# Alderwood Advantage Exchange Company, do not use them!



## rickandcindy23 (Mar 8, 2011)

I gave them a valuable week, oceanfront Maui, and the date was back in September 2010.  She is telling me my deposit expires in September of this year.  I must use the week, and no way can I use it for exchange, because she never has a thing I want or need.  

Do not use them.  People talk about the smaller companies having good customer service, and while the woman is nice, one year is not nearly enough time for me to get another trip lined up, especially in light of the fact that all of our trips were planned almost a year in advance.  

This deposit was doomed before the start.  

She said she could get inventory from other exchange companies, but when I mentioned one week as a possibility, she said, "I will have to see if that is available to us, because TPMaui keeps much of the inventory for their own clients."  Yeah!  I have a deposit with them, too, but I have two years to use it.


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## siesta (Mar 8, 2011)

I probably would have never used them, but thanks for the heads up! I hope you forward her the link to this thread.


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## timeos2 (Mar 8, 2011)

An all too common issue with any smaller exchange company. Inventory is the ultimate key and RCI more than any other holds the edge there over all others even with the horrible siphoning of so much to rentals vs trades.  No matter how good they are at everything else without the inventory the exchange is worthless. hope you can get something before time runs out.


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## rickandcindy23 (Mar 8, 2011)

I agree.  The smaller companies cannot compete.  We recently bought Shell Points to get San Francisco for dates we want, and it looks okay so far.  We own in Hawaii and have RCI Points and Weeks to get weeks to match up with those.  I am tired of trying the small companies, when the exchange game with RCI and II works fine.  

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.  

Alderwood Advantage was one I recommended to other Twin Rivers owners.  I don't think it's a good company at all.  I am tired of the game, when I have to worry I will lose.  I rarely feel that way about RCI and II.


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## Carolinian (Mar 9, 2011)

The problem here seems to be the one year trading window, which is far too short.  I would never have given a week to such a company even if it were a large one.

Personally, I like DAE's 3-year exchange window, which blows the doors off of everyone else, expecially since the week you trade into is not even required to be within the window, only availible for trade within the window.  Thus you may trade a 3-year old deposit at the end of its window for a week you find in inventory whose use date is 2 years or so further on.  No one in the industry beats that.


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## T_R_Oglodyte (Mar 9, 2011)

rickandcindy23 said:


> I agree.  The smaller companies cannot compete.  We recently bought Shell Points to get San Francisco for dates we want, and it looks okay so far.  We own in Hawaii and have RCI Points and Weeks to get weeks to match up with those.  I am tired of trying the small companies, when the exchange game with RCI and II works fine.
> 
> If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
> 
> Alderwood Advantage was one I recommended to other Twin Rivers owners.  I don't think it's a good company at all.  I am tired of the game, when I have to worry I will lose.  I rarely feel that way about RCI and II.



The big advantage of the mini-systems is the ability to exchange to where you want to go.  If you can find a mini that matches the places that you want to go, that's a great advantage, which you then need to offset against the disadvantages of the minii, generally flowing from the fact that the developer is assured to be control the system. So in the end it comes down to whether the advantages of making reservations where you want to travel is worth the disadvantages of being in the mini.  

For us so far the tradeoff has been worth it.  Other people will undoubtedly have a different take.


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## eal (Mar 9, 2011)

I agree that DAE's trading window, along with its free membership, reasonable exchange fees and bonus weeks makes it a serious contender among all the available exchange companies.


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## Carolinian (Mar 9, 2011)

T_R_Oglodyte said:


> The big advantage of the mini-systems is the ability to exchange to where you want to go.  If you can find a mini that matches the places that you want to go, that's a great advantage, which you then need to offset against the disadvantages of the minii, generally flowing from the fact that the developer is assured to be control the system. So in the end it comes down to whether the advantages of making reservations where you want to travel is worth the disadvantages of being in the mini.
> 
> For us so far the tradeoff has been worth it.  Other people will undoubtedly have a different take.



The other disadvantage of a mini-system is that it is, well, MINI.  It offers very limited options for exchanging.  You might be able to expand your exchange horizons by joining a mini that you can trade with some of the independents which offer free membership, particularly if SFX accepts them.

Developer stangleholds on control would be a deal breaker for me.


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## tombo (Mar 9, 2011)

Before anyone deposits their week with DAE please research and look at the facts instead of the hype. DAE currently has a total of 85 weeks available to exchange for in the entire USA for the entire 2011 year (oops 11 of those are gone so 74 available). Woo hoo that is a powerhouse. If I deposit a week with DAE I will have ZERO confidence that I will get the exact resort/location/week I want in the next 3 years with their limited inventory.  
http://www.dialanexchange.com/exchange-availability.aspx

I know RCI and II are shaking in their boots from the competition. RCI currently has 65,835 weeks available to exchange for in the USA for 2011. RCI has 10 times more weeks available in HAWAII than DAE has available for the whole country. 

Let's just do a reality check. Would you have a better chance getting the exact week/resort/location you want with 65,000 available choices or with 85? If the answer is not obvious remedial math is in your future.

What is the odds of reserving any beach area resort in DAE? Currently there are three in Daytona, two in Duck NC, two in Maui, and two on a bay on the panhandle in a dump resort (I know this resort) for the entire 2011. None on any beach area in May, June July, or August. In fact there is ZERO availability in DAE in Florida for any location (including Orlando) for May, June July, or August.  Heck in the months of May, June July, and August there is ZERO availability for Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, California, basically anywhere in the USA most of us want to go in the sumer. But DAE does have ONE August week available in hard to get Branson (the only summer Branson week).

DAE might be very nice to it's members (I joined for free after reading all the wonderful TUG praise), but as nice as they are if they don't have the inentory I want they are useless to me. 

Cindy, I am with you. RCI more often than not gets me the trades I want and with the new weeks system letting me know what my weeks are worth before i deposit them and what a trade will cost me if it becomes available I am on the if it ain't broke don't fix it band wagon. 

Others feel free to deposit your weeks with DAE. I am sure that they are very nice to people willing to deposit a week with them. Heck they need to be very nice to people who deposit their weeks because they obviously need all the inventory they can get.


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## Carolinian (Mar 9, 2011)

Well, why am I not surprised to see you cheerleading for RCI.  While RCI arrogantly rips off members by renting exchange deposits to the general public, DAE only rents the short shelf life inventory and then only to members. In fact, when the former Swiss DAE office, a franchise, was caught renting other inventory, they were kicked out of DAE.  DAE has the integrity that RCI lacks.

As to trades with DAE, I have used them to trade into the OBX in summer, Myrtle Beach in summer, coastal southern California in summer, Smuggs in summer, Florida houseboat on St. Johns River in spring, Puerto Rico at Thanksgiving, Grand Cayman in spring, Hawaii in spring, French Riviera seafront in summer, UK canalboat in summer, Croatia seafront in summer, Poland seafront in summer, Ireland in late Spring (could have gotten summer but late spring worked better for my schedule), Stouts Hill UK in late spring, northern England in Fall, and a number of others, so no, from experience I am not at all worried about the trades I will get with them. Of course, I was using DAE to supplement RCI since before DAE even had a US office, working originally through their Australian and UK offices.  And BTW, they do seem to get a fair amount of inventory in the Florida panhandle.  When I wanted to go to HHI, DAE offered me a week at DVC there, but I looked it up and it was way off the beach, so I took an unrated resort from RCI where I could at least walk to the beach instead.  And with any exchange company, the best inventory usually gets snagged by ongoing searches, and that is where most of my DAE trades came from, but some of them I did find online.

As to getting exact dates, I once made a request for a specific resort and week for my neice's honeymoon, on Grand Cayman.  In two weeks, DAE had a confirmation for me.




tombo said:


> Before anyone deposits their week with DAE please research and look at the facts instead of the hype. DAE currently has a total of 85 weeks available to exchange for in the entire USA for the entire 2011 year (oops 11 of those are gone so 74 available). Woo hoo that is a powerhouse. If I deposit a week with DAE I will have ZERO confidence that I will get the exact resort/location/week I want in the next 3 years with their limited inventory.
> http://www.dialanexchange.com/exchange-availability.aspx
> 
> I know RCI and II are shaking in their boots from the competition. RCI currently has 65,835 weeks available to exchange for in the USA for 2011. RCI has 10 times more weeks available in HAWAII than DAE has available for the whole country.
> ...


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## tombo (Mar 9, 2011)

Carolinian said:


> Well, why am I not surprised to see you cheerleading for RCI.  While RCI arrogantly rips off members by renting exchange deposits to the general public, DAE only rents the short shelf life inventory and then only to members. In fact, when the former Swiss DAE office, a franchise, was caught renting other inventory, they were kicked out of DAE.  DAE has the integrity that RCI lacks.
> 
> .



As I am not surprised by you cheerleading for DAE,SFX, anyone but RCI. You will post negative things about RCI no matter how much those of us WHO ACTUALLY USE RCI WEEKS like the new program. I can assure you that a lot more TUGGERS have received the exchanges they wanted through RCI in 2011  than will have similar succes through DAE in the next 10 years combined.

Facts is facts. I showed current inventory with DAE  and listed their web site so that anyone can double check forthemselves. I listed RCI's inventory straight from their web site which can also be double checked. You list personal isolated examples of exchanges you have made. I have rented some great hard to find weeks on TUG Last Minute rentals for less than$700, but I won't plan my yearly vacation on that happening every time. I am sure a few people got a great exchange on Redweek before they got totally out of the exchange business.  Just because an occassional great exchange might happen on DAE is no reason to deposit my week from the available inventory they list vs the inventory RCI lists. Heck, it sn't even close.

Speaking of integrity it is curious to me that one would enjoy TUG for almost 7000 posts yet not feel any moral obligation to pay to be a member. It is kind of like being on welfare and buying a big screen TV on our tax dollars. You have more posts as a guest than any member I know of. Members pay to support TUG, not advertisers. A serial TUG guest is simply enjoying a benefit that others pay for. If all  posters were too cheap to join TUG would cease to exist. Feel free to respond on my dollar since you refuse to contribute one of your own.


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## timeos2 (Mar 9, 2011)

Carolinian said:


> Well, why am I not surprised to see you cheerleading for RCI.



It isn't "cheerleading" it's a plain fact.


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## T_R_Oglodyte (Mar 9, 2011)

Carolinian said:


> Well, why am I not surprised to see you cheerleading for RCI.


Steve - resorting to _argumentum ad hominem_, are we? Tombo simply posted facts. Instead of rebutting his facts, you called him names. I know that you're an attorney as well as involved in politics. You know fully well that _argumentum ad hominem_ is the response put up by those who can't argue the facts. 

I haven't called you out on your use of _ad hominem_ attacks for awhile, because after I did so regularly a couple of years ago, you seemed to cut back on it for awhile. But as Ronald Reagan so aptly commented, "There you go again."  So I think I'm going to reinstate my practice of calling you out every time you respond to a presentation of facts by impugning the integrity of the other person instead of being bothered with trying to make a response that doesn't involve logical fallacy.

I have a suggestion.  Tombo made a a fact based argument as to why a person is more likely to get an exchange they want through RCI instead of DAE.  If you don't like his facts, you might try to make a fact-based counter argument as to why a person is more likely to get the exchange they want through DAE. If you can't do that, I think we are all on solid ground simply dismissing your position as based on well-known logical fallacy.

******

I have no dog at all in this fight.  I rarely if ever RCI or DAE or II or HTSE or TPI, because none of them meets my needs.


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## Carolinian (Mar 9, 2011)

Well, I wonder how this one comment is worthy of your getting involved in comparision to Tombo's more common use of personal attacks, both in his post above and in a recent thread.  He can keep on, for that matter, it does not bother me.  However, you seem to have a double standard.

If I had used a word with the same meaning like ''supporting'' instead of ''cheerleading'' your argument would be laughable, but at the end of the day does the word ''cheerleading'' really have enough spin to it to make this a ''personal attack''?  I think not.

I actually got a good laugh when he suggested I might want to stay in a barn or shed or something, because RCI has quite a few ''resorts'' in the UK that are such facilities (renovated of course) now being used as country cottages.  For example look up ''The Old Barn Retreat'', RCI ''resort'' number BF43, where you can exchange into a studio unit in November for 21 points lite.  Of course that points lite number is kinda odd when you see that they offer only 29 point lite for a 2BR GC at a real resort in a popular tourist area of southern England with few timeshare resorts in prime summer.  Some can keep their rose colored glasses on and believe the illusion that RCI is fair and honest, but others of us look at the facts and shake out heads.

And lets NOT get back into that era on these boards when calling someone an ''RCI basher'' was fair game but using the term ''RCI apologist'' was a ''personal attack''.  We don't need that era back.  That is one of the reasons some left here and started a different timeshare board.




T_R_Oglodyte said:


> Steve - resorting to _argumentum ad hominem_, are we? Tombo simply posted facts. Instead of rebutting his facts, you called him names. I know that you're an attorney as well as involved in politics. You know fully well that _argumentum ad hominem_ is the response put up by those who can't argue the facts.
> 
> I haven't called you out on your use of _ad hominem_ attacks for awhile, because after I did so regularly a couple of years ago, you seemed to cut back on it for awhile. But as Ronald Reagan so aptly commented, "There you go again."  So I think I'm going to reinstate my practice of calling you out every time you respond to a presentation of facts by impugning the integrity of the other person instead of being bothered with trying to make a response that doesn't involve logical fallacy.
> 
> ...


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## Ridewithme38 (Mar 9, 2011)

tombo said:


> I have rented some great hard to find weeks on TUG Last Minute rentals for less than$700, but I won't plan my yearly vacation on that happening every time.



From my experience i find that TUG Last Minute Rentals is a MUCH better system then either RCI or DAE....Of course, my experience involves my still looking for the right timeshare, so not really having access to RCI or DAE....

But Still! I find TUG Last Minute Rentals to be the best system to find weeks!


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## T_R_Oglodyte (Mar 9, 2011)

Carolinian said:


> Well, I wonder how this one comment is worthy of your getting involved in comparision to Tombo's more common use of personal attacks, both in his post above and in a recent thread.  He can keep on, for that matter, it does not bother me.  However, you seem to have a double standard.
> 
> If I had used a word with the same meaning like ''supporting'' instead of ''cheerleading'' your argument would be laughable, but at the end of the day does the word ''cheerleading'' really have enough spin to it to make this a ''personal attack''?  I think not.
> 
> I actually got a good laugh when he suggested I might want to stay in a barn or shed or something, because RCI has quite a few ''resorts'' in the UK that are such facilities (renovated of course) now being used as country cottages.  For example look up ''The Old Barn Retreat'', RCI ''resort'' number BF43, where you can exchange into a studio unit in November for 21 points lite.  Of course that points lite number is kinda odd when you see that they offer only 29 point lite for a 2BR GC at a real resort in a popular tourist area of southern England with few timeshare resorts in prime summer.  Some can keep their rose colored glasses on and believe the illusion that RCI is fair and honest, but others of us look at the facts and shake out heads.



There you go again.  Now you're attacking me and still avoiding totally ignoring tombo's argument that a person is more likely to get the exchange they want through RCI instead of DAE.

That is the point where this little series of posts started, where you took issue with that post by tombo. But so far you have steadfastly avoided responding to that point.

*****

As regards double standards, I started pointing out your _ad hominem_ arguments after you one time, *quite correctly*, pointed out that I was resorting to personal attacks instead of sticking to the facts in one of our previous discussions.  I acknowledged that I had in fact done so, and thanked you for pointing that out to me.  

Ever since I've been returning the favor.

*****

So what is it Steve?  Do you think that a person is generally more likely to get an exchange to a place they want to visit through DAE or through RCI?

I'm challenging you right here and now to respond to tombo's post with facts that are on point to the argument at hand, not with attacking other people's integrity or trying to divert the argument to a different case.  Betcha can't do it!!!


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## Carolinian (Mar 10, 2011)

Ridewithme38 said:


> From my experience i find that TUG Last Minute Rentals is a MUCH better system then either RCI or DAE....Of course, my experience involves my still looking for the right timeshare, so not really having access to RCI or DAE....
> 
> But Still! I find TUG Last Minute Rentals to be the best system to find weeks!



I tend to agree.  Much as I oppose the way they get many of those weeks to rent and how that impacts exchanging, the reality is that it makes exchanging less attractive and the cheap rentals more attractive.  Rental Condominiums International has provided me with some nice deals on rentals, some real good weeks at around ~$200 and some a bit more.  That is why I have not cancelled my membership, although when it runs out, I will be studying up on how to use their rental outlets to the general public.


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## Carolinian (Mar 10, 2011)

There you go again.  Compare Tombo's third paragraph in post #11 with my use of the word ''cheerleading'' and explain to me why it was me that you singled out.



T_R_Oglodyte said:


> There you go again.  Now you're attacking me and still avoiding totally ignoring tombo's argument that a person is more likely to get the exchange they want through RCI instead of DAE.
> 
> That is the point where this little series of posts started, where you took issue with that post by tombo. But so far you have steadfastly avoided responding to that point.
> 
> ...


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## Carolinian (Mar 11, 2011)

I just had a call from DAE. Today another ongoing request came through, this one for a specific resort, a nice II property in the UK in warm season.  Works well for me!


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## Beaglemom3 (Mar 11, 2011)

I like DAE for quality UK/Eire/European exchanges and RCI for other, especially DVC and other USA,  exchanges.


Will stay away from Alderwood. Thanks for the notice.


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## rickandcindy23 (Mar 11, 2011)

I also must say that SFX has been fine for three exchanges in five years.  I complained about the lack of communication, and I am still somewhat experiencing the same issues (maybe Elena is no longer with SFX?), but they came through for San Francisco and Point at Poipu.  

I have used all of my deposits and feel I received a good value for my platinum membership, which will now die in peace.  I won't renew SFX Platinum, simply because I will use Shell for our San Francisco exchanges and short-stay exchanges in Hawaii and California.  I am pretty excited about owning Shell and "owning where we want to go."  I even bought California for those reasons. Already love it, and the ownership just transferred days ago.  

Rick told me last night to let my deposit to Alderwood go and stop worrying about it.  If I had deposited it with II, I would already have an exchange to any number of great places, so I am kicking myself.  $1,400 down the drain for those fees.  I would rather have offered it on the Last Minute Rental boards for $700! 

It's an expensive lesson, but we cannot travel more this year.  The summer doesn't work at all, we never do travel during season, for obvious reasons (we are past that stage of our lives).  We are going to Orlando in May, Maui in September, and Orlando again in November with the kids and grandkids.  We are blessed with cheap exchanges to great places.


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