year in which your time­share is sched­uled. The high­er the pop­u­lar­i­ty of your resort and high­er the pop­u­lar­i­ty of your time slot, the more trad­ing pow­er you have.

Anoth­er fac­tor in deter­min­ing your trad­ing pow­er is the time you bank your time­share week. The ear­li­er you bank it, the more trad­ing pow­er you have. And the ear­li­er you put in a request for a par­tic­u­lar trade, the more like­ly you are to get it.

To get a desir­able exchange, you have to have the most trad­ing pow­er you can get. The typ­i­cal cost to make such an exchange is about $200.

Exchange for the Exotic

Time­share exchange orga­ni­za­tions per­mit you to exchange for vaca­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties that are not resort con­do­mini­ums. For instance, exchange for a week-long cruise on a ship. Con­sult your exchange organization’s web­site for information.

Cash for Weeks

Addi­tion­al­ly, the exchange orga­ni­za­tions sell off time­share weeks at rock bot­tom prices for the off-sea­son. You can get some real deals. I’ve seen prices as low as $249 for a week’s stay. That’s $36/night, cheap­er than the Bed Bug Motel. In order to take advan­tage of these oppor­tu­ni­ties, you need to be an exchange orga­ni­za­tion mem­ber. To be a mem­ber, you need to own at least one timeshare.

Dedicated-Exchange Timeshare

A clas­sic use of a time­share is to buy it specif­i­cal­ly for exchange and to go some­where dif­fer­ent every year. To do so you need to buy a time­share in a pop­u­lar place (e.g., Cal­i­for­nia) at a pop­u­lar time of year (i.e. high sea­son).  That will give you max­i­mum exchange power.

Intra Resort Exchange

With­in your own local resort, you can also make an exchange. Let’s say you have Week 17, and in a par­tic­u­lar year you want to exchange it for Week 20. You may be able to do so inter­nal­ly. Many time­share resorts have a local inter­nal exchange scheme (usu­al­ly on the inter­net) that enables you to do just that. If not, you can ask the peo­ple behind the front desk how to make such an exchange. Although there is no cer­tain­ty that you can make the exchange you need, your chances are bet­ter if you try to arrange it far ahead of time.

Intra Resort Chain Exchange

Many resort devel­op­ers (e.g., Wyn­d­ham) have resorts in a vari­ety of loca­tions. If you own a time­share at one of their resorts, you can exchange it for a week at anoth­er one of their resorts. The ben­e­fit is that you typ­i­cal­ly pay no exchange fee or at worst a nom­i­nal fee. If you are part of a resort developer’s point sys­tem, such a sys­tem typ­i­cal­ly makes an exchange very easy.

Exchange on Your Own

You don’t need an orga­ni­za­tion to make an exchange. You can engi­neer one on your own direct­ly. Con­tact and talk with oth­er time­share own­ers. Put an ad in a newslet­ter or news­pa­per.  Enter a list­ing on a time­share web­site. Plen­ty of peo­ple own time­shares, and many will wel­come the oppor­tu­ni­ty to exchange.

Exchange for Goods or Services

If you can’t use your time­share week and you’re des­per­ate to do some­thing with it, trade it for goods or ser­vices. Use var­i­ous web­sites to assist you in doing so. Read Chap­ter 6.

Exchange for Time in Something Else

Exchange for some­thing besides anoth­er time­share, such as a week:

• At someone’s house or apartment
• At someone’s sec­ond home
• On a yacht
• In an RV

Find a web­site that facil­i­tates such exchanges.

AirBnB

This isn’t an exchange but can be used as an exchange orga­ni­za­tion. Rent your time­share week on AirBnB. Use the rent mon­ey to stay in a place offered on AirBnB. AirBnB has mil­lions of units list­ed worldwide.

The Last Word

One of the great ben­e­fits of own­ing a time­share is the capa­bil­i­ty to exchange it. Take advan­tage of such capa­bil­i­ty should you get tired of vis­it­ing the same resort every year.