DAE exchanges that went well

[tseebach]

There is so little activity in this forum, and the three preceding posts appear to be posted here by mistake as they have nothing to do with DAE, so I thought I'd start a new thread about DAE successes.

I own a floating week with WIVC that for the last 13 years have either used for beachfront WIVC Casa de Playa in Puerto Vallarta for a week in January or banked with DAE. We were able to book one Jan 2020 week at Casa de Playa using 2019 week and also booked preceding week at their Alta Vista PVR location using 2018 week. But when I went to book flights about 6 months out, it was expensive to get to PVR from SF Bay Area as flight would have been weekend after New Year's. So we banked the Alta Vista week which was a little tricky as it seems like WIVC wants to pick the week to bank with DAE and at first would not let me bank week I had picked. We also banked our 2020 week in June as we had no plans to use it.

On 7/18/2020, I saw DAE had an exchange week for a one bedroom that sleeps 6 at Pine Acres for mid-August in Pacific Grove, which is about 75 miles from home, that I put on hold, then booked before hold expired. While we sometimes get a night or two use of friend's place near downtown Carmel, it is usually last minute so we took this week which cost us $170 for the Gold exchange fee. I don't think a mid-summer week a couple of blocks from the coast in Monterey area would be available in a normal travel year. Were we live the high temps this month have been in the high 80s and low to mid 90s (beside one weekend when we escaped to Tahoe that it was 101 and 102) so a week were it may not get out of the 70s sounds good to us. Note that while our high temps at home have been up there this month, our lows have been in the 50s every night and we've even seen some early AM fog although it burns off fast. (Editing to add the high temps predicted for Monterey for next 10 days range from 62 to 66. If you want warmer weather and to see more of the sun, you usually only have to go inland a few miles. We were in the fog a couple of blocks from beach in Carmel one year for long 4th of July weekend and now know you can go less than 15 miles inland to Carmel Valley where there is some good hiking, and in a more normal year, restaurants and wineries)

I have history of my trades through DAE going back to 1998 that I will post when I have more time. I hope we will continue to find good trades using DAE.

 

[silentg]

Enjoy that.we have used DAE in the past, but not recently.

 

[JeffC]

I've got 2 DAE exchanges planned. This October we've got a 2 BR Woodstone at Massanuten. Next May we have a 1 BR Cedar Lodge at Brickyard Mountain. The Cedar Lodge is actually a replacement for a Covid cancellation in Vt from March. In the past we've been to Royal Aloha Waikiki, Bolton Valley Vt and at least one other I can't remember. I have been using a CLC Encantada 2BR in Orlando for my deposit. I usually get the bonus week and 3 years to travel. You have to check the website often for availability, that's how I found the Bolton Valley ski week and the Cedar Lodge Memorial day week. The Waikiki week was from a request that I forgot about but worked perfect for us. They have matched other requests that I ended up not taking because I had already found alternate accommodations.

Overall I've been happy with my DAE exchanges.

 

[Tacoma]

I used to use DAE but when they updated the website and you now get a very narrow search which almost always comes up with nothing I have effectively stopped using them. I want to be able to set a wide search and narrow it if I get too many hits. I don't want to put in each province or state for each month and keep hitting nothing. Way too frustrating.

 

[tseebach]

I agree with Tacoma that DAE's search has some problems that have been identified in other threads and have not been fixed. Since I am only usually looking for BC and AB in Canada, US Pacific Coast or Rocky Mountains or certain areas of Mexico it's not that big of a problem for me. They also have Availability Lists that can help, but the ones for Mexico are nearly all all-inclusive which I'm not interested in.

Other trades I've have through DAE:
Celebrity Resorts Waikiki Oct 1998 was our first trade - It was my son's first trip to Hawaii. Place was a converted motel so our 1-bedroom was two converted motel rooms with two bathrooms and kitchen in one of the rooms and 'bedroom' in the other. I think we only did a one day car rental to tour around the island to the N Shore and made it to Diamond Head on bus.

For Thanksgiving 1999 we went to WIVC Cancun (not a trade) with my Dad who passed away about 6 months later, Mom, both my sisters and one niece who had trouble getting out of USA as she was a minor and her parents were divorced and she didn't have Dad's permission. Our unit, which I shared with my wife, son and mother-in-law, had an oven we used to cook Thanksgiving turkey. It was only my second time in Cancun, the first was our honeymoon almost 10 years earlier. We went Thanksgiving because my wife and I worked in IT and were concerned about Y2K.

Jul 2002 we traded into World Mark Pismo Beach. We had a downstairs one bedroom which was dark as there was parking or decks outside the blocked most of the light. But it was a great location and my Mom joined us the first night so we had 5 in a one bedroom for a night. My son was in the ocean every day as it's warmer there than in Santa Cruz where we usually go. I'm not sure if this helped his decision to go to Cal Poly in nearby San Luis Obispo for college. He ended up working one summer/fall on the beach there doing ATV rentals.

Jan 2003 We stayed in brand new Red Wolf at Deer Valley. It was so new that hot tub was not sorted out, but unit was very nice, had underground garage and was closer to Deer Valley than most of their parking lot. We were there the week before most of Sundance, which meant we could go to best restaurants early in week without a problem. Our son flew into SLC during week (his first solo flight) and we got to attend an animated movie event and some other Sundance festivities with him.

June 2005 we combined our WIVC week at Villicana with preceding week at Torrenueva Park, Mijas Costas that had a great view of the Mediterranean. great view and the following week we stayed at CLC atTropicana Sol, Nerja, Spain which had some maintenance issues. So we had three weeks in different areas of the Costa Del Sol. While there, we day-tripped to Gilbralter, Morocco, Granada and many places closer and also did an overnight trip to Seville with a stop at Jerez on way back. All the units we ended up with were 2 bedrooms, even though our unit was 1 bedroom and we did not have to pay any upgrade fees, and most had laundry (usually a washer and clothes line).

Oct 2010 we traded for El Dango, Calle de Llonga, Ibiza, Spain 10/10/2009 on 1/21/2009. We had visited niece who was going to school in Navarro in the Basque part of Spain, then spent a couple of nights each in Zaragoza and Barcelona before spending a night in Girona from where we flew Ryan Air to Ibiza. We were in a studio that was 100 steps before where we parked our rental and 100 steps above path to beach. We got there wondered where

March 2011 we traded into Red Wolf, Squaw Valley, CA 3/27/2011.

May 2011 we traded for Riverpointe, Napa 5/15/2011. DAE sold me Gold membership which I'm not sure we used.

May 2012 we stayed at San Luis Bay near where our son was going to College. While our unit was one of the least desirable in the place, location was great for us.

Early Dec 2015 we stayed at Portofino, Cabo San Lucas. While it's not for everyone due to a lot of stairs and some funkiness we liked it enough to go back on a bonus week.

My WIVC week for 2015 was banked during a period when DAE gave you two weeks for your deposit and we traded into Whistler April 2017 and Cabo Oct 2018. Will add more details and do some more editing later.

 

[JeffC]

I agree that the website changes made no sense. The old format was visually and practically superior. The changes were made after DAE was purchased by RCI. At that time the availability of weeks to exchange shrank drastically. I never understood this but it seemed to take about a year for availability to improve. That said DAE is still a smaller exchange and they do try find matches for your requests. One thing I've noticed is they never contact me about making a deposit. I've always deposited 2 or 3 BR Orlando area weeks in Gold Crown resorts. Surprising since this is a highly requested exchange.

 

[Sandy VDH]

I used DAE until RCI purchased it. Now I don't swim in that pool anymore.

 

[tschwa2]

I've looked a few times since rci purchased and haven't seen anything interesting. It was a long shot before (but sometimes paid off) and now it is an even longer shot.

 

[kwelty]

After a week that I deposited in DAE expired with nothing that I wanted ever showing up as being available, I gave up on DAE and will never use them again. I even paid to extend the expiring week but still no luck. When they first started I used them a lot for their extra weeks.

 

[eschjw]

I have had several good exchanges with DAE in the past including Hawaii twice, Mexico, Hilton Head, Orlando, Florida east/west coast and last fall in Las Vegas.

Their Bonus weeks have also been a good resource for me. In the past I have found several bargains in the $99 to $199 range. The lowest that I have found this year have been over $200. My daughter grabbed a Bonus week in late June at $345 for a 2 bedroom at the Sheraton Vistana Orlando. This same resort was showing up on the TUG LMR forum for $500 or more. DAE is also listing Bonus weeks now that are four to five months in advance. Last month I spotted a Jockey Club one bedroom in Las Vegas with an Oct.18th check-in for $345.

I have changed the way I search DAE and almost always use the availability list feature. This feature allows you to search an area by month without the distracting resort pictures. It is somewhat similar to the old web site display with mandatory filters by area, month and type of transaction (exchange, bonus, rental). Once you understand how to use the feature it works well enough for me and helps to bypass all the clutter on the new website.

Now that I an down to a single timeshare that I almost always use, I expect that most of my future transactions will be for bonus weeks. Joe

 

[tseebach]

When I lasted posted in this thread I said "Will add more details and do some more editing later." Life got in the way, but seeing the rename of DAE to 7Across in other thread and from email from DAE and TUG made me come back to it. I saw a few typos that it must be too late to correct so I'll add more instead. Sorry if I got too long-winded, but so many good memories from these weeks. To me it still looks like there is more than usual (recent years mostly meager) inventory, especially in the West, including Hawaii, if you can travel without a lot of notice. I realize most of this is probably to COVID with a lot of people avoiding discretionary travel, particularly long-distance

Oct 2010 we traded for El Dango, Calle de Llonga, Ibiza, Spain on 1/21/2009. On way there, we visited niece who was going to school in Pamplona in the Basque part of Spain, then spent a couple of nights each in Zaragoza and Barcelona before spending a night in Girona from where we flew Ryan Air to Ibiza. We were in a studio that was 100 steps below where we parked our rental car and 100 steps above the water and path to beach. We arrived after dark and wondered where where sun would come up and found out the next morning that sunrise was over middle of fiord-like bay that opened to the Mediterranean that our balcony overlooked. We had some memorable meals, cooked by my wife in small kitchen, and in town of Ibiza. We drove around the island seeing nearly all the beaches and took ferry to Formentera where we rented bikes and toured the island. Since it was Oct, Ibiza was not the crazy party it is most of the summer.

Late in March 2011 we stayed at Red Wolf, Squaw Valley, CA. This was after a week when the Sierra received 10' of snow. We could not see anything out the sliding door or window of our ground floor unit until they removed snow. At the beginning of the week we received the sad news that the brother of a friend of our son died in a tree-well at Sierra-at-Tahoe. We left before our last night as it was warm and had sprinkled the last day and we had seen conditions get worse during our week.

May 2011 we traded for Riverpointe, Napa 5/15/2011. DAE sold me Gold membership which I'm not sure we made any use of. We started our week by attending two nights of the Sonoma Jazz Festival where besides some jazz, we saw Sheryl Crow and John Fogerty (I know neither are jazz) on consecutive nights. I had retired in January, but my wife was still working and she must have had something important (or not enough vacation) as we left unit vacant one night (and tried to get my sister to use it) and returned home so she could work two days. In Napa, we rode bikes to Andretti and Black Stallion wineries for tastings and walked to Oxbox Public Market a couple of times.

May 2012 we stayed at San Luis Bay near where our son was going to Cal Poly SLO. While our unit was one of the least desirable in the place, location was great for us. We liked being able to walk to Avila Beach (both town which had some wine tasting places and beach) and think it was during this week that we went on hike to San Luis Bay lighthouse which is guided since it crosses PG&E's land where Diablo Canyon nuclear plant is located.

Early Dec 2015 we stayed at Portofino, Cabo San Lucas. While it's not for everyone due to a lot of stairs and some funkiness we liked it enough to go back on a bonus week. Most of the units are very big, have great view of harbor and staff was great. It's very close to town so you really don't need a car, but can get noisy on weekend nights and sun goes behind steep hill early.

My WIVC week for 2015 was banked during a period when DAE gave you two weeks for your deposit and we traded into Whistler April 2017 and Cabo Oct 2018.

April 14-21, 2018 we stayed at Lake Placid Lodge at Whistler Creekside which is across the street from the Creekside gondola. We had snow most of our nights ranging from 1 cm to 1" to 5 and 7". I drove from Northern CA and skied in WA on the way. My wife flew into Vancouver and then drove back to YVR to pickup our son the next day. We caught some of the of the Whistler Ski and Snowboard festival big air competition and music festival the first two nights we were there. It was our son's first trip to ski in Canada and I was able to get him into some decent powder on hard to find extreme runs near the top of Blackcomb. He had a tough week as he had to finish an online class the first couple of nights, then we had to get his taxes filed. He took bus back to YVR after skiing three days. He had to catch flight to Phoenix to join girlfriends for camping at Coachella Festival which ended up getting delayed due to winds. My wife and I left a day early as I had used the 5 days my pass gave me at Whistler and we only had been given 4 days of very discounted tickets for her.

Oct 27-Nov 3, 2018 Cabo Villas Beach Resort/Cachet Beach Cabo. We had one of the less desirable units as view of water was very limited, but it was a huge unit away from construction with a bathroom and a half, a large shaded patio with about 20' of cushioned built-in seating, private hot tub located next to a small adults-only pool was reachable by stepping over a rail. We never ate or drank in their restaurants or bars besides going to Baja Brewing which was on top of building we were in. We did the timeshare tour which gave us a free sunset dinner/dance cruise past Los Arcos. We liked doing yoga on the beach, being close to Cabo Bakery and seeing more of the other side of the harbor. Halloween is a great week to be in Cabo as it was celebrated three days in a row. We rode bus to/from San Jose del Cabo for All Souls Day/Dia de Los Muertos where there was a lot happening.

In mid-August 2020 we stayed at Pine Acres in Pacific Grove. We left our dogs with our son in Salinas on the Sunday that all the lightning-caused fires started in CA. Even the coast got affected as we had ash on my car a couple of mornings and smoke that mostly stayed high (but better air quality than most of N CA) from fire in Santa Cruz Mtns across Monterey bay from Pacific Grove. We rode bikes into Monterey where we checked out buying farmed abalone and very fresh halibut (that we bought later in week) on the pier. We also hiked to see a few sunsets at the end of our street and in Pt Lobos, to Asilomar and around Pacific Grove and rode rented Aquabikes in Elkhorn Slough near Moss Landing. We went went home on Friday then our son and his girlfriend had last two nights. Our unit has huge with a fireplace, very long sectional couch that included a queen bed, a recliner and a queen wall bed in addition to the King in bedroom so it slept 6. Pine Acres and the Monterey Peninsula took COVID very seriously with threat of $100 fines for not wearing masks. That also meant no hot tub (that was right next to our unit), ice machine or coffee maker.