Confustion After A Call With Interval International

[nokaoi9]

I had a strange call with II last week and figured I would ask the people on Tug for their opinion. As 2013 will be my first use year at SDO (I purchased an EOY), I have elected to deposit my week for exchange. I placed my deposit through SVN with no issues at all, and received confirmation that it would II 48-72 hours to process before my week would show up to exchange. I waited over a week and still was not seeing my week show up in II so I decided to call. I was first told that my week would show as points, which made no sense to me. When I told the lady on the phone that I disagreed with her, she said that she was showing it deposited in my account. When I asked why I wasn’t able to see it, she told me that she was looking right at it and I must be doing something wrong. I told her again that 2013 was not showing up, all that was showing up was 2012. I again explained that my week was EOY ODD and that I don’t have an available week for 2012. She told me not to worry about the dates and that I would be able to exchange my 2013 week as the 2012 week. I have traded my two other resorts several times in the past few years and something about this conversation just didn’t seem to make much sense to me. Any insight regarding this is greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
James

 

[YYJMSP]

I told her again that 2013 was not showing up, all that was showing up was 2012.

It's a weirdness in the system -- EVERY unit/week in your account shows as 2012 while it's still calendar 2012. They're just placeholders.

There have been other posts here about making sure that the week they really allocate is the one that you wanted to use.

 

[ada903]

It shows correctly as is. It will always show the current year, whether it is an odd, even or annual use week, it will always show a generic week labeled with the current year. Go ahead and place an exchange request online with the generic week you see there - be sure to choose the whole two bedroom, large one bedroom (1BEDA) or small one bedroom (1BEDB), depending on which side you would like to trade.

The first thing to do is call Starwood to designate your week for exchange, and you let them know if you want to deposit the whole two bedroom, two one-bedrooms, or just one of the sides. It sounds like you achieved this step. Now go ahead and place the exchange request. As soon as you place that exchange request, Interval's special department that handles this will pick up the phone and call Starwood to confirm a deposit is available. When Interval calls Starwood to verify a deposit is available, Starwood will actually note the corresponding Interval exchange number in your Starwood account - that number becomes your Interval confirmation number once a reservation is confirmed. I usually verify the whole process about a week after I place a request by calling Starwood and asking customer service to tell me what exchange number they see pending, against what year of usage and what unit size. Deposits have been "lost" before in this system, so I always double check.

 

[DeniseM]

Hi James - You may want to review the II FAQ at the top of the forum. There is a step by step walk through and a discussion of all the quirks of the II-Starwood system.

In a nutshell - Deposits do NOT show in your II Acct. Once you register a SW timeshare with II, all you will ever see is a "place holder" for the current year in your Acct. It doesn't matter whether you deposit or not, or exchange or not - all you see is the place holder. In fact, even if you own an every other year timeshare, you will still see a placeholder for the off years!

It is a major weakness in the II - Starwood system, that we gripe about on a regular basis.

You need to print out your confirmations and keep good records to protect yourself.

 

[rickandcindy23]

It is a major weakness in the II - Starwood system, that we gripe about on a regular basis....

.....to no avail.

It's incredibly annoying, and it would not be difficult at all to lose a deposit somewhere along the line. I enter ongoing searches as soon as I assign a week for deposit and get my confirmation email from Starwood. I need to have that ongoing search to have a placeholder for my weeks. I currently have four ongoing searches with these weeks, which is a bit much to pay ($149 or $114 X 4), just to keep track of weeks.

Even still, II could stop an exchange from confirming, because Starwood will often stop the progress of the exchange (for whatever reason).

This requires phone calls between you and Starwood, Starwood and II, and you with II. I am completely aghast that we have to go through this much work to deposit a week. I just want a number I can enter into II to show exactly what week I am using. Just give me a number and a space to put it.