# Destination Xchange, Interval International and Florida Club Connection (ex Island One)



## baileyab (Aug 23, 2021)

Hi all, I've only just come across this forum after reading the older thread about Diamond dropping II; Ive spent some time emailing back and forth with Diamond and am not happy with the responses I'm getting and am wondering if anybody else has the same issue.

I came to Diamond as an Island One owner (Isle of Bali II in Florida). High maintenance fees and other events have made it difficult for me to travel to my home resort in recent years (I'm in the UK) and have had very poor treatment from Diamond sales folk when I've refused upgrades due to this and other financial issues. However I've made a lot of use of Interval International as it's given me access to more local resorts. So imagine my surprise when I look at the location availability with Destination Xchange to discover that I have access only to a small portion of what it has to offer.

I'm told that this is because I'm only getting benefits due from Florida Club Connection. However I was never restricted with Interval International and had access to the whole catalog.

Has anybody else had this issue or have any idea how to rectify it? I'm really getting frustrated at Diamond Customer Services at the moment!


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## nuwermj (Aug 23, 2021)

You can still uses Interval. In the past your membership in Florida Club Connection included the Interval membership and making reservations was relatively seamless. Now you will need to open your own individual II account and pay the annual fee. Then you will be able to deposit your Diamond timeshare into Interval and use it to make exchanges.  

If you own a deeded timeshare at your home resort this should not be too difficult. In fact you may want to consider dropping the Club Connection membership altogether. But be sure about the decision to do so, because once you drop it, Diamond will not let you back in.

On the other hand, if you own points instead of a deed, you will need to use them to make a reservation, and then deposit that reservation into your individual Interval account. The reservation must be for seven days, and it must begin on a standard check-in day for the resort at which the reservation is made. Interval will assign the trading power of the week based the reservation. In other words, if you reserve a "mud-week" you will have less trading power; if you reserve a "peak-week" you will have better trading power. And peak-weeks cost more points than mud-weeks. It may take some time to find the best balance. Interval's Travel Demand Index should help with this. 

Good luck, and welcome to TUG


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## pedro47 (Aug 23, 2021)

To the OP,  baileyab, welcome to the TUG web site. "Where Knowledge is Power". by Bacon


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## baileyab (Aug 24, 2021)

nuwermj said:


> You can still uses Interval. In the past your membership in Florida Club Connection included the Interval membership and making reservations was relatively seamless. Now you will need to open your own individual II account and pay the annual fee. Then you will be able to deposit your Diamond timeshare into Interval and use it to make exchanges.
> ...



Thanks! I've been an owner since the late 1990s and am points based. As it stands II have sent me an offer of 3 years membership for the price of one which I will probably take anyway at this stage, my real gripe is with Diamond who have stopped paying my II membership but what they've replaced it with is clearly not up to the same standard and they quote 'Florida Club Connection' as the reason why I don't have access to their full catalog. 

As an example, I actually live in the UK. The full catalog had 91 resorts in the UK but under my Diamond membership I can only access 9 of them. The numbers are similar across the rest of the world with some areas where I've traveled with Interval having no locations under my limited Destination Xchange membership. Don't get me wrong, I'm not paying anything extra for it so I'm certainly not going to cancel it, I'd just like equal benefit to what I had before with II.


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