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Best company to exchange with? Brand new, need advice

momofthreeplusone

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Hi all,
Am so thankful for all the help found here. We are completing our very first timeshare purchase of Lawai Beach Resort now, bought resale. My question is this: the current owner has two weeks, feb 2021, already booked. We can’t go then due to my work schedule. I am wondering how the exchanging process works, exactly. LBR is affiliated with HTSE. I am wondering if it would be good to exchange the already booked weeks and go somewhere else? Is there another exchange company that I could use, or is HTSE the way to go? What sorts of things should I be watching out for/aware of?
 

Synergy

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HTSE is a small exchange, but is cheaper than most of the alternatives. You can look through the near term exchanges without a login, and I think I remember there being a 'guest' login that in sure they could provide you with to take a look at their full current availability. If you think you'd be content with what you see, then I'd run with them - they do allow ongoing searches for you to get popular weeks that wouldn't normally make it through to standing inventory. If you have to be a little pickier, then one of the other exchanges might be worth looking into.

I have RCI because that's who my resorts use. I don't love them, but they have a lot of affiliated resorts, so with some flexibility, we have pretty good luck with them. They're definitely profit driven, and you can see that in their fees and program changes.
 

pedro47

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First, Welcome to the TUG website. “Where Knowledge is Power“ by Bacon.

Which exchange company does Lawai Beach Resort normally exchange with and what is written in your legal contract? RCI or II.

Does Lawai Beach Resort exchange with both RCI and II?
 

pedro47

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Your Resort normally exchange thru RCI and it is a Gold Crown Resort.

It is also affiliate with HTSE.

Please visit HTSE website it will give you some good basic information about who they are and what they can do. IMHO.

Good luck this is a very nice resort.
 
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Ddee555

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I use HTSE as an independent exchange service and they are very helpful. If you are interested in staying at Lawai Beach Resort but at a different time of the year, they have a lot of exchange inventory at that resort, so you can likely exchange your February 2021 weeks for a better time for you through them. I'm sure that they can help you also get a condo in the same building that you own at Lawai, because they helped me find a really nice 2-bed condo at a Waikiki resort when my brother went to Hawaii.
 

Ddee555

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Most people use the big two exchange companies - RCI and II - but because I can travel off-season (non-summer weeks) and I am interested more in the smaller, independently-run resorts, I have used the following smaller exchange companies with great success:

Hawaii Timeshare Exchange
https://www.htse.net

Platinum Interchange
https://www.platinuminterchange.com/website/exchanges.asp

Trading Places International
https://merchant15.tradingplaces.com/exchange/exchange-availability

GPX Exchange (only for Grand Pacific Resort owners)

https://gpxvacations.com

All of them are much cheaper than RCI and II and are a lot more owner-friendly when you contact them.
 

spthomas

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We've just been discussing this. Not HTSE specifically, but small exchanges vs RCI. Here's the gist of what I've found the last few years:

The way exchanges work (you did say you were wondering how the exchange process works) is basically this. You "bank" or deposit your weeks with an exchange company, meaning they now "own" your week(s) that year. What you have is a credit in their "bank". So you look for a week to apply your credit to, and when you find one, you "cash in" your credit and get a week somewhere. You can find a week a couple of ways. First, the exchange companies usually have websites where you can see the current inventory (some only let you see it after you deposit a week) and pick from there. If you don't see what you want, you can get them to do a "custom search" where they just start calling resorts in the area and time you specify to see what they have. Sort of "hi, this is ABC exchange, do you have anything available for exchange June 1-7 this year? No, ok thanks". dial again "Hi, this is ABC exchange...". So they try to find you something. This is a bit iffier, as you can only get what someone has.

Our current experience is with RCI (the largest in the industry) and RTX, an exchange owned by Festiva our resort company.

1. RCI is huge. They have a lot of "inventory", which are units and weeks that have already been deposited with them and are available. They get deposits from most resorts, so they have a lot. You can often find what you want just by looking online (after you deposit your week). The downside is they have this thing called "trading power" which rates your units by location, reputation of resort, supply of weeks from this resort vs demand for weeks there, and how far in advance of the give week are you depositing your weeks. So, for example, we only get 90% of the full value of our week now because we're less than 9 months from the date of the week when we deposit our July 2020 week. So a bit complicated, and they are a bit expensive.

2. Smaller exchanges are a bit more flexible, and maybe easier to deal with. RTX, for example, doesn't do that "trading power" nonsense, it's straight week for week depending on season. So I can exchange my Red week for any Red week in their inventory, or that they can find. But we've had trouble getting them to find anything, but we just booked the Florida panhandle for July 4 weekend, so not too shabby. And they are usually a good bit cheaper. BUT. They have very limited inventory. Online they mostly only have available weeks at resorts Festiva owns, and that's not many. So while RCI has lots online already in inventory, every exchange we've ever done with RTX was a custom search.

Which way to go? We're trying RCI this year, we'll see how it goes.
 

Ddee555

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The reason I use several different smaller exchange companies, is because each one has their strengths--locations that they are stronger in having inventory.

For HSTE, their areas of strength are Hawaii (year-round) and Southern California (mostly off-season). HSTE actually has a special back-channel relationship with Dial-An-Exchange and GPX, so their available inventory is larger than it appears online. I have used HSTE quite a few times to trade back into Southern California (Grand Pacific Resorts-managed), with my cheaper maintenance red week traders. For example, I used my Royal Aloha weeks to get Coronado Beach Resort in August and Christmastime. I even got a 2-bedroom at Marriott Newport Coast Villas in June 2015 with my Royal Aloha week--which was amazing, but that is rare to repeat.

You just need to study the smaller exchange companies and use them according to their strengths. Obviously, Trading Places International has more inventory in the VRI resorts, which they are associated with, and Platinum Interchange is strong in areas like Las Vegas, etc. I'm not really interested in the big, luxury chains, so that opens me up to many smaller, good, independent resorts that get over-looked by many people.
 

chellej

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It really depends on where you want to exchange. I use trading places a lot because they have inventory where I want to go....their strengths are west coast,rocky mountains, hawaii and some mexico. They get a lot of Maui Schooner and the wyndhams on the big island and some smaller properties on Oahu

If you want to exchange into some of the higher-end properties like HGVC, Marriott and Hyatt...you will not see many at the independent and will need to go to RCI or Interval.

I have used HTSE and was happy with the week in Molokai they got me

I really like GPX but you have to own an affiliated resort to use them.

A few others not mentioned so far are trading Places Maui, DAE, and SFX. I am not familiar with RTX and I thought I had tried just about everyone.
 

momofthreeplusone

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Wow, everyone, This is great info. One more question, which may be silly, but again, I have so much to learn. If I deposit 2021 weeks, am I limited to going in just 2021?
 

spthomas

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Once again, it depends. With RCI, when you deposit a week, you can use it from 1 year BEFORE that week up to 2 years AFTER that week. So say you have a week 1 July 2021. You deposit it today 21 Jan 2020. You will be able to use the credit you get for your week from 1 July 2020 to 1 July 2023.

Other exchange systems have different rules, so you have to check them out. And most exchange systems will let you extend a week you have "banked" for a fee.
 

CPNY

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Once again, it depends. With RCI, when you deposit a week, you can use it from 1 year BEFORE that week up to 2 years AFTER that week. So say you have a week 1 July 2021. You deposit it today 21 Jan 2020. You will be able to use the credit you get for your week from 1 July 2020 to 1 July 2023.

Other exchange systems have different rules, so you have to check them out. And most exchange systems will let you extend a week you have "banked" for a fee.
Is that the same for points?
 
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