Dial An Exchange (DAE US)

[exco]

If you have used Dial An Exchange to exchange your week after RCI acquired it, would you please share your experience? Was it more difficult to get a week you were interested in exchanging for?

DAE USA almost doubled the exchange from ($99 to $189) in 5 years.

 

[DeniseM]

DAE is an independent exchange company. It's different from RCI and II, because most of the top tier resorts are affiliated with RCI or II, and therefore, the vast majority of their deposits go to RCI and II. Marriott, Vistana (Westin/Sheraton +), Hilton, Hyatt, and Disney, are all affiliated with II or RCI. For the most part - DAE's inventory is 2nd and 3rd tier. Whether you will be happy with DAE or not, depends on where you want to go.

 

[tschwa2]

DAE is an independent exchange company. It's different from RCI and II, because most of the top tier resorts are affiliated with RCI or II, and therefore, the vast majority of their deposits go to RCI and II. Marriott, Vistana (Westin/Sheraton +), Hilton, Hyatt, and Disney, are all affiliated with II or RCI. For the most part - DAE's inventory is 2nd and 3rd tier. Whether you will be happy with DAE or not, depends on where you want to go.

RCI's parent company purchased DAE about 1.2 years ago, so not quite so independent. The question is has the exchange pool changed for the better or worse.

 

[DeniseM]

I didn't see that part about RCI buying them out, but from what I see, DAE's inventory is about the same.

 

[tschwa2]

I find it actually a little worse but I had been using it mainly for the rentals within 60 days.

 

[kwelty]

I have deposited two weeks with DAE and was disappointed with both. I won't do it again. You can get some last minute "Bonus" deals this time of year for as little as $99 and there is no tax or charge for a guest certificate or at least there use to not be. Now that RCI bought them, I expect fees will be going up.

 

[regatta333]

Inventory is much worse since RCI acquisition. I have noticed it is now flooded with a lot of RCI last call inventory and better inventory appears to have largely disappeared. In the past, I have successfully gotten decent exchanges to Hawaii for my kids. Now, I have a request that I have had for almost a year with nothing matching. I have 3 weeks left on deposit with them that I fear will now go to waste.

I will not be renewing my Gold membership.

 

[travel maniac]

Agree with other comments and I will not be renewing my gold membership ass well. The quality of the service has deteriorated a lot.

 

[cerralee]

I am so disappointed. In the past I had back to back trades in Hawaii and would see intriguing exchanges when I would search. I put in a few exchanges with the specific intent on using it for Hawaii. My first search somehow got lost so that was time down the rabbit hole. I upgraded to the next level as I was getting frustrated and really needed to match my weeks, big mistake. Finally one week matched after a year in total searching. While trying to insure that the other week I was searching for was still in the que the rep informed me that that request would move to the back of the line. WHAT! That was the whole point..I needed two weeks in Hawaii so I deposited two weeks. Had I known that the possibility would be little to none I would have put the second week in another trade company. The rep told an anecdote about a gentleman who had reserved a whole month in Hawaii...and said that’s not fair. If he deposited his precious weeks with you soon enough, and requested soon enough he should be in line to get the same amount of weeks out! I am happy I got one week but disappointed that the new system was put into place without telling us about it. It would have stopped me from spending the money on two years of membership upgrade and I would have used my weeks differently. I used to be soooo happy with DAE, my love affair is waning, time to start checking the field.

 

[djyamyam]

If you have used Dial An Exchange to exchange your week after RCI acquired it, would you please share your experience? Was it more difficult to get a week you were interested in exchanging for?

I would say the quality of service and inventory has dropped quite a bit since the RCI takeover. Previously, when you made an online ongoing search request, you would receive multiple phone calls within a day or two to acknowledge the request. Now, you don't ever hear from them, let alone trying to get through when you do call in.

In terms of inventory, they never used to have the greatest inventory since they'd take anything for anything but they had a few pockets of decent inventory for certain regions. Now, as others have mentioned, it's RCI's last minute castoffs that populate most of the inventory. Anything good has been redirected elsewhere. I've had multiple ongoing searches for lots of regions for over a year that used to match reasonably well with no luck. I have a few deposits left I'm trying to use up and a gold membership that I will definitely not be renewing.

 

[regatta333]

My gold membership expired a few weeks ago. Today I called to update an ongoing search request for Hawaii, which has been in effect for more than a year. I was told that unless I renewed the gold membership, I would be a the bottom of the list for this exchange, despite it having been in effect for so long.

I said that I would not be renewing the membership, because since the RCI acquisition, the available inventory has declined dramatically and I expect that my remaining three weeks will expire unused. The VC started listing all the exchanges that I have gotten during my 10+ years of gold membership, including exchanges to Hawaii. I pointed out that all of these had transpired prior to the RCI acquisition and that since the acquisition, I have not obtained a single exchange, except for one that came through too late to be of any use to me as I had already booked the accommodations after more than a year of waiting.