Renting out an Interval exchange week

[frank808]

Does anyone know anyone who has gotten it trouble with II?

Know of one person that was "warned" to stop commercial renting of II exchanges.
To the best of my knowledge he no longer rents exchanges or does not do it so openly. He did brag to me once that he had over 250 exchanges that year and it was not even December yet.

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[frank808]

As you can see from my post my account was frozen, and I was not even a commercial renter. You can be assured that they look for people that aspire to be mass renters using cheap getaways and high value traders.

There is a TUG member that had a load of units that became to be known as high value during flex. This was before the studio tweaks and long before the charge for trading up in size. All of a sudden they were selling the units in mass on ebay touting exchanges they had performed. I might be stepping over the line but these exchanges to me seemed like rentals. With that assumption I am betting they were forced to discontinue by II.

I think we are talking about the same fruit

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[MOXJO7282]

If you look at ebay it still seems to happen where there are brokers renting what appear to be II exchanges. Not sure how that happens but I'm assuming if you have someone not associated with an II account rent it for you I'm not sure how II would know.

 

[Dean]

The huge difference that is not being disputed is RCI allows non-commercial but public listings but II does not. No, you cannot advertise to get reimbursed for anything. What II does “unofficially” allow is friends and family, whatever that means to whoever cares.

RCI and II are still primarily after the same thing. The protection of valuable inventory against a commercial renter.

Agreed, I was pointing out that II is less flexible than RCI. However, if you're saying that the above mentioned barter is the same as friend/family usage and thus a template for legal "renting", then we'll have to disagree. My take on the post is it covered that individual transaction only and should not be taken as a principle going forward.

 

[Saintsfanfl]

Agreed, I was pointing out that II is less flexible than RCI. However, if you're saying that the above mentioned barter is the same as friend/family usage and thus a template for legal "renting", then we'll have to disagree. My take on the post is it covered that individual transaction only and should not be taken as a principle going forward.

I agree with you in principal but my point is that this general opinion of their legal team logically applies to similar transactions but they reserve the right to enforce when they want to enforce. II has never and would never disallow an isolated "transaction" similar to the OP's example.

II sells guest certificates for the sole and specific reason to share among friends and family, even if those guests are paying for it. This is a fact and the reason why you can enter anyone's name and credit card number on the payment screen. II encourages the guest certificates for personal sharing. Do we really think II cares one bit whether it is on the guests CC or the guest reimburses the II member?

The number one thing is not placing an ad or listing,whether profitable or not, and not attempting to profit even if the transaction is private.

I know there are many tuggers that have the very strict opinion of the T&C and they disagree with my opinion, and that is fine. Until II comes forward with this opinion mine won't change.

 

[SueDonJ]

I agree with you in principal but my point is that this general opinion of their legal team logically applies to similar transactions but they reserve the right to enforce when they want to enforce. II has never and would never disallow an isolated "transaction" similar to the OP's example.

II sells guest certificates for the sole and specific reason to share among friends and family, even if those guests are paying for it. This is a fact and the reason why you can enter anyone's name and credit card number on the payment screen. II encourages the guest certificates for personal sharing. Do we really think II cares one bit whether it is on the guests CC or the guest reimburses the II member?

The number one thing is not placing an ad or listing,whether profitable or not, and not attempting to profit even if the transaction is private.

I know there are many tuggers that have the very strict opinion of the T&C and they disagree with my opinion, and that is fine. Until II comes forward with this opinion mine won't change.

I actually don't disagree with your opinion but I prefer to follow the strictest interpretation of II's rules because I don't like to take unnecessary risks. When it comes to the question being asked on TUG I think it's as important for the rules to be quoted as it is for folks to share their own personal experiences with following them, skirting them, discussing them with II personnel, being penalized for them, etc.

These discussions always make me think, though, that the longer we keep these threads running the more information we're feeding to II that BLATANTLY-COMMERCIAL RENTALS OF II INVENTORY CONTINUE TO HAPPEN IN PLAIN SIGHT AND SOME OF US JUST DON'T LIKE THAT II DOESN'T POLICE THEM. <hint-hint >

 

[Saintsfanfl]

Agreed!

 

[Dean]

I agree with you in principal but my point is that this general opinion of their legal team logically applies to similar transactions but they reserve the right to enforce when they want to enforce. II has never and would never disallow an isolated "transaction" similar to the OP's example.

II sells guest certificates for the sole and specific reason to share among friends and family, even if those guests are paying for it. This is a fact and the reason why you can enter anyone's name and credit card number on the payment screen. II encourages the guest certificates for personal sharing. Do we really think II cares one bit whether it is on the guests CC or the guest reimburses the II member?

The number one thing is not placing an ad or listing,whether profitable or not, and not attempting to profit even if the transaction is private.

I know there are many tuggers that have the very strict opinion of the T&C and they disagree with my opinion, and that is fine. Until II comes forward with this opinion mine won't change.

As posted even the allowed "trade" was in violation of II's written policies as it clearly was a barter. My thoughts are on the principle, not whether one will be able to put one past II which would clearly be easy in this situation. I can't imagine this was allowed by the legal department or it it was, it was allowed largely because they actually asked rather than this being a statement of general principle.

 

[VacationForever]

Going back the OP's question, the intent was to rent, which is a clear no-no.

 

[Mahou]

Thanks everyone!
To play it safe I will offer the week to my circle of friends for no charge. But I will enjoy a nice bottle of Rioja wine as a “non solicited gratification “

 

[AlmostRetired]

Deleted

 

[Dean]

Up until last year and only after my original post did I read the II rules. I never had to. While I often look to go outside the box, I do so trying to eliminate risk. They are not always mutually exclusive. This is the reason I reached out to legal and when I did, I found the most senior person. I gave them my name, II membership number and confirmation ID. I gave them the email tracking ID for when I submitted online questions. I gave them the names of the people I spoke with (with their permission). Legal knew more about me on II than I did. I wanted a definitive answer to what can and can't be done. If you look at the full answer, the answer was broader than for an individual person and more about the transaction. This is an opinion from someone who did not actually exchange even with permission and should not have a need in the future to do so.

I do believe II's enemy is the commercial abuser and to a lesser extent individuals who rent. Their biggest challenges are environments they have zero control of such as closed facebook groups, Craigslst and many others I do not know about. At some point they are going to need figure out how to make money by embracing this. I think II's biggest asset to combat this is membership transaction history and artificial intelligence (not saying they use it). I looked at my history to find that I exchanged my Legacy Vacation Club Orlando 18 times from 1996 to 2015 (when I got rid of it). 15 times it was traded for a Marriott, 3 times it was to non Marriott and the rest it went unused. On the 18 trades I had zero retrades or guest certificates. Over my ownership I traded my Monarch week 3 times. Over my membership span I show 23 getaways. Most were for family or friends. Most have my membership number, my ID and password. I was involved in very few of them and none of the fees were paid by me. It would not be very hard to see pattern changes.

IMO none of that really matters going forward. You clearly had an issue, asked the question and were given permission for the specific trade. Still, this was clearly a barter with any reasonable definition and IMO, you lucked out. Since you've since read the rules you know that now as they read. Pushing the envolope but doing so with some safety is a different matter than the principle. IMO the specific question here is what are the rules, not why or how they chose to enforce them, that's a different question and one we likely shouldn't actually discuss here for the protection of hose that tend to push the envelope.

 

[Saintsfanfl]

deleted...

 

[AlmostRetired]

In thinking about this, it is was wrong for me to cut and paste any part of the email I got from II on a number of fronts.

First and maybe most important, I did not do the exchange. While I did get permission, I can't say for certainty that it would not have been caught by the "system" and my confirmation cancelled. I would not have gotten into trouble, but once cancelled I may not have gotten the reservation back. If this was the case, this post would have been much different.

Second it was not sent to me for me to post. It was also part of a much longer conversation. The person who wrote it has since retired. She could have answered it knowing she was going to retire.

Last, it may change someones behavior and past results are not an indication of future returns. The rules are clear even if the enforcement is not. Anyone that would like to speak to legal and can't find the number can PM me to get it.

I can't seem to delete some of my posts in this thread so moderator if you do not mind can you do so.

 

[Dean]

In thinking about this, it is was wrong for me to cut and paste any part of the email I got from II on a number of fronts.

First and maybe most important, I did not do the exchange. While I did get permission, I can't say for certainty that it would not have been caught by the "system" and my confirmation cancelled. I would not have gotten into trouble, but once cancelled I may not have gotten the reservation back. If this was the case, this post would have been much different.

Second it was not sent to me for me to post. It was also part of a much longer conversation. The person who wrote it has since retired. She could have answered it knowing she was going to retire.

Last, it may change someones behavior and past results are not an indication of future returns. The rules are clear even if the enforcement is not. Anyone that would like to speak to legal and can't find the number can PM me to get it.

I can't seem to delete some of my posts in this thread so moderator if you do not mind can you do so.

It's your last point that is the crux of he matter IMO. It's not like II gives you a chance to defend the issue, they simply lock your account and don't give you a fair hearing. They may or may not allow one to trade by phone going forward depending.

 

[taterhed]

Here here....

BLATANTLY-COMMERCIAL RENTALS OF II INVENTORY CONTINUE TO HAPPEN IN PLAIN SIGHT AND SOME OF US JUST DON'T LIKE THAT II DOESN'T POLICE THEM. <hint-hint >